Press square when the quactuar stones are glowing. Then you'll have quactaurs starting to follow you around. I'm not sure if you only have to do three, or if all six are needed (I'm thinking it's just three, because all six is a bit. . . excessive since you have to do so much friggin' dodging for lulu-_-)

Anyways, then you head to the broken lightning rod tower, pray there, and a chest will come and try to hit you in the head with kimarhi's spirit lance. It's really easy to power up if you like catching butterflies (which isn't hard to do really)

also, when you start praying at the stones, quactuars will attack you more often. Very good for the monster arena quest. More stones you pray at, the more quactuars. I've prayed to two, so everytime they attack me there's two there

(and have rikku steal from them. makes getting haste-abilities all the faster)

And as for other tips-- I've got a fresh game so all these strategies are in my head

Change your overdrives as soon as you get one that's more effective. Stoic isn't really good because you have to lose hp for it to happen. Give tidus wakka auron and possibly kimarhi the 'smack the monster a lot' overdrives yuna is good with the healer one, (pray is free and helps everybody, even if it's just a little. cura and cure obviously boost it up more.) Rikku's fast, so haste her often (especially in macalania¬¬ megapotions stolen from the stick insect dudes. although she likes to go about twenty turns in a row without stealing *anything*) and get Ally. Lulu's good with. . .comrade? I dunno.

Anyways, like I mentioned about macalania, when you get in a battle with the stick insect (I can *not* remember his name, but he likes to come up with a couple of bite bugs, and he's got about 2700 hp) Try to get a chain going. He'll consistantly attack the same character over and over and over and over. Seriously, the first battle I discovered this in, I had a Yuna/Rikku/Auron chain going-- auron would defend, yuna would pray to build her overdrive, rikku was trying to steal that megapotion and using luck everynow and then (didn't help much-_-) every time he went for auron. The second battle I tried this in, he consistantly went for rikku, and I was praying with yuna, but I can't remember what kimarhi was doing. jinx and maybe an occaisional attack.

Anyways, build up your overdrives in macalania. There's several boss battles coming your way (three or four) and a whole lot of forest before the first one. Make sure you use cheer and focus especially, because a little bit of extra strength can turn auron's critical hits into SUPER critical hits and that== more overkills, which equals more exp, which equals higher stats and more abilities Lulu is probably your best bet for most of the hard to hit monsters that *aren't* defended against magic. She'll overkill them with the ara spells better than wakka can. (if you dont' have the ara spells, stick around in the thunderplains (more save spheres)

And dangit, you have rikku. If you wanted, kimarhi can be in her sphere section very easily (infact, so easily I went ahead and let him start heading into yuna's grid. with anyluck he'll have holy before her. hahaha) so you could have two thieves. in the thunderplains especially, STEAL FROM THE FRIGGIN' IRON GIANTS.

They have light curtains.

Do you realize what light curtains do when mixed?

Haste=all, regen=all, shell=all, protect=all. And they're friggin' easy to get! You only need two at a time, and they should last you for a number of boss battles before you run into more giants. (which is. . .zanarkand? or omega ruins?) or possibly the dark flan in gagazet. he might have light curtains too.

oh, and because it's difficult to dodge lightning when you have random encounters, try to go for the struck by lightning record-- 30 gets you an ether right? and 80 something else?