monk boost, doesnt help at all.. elaborate plz

[Lone Dragon]

I'm 100% sure it happens.
I've seen the boost animation go on and not see the hits,
but I hear the hits and see the damage.

[Leonidas]

So you boost the exact moment your attack lands?

[Lone Dragon]

I didn't actually say that, but yes, it can (and has) happen(ed).
Boosting has never slowed down my hits.

[Spider-Dan]

Boosting ALWAYS slows down my hits, and I do check the log. In fact, I specifically timed my boost in front of when I should have had my next attack; no attack, no damage, nothing in log except Boost activation, and mob getting its turn while I don't get mine.

Dunno why that disagrees with your observation. Maybe it was because I'm /MNK? (Although, I was using H2H at the time.)

[TMPikachu]

Originally posted by Lone Dragon
I'm 100% sure it happens.
I've seen the boost animation go on and not see the hits,
but I hear the hits and see the damage.

same with me, I've also been using a combat redmage when I cast spells, I still attack with my hand in the air and glittery dust flying about.

the attack interval for monks is usually sorta longish anyways

[Shirow]

As I skimmed through all 3 pages, I noticed that none of you mentioned Chi Blast(i may be wrong) When you get boost, it's somewhat worthless...somewhat. But the thing is, Boost really shines when you get Chi Blast. When you get Chi Blast and boost for about 10 times, that's when you'll notice a difference in attack. depending on how you have yourself equiped, your chi Blast can hit for around 123 - 200+. I've almost landed a hit close to 300.

Just like someone else mentioned, boost is really useful for THF's sneak attack.

[Kurgan]

Boost works great for my warrior with my monk subbed to it. I'll boost up once and go from an average damage rate of 35 damage to about 48 damage (this is on tough, very tough, and incred tough). For "easy" monsters, I'll go from a regular attack damage of about 68 damage points to about 85 damage in one boost. As stated before, it only works for the first attack after the boost, and I've found my hit accuracy seems to be a little lower right after a boost..

I've also noticed that doing a boost right before a weapon skill attack (regardless of whether monk is sub or main job) seems to deal additional damage as well. I've done 300% TP weapon skills with boost that have done 284 damage (warrior main, monk sub).

[TMPikachu]

Originally posted by Shirow
As I skimmed through all 3 pages, I noticed that none of you mentioned Chi Blast(i may be wrong) When you get boost, it's somewhat worthless...somewhat. But the thing is, Boost really shines when you get Chi Blast. When you get Chi Blast and boost for about 10 times, that's when you'll notice a difference in attack. depending on how you have yourself equiped, your chi Blast can hit for around 123 - 200+. I've almost landed a hit close to 300.

Just like someone else mentioned, boost is really useful for THF's sneak attack.

it's 15 second cooldown with a 3 minute duration.
so go for 11 :D

hmmm

does boost effect ranged weapons? (imagines 11 boost gun...)

[Lone Dragon]

I've tested it (even though I didn't have to) and no,
Boost in no way slows down your auto-attack.
If it did, H2H delay would be twice as long
and every other Job Ability would have to do the same.

If Boost alone really slowed down attack,
it would be one of the most useless abilities in the game,
and there would be no reason to make a chain boosting macro.

Spider-Dan, you're a thief, you don't get the 2nd MA until lvl 32
and if you use it with dagger,
the hits are so quick it's more likely that the Boost animation
will drown out the auto-attack animation.

Don't believe me? I bet DJ says the same (though he'll probably just say "No.")

No, Boost does not affect ranged attacks
(Chi Blast doesn't really count as a RA)...Sorry. :[
Meh, don't really need it anyway. ;x

[AerienDragon]

From what I've seen using boost (with my level 11 monk) is that it does slow your attacks down, but only by a little. If you time the boosts right, you can do it in the delay time between your hits. The attacks are only slowed by the amount of time it takes for boost to activate, which is about half a second or so, usually less. this is just my observation, and may not be correct.

also, when using monk as a SJ on my warrior, i can get my attack to about 250 or so using berserk before all the boosts wear off, and most of the time i seem to miss these hits. its probably just coincidence, but it does piss me off a little >_<

anyway, thats just my 2 gil.

