Chocobo Skill build philosophy

Okay, so I've been looking at the way chocobo skills are set up, and trying to come up with a one-size-fits-all build that works for everything. It takes a LONG time to skill up a chocobo and chances are it will be use across multiple classes, so it seems silly to specialise it into one area. Why bring a healing chocobo when you're levelling Conj? Why bring a tank chocobo on a marauder. It feels like to maximise the use of your bird for your character you should strive for some kind of build that lets them be useful for every class you play. I -think- I've got something here, due to the way that chocobo talent points are set up with their increasing cost. I thought I'd share my thoughts on an all-round build.

Now, from what I understand, there are 10 levels of chocobo. Each level you get skill points equal to the level you've gained. So when you ding Rank 6, you get given 6 skill points. Each skill costs the skill points equal to its place in the tree, so you need to spend 10 skill points to pick up the final skill in each tree, 9 to pick up the one before it. You get 55 points total, and if you want skill 10 in a tree you cannot get ANY skills into any other tree.

What that means is that you can get vastly more skills and abilities if you spread your points out across the first half of each of the trees as they cost exponentially less than the final skills in a tree. Take the level 10 DPS ability, the AOE cone attack. YOu can take this skill, or you can skip it and grab FOUR skills at the start of another tree (1+2+3+4 = 10). Thus, unless the final skill in each tree is absolutely stupendous, it's better to spread points around. The final skills are an AOE aggro move, an AOE damage move, or an AOE heal that heals half as much as the single target heal. Considering AOE on chocobos can be a liability due to breaking CC or getting too much aggro in certain places, and the heal seems suboptimal to just a single target spam, it feels that you can get more bang for your chocobuck by spreading things out.

Here's the total skills you get in each of the trees (it takes 55 skill points to max 1 tree, which I believe is how many points you get total at a capped Rank 10 chocobo) :

Full Defense Tree gives:
150 Potency Threat move, 120 Potency Slow move, 150 Potency AOE threat move
20% total HP
10% total strength
15% crit
5% accuracy
A 15% damage reduction cooldown

Full Offense Tree gives:
150 Potency Damage move, 250 total Potency DoT, 170 Potency AOE damage move
10% total HP
15% total strength
15% crit
5% accuracy
A stun move

Full Healing Tree gives:
Weak HoT, 300 Potency Heal, 150 Potency AOE heal
10% total HP
25% total Mind
15% crit
5% accuracy
30% healing potency cooldown

Now looking at those, my thinking is in the Crit. 15% crit is a near 15% efficiency boost in both DPS and healing, and is in the middle of the tree. If you can get TWO of the crit boosts you can get a nice all round chocobo. You can also get a lot of low level passives by spreading your skill points around. The 9 pointers in each tree are basically the same as low pointers in other trees. All 3 10 pointers seem a little underwhelming as you mostly want your chocobo to help out on single targets and not interfere - too many targets on them and they risk dying, and you mostly use them for solo where AOE isnt quite as vital (though I can see an AOE dps chocobo being handy for FATE farming... which I despise).

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So, here's my thoughts on an all round build:

Healing Tree (28 skillpoints) - take 7 skills here, enough for the crit and the 30% healing boost cooldown. You miss the 15% Mind boost but get 10% already and the lack of mind should be made up for in part by the 15% crit you take from the DPS tree (assuming the crit works on spells like it does for players). As far as single target healing goes, your output should be identical to a 10 point healer choco as you still get the cooldown and the crit boost should account for the Mind loss.

Offense Tree (21 skillpoints) - take 6 skills here, enough for the crit boost. You miss the stun but that can negatively affect DR on your own stuns. The 15% crit and 5% accuracy from healing tree and 5% strength from Tank tree should just about equate to the DPS loss of 10% strength and 10% attack speed from the top of the tree, so you shouldn't do noticeably different single target DPS. You get the powerful DoT at least which seems to be the key element to choco dps.

Defense Tree (6 skillpoints) - You have enough points to take the first 3 points here, which gives you the single target aggro move, 10% HP and 5% strength. Your total HP will be the same as a full tank due to the HP in the other trees. Your aggro holding should be the same if not better as you have more crit, more strength, and although you miss the 15% damage reduction you can self heal which should make up the difference.

My Hybrid Tree build gives:
150 Potency Threat move, 150 Potency dps move, 250 Potency DoT, 300 Potency Heal, Weak hot.
20% total HP (as much as the def tree)
10% total Strength (same as Def, 5% less than offense)
10% total Mind (15% less than healer tree)
30% Crit (double any single tree, making up for the loss in Mind and Strength)
10% Accuracy (double any single tree, though not sure how useful Acc is)
A 30% healing cooldown. (which should be as useful for survivability as the tank damage reduction one)

I'm building my chocobo like this right now, and although I'm only halfway with it, I'm liking the results. He does good damage, he heals effectively, he can hold threat on things if I want, and he really does seem to have the best of all 3 trees without any loss in efficiency outside of losing one of the 3 AOE level 10 skills. You lose the dps tree Stun and the Defense tree Slow, but depending on your class you may have access to those anyway, and I want my chocobo to be good with all of my classes. If you really prefer the Slow, you can swap round the points in Defense and Offense so you lose the 250 potency DoT but get the 20% slow instead.

