In this guide we will be talking about a popular armor skill in Monster Hunter World – Attack Boost.  Here’s a summary of what we will be tackling here:

  • In-game description
  • FAQ / Actual Mechanics
    • How much attack does it actually give? Does it scale per weapon?
    • Does it compound with Non-Elemental Boost?
    • How much DAMAGE or DPS increase can I expect?
  • Summary and Discussion

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Attack Boost armor skill: in-game description

Attack Boost
Increases attack power. Also improves affinity at higher levels.
Skill Level Effects
1 Attack +3
2 Attack +6
3 Attack +9
4 Attack +12, Affinity +5%
5 Attack +15, Affinity +5%
6 Attack +18, Affinity +5%
7 Attack +21, Affinity +5%
Decoration? Attack Jewel 1 small

inb4 you close this page and laugh at “lol +3 attack”, please read on.

Attack Boost – FAQ & Mechanics

How much Attack/Damage does Attack Boost Give? Does Attack Boost scale differently per weapon? Yes. It differs per weapon. Here’s a chart of how it affect EACH WEAPON on EVERY LEVEL. Long story short it gives “3 True Raw damage MULTIPLIED by the weapons attack multiplier”. So it can be further condensed to, for actual mechanics sake, giving roughly “3 true raw damage per point”.

Attack Boost on L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7 Total Avg
Hammer 16 15 16 15 16 15 16 109 15.6
Greatsword 14 15 14 15 14 14 15 101 14.4
Hunting Horn 13 12 13 12 13 13 12 88 12.6
Charge Blade 13 12 13 12 13 13 12 76 12.6
Switch Axe 11 10 11 10 11 10 11 74 10.6
Longsword 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 70 10.0
Insect Glaive 9 10 9 9 10 9 9 65 9.3
Gunlance 7 7 7 7 7 6 7 48 6.9
Lance 7 7 7 7 7 6 7 48 6.9
Heavy Bowgun 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 32 4.6
Sword and Shield 4 4 5 4 4 4 4 29 4.1
Dual Blades 4 4 5 4 4 4 4 29 4.1
Light Bowgun 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 27 3.9
Bow 4 3 4 3 4 4 3 25 3.6

I tested this manually on every weapon adding one point at a time.

First of all – IT GIVES A DIFFERENT AMOUNT PER POINT PER WEAPON – as you can easily see in the averages on the rightmost column. Is this relevant? I’m going to go out on a limb and say NO, for a vast majority of cases these uneven bonuses don’t matter. I don’t know how or why this happens – but there it is. Notably, check out the Lance and Gunlance growth… It gets 1 less point at the 6th level of Attack Boost.


Does Attack Boost factor in the percentile growth of the Elementless Jewel (Non-elemental Boost armor skill / Set Bonus)? Does it compound? A definitive NO.

Elementless / Non-Elemental Boost adds ROUGHLY 5% TO YOUR WEAPONS BASE ATTACK, rounded to the nearest whole number “for the most part”.


How much DPS increase should I expect from attack boost? Okay this will be a vast simplification, but there is a way to determine this “roughly”. Each point of attack boost gives you 3 true raw damage. so for the vast majority of weapons attacks…

“Each point of attack boost adds anywhere from 0 to 1 damage,
depending on rounding (for a vast majority of attacks)”.


Attack Boost – Summary & Discussion

First of all, attack boost is a basic DPS skill that you can’t really be sad to have. It’s often a skill you try to add at least 4 points of if you can fit it.

TLDR: It’s mostly used as a filler skill. If you want it try to get 4 points.
Points 5 to 7 are a bit meh. 

And I want to repeat myself from the above, FOR MOST WEAPONS AND COMBOS, ATTACK BOOST GIVES ANYWHERE FROM 0 to 1 DAMAGE. If you wanna get specific, look up your weapon/combo motion values.

Attack Boost is also a lot better on weapons that have low raw power compared to their counterparts. Meaning, for example, adding attack boost to builds that use (let’s say) a Diablos weapon won’t be too good since adding a droplet of attack power is DILUTED, compared to a high affinity/sharpness low raw weapon.

Ultimately Attack Boost went cold in Iceborne – but it’s often misunderstood. It’s not trash, but its value varies WILDLY from build to build. But here’s a hot take – If you do less than 100 damage on your basic attacks, and adding an Attack Boost gives you 1 more damage, then it’s one of the best skills in the game.


Trust me, there’s a lot more to DPS and I can’t possibly mention it all on this guide, which focuses purely on the Attack Boost Skill – but hopefully coming here reduced your questions regarding it and it alone.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. God, I have 650 hours in mhw and only just now fully understand how Attack Boost works. I’ve never tried to build it and just stuck to Crit Eye/Handicraft type builds for so long. Thanks for the guide, it’s really informative and helps clarify a badly described skill that I avoided for so long.

  2. Have you gotten around to finding out the values of the charge blade yet? I would do it myself, but I do not have access to lv7 in this skill as of yet and am creating a guide to help my clan compare weapons of different classes (i.e. is this particular greatsword better than this dual blade?).

  3. I think the discrepancy you are seeing in the gain of attack per level is because of the weapon modifiers being rounded. For example the insect glaive has a modifier of 3.1; so a gain of 3 true attack is 9.3, rounded down to 9. While a gain of 6 is 18.6 rounded up to 19 (-9 for first level = 10).

    • Yeah, I also found out about the hidden modifiers. It’s really unintuitive ey? Attack Boost listing true attack is pretty funny. Either way one of the purposes of this guide is to let people know Attack Boost isn’t as “bad” as they assume since adding a meast 3 attack to 1000 feelsbadman.

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