Chocobo Companion: Job Customizations

Chocobo Leveling may interest you or have already interested you. I would like to post information about this said task and offer some theory suggestions on how you can train your bird for a certain Job.

The only way, currently, to level up your Chocobo Companion is through good ol classic grinding of mobs. As he/she gains in levels they acquire SP to spend on abilities to shape you bird to your liking. Each Level up gives you SP equal to that Level so by Level 10 you will have acquired 55SP. There are three categories for abilities on which to choose from, they are: Attacker, Defender and Healer. Each of these three categories can offer beneficial abilities towards a specific role or you can mix and match for different roles. Each Level of ability requires the previous abilities in the sequence in order to purchase it. (Ex. Must have L1 and L2 ability to buy L3). Each abilities cost is the same as the Level of the ability itself. (Ex. L1 = 1SP, L2 = 2SP, L7 = 7SP).
Below I have compiled a list of ways to build your bird through skill choices that will develop it into a different playing type. I have given them appropriate job titles that I chose to Label them with based off of their would be roles.

WAR - Defender L10
By putting all your SP into Defender your bird will be built to tank big groups of mobs with his final L10 ability which is an AOE enmity attack so I labeled him a WAR due to its attacks to build hate on large groups.

PLD - Defender L9, Attacker L4
Since PLD is more notably suited for fights with a singular mob I have chosen to not give him the AOE enmity move and instead I chose use the remaining points for Attacker which gives it more HP, Attack and a good DoT move to help with keeping hate.

PLD (Option 2) - Defender L9, Healer L4
There is however an alternate route you may go with this PLD setup and that is to instead of putting points into Attacker, you add them to Healer which gives the PLD bird a Cure spell to help generate hate and keep itself alive.

WHM/SCH - Healer L10
Putting all your SP into Healer creates more or less the equivalent of a WHM or SCH with its L10 ability being an AOE Heal for the entire party.

BLM/BRD - Attacker L10
Putting all your SP into Attacker you gain the L10 move which is a big AOE attack which is most notable with our BLM's and BRD's.

MNK/DRG - Attacker L9, Defender L4
When we think of our MNK and DRG, they are the hard hitting jobs for typically singlular enemies, so taking off the last Attacker ability and using those remaining points for Defender you gain more STR, HP and a good attack that adds a Slow effect on the enemy.

SMN - Defender L6, Attacker L6, Healer L4
This setup is a great support job which I would say is what our SMN is lumped into at the present time. They will have the highest Critical Rate over any of the other build with plenty of Status Effects to go with it (DoT and Slow). Adding the rest of the points into Healer will give it the ability to heal as well as cast a Regen on injured party members.


Below is the stat comparison for the Jobs Roles I have created:

WAR - STR 10%, HP 20%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15% (w/ AOE Enmity Attack)
PLD - STR 15%, HP 25%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15% (w/ Singular Attacks)
PLD2 - STR 10%, HP 25%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15%, MND 10% (w/ Cure)
WHM/SCH - MND 25%, HP 10%, ACC 5%, Crit 15% (w/ AOE Cure)
BLM/BRD - STR 15%, HP 5%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Attack Speed 10% (w/ AOE Attack)
MNK/DRG - STR 20%, HP 15%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Attack Speed 10% (w/ Singular Attacks)
SMN - STR 10%, HP 20%, ACC 10%, Crit 30%, MND 10% (w/ Highest Crit + Status Effects + Cure)

Aloha! :D

Always nice to see some more Chocobo Theorycrafting! :)

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Originally Posted by LuciBlack

By putting all your SP into Defender your bird will be built to tank big groups of mobs with his final L10 ability which is an AOE enmity attack so I labeled him a WAR due to its attacks to build hate on large groups.

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Unfortunately there's a problem with Chocobos and Aggro Control.

Basically, Chocobos can't Control Aggro.

Your Chicken also has a very low HP pool (Base HP is 1943 at level 50) making his ability to withstand spike damage and passive HP regeneration both fairly low. Going for a "full defender" spec will therefore result in a Bird that has low damage output, low HP, poor defenses, and can't reliably hold hate.

The Chocobo will only focus on one enemy at a time, so he cannot tank + build hate on multiple mobs simultaneously. Whilst the Rank 10 attacks from Defender and Attacker Stance would technically allow him to hit more than one enemy, they are both Melee Cones rather than PBAoEs and cannot be triggered manually. As such, they will very likely be "wasted" by the poor Chocobo battle AI not lining itself up properly.

