Yeah, a list would be quite helpful.
Dual, Stop, Slow, Death Sentence, Fury/Sadness and Manipulation (i guess?) should be the most important debuffs that get cleared by Dispel. Sometimes Reflect and Resist.
I never used it once in Vanilla and here i can not live without it. Just crazy.
4-Cut with Absorption does not work but if you link Absorption to a Master Command and then equip a 4-Cut, it absorbs.
If you get several Deathblows you can do: HP Absorption + DB, Added Cut + DB and MP Absorption + DB. 6 Slots, Dualleech for your damage dealer. I used this a while.
Right now my Mage uses Master Magic + MP Absorb and Planet/Contain + HP Absorb and sometimes Planet/Contain + MP-Turbo as well. Found that also quite useful.
And there is another combo that was enabled in NT - if you link status effect to Barrier in a weapon, you put both Barriers and Shield on your target. Saw it in an NT- speedrun and...yeah, refrained from using that.
I have a question: you said that as soon as you got Shield, the game got much easier - what were the difficulties that disappeared this way? How exactly did you struggle up to this point?.