Training your chocobo?

I feel silly for asking this in the forums because I'm sure there's a wiki for it, but then there's the whole thing of "which wiki is the good one" and all that, so I feel more comfortable just asking the community.

I've recently just gotten to the part in the story/quests where I had to pick an army to join, and then did another quest where I saved up enough to get my chocobo license. So I have my company leased chocobo, which I'm sure means none of this applies to it anyway, but I had to ask.

I see that there's now a "companion" menu where I can train my chocobo down a certain path, and I would love to make my chocobo a white mage, to have a healer when I decide to give other classes a shot. Will there be a point in the story where it teaches me how to do this? Is this something I need to pursue on my own time? Do I have to fall down the dark hole of chocobo breeding I already crawled out of after FF7?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Welcome to Eorzea!

Yes, you can train your company chocobo as a companion fighter in battle - the quest to do so is unlocked at level 30 at Camp Tranquil in the South Shroud. Upon gaining the ability to call you chocobo as a fighter, you do so by using a bunch of gyshal greens which you can buy cheaply from certain vendors (such as the one in each city that also sell starting gear for each race). The chocobo's 'level' simply reflects your current level - instead it has a separate 'companion rank' that each time your rank up, allows you to spend 'companion points' that unlock abilities and traits along three separate paths, healer, defender and attacker.

The healer role is basically WHM and is probably the most effective role (defender is basically a tank and attacker is.. melee attacking), although I also put some skill points into the other roles as well to make my chocobo more versatile, but it's entirely up to you. As long as you put skill points into all three roles you can switch between what role the chocobo is currently set for in battle at will, so it pays to at least put some skill points into each role, at least at first. (You can also reset your used skill points for your chocobo at any time by simply using a reagan pepper).

Incidentally, once your chocobo reaches rank 10, you automatically unlock the barding for that role (in other words, healer bounding looks like WHM attire). Once you unlock the first set of barding, you have to raise your chocobo's rank beyond 10 by training it which sadly is too complex to mention here, other than once you reach rank 20 in the other two roles you will then unlock the other roles' bardings accordingly.

This page goes into greater detail about the ins and outs of the chocobo companion system. :)

In the end, you can max everything for your company chocobo. Breeding is entirely separate and only for race chocobos.

Enkidoh basically explained everything. There's just a couple of things I want to point out.

- The barding that comes with your chocobo reaching rank 10 also requires that you have all the skills for the role you chose unlocked. If you split them up in anyway while getting to rank 10 you will not be able to get the barding unless you reset your chocobo's SP values, or go beyond rank 10. This is not difficult, but just be aware of it. Getting to rank 10 is easy. Getting to rank 20 is a whole different story.

- Ideally you have an FC with a stable for you to train your chocobo. Sadly, in order to acquire the food to train it, you need to garden or buy it from the MB. If someone in your FC actively gardens, they will likely have an abundance of chocobo food for you to use collecting dust in the safe. Without a stable, you will have a great amount of difficulty leveling up your chocobo.

- Know that training your chocobo is a time and gil consuming process. It has one of the most complex engines this game offers. Increasing the rank of your bird is only the tip of the iceberg. If you want to race, breed, color your chocobo you will be looking at intensive processes for each.

As your companion, your chocobo will require a lot of work to become an alpha chicken :P

The others covered your questions pretty well. So why am i responding? To re-emphasize one point. Your mount chocobo becomes your fighting chocobo after doing the quest Enkidoh mentioned(it remains your mount chocobo too). Your RACING chocobo is completely separate. Your companion chocobo(fighting/mount) levels up via combat and via extra training sessions at a stable(at your house/FC house). It gets skill points to spend, and putting 1 into the healing tree starts it on the path to becoming a white mage(the first skill is just a regen) and gives you the option to set it into a "healer stance" where it doesnt attack and just heals. If you decide to crawl back into that FF7 hole, your racing chocobo will level up a bit via racing and feeding(all done at the golden saucer), but you'll end up having to breed it(multiple times) to get a better and better pedigree and even higher stats... and that process... can take awhile.

Thank you everyone, I'll start looking for that quest now.

The food to train your companion chocobo in stables is nowadays also available to purchase from beast tribe in HW content. Compared to MB prices, it's far more cheaper to buy it from that beast tribe once you get there. (Not naming it on purpose to avoid story spoilers, it'll be found roughly along level 53 MQ)

Just going to throw in a mention... (my opinion, of course) it's best to start out with the healing skill tree even if you are a healer. Healing choco really helps give some longevity when doing FATEs or other content that might be solo out in the world, and in free stance she will still do basic attacks to help a little with damage. Once you have choco cure, though, feel free to branch out.