So what exactly does the tool stat do? because I went from my base in ch5 to like 27 tools from items, and I don't notice any single one diffrence in recipies at all. Is it only certan recipies? or is it a chance? or?

1 point of Tools decreases amount of required materials for recipes by 1%.
This means, for example, if an item takes 10 of some material to synthesize, 20 Tools (or anything between 20-29) will reduce it to 8.

at 66 almost all recipes will cost only 1 per item

Also another question, does Serawi ever acrtually become.. useful? she can't take a hit, her damage is shit, shes my lowest lv char atm because she just dies way to easly.

Make her fire armor ant upgrade it. You can get Prevail, several powerful attacks (such as 9-range one, and +20 Str 3-range) and a bunch of AoEs.
Before that, you can get Critical Snipe from her water armor (or maybe air one, not sure) which has range 5 and allows her to snipe everything without any retaliation.

Must be her water armor, its not in her air one, but there is Evasive III in her air armor. Any tips for lving them chars faster too? or a way to speed up the game, I currently have combat and dungeion animations off. Also is there a way to get harvest/mine points to appear on the map even on 1st playthru? I constantly forget where they are.

servalwi is the most usefull imo, she has a skill to fit almost any situation. unlock "seal" in her harmonic tunic, seal + projectile defence and shes unkillable behind a tank.
(sorry if i double posted, mozilla just derped)