In order to get a more hardy bird that generates maximum levels of hate, you really want the first attack from the Defender tree (Choco Drop - the only one with an enmity modifier until Rank 10 - you want the Chocobo to SPAM this) combined with the maximum amount of passives granting +Damage and +HP buffs possible.

Realistically, taking Rank 3 Defender/Rank 9 Attacker/Rank 2 Healer would be the "best" option here for a Tanking Chocobo - large amounts of HP and STR, buffed Autoattack speed and access to +Regen.

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WAR - STR 10%, HP 20%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15% (w/ AOE Enmity Attack)
PLD - STR 15%, HP 25%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15% (w/ Singular Attacks)
PLD2 - STR 10%, HP 25%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Damage Reduction -15%, MND 10% (w/ Cure)
WHM/SCH - MND 25%, HP 10%, ACC 5%, Crit 15% (w/ AOE Cure)
BLM/BRD - STR 15%, HP 5%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Attack Speed 10% (w/ AOE Attack)
MNK/DRG - STR 20%, HP 15%, ACC 5%, Crit 15%, Attack Speed 10% (w/ Singular Attacks)
SMN - STR 10%, HP 20%, ACC 10%, Crit 30%, MND 10% (w/ Highest Crit + Status Effects + Cure)

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Going for a "hybrid" rather than "pure" build is generally going to be the most efficient use of SP, because careful consideration has to be made in terms of benefit granted per point of SP spent. The Rank 10 Defender/Attacker abilities are both a very poor investment in this regard - they deal underwhelming damage and the AI is very unlikely to line itself up properly in order to hit multiple mobs. Unfortunately the Rank 10 Healer ability is very likely to be underwhelming as well due to its rather low healing potency combined with the aforementioned poor AI.

As mentioned in another thread, there are only four Hybrid builds I would suggest, and three that I would actually recommend:

Dedicated Tank role: 3 Defender, 9 Attacker, 2 Healer.
(+20% STR, +15% HP, +5% Acc, +15% Crit, +10% Attack Rate, +10% MND. 4 Weaponskills and Regen)
As mentioned earlier. To Tank, run in "Defender Stance" to keep it spamming 'Choco Drop' for maximum +enmity generation, and flick in-and-out of "Free Stance" occasionally in order to make the Chocobo cast Choco Regen on itself. Note that even with this setup, the Chocobo will struggle to hold hate over you, so overall this is a rather weak Companion build. NOT RECOMMENDED.

Dedicated DPS role:4 Defender, 9 Attacker.
(+20% STR, +15% HP, +5% Acc, +15% Crit, +10% Attack Rate. 5 Weaponskills)
This is identical to your "Monk/DRG" suggestion above. Has maximum number of available Weaponskills, a large amount of +Str and +HP from passives and an Autoattack speed buff. Always run in "Free Stance". This build should only be used if YOU are prepared to handle all healing. Note that the Rank 7 Attacker ability has a 'Stun' effect and can be very annoying in certain battles due to Diminishing returns. RECOMMENDED (gives highest possible DPS, but assumes that you are always going to play as a healer)

Hybrid DPS/Healer role: 9 Attacker, 4 Healer.
(+15% STR, +10% HP, +5% Acc, +15% Crit, +10% Attack Rate, +10% MND. 3 Weaponskills, Regen and Cure)
Very self-sufficient. You can put the Chocobo into "Attacker Stance" for maximum DPS, and "Healer Stance" for maximum healing potential, but leaving it in "Free Stance" will give good performance at both. Same warning as above regarding the Stun and Diminishing returns. RECOMMENDED (Slightly higher DPS, but assumes that you are NEVER going to want your Chocobo to tank and are prepared to put up with Stun DR).

All-Rounder Build: 7 Healer, 3 Defender, 6 Attacker.
(+10% STR, +20% HP, +10% Acc, +30% Crit, +10% MND. 3 Weaponskills, Regen, Cure and +30% Healing Buff)
Extremely versatile and self-sufficient. Put into "Defender Stance" when you want it to try to Tank, or "Healer Stance" whenever you want it to only concentrate on Healing... otherwise leave it in "Free Stance". The Rank 7 Healer buff is very high uptime, so is definitely worth taking if possible. This setup has good DPS whilst avoiding the aforementioned Rank 7 Attacker "Stun" Weaponskill (and the Rank 4 Defender "Slow", which can also trigger Diminishing Returns). RECOMMENDED (Decent DPS and useful for basically everyone, with no danger of a badly-timed Stun inflicting DR).

