Hey guys, I have a quick question about grinding in Tales of Zestiria.

I've been playing ToZ on the moderate difficulty setting for my first play through (admittedly enough it's taking me a long time to get through the game due to work and other commitments but I'm getting there). I'm at the part of the game where you have to collect all the Earthen Historia but couldn't beat Medusa in the abandoned village or the Elephant by the oasis without lowering the difficulty setting slightly. My characters are all around level 40 and have pretty good equipment (in my opinion of course), but while looking on Google the only guides for farming EXP, Gald or Grade is at the end game.

I don't want to spend hours grinding but I also don't want to have to lower the difficulty setting just to best some bosses later on either, I've been trying to corral 3 or 4 monsters on the map and creating dangerous encounters but those are typically long and drawn out with little reward.

NG isn't an option for me either as I haven't completed the story yet.

Thanks.

EDIT: Spelling