I'm in Act 3, and I think I've ruined my run.

I'm trying to explore the world map and knock out a bunch of side content, but I keep getting wrecked just about everywhere I go.

I grabbed the Painted Power picto, mastered it ASAP, and assigned it to everyone on the team. But even my best, biggest hits from Maelle in Virtuose Stance are only doing about 12,000 damage. The rest of the team is still doing sub-9,000 most of the time. A lot of bosses are also one-shotting my characters.

Is there some story event like unlocking Gradient Counters or getting another Picto like Painted Power deeper into Act 3 that I should do first? I feel stuck.