Hi, I've finished Act 2 (completely blind playthrough) and am only level 40-43 with my characters. I got slapped everywhere I went in Act 3, including at the characters' side missions. I don't think I've skipped too many fights and it took me around 30 hours. I took my time to try to explore here and there but felt like in some levels I randomly chose the correct path and "rushed through" without that being my intent. No clue which areas that were though because my run was stretched across months.
I hate coming up with builds and while I don't always play meta, I like to look for builds online and just pick the one that sounds cool. Problem is in this game you kinda have to be strong to become strong in the Act 2 -> Act 3 wall.
I became frustrated and looked up progression route. I found this https://maxroll.gg/clair-obscur-expedition-33/guides/expedition-33-zone-progression-guide to have little spoilers and did everything up to "Post Sirené" and all the encounters there already wreck me. https://www.reddit.com/r/expedition33/comments/1kajowe/quick_act_3_guide_for_those_confused_on_what_to/ is really cool but I seem to be too weak for the second trial at the tower already. I have trouble building the powerful builds because I didn't happen to chose Maelle for the first Golgra/Sciel fight for Madelum and I can't get a lot of the more powerful pictos because I'm too weak to fight the mobs dropping some of them. I feel like I just want a lazy build that does well enough for me to progress.
What would you do? I don't see any side content I could be doing now apart from (re-)entering level 40 / 50 zones or even higher ones with easy to dodge enemies to slowly level up to a point I somehow magically become strong enough again. Maybe I have to watch some YouTube video and mindlessly collect strong pictos I might have missed... and then master them... and then grind more for Lumina to actually equip them...
This really feels like a chore. I have to chose between endless grind or not enjoying the rest of this master piece of a game. I just really don't like the pacing and difficulty development in Act 3. It's just so weird to me to have super strong areas and enemies back in the beginning game areas, I'm more of a "area based difficulty" type of gamer I suppose.
Do you have any tips for me? How did you progress into late game?