I originally had a few ideas for a "Maximum Support" build for Tanks or Melee DD characters... but about the only thing you could take over the All-Rounder Build to help with this would be the Rank 4 Defender tree Weaponskill. Taking that would negatively impact the already-poor tanking capability of the Chocobo, and the trade-off (dropping the +15% Crit from the Attacker tree) isn't really worth it either since Crit buffs affect both attacks and heals.

It should probably also be mentioned that "Healer Stance" is not always the best option for healing, especially if you are a Melee character. Putting your Chocobo into Healer Stance will raise the threshold at which your Chocobo will start spamming Heals on you (~80% HP), but the bird will stop autoattacking and follow your character - making it get hit by any enemy AoEs and Cones aimed at your character, which results in your Chocobo having to regularly heal both you and itself. Leaving your Chocobo in "Free stance" will lower the threshold at which it starts casting heals on you (~50% HP) but keep it autoattacking - making it far easier to position it out of the range of enemy Cones/AoEs, which results in it being able to focus only on healing you.

The choco just does not tank at all, period. Nor should you want it to tank, it lacks the HP and armor resistances to be a good tank. Even my WHM in cloth armor is a better tank.

It should be best used as a source of extra dps, healing and utility.

Since you cannot use the choco in content where its help would actually be good (dungeons, solo duty quests, GC leves.. ), its ONLY purpose is to help you kill normal mobs faster (grinding mats!) or help you kill FATE bosses when there's fewer players around to zerg it. Even if you play healing jobs, having the choco heal means you spend more time and MP dealing damage, meaning faster mat farming.

IMO: The best hybrid choco: 7 Healer (great at healing), 6 Defender (good passives as well as a nice slow debuff, on par with several job skills, BLM skill has such a long cooldown too!), 3 Attacker (extra atk and passives). Its either a weak DoT or a 20% slow debuff.

ps. You dont need to be concern with the slow DR, other jobs have a cooldown on theirs so they can't spam it anyway, and those that can, its not stronger than your choco's slow of 20%!!

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Originally Posted by AylaYukihana

ps. You dont need to be concern with the slow DR, other jobs have a cooldown on theirs so they can't spam it anyway, and those that can, its not stronger than your choco's slow of 20%!!

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Minor Pedant: Technically Feint and Lethargy have specific cooldowns, but Haymaker is on the GCD (as long as you dodge!) and Shadow Flare's slow has 100% uptime... ;)

Triggering DR on Slows isn't anywhere near as crippling/dangerous as doing so on Stuns because the impact of Slows on gameplay is relatively minor, but it's still something to keep in mind since you can't stop your Chocobo from using abilities without Changing Stances. That said, the build Ayla mentions above is also going to be extremely effective. The main thing is getting Rank 7 Healer and a reasonable amount of DPS from the Attacker + Defender trees... since the Chocobo is so poor at tanking even when specifically built for it, the differences in performance between picking two choices from "a DoT", "a Slow" and "an extra 15% Crit Rate" are going to be relatively minor.

Maelwyn,
Very good rebuttal. I like what you said. It is true I would not rely on a Tank chocobo, but I just thought I would still include the option in my Theory as to not segregate the Tankers ;p
Even so, it is still a good idea if only the birds were more efficient than they currently are. Also, it is very true that IF we get the option in the future to take our birds into Dungeons, we will most likely have a Tank, and at least one Healer while the birds will be all for support. The most problematic issue with taking your bird anywhere will be that they wont care about dodging attacks, so they will inevitably take the most damage. Then again, I would think using your bird in a dungeon will be out of disparity or simply because some people don't like to run with Pugs. Players will always trump NPC's.
The most typical way that they would be used, for now, would be which was mentioned above, for Grinding mats or FATE's. For Grinding mats, they mobs typically do not take long to kill, so a straight up Attack/Hybrid would be most efficient. But, I am not gonna argue that a Attack/Healer/Hybrid would not suffice either to lessen the downtime between kills.
Also, your mention of Status effects due to Diminishing Returns was completely on my mind as a bad thing, when your trying to fight a specific way and relying on an RNG helper.

