You actually can skip Rosa! There is a specific square you stand on, where the game will throw up a dialogue box about turning back, and then sends you back one space towards Rosa. If you manage to get into combat on that tile before that dialogue box triggers; you can then just keep walking forward without Rosa.
I believe Cat Phobia acts as a form of paralysis, albeit one that has a pretty short duration. It does work on a number of the really powerful early game enemies, making it a great skill for chapter 5. I want to say the Zeon, Abyssal Lamia, Gigas Hydra, and I think one or two of the more powerful enemies in the desert may also be susceptible.
The one cave with re-spawning lizards does have a limit to how many times they re-spawn. It is very generous though, and it’s a good place to start catching these four up to the LF1 crew.
As far as what status effects do, drakov did a real good job listing what a lot of them do here:
viewtopic.php?f=139&t=6235Two Salcerium can be used to make a sword and a jaw in the final chapter of LF2. Three additional Salcerium can also be used to empower two of the swords and one of the jaws you can make. The Salcerium weapons have very limited damage typing, and I don’t remember either of them really paying off big in LF3. I think you can also get enough Salcerium in LF1/LF2 that you don’t need to specifically farm any in Chapter 5?
As far as I know, the second combat round against the cave bats is pure RNG. Any boost you could give your party before the first round of bats will wear off after the first encounter. (Mind Burn might persist, but I don’t think MN+ does anything in that fight) The only thing you could possible do other than what you are doing is be level 40+, so Luci can survive some hits while defending. Heresia eventually becomes faster than the bats as well at like 800+ or 900+SP I think?