[FR3YA]

I subbed MNK with THF for a long time.

Boost helps ALOT for sneak+trick.

Sneak+Trick+VB = 525 dmg on a garlaige citadel Siege Bat+Renkei Distortion for 227.

802 DMG, or half a siege bats life.

WHM+BLM had over 200 mana when it died.

[Spider-Dan]

Originally posted by Lone Dragon
I've tested it (even though I didn't have to) and no,
Boost in no way slows down your auto-attack.
If it did, H2H delay would be twice as long
and every other Job Ability would have to do the same.

Sorry, but you're just wrong. There is really no other way to put it.

Foolproof test: Walk up to a stationary non-aggro mob, hit CTRL+A, notice how long it takes for mob name to turn red (meaning, first offensive action taken). Now, walk up to another mob, hit CTRL+A, and as soon as you get into ready stance, hit your Boost macro.

Anyone can see that you do not attack until the Boost animation is completed. You can watch the mob's name and see exactly when your first attack is executed, so you don't even have to look at the log (even though the log agrees with everything I just said). Therefore, Boost delays your attack by the time it takes to execute the Boost animation. (I did this test unarmed with LV11MNK/THF, for the record.)

This is not to say that you can't do a Boost in the middle of an attack... but that's not the issue at hand. The plain and simple fact is that if you use Boost while auto-attacking, you will attack less often than if you do not.

If Boost alone really slowed down attack,
it would be one of the most useless abilities in the game,
and there would be no reason to make a chain boosting macro.

What are you talking about? You can still multi-boost before your first attack. Boost is still useful as a method to increase your ATK for your first attack action, but it's not useful for in-between attacks.

Spider-Dan, you're a thief, you don't get the 2nd MA until lvl 32
and if you use it with dagger,
the hits are so quick it's more likely that the Boost animation
will drown out the auto-attack animation.

What does this have to do with anything? I already stated that I was using H2H.

[Lone Dragon]

Before I say anything, I'd prefer it if you don't continue with that tone.
It's not like I offended you in any way.

Two things.
First, any affect Boost has on the auto-attack is also found in any and every other active job ability.

Now, after testing Boost for about 10-20 minutes
(which is WAY more than I should really spend on something as petty as this,
but Monk has enough PR problems and DJ's not here...and I have an ego, sue me)
I, honestly, had mixed results.

At first it seemed you may have had a point,
as there did seem to be a chunk of time between the Boost and the first attack,
but as I went on, I saw a few oddities...

Note: I have the Standard Monk Boost Macro.

/ja "Boost" <me>
/wait 15
/ja "Boost" <me>
/wait 15
/ja "Boost" <me>
/echo RrrrrrrrrAAAAAAAHH

^ tells me it's over.....*cough*.....I've seen worse, and it's an echo so screw you. ;-;

I did just as you said, start attacking then hit my Boost macro right after.
After a while, the first of 3 Boosts never even went off while the 2nd and 3rd did, meaning the auto-attack took the place of the Boost and not the other way around.
This leads me to believe there is some kind of Priority System.

Before you really start attacking, there is a short amount of time where you have to draw your weapon (this, at least, cannot be debated.)
The times when the Boost went first, the next auto-attack seemed to take the same amount of time as the drawing period.
I believe in these cases, Boost took priority over the first attack and the drawing period
started right after the Boost (it's very possible that I'm wrong,
but that's what I saw and I trust my eyes, so I gotta try.)
The times when Boost didn't go off,
the attack went along normally and the next Boost came along 15 seconds later.
Since

Now, this whole timing thing isn't exactly the best way to judge the ability
or test my priority system since Connection speeds can vary
(56k and Cable, high traffic and low traffic), so believe what you will