All of this needs to be taken into consideration when everybody decides on how to build their bird.

The only question you really need to ask yourself is: What do you want to use your Chocobo for?

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Originally Posted by LuciBlack

The only question you really need to ask yourself is: What do you want to use your Chocobo for?

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ATM there's not much you can use the choco for, its limited to being helpful in two ways: 1) help you mass slaughter some poor sheeps for fleece or 2) help you low-man boss FATEs.

@ Maelwys: Shadow Flare has a 5% chance to trigger slow. Having a slow is really useful, especially since the Choco's slow is very potent coupled with a 130 potency attack.

I found the Chocobo was fine at taking damage with some HP boosts under his belt, but he can't hold hate because he waits like 10 seconds before he starts doing any skills. Once he starts using his Enmity ability he seems to spam it and his hate skyrockets but waiting that long for him to get hate goes against why I want to use him in the first place (to help with soloing/farming and expedite kills).

Of course it also doesn't help that he can't keep up with increasing iLvl of the gear I have, obviously.

BAH with these huge posts. my choco's L4 healer n i can solo any fate (besides odin n behemoth) with my PLDn choco

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Originally Posted by AylaYukihana

@ Maelwys: Shadow Flare has a 5% chance to trigger slow.

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But is an AoE effect with no duration, meaning that as soon as the slow is inflicted, it lasts "forever" as long as the foe(s) stand inside the circle.

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Having a slow is really useful, especially since the Choco's slow is very potent coupled with a 130 potency attack.

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I agree that it's potent for a single-target slow, but would consider single-target slows in general to be of debatable usefulness.

The DoT is also "coupled with a 130 potency attack" - so (assuming that you can't take both and don't mind negatively impacting your Chocobo's hate-generation capability) it really comes down to whether you prefer a 20% slow, or an extra 120 Potency worth of damage in the form of a DoT.

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Personally I would consider the "best" abilities to be (in rough order of desirability):

1. Choco Cure (Rank 4 Healer Targeted Heal)
2. Choco Surge (Rank 7 Healer Healing Buff)
3. Choco Beak (Rank 4 Attacker DoT)
4. +10% Attack Speed Trait (Rank 9 Attacker, rated higher than +STR due to trait stacking)
5. +STR Traits (Rank 8 Attacker being the most powerful)
6. +15% Crit Trait (All trees equally desirable)
7. +MND Traits (Rank 8 Healer being the most powerful)
8. Choco Drop (Rank 1 Defender +Emnity Attack)
9. Choco Slash (Rank 1 Attacker Attack)
10. Choco Regen (Rank 1 Healer HoT)
11. Choco Kick (Rank 4 Defender +Slow Attack)
12. +HP Traits (Rank 3 Defender is just as good as Rank 9 Defender!)
13. +Acc Traits (Currently it's unlikely you'll use the Chocobo to fight extremely agile opponents)
14. The Rank 10 abilities (Healer tree first, then Attacker tree, then Defender)
15. The Rank 8 Defender tree's +Resistance Buff.
...
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1001. Choco Rush (Rank 7 Attacker +Stun Attack)

If it wasn't for the Stun attack, I would go 9 Attacker/4 Healer in a heartbeat because the +STR and +Autoattack are both very powerful damage buffs.
Unfortunately due to concerns with DR, I really can't justify it.

If you could "disable" abilities in the future (instruct your Chocobo not to use them) it'd become very nice though... :)

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Originally Posted by Estellios

Once he starts using his Enmity ability he seems to spam it and his hate skyrockets but waiting that long for him to get hate goes against why I want to use him in the first place (to help with soloing/farming and expedite kills).
Of course it also doesn't help that he can't keep up with increasing iLvl of the gear I have, obviously.

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That's why I'd suggest keeping Defender stance to rank 3 - by putting the Chocobo into that stance temporarily you can force him to only use the enmity gaining ability.
But yes, the Chocobo just plain can't keep up with Gear creep. The minor stat boosts it gets are very low in comparison to the boosts you get from ilevel 70 or 90 gear.

Perhaps some form of gear-scaling-related buff is in order? (If buffs from Barding is off the cards, perhaps the Chocobo could gain 10% of your character's current gear stats? Hmm...)

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Originally Posted by Mosis

BAH with these huge posts. my choco's L4 healer n i can solo any fate (besides odin n behemoth) with my PLDn choco

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This.

