Yea to increase the volts and drop the amps so that the electricity can jump a longer distance and start the arc.the lift-tig setting will both drop the start amps, and also change the volt-amp curve
A stick welder with a tig-torch can start scratch start an arc without the lower volts of lift-TIGWith MMA/TIG inverters the arc voltage in TIG mode is usually 10V lower then in MMA mode and the volt/amp curve is different as Munkul states.
I too have done it accidentaly and knew immediately what the problem was. The difference is very noticeable and you won't like it.
I can scratch start the arc no problem without hot-start but cannot do the tap start as perfectly as those guys on Youtube.If the welder is that modern it will probably have hot start for the MMA function.