I AM sure about one thing,
any delay that an active ability may produce when used during your auto-attacks is so small,
I'm surprised you're so anal about it.
I dunno about you, but I'm not good at tracking fractions of a second. ¬¬
Nnnnno, it's not possible.
Weapons have set delay and it would have to start all over again for the theory to be sound.
Why do I believe intervals cannot be paused?
Start attacking a monster far away from you,
the "Too far away from target..." message comes up at the same rate as your delay.
When you are put to sleep or petrified, it stops you from attacking, it doesn't stop your intervals.
When you try to attack another monster right after the last, the log tells you that you have to wait to attack again, I believe that’s the delay being carried over.
It isn't saved or paused, so I doubt they would program it into Job Abilities that are supposed to help you.

Multi-Boosting, while giving you a nice, big attack boost, doesn't guarantee a hit.
Boosting to max is nice an everything, but it's not that great since
1: you don't want to generate too much hate and
2: depending on the evasion of the enemy,
your damage wont always blow the other damage dealers away.
It's only practical use is to chain during your attack to keep your damage average up
(though you might have to hold back sometimes,
Boost gains about an 1/8th of the hate Provoke can)
and use right before a WS.

That’s the main argument here, whether it’s worth Chain-Boosting during a fight.
The quick answer is, and always will be, ‘Yes’ even if everything else I talk about in this post is BS. Ok?

[Spider-Dan]

From my experience (and backed up by the test I relayed), Boost delays your next attack by the amount of time it takes to execute the Boost animation. (Let us suppose that the Boost animation takes a conservative 1.5 seconds from start to finish; I personally think it's closer to 2 seconds.) There is an exception to this, consistent with the results you experienced, which I will explain.

I actually have two Boost macros; one like yours (mine ends with an echo of "Renew Multi-Boost in 15 seconds...") that I use when someone else is pulling, and another one that is as follows:

/echo DON'T FORGET TO STEAL!
/ja "Boost" <me>
/wait 15
/echo Ready to Boost!

Yes, I'm a THF, I always forget when my 5 min are up, and so I have lots of Steal reminders in my macros... but more importantly, my /echos at the start let me know if there was some sort of lag in macro execution (since the 12/15 patch, macros seem generally less responsive).

Now, the one exception to Boost delaying your attack (that I've found) is that if you Boost just as your avatar starts actually punching, the Boost animation will sometimes cancel out the attack animation, and sometimes not... but the damage for the attack does come out. This is consistent with what others have said re: checking the logs. This also explains why sometimes your auto-attack came out at the start, and sometimes it didn't; depending on lag, if your auto-attack comes out before (even slightly) the Boost command, you'll get an auto-attack+Boost, and the animation priority seems somewhat random, at best.

I can say with complete certainty that if you Boost right after an attack cycle (left+right) is completed, you will be waiting an extra 1.5 seconds for your next attack. However, I can't say for sure that Boosting as your attack starts still adds on the full 1.5 seconds; it seems to certainly be longer than normal, but possibly not as long as Boosting in between attack cycles. I'd have to do some more testing, but honestly, unless you are trying to tank and desperately need the hate from the Boost activation, I don't think any extra delay (for a very tiny ATK increase) is worth it.

In short: If you are Boosting in-between attacks, say with a chain-boost macro, you are essentially throwing away your MA bonus by delaying yourself back up to the levels of a non-MNK H2Her. (+150 delay is nothing to scoff at.) If you are Boosting just as your attacks start, it MIGHT be worth it... but the jury is out.

note: If you are trying to repeat my test, make sure NOT to hit your Boost macro while your character is drawing their weapon; you should wait until the character actually gets all the way into the ready stance, then hit it. (This is assuming a low-latency connection, which is pretty much required for the test purposes, anyway.)

[spuncan]

hrm... 2 ppl w/ exactly opposing theories... nice
i guess ill have to ask around but unless I missed this in beta Im pretty sure it does delay your attacks. I primarily used boost for ws's in beta and before fight if I had time (lazyness factor :\)