Progress and party make up?

So I just killed (SPOILER)Hyne and had a really tough time in that dungeon and with the boss. I finally had to run from every enemy, and just make for the boss because of the massive amount of damage the monsters were hitting my part for. 120s-190s even in the back row from regular monsters. I went through it with a Warrior, Scholar, White Mage, Black Mage.. but ended up losing to the boss. I found regular attacks not so effective, so I changed my Warrior to a Black Mage, but his MP was only 9 level 1 charges. However this time I used up my elemental items(winds and bombs) with the scholar after finding he seems to just do alot of damage with them.

The party is now all level 17 with classes:

4 Knight - 26 Warrior - 4 Black Mage
29 Thief - 5 Scholar - 4 Monk
29 White Mage
26 Black Mage - 8 Red Mage

All other class levels are 1 or freelancer (x level) which freelancers don't really seem good...
HP in the 320-360 range.

The (SPOILER)tree said to get off the continent to the real world and I'm just wondering if I should wait a bit and spend more time raising levels or job levels?

Also I'm using the Knight at the moment over the Warrior, but wondering if I should stick with that.
Boss just seemed really difficult, and the enemies in his area seemed even more difficult.

Or is 1/3 to 1/2 my HP for each character normal for an enemy physical attack. 2-3 enemies appearing on the screen with the chance to KO anyone in the party on any turn. And Phoenix Downs don't grow on trees....

I didn't see a general progress thread, so I apologyze if there is one or I shouldn't be making a new topic :)

No, don't worry, if you go into the cave with a :skull::skull::skull::skull:load of High Potions and Phoenix Downs you'll level up enough to get through the Water Cave. If you cannot beat them, then go level up until you're able to beat them (even if you are near death when you can). And if you're using a thief you can steal Phoenix downs off of some enemies. Keep the Knight, he'll get better with time.

switched the black mage out for a geomancer...

He does massive damage in random battles for free, very nice compared to the black mage.

18 Knight
46 thief
38 white mage
12 geomancer


Still level 17-18 and I'll probably progress the story tommorow... battery just turned red.

If you want to gain levels for your jobs, then make sure you defend to around 4-6 times in easy battles for now, and you'll find your classes leveling up every battle, if you want your character levels to increase in general, then try train in the hardest spot possible with a fair amount of High potions and Phoenix Downs. It will help. When all jobs are around level 50, and character level 25, then you're good to go.

Sheesh you weren't kidding.
Offensive powerhouse he is ain't he?
Blizzara going across the party for 250 when they only have 420 life... and hitting for 200+ even in the back row.
He critical hit my knight for 751 damage first turn.
But hard as it was at 19... he fell, with only 3 people standing, and after getting a game over screen once.... he lost the second round.

The boss just after you get a certain white mage guest and who guards the third crystal that is..