Why do my unions not perform as expected?

[Osidius]

I have a union with two expert freelancers, an expert magus and two shaman. All except one of the freelancers knows more mystic arts than combat arts, yet they're always more willing to use combat arts. Pagus is the expert magus and the only time he'll even use a mystic art is when I'm healing and he's on standby.

Why is this happening? Is there something I'm missing, like having to put them into a specific formation or something? The way it's going makes strategy pointless; I might as well just have them all use combat arts.

[ShakeNBakeUK]

whoever is in the 1st slot has the biggest impact on which abilities get used.
if you want to use more caster arts, put a caster as the union leader, or disable all combat arts in the group.

[Osidius]

Hmm. Rush is the leader and he's an expert freelancer, as well as the only one who always uses mystic arts when I choose the option.

I might try creating a union with Pagus as leader and hope Rush doesn't fall too far behind on mystic arts. At present I can only have 9 units on the field.

[ShakeNBakeUK]

If you want Rush to specialise in Mystic Arts, just turn off all combat arts on him in the menu, and he won't use them in fights. If he is the leader though, he will use up pretty much all the AP, leaving only "Attack" available for other units. You can find accessories with +AP, or add more members to each union (later on) to reduce this problem. Or rotate units in a union around every now and then, so they rank up their abilities equally.

I had a dedicated union for mystic arts with Pagus as the leader, and 2 other unions dedicated to combat arts when I was at that stage. There's lots of ways to play the game though, and you can equally as well mix a bunch of classes together so you have a larger variety of choices available for each situation.

On Shaman units like Pagus, just turn off all combat arts if you want them to only use Mystic Arts.

[Osidius]

Ah, AP might indeed be the issue. Thanks for your help.

[elvislovepresley77]

I know its quite some Logic between making unions and formation teams. Some work but some do not and its quite frustrating. However, you can try to understand the way the weapon system works. So well if you change your weapon on your main leader then that must follow a flow of what your leader can do. I hope this makes sense. Its like Chess put your pawns in the front and then your bishops, knights on the sides or in the back and protect the king and Queen. I hope this helps and different ones you hire at the guild, will result in the way you percieve your formations. Try to think like a Strategist, than a 5 player party that is on MMORPG. This is nothing like that.

Bastok

[Zloth]

Errr, after three months I think he would have either asked again or moved on. ;)