Rank 4 Healer by itself is usually perfectly sufficient for keeping a Melee character upright, even in "Free stance", no Slow (or even the Rank 7 Healer buff!) needed :)
Anything after that is just "More DPS please!" to kill stuff faster - the DoT, STR/Crit buffs, etc. all help here.

The Rank 7 Healer buff makes the Chocobo's heals become more potent so it can spend more time DPSing and less time Healing.
The Slow would work the same way (potentially, if the Chocobo decides to use it) but to a much lesser extent.

The thing is there's no challenging content in which the Choco is able to be used. The most useful thing Choco does is help you kill stuff faster for Crafting Mats farming. For that, I could be Holy aoe mass murdering mobs, it doesn't matter what the Choco does single target wise.

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Originally Posted by AylaYukihana

The thing is there's no challenging content in which the Choco is able to be used. The most useful thing Choco does is help you kill stuff faster for Crafting Mats farming. For that, I could be Holy aoe mass murdering mobs, it doesn't matter what the Choco does single target wise.

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I suspect this is where our disagreement stems from.

As a White Mage, when you're killing trash mobs you'll sit in Cleric stance - your DPS rises but your Healing potential (and therefore your survivability) is cut.
In those situations you don't NEED extra Single Target damage from your chocobo, but a little extra survivability could potentially be helpful.

However as a Melee Class I would agree with what Mosis says above.
When killing Trash mobs, my survivability does not change much (Even on PLD I never need Shield Oath for trash mobs, Cooldowns + Sword Oath is plenty) and I have few AoEs to speak of.
In those situations I prefer the Chocobo to always deal as much damage as possible, Single-Target or otherwise, it doesn't matter, as long as the mobs die faster.

The same holds largely true for Fate Bosses, I can manage my own survivability (with a few Choco Cures to keep me topped up) but I want a companion to deal as much damage as possible.

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Originally Posted by LuciBlack

The only question you really need to ask yourself is: What do you want to use your Chocobo for?

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Originally Posted by Maelwys

Q: OK, OK... so how should I build my Hybrid Chocobo?
A: It depends.

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:)

He's helpful when there's lots of mobs bashing me during Holy spam, because Choco heals heaps better than WHM in Cleric Stance, and it doesn't cost me a GCD to heal myself, more for Holy, mobs die fast and I'm topped up. Without Choco, doing too many mobs is very risky and MP draining.

So first and foremost, his healing potential needs to be maximized for any class. Even healers, so they dont waste time and MP on healing themselves.

If and when SE add difficult content in which Choco is usable, then I can see the slow debuff being very useful. Currently it doesn't matter what you take once you have the healing, because the content is just trivial in which Choco is usable.

Give us an on/off toggle for each chocobo ability.
Like, choco-blast. 90% of the time I do not want my companion using an aoe, and it does, and aggros something else nearby.

Further to this, manual control over each ability instead of full auto pilot via stances would be far more useful.

at level 57, and lacking the bonus hp in the tank tree, my chocobo has almost 11K hp. i have 8K as a bard.

Chocobo companions are for light farming, solo, or in small parties where you just need a bit more DPS or healing.

Examples:
-Low manning rank A or B hunts
-Soloing mysterious Maps
-Soloing FATEs or monsters for Atma books

They are great for attempting quests or fights that you're undergeared of attempting a tad too soon. They contribute a fair amount of DPS, don't be fooled by their adorable appearance.

Also, 98% sure they got a buff in the expansion

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Originally Posted by awesomeuno

Also, 98% sure they got a buff in the expansion

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I think they got a huge boost at 51, to compensate for us jumping clear to i115 gear baseline.

Having just got my chocobo to lvl 10 and got choco medica, I looked back at it's regen. Why does it even have a regen in the first place? The total healing it does over its duration is exactly half of it's choco cure. This is complete garbage. It using its regen actually makes it heal less. It could have casted a choco cure and healed twice the damage, instantly, in the same gcd

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Originally Posted by keyburz

...Why does it even have a regen in the first place?....

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Bcoz ChocoRegen is LV1 SP1... I think it takes weeks to LV4 to get ChocoCure for a new player.
Moreover, I think AI won't ChocoCure until you have dropped to 75% HP (in Healer stance) etc while it will cast ChocoRegen when you have taken damage..etc. ^^;