Talent Boost

Talent Boost is a gem effect in Xenoblade Chronicles. It causes the equipper to deal only half damage with auto-attacks, but increases how much talent gauge they get per auto-attack, even if normally they get none.

Overview
The worth of Talent Boost is very dependent on three things: how good the user's talent art is, how much talent gauge they normally get when auto-attacking, and how much they need their auto-attack to deal damage.
 * gets 20% talent gauge per hit normally, plus 15% per enemy he hits with Stream Edge, so even the maximum of 12% from Talent Boost isn't going to contribute much in comparison.
 * gets 25% talent gauge per hit normally, plus further boosts from several of his arts. He doesn't need much further help.
 * gets 5% talent gauge per hit normally, plus 50% via Final Flicker if he feels like sacrificing his HP. Adding an extra 5%-10% to his auto-attacks would allow for significantly more Blossom Dances. However, Dunban also likes to use auto-attacks to deal damage when combined with his auras, so this is not necessarily an improvement in his damage output.
 * gets no talent gauge on her auto-attack and would much rather not such be the case. She would much rather use gems.
 * gets 10% talent gauge per hit normally. He attacks pretty slowly, and he doesn't mind much if he's doing less damage with them, so getting an extra 5%-10% from them will have a noticeable effect on his Yoink! rate. Yoink! is not a particularly impressive talent art to spam, so overall it's a fairly minor tradeoff. That said, it's quite useful for farming items, as Riki will be getting more steals while not having to worry about killing the foe as quickly.
 * gets 10% or 15% talent gauge per Elemental Discharge. Giving her another 5%-10% on her auto-attack, which normally she shouldn't even bother using, will drastically speed up her burst aura generation. This leads to not needing to be as stingy with discharging while her burst aura is active, as it is much easier to get back if something like Mind Blast is needed. The only downside is the risk of standing close to the enemy.
 * gets 4% talent gauge per hit, and has two auto-attacks that deal two hits while the third does one, for an average of 6.67% per attack. Like Dunban, an extra 5%-10% per hit will generate talent art very quickly (for example, a +5% means an average of 15% per attack), but a lot of Seven's damage output is in the auto-attacks combined with auras. Unlike Dunban, the talent art equipped can have a different purpose than "hit this one target", and thus can be worth transferring the damage output to.