In summary - your health, single target threat and damage will be equal to or higher than a pure tank chocobo. You miss the 15% tank cooldown but have lots of healing power to make up for it. Your single target damage will be almost identical to a pure dps chocobo (you lose 5% str but gain 5% accuracy and 15% crit to make up for it, and have both single damage moves). Your single target healing power will be similar to a pure healer chocobo - you lose 15% mind but gain 15% crit, but have both single heals and the 30% heal cooldown. As far as utility, you lose potentially a Stun and Slow from pure tank/def trees which arent useful on all targets and share DR with your own versions. Your choco will never AOE either, though aside from Fate Farming this could actually be a good thing. Considering that pure tank/offense chocos can never cast a single heal, and pure healer chocobos do almost no damage at all, this seems an incredibly good tradeoff.

By having the choco on Free Stance it will do decent single target dps and hold aggro on some things, and swap to healing when you drop low. But if you want to focus it, you have enough skills in each tree and enough passive bonuses to make it worthwhile swapping stance to pure Def/Offense/Heal as needed. You miss a couple of utility skills but your chocobos output and survivability in each role should be near indistinguishable from a choco with 10 points in the respective tree.

Anyone doing anything similar, or come to similar conclusions?

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Anyone doing anything similar, or come to similar conclusions?

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Would've replied to this yesterday but had used all my daily posts (darn SE's silly limits!)

I came to much the same conclusions a few days ago in this thread - the last ability in each tree just seems like a waste of 10 SP, so it's looking better and better to go Hybrid.

Regarding your suggested build above, I can understand the reasoning behind going 28 points into the Healing tree, but I'm unconvinced that the chocobo will be smart enough to use short-uptime buffs (such as the +Healing Potency, or the +Damage Reduction buffs) effectively. So If I was going to go 28-deep it'd probably be in the Attacker tree. (As you noted above, the Stun attack's debuff may indeed interfere via Diminishing Returns if you have your own stun, but even if DR kicks in, you will still be able to interrupt enemy abilities and casting via using your own stun ability.)

That said, to me there really doesn't appear to be any benefit gained by going 28/21/6 instead of 21/21/10 (aside from using up the last few spare SP). The Healing Stance appears to perform perfectly well at 10 SP, and the +Slow attack from Defender Stance helps both you and your Chicken's survivability (and given the AI, it's likely going to be far more reliable for that purpose than the 28 SP Attacker Stance's Stun).

The only real reason I can see to go higher in the Attacker tree would be to take it all the way up to Rank #9 for the Attack Speed buff. (and indeed going 45 Attacker/10 Healer looks to be a reasonable setup as a companion for "Tank" classes - it remains to be seen how an extra 5% STR + 10% Attack Speed would stack up against an extra 5% Acc + 15% Crit rate for damage output)

I'm currently aiming at 21 SP Defender/21 SP Attacker/10 SP Healer. It seems the most versatile setup, can work well in any stance, doesn't rely on Chocobo AI making timely use of abilities, and doesn't really lose much (if anything) in terms of Single Target damage output :)

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

Regarding your suggested build above, I can understand the reasoning behind going 28 points into the Healing tree, but I'm unconvinced that the chocobo will be smart enough to use short-uptime buffs

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Yep I can definitely understand that. However, it seems the chocobo healing buff lasts -30 seconds-. That seems an inordinately long time for a self buff, and I'm not sure of the recast but given how much my choco Gromit likes to spam heals I'm sure he'll use it on cooldown. I'll need to try it of course, all of this is conjecture - if it turns out the healing buff is seldom ever used then I definitely agree with your sentiments on the slow/stun option.

30 second duration though seems like a really really good deal and I'm -hoping- for at least 50% uptime in combat. We shall see though, if it's cast once every week then I can see 10 points in the healer tree being the only thing worth it.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I'll need to try it of course, all of this is conjecture - if it turns out the healing buff is seldom ever used then I definitely agree with your sentiments on the slow/stun option.

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Yeah, I've also found my Chocobo to be really good at keeping "Regen" on both itself and me, and fairly decent at cycling heals.

I could see a healing potency buff being useful if the uptime ratio is high (provided that someone actually needs healing!) but since the trend for similar abilities such as Divine Seal appears to be a Duration:Recast ratio of 1:4 (or even less - see Convalescence and Mantra!) I suspect it'll have a recharge time of at least 120 seconds, which would work out to an average of 7.5% extra Healing Potency over time. Probably less than that, given that the Pet AI is very unlikely to decide to recast it immediately.

Therefore, at the moment I'm leaning towards the 20% Defender Stance's slow being slightly more effective in terms of ongoing mitigation.

Though as you mentioned above, at this point all of this is conjecture!
I'd certainly be interested to hear your findings on this if/when you manage to get the Chocobo levelled up that high (in both Healer Stance and Free Stance) :)

I'm at lvl 7 right now, got 21 in defense, he uses the cooldowns often and holds about 3/4 as much hate as me. Not a great tank, but he can offtank adds very well. One more lvl and I'll have the cure. Then rest in attacker, he's pretty good at this point.