Pagus only uses melee attacks?

[Sméagol]

Even on the first attack when I everyone is still at full health, and I simply choose "attack with mystiq arts". He's currently in a union with David, only the 2 of them, and David uses his Spark just fine. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by Sméagol:

Even on the first attack when I everyone is still at full health, and I simply choose "attack with mystiq arts". He's currently in a union with David, only the 2 of them, and David uses his Spark just fine. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Arts require AP to use. Mystic arts have a much higher AP requirment to cast and AP is shared by all members of the union. There is also an added factor of random commands given to you by the game. If David is the leader of the union Pagus is in, then David will be given AP priority when casting arts like Spark. So if Pagus is only attacking, then chances are there is not enough AP left for him to use his mystic arts either.

You can get around this is 3 ways:

1) Swap members around in the union and vary who leads it at different times.
2) Simply choose to only attack on the first turn of a battle and AP will accumulate faster, hopefully allowing more people to use their arts on the 2nd turn and beyond.
3) Increase the number of people in David's union to boost AP available to it (AP available to a union is based on how many people are in a union and how much starting AP they contribute to that union)

Pagus's mystic attacks will be vastly more powerful that David's later in the game. So you might want to make Pagus the leader of his own union.

Its also better to try and recruit people who already have mystic arts trained to a high level when you get them, negating the need to level them from scratch. Mystic arts level slower than combat arts and anyone who isn't the leader of a union will find themselves falling behind trying to train mystic arts from low levels.

Hope this helps.

[Tommy]

You can turn off mystic arts(keep restore) for David then Pagus will get a high chance at using his Mystic arts. The last slot is usually the Mystic slot in formations, but I do not know how priority works between slots 2-5.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by handen:

You can turn off mystic arts(keep restore) for David then Pagus will get a high chance at using his Mystic arts. The last slot is usually the Mystic slot in formations, but I do not know how priority works between slots 2-5.

Putting two people that use different arts in the same union will over time slow their development. I find it better to keep combat guys together and mystic guys together. David also doesn't even get remedies until a lot later on in the game.

[Tommy]

Pagus and David share most of their arts.

[Zloth]

Yeah, just make Pagus the leader. Or swap everyone around - which is always a good thing to do every now and again.

[darkone264]

I use Pagus as a union leader (with other mystic arts members) he almost always uses mystic arts when I ask him too

[Sméagol]

Thanks guys, especially SenMithrarin.

I suspected it was an AP management issue, but I expected to see it more as I've got plenty of "attack with mystic arts: 17 AP" commands, and I assumed that would be enough for the both of them. I'm checking the wiki, and it seems that is the case, so I stil find this weird. To be clear, David uses Spark V, and Pagus Spark II. Funnily enough, not long after I created this thread, I saw Pagus using Spark for the first time in a long time.

Anyway, I'll try using him as an union leader. I'm currently trying to get other leader characters. I've read that it's indeed best to group melee and magic users into their own unions, which is why it's just David and Pagus on their own. I saw David more as a magic user, and he actually does plenty damage when he crits with Spark. My setup is currently this:

Group 1 (melee)
Rush (leader)
Baulson
Oakes (generic hired soldier)
Nora (the first (and so far only) leader character I got)

Group 2 (melee)
Torgal (leader)
Emma
Sandy (generic hired soldier)
Blocter

Group 3 (magic)
David (leader)
Pagus

So I'm looking for leader characters to go in group 3. Was going after Violet, but got sidetracked. Is Torgal a good choice for a union leader? Any specific characters I should look out for in the beginning of the game?

[darkone264]

ok see I did mine a little differently.
Melee with some arts
Rush(leader)
emma
torgal
faye(dual wield soldier, who i still use much later in the game)

Balanced
David(leader)
Bloctor
Bolson
any melee

3
Mystic
pagus
Robecca (hired from one of the guilds) or any other envocer

I recently replaced her but that was much later in the game

[SenMithrarin85]

Torgal arguably should be a union leader, but not necessarily until later on in the game once he gets Lugh's Revenge (weapon art) and Psionics.

Lugh's Revenge is a Remnant Weapon art: a combo of a unique art (like Rush's Omnistrike) and a standard weapon art. Remnant Weapon arts require the person using them to be a union leader. Other recommmndations are Emmy and Jager: both for summon and unique art access. jager can also get a strong Remnant Weapon art. Emmy may or may not get one depending on how you use her.

Violet will have arguably better stats than a generic leader, but isn't that useful imo. A good person to hire is Caedmon. If you develop him in combat rather than mystic/balanced, then he can do a lot of damage with arts like Earthrender and Scattered Petals. He may also get a weapon art.

[Tommy]

I just go balanced with everyone. The damage increase on almost everyone else so far for me is minor if you focus rather than go balanced. So the difference in melee damage between balanced and combat is minor at best. For Caedmon it is almost non-existent.

If you do not give Caedmon items he will end up with str/physical resist equipment as Combat Focus. If you go balanced he will end up with HP/AP equipment. But Caedmon's weapon is the same for Combat and Balanced. Even in Mystic the weapon will end up the same as Balanced.

But if you focus on most characters you will lose a lot of damage in the thing that becomes "un-focused".

Not saying there are never any advantages of focusing. Especially in characters who do not use mystic at all. Even so, balanced usually offers better defense if I recall correctly.

[SenMithrarin85]

Originally posted by handen:

I just go balanced with everyone. The damage increase on almost everyone else so far for me is minor if you focus rather than go balanced. So the difference in melee damage between balanced and combat is minor at best. For Caedmon it is almost non-existent.

If you do not give Caedmon items he will end up with str/physical resist equipment as Combat Focus. If you go balanced he will end up with HP/AP equipment. But Caedmon's weapon is the same for Combat and Balanced. Even in Mystic the weapon will end up the same as Balanced.

But if you focus on most characters you will lose a lot of damage in the thing that becomes "un-focused".

Not saying there are never any advantages of focusing. Especially in characters who do not use mystic at all. Even so, balanced usually offers better defense if I recall correctly.

Even though Caedmon's weapon is the same regardless of focus some guys like Torgal and Alan switch with focus i.e. Torgal with axes on a combat focus.

90% of the enemies you'll face are physical attackers. So physical resist accesories are a good bonus. Combat focus is also best for guys with high raw HP values like Torgal and Jager. Others with lower HP would benefit from a balanced focus for HP boosting accessories like you said. Caedom is someone that arguably falls into this category.

Another way of getting around low HP on people is to pool them into 4 member unions. High HP guys can go into groups of 3 and still have the same overall HP in that union as a 4 member team.

All that aside, going balanced on art development will effectively cut the growth of both in half. Jack of all trades, master of none really.

Using only conbat or only mystic means that those arts will level to higher tiers much faster. This is really true of mystic arts which take longer to level than combat ones do.