Chocobo racing questions! Training & stats! (NEED HELP)

[Ragnar_Frostbyte]

Greetings!

I've finally gotten a decent chocobo at pedigree 7. However, since the beginning, Ive been randomly adding speed, endurance and stamina. Not until p6, did I consider endurance, which resulted in a lot of stamina drain.

However I have a few questions here:

1. How does endurance actually work? Does it only increase lathered treshold or does it reduce stamina drain when lathered too?

2. Im unsure how to balance my stats when training. How much speed, endurance and stam do I need. I tried focusing on endurance and speed, and less stamina. However I find myself outrun by the NPCs fairly often now. I would like some professional tips on how to actually build my chocobo with the training.

Screenshot of my chocobo:
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...pscvb5hyc3.jpg

[ChameleonMS]

It only increases the speed threshold before Lather will activate. It indirectly affects stamina consumption because when lathered you consume stamina faster.

Just quick note on your birds stats (derived from your stat maxes). I see you have
4* Stamina
3* Speed, Acceleration, and Endurance
1* Cunning

Cunning does affect the endurance lather threshold in rough terrain. Rough Terrain lowers the threshold and Cunning prevents that. You will definitely want to improve that in your breeding program.
Just an FYI, if you do not have 4* speed, when your bird gets to R300, you will lose very, very often. Finishing 5-7 is normal even for a P9 3* speed bird.

[Ragnar_Frostbyte]

Thanks for the reply, however Im still uncertain how to approach the training aspect of my chocobo. Like how much speed, endurance and stamina should I add? Also if endurance only increase the treshold, then If Im always lathered anyways, then its all wasted right?

[Rymm]

If Im always lathered anyways, then its all wasted right?

If you run your bird always lathered, you are going to lose a lot, regardless of your bird's stats. Racing is a balancing act of pushing your bird to get/stay in front and pulling it back from a lathered state often enough so you don't run it into the ground. Higher endurance will give you a bigger cushion and allow you to do more running between the times you push your bird and when you have to pull them up to conserve stamina.

My advice- don't ignore cunning. For 2 of the 3 tracks, it will be more useful than endurance. In my experience, acceleration is the most worthless of the stats. It really only matters in 2 situations- getting out front early or escaping from an aoe power-up like thorns. In the first situation, if you want a front-running bird that gets out of the gate quick and stays there, it's better to pick up the Headstart ability and run with a speed/stam/3rd stat build. For the second reason, you will almost always have more options to escape aoes besides out-accelerating the other bird, so it is situational at best.

My 4-star, ped. 9 bird is trained in max speed, stam, and cunning, with the rest of the left-over training sessions dumped in endurance. I feel it works since with him, I have over 300 wins in the R300 bracket alone. Sagoli Road (the shortest, flattest track) can be a little touch-and-go if I get a tough NPC bird like Star Breaker and bad luck on the power-ups, but he absolutely kills it in Costa del Sol and Tranquil Paths.

Keep in mind also that the Abilities you train your bird with will also influence which stat build is best for him. For example, a Headstart bird like I mentioned before might preform better with a speed/stam/end build but my Speedy Recovery bird does better with a speed/stam/cunn one. But in general, one of those two stat builds will usually the best choice and should be fine for just leveling a bird to 40 to retire and breed it. It's entirely possible to still win even while using cheap feeds and skipping training sessions for breeding birds if you want to save MGP. It's the perfect 4-star, ped. 9 birds that you want to really invest in to min/max the training sessions and pair the right stat builds with the best abilities for it.

[Ragnar_Frostbyte]

Thank you very much for the reply. I dont want to seem ungrateful, but I still need to figure out how to balance the training. As it is right now, my endurance is a bit higher than my speed, yet I feel my chocobo isnt fast enough. However if I had invested more into speed, Id be losing out on stamina and/or endurance.

That whole thing confuse me, and I want to be sure my upcoming p8 will be trained properly, so I can make the most MGP. With the stats on my current chocobo, I feel underwhelmed, but Im not sure what I did wrong, beside having little cunning. However, its my understanding that stat isnt too important in Sagoli.

[Rymm]

K, short answer-

Looking at the bird you have now, your speed seems low. I always put speed in first and then catch stam up to it and then either end or cunn. You are putting way too much into end right now. If you are focusing on Sagoli Road for faster wins at the cost of less xp, you are going to want to focus on speed, then stam, then end, in that order, but keeping them all within a 2-3 feedings of each other. You want your 3 main stats fairly balanced, but if any are ahead of the others, you want it to be speed.

If you are having trouble lasting til the end of the race, it is probably not a stat issue, it means you are likely spending too much time lathered. Get ahead as soon as you can (on Sagoli I usually try to be at or near the lead by the time we go under the rock arch and the track curves left) and then de-accelerate until you are no longer lathered. Accelerate until you hit the lathered threshold, then back off again. As long as you aren't being challenged for the lead, keep repeating that to keep enough speed to stay in front but it won't burn through your stam bar as fast. The game keeps track of the percentage of race you have left, so it is easy to work out if you are going to burn through your stam or not before the end. If you only have 30% stam left, but 50% of the race yet to run, you know you really need to either be conservative or use some stam cooldown like Cure.

[ChameleonMS]

While you are levelling up and going through your breeding program to get a 4* P9 bird, just invest in Speed/Endurance/Stamina "evenly". By that I mean, if the auto stats give you speed, use either Endurance or Stamina food on which ever stat is lower. Only race Sagoli Road, as it is short / easiest track.

As for the breeding program, once you have a pretty good bird, P9 with 3* or better and Rank 40 or higher. Start doing the challenges. The challenges unlock your bird's top tier skills. e.g. Speedy Recovery III.
As for feed, Grade III food is expensive and can only be purchased with MGP. Grade I and II feed can be purchase with Gil or crafted with a Culinarian.
Once I reached P8, I stopped using Grade II Feed but I was making enough MGP from the rank levelling process to buy Grade III food without burning my MGP reserves to badly when combined with daily cactpot and challenge log bonuses.

[Ragnar_Frostbyte]

Thank you very much for the help, its greatly appreciated! Both of you!