You aren't really meant to move away from attacking enemies. You won't really dodge their attacks that way. You ARE meant to utilize some of the positional attacks. Shulk for example has a move (not in front of the game atm so the name excapes me) that will cause DEF Down if you hit an enemy from the side, and another that deals far more damage if you are behind the enemy.
So it is very MMO like in that you need to let Reyn get the hate from the enemy, then position yourself to get the maximum effect out of skills. Early on, just attack everything, do a lot of the sidequests and soon enough you will be pretty decently leveled for most fights for a while.