I must be missing something. But they are never usable. It says, "Requires X phrases chanted". But how do I do that? I have the chant engaged and I can hear him chant at the beginning of combat but the spells are still not usable during combat. What am I doing wrong?

You can see a small number in the bottom right of the Chanter's icon. When this reaches 3(or more depending on the spell I guess) you can cast a spell.
Think of it like your Chanter has to sing 3 verses before he can cast a spell


*The number increases "automatically" as time passes when you have the chant engaged as you said
**If you create huge chants, it will obviously take more time

Edited April 1, 201510 yr by Jimmious

On his character portrait you'll see at one of the bottom counters a yellowish circle with a number inside of it: that's the number of phrases you have. Low-level phrases are weaker but accumulate more quickly.

You keep chant on. You wait for the chanter to complete the required number of phrases. Make sure that you have a chant loop set up in the chant screen, so that your chanter is chanting continuously. See how Kana's set up to do it, if you've got that far.

I must be missing something. But they are never usable. It says, "Requires X phrases chanted". But how do I do that? I have the chant engaged and I can hear him chant at the beginning of combat but the spells are still not usable during combat. What am I doing wrong?

There is a circle under chanter's portrait that shows a number from 0~3. You need to fullfill 3 to cast an invocation. (not sure at higher level, probably still require 3 phrases, which means the earlier invocations especially the summon ones would render useless I guess)

So it's just automatic with time?

 

You keep chant on. You wait for the chanter to complete the required number of phrases. Make sure that you have a chant loop set up in the chant screen, so that your chanter is chanting continuously. See how Kana's set up to do it, if you've got that far.

 

Yeah I started using Kana just now and trying to figure it out.

 

EDIT: Ok thanks. Figured it out. Just takes a while.

Edited April 1, 201510 yr by Fighter

So it's just automatic with time?

 Basically yes. If a chant is "running" after some time passes you'll have reached the magic number

You keep chant on. You wait for the chanter to complete the required number of phrases. Make sure that you have a chant loop set up in the chant screen, so that your chanter is chanting continuously. See how Kana's set up to do it, if you've got that far.

 

I didn't think you had to do anything special for that. I made Gunner's Cadence with just a single rapid reload phrase and it looped just fine. I could tell because he accumulated phrases and after every fight the gunners had their comically quick reload animation. 

It took me a little while to work out too. The spells can be very helpful once you know how they work. A timely Chanter spell has completely tipped the balance in my favour in a few tough fights.