Rowen Solo - Gaius (Unknown) | Tales of Xillia

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There's some very sloppy play in here on my part, but also some pretty cool interactions that happened. 2:35 is one of the funniest things I've seen happen in a Tales game so far. It just looks so goofy. With how difficult this fight is, I'll take it.

One thing to note, is that I've been using Double Damage from the Grade Shop up until this point. From this point on, I don't think it's worth it any more. I can always farm my attack by carrying over Devil's Arms, so having enemies dealing double damage would make some of the upcoming fights unbearable. In this one for example, Gaius was dealing anywhere from half to my full HP bar when I had double damage on.

There's two very important skills/mechanics in play that made this fight even possible for me.
Flash Guard + Hp Restore Guard: Blocking with perfect timing gives 90% damage reduction and heals for 25% HP
Queued Spellcasting: A canceled spell with remain at the same casting time. This can be done multiple times, as long as you don't use any other attack.

When you combine these two things, it lets you handle extremely dangerous situations where you're pinned down. You can charge a spell for a counterattack, while also getting in Flash Guards at the same time. Without this, I would've died several times.

I've been saying this for a lot of these fights, but this one is seriously hard for Rowen to deal with. I'd rather fight the Chimeriad Trio again than Gaius.
Gaius kind of just... has it all. Fast Speed, Insane Range, Guard Breaking Moves, and a Teleport. He also has moves which move him forward, which he can pick as a counter move. Speaking of counter moves, he has a huge selection of which moves he can pick for them. Which makes the fight even harder to try to manage.
The best advice I can give for this fight is to not get greedy with attacking, and play defensively first. Once you're comfortable with Flash Guarding and Queued Spellcasting, it's better to let him start an attack and counter it rather than being too greedy with attacks and having him attack when you aren't ready to react.