How do certain "multi-hit" skills work?

[Niwashi]

Are you trying to tell me that in this game you are supposed to fight only in group?

It just means that certain skills work best in groups. A gladiator's skills for drawing aggro are useless when he's the only person fighting a mob, so would have aggro regardless. A conjurer's Raise skill is only usable for raising other people, as he cannot raise himself. A lancer or pugilist's positional skills are sometimes useful solo, but significantly more powerful in groups where there's someone else to hold the mob's attention. These classes all work fine solo, but they work differently solo than they do in a group.

and yet they implemented this system without specifying in tool tips or anywhere else that those skills are supposed to only be used in groups as they are almost ineffective in solo fights.

Well, Urthdigger and Estellios have both pointed out occasions where you CAN in fact get the positional bonuses solo. If the mob is busy with a skill induction or if it's been stunned, then you can get behind it just fine. It applies whenever you can maintain the proper position for that skill bonus, so that's what the tooltip tells you.