Worthless chocobo companion

Has there been any recent discussion about the companion system from the developers? I find myself using my chocobo less and less, even while leveling my ninja this month. The main problem for me is that, after learning choco medica, my companion is absolutely horrible at healing. It uses this weak move when only I am hurt, or when it is not in range for the spell to hit me. I've heard the same problem exists for dps chocobo using their stun move at improper times. I'm tempted to refund the points and spec it differently, but better AI or proper control over the companion would fix the problem entirely. Why should I make a work-around when the problem is on a development side? Has anything been said about a tweak to the companion system when chocobo breeding is introduced?

Choco regen is the major reason why I don't use my Chocobo in combat very often. That move is AWFUL. Why does it heal 30 hp at lvl 50? Eos' whispering dawn can heal up to 50hp at a faster rate while being synced down to lvl 25 lmao. If Choco regen is that bad, I hate to see its DPS and Tank abilities

I really disliked how piss poor the chocobo heals when it llearns chocobo medica, so what i did was not take the last2 healer abilities as acc does not help healing and medica blows if its just you and your chocobo. Doing this made my chocobo waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more reliable and i took some dps n tank things which i use on freestance when its fights i need minor healing or if soloing harder things i switch to healer. seems to be the best bet to get the best of your chocobo.

Well, choco cure is halfway decent. I understand that the devs don't want the chocobo to be anywhere near as effective as another human player, but for the effectiveness to DROP after learning a more advanced move is just absurd. You have to avoid ranking up the chocobo in certain areas for it to remain useful.

It really needs a buff to the frequency of its attack ability uses. It just autoattacks and hardly ever use a skill. So it really can't be relied upon to gain enmity let alone retaining it.
Healing stance Choco Cure is decent though.

Choco Medica really sucks, I died in soloing a boss fate thanks to my chocobo spamming medica instead of cure when I was the only one getting hit. Is this really our reward for getting to/past rank 10?

Yeah they are pretty stupid with their healing. I really don't understand why they don't scale more with the levels. As someone said eos heals better at lower levels, I literally had a SCH that went on follow and afk in a dungeon once and I never died or came close. They don't want the companions to be OP but eos kind of is so what's the difference?

I am the last person who I thought would come in here and defend Chocobo Companion (one of the most broken, unfinished features in the game), but I will say this: you should view your chocobo from the perspective that anything it does is a bonus. Don't rely on it like it's an additional party member. It's not going to keep you alive in dire situations, it's not going to interrupt key enemy skills, and it's not going to dish out a ton of damage. But when you have a chocobo out, battles are just that little bit smoother. It's worth having the chocobo out when you can, but if it were any more effective it would either be overpowered, or SE would have to start designing open-world content under the assumption that you have a chocobo with you -- and we don't want that.

I made the mistake of trying to make my chocobo a tank, which as it turns out is not a good idea. It can't hold threat at all, even against the most lackluster of White Mage damage. But it makes soloing FATE boses and Hunt marks a lot easier, just having something else constantly whacking away while I take a break from damage to take care of HP upkeep. From what I hear, a balance of mostly DPS with a few ranks of Healing is the way to go with Chocobo Companion. But even then, don't expect an ally who matches your own power in any way. Anything the chocobo does is extra.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

...don't expect an ally who matches your own power in any way. Anything the chocobo does is extra.

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Pretty much this.

While I would prefer my chocobo to be at least a bit more useful with some better coding to decide on what attacks/heals it should do and when, it might turn the tides a bit too much in your favor. If my chocobo healed more frequently running fates solo+choco I'd probably survive too well. I mean my healer chocobo already allows me to take on more mobs at a time than normal when I do fates to level my ninja, what more if it healed non-stop? I mean I don't even think our chocobos have MP/TP, so it's pretty much free heals/damage even if it's not big numbers.

Maps are the only place in the game the chocobo companion is even remotely useful, and even then their support is marginal at best. My chocobo is at rank 16 and still fairly useless.

@Fyrebrand I do agree with you, so far my only issue is why going from healer rank 9 to healer rank 10 makes your companion worse instead of better? That's something they really should look at and fix it.

I feel like I'm more of a fan of this system than SE has ever been.

I LOVE the idea of taking on hard open world content with my companion!

Fast forward to today now that I have a lvl 9 choco and it can be pretty much one shot by some fate mobs. Also there has been no content that has been developed that would make me feel even marginally glad that I went through all that trouble to lvl my choco.

Why did you even put this system in here if you don't care about making content for it?!
Also why is every buff system in XIV so damn useless?

They don't dare to make food nor chocos give you an edge in battle by why are these systems then even here?!
It doesn't help that both require TONS of work and gil with almost zero benefit!

Hrm, ive soloed almost every fate boss in this game with my healing chocobro, perhaps you all are just mistreating yours.

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Originally Posted by PureEclipse

Hrm, ive soloed almost every fate boss in this game with my healing chocobro, perhaps you all are just mistreating yours.

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To make it simpler for you: Rank 10 healer spams 150 potency AoE heal instead of 300 potency single target heal when only one person is getting hit, you get half the amount of heals for absolutely no reason at all, making rank 10 healer worthless if it makes your chocobo worse.

As for rank 7 DPS the only way I see it could be fixed is with a sort of "obey", so you choose when to stun instead of it randomly using it.

Huum, I don't have problems with my chocobo - I have it as a tank, and believe me when I'm in my summoner gear, my choco and ifrit together can down whatever they are put on :) sometimes i just put shadowflare and they do the job.

But the truth is I don't rely to much on my choco, as it was already said in previous responses, it's a plus, that helps me get true mobs, I never expect my choco tank to flash and get 5 mobs on him and keep them on. I am happy if he manages to keep one, while I take down the others u.u

Not only is the chocobo worthless at higher level, but it prevents you from queuing while doing fates with the chocobo. This system is bad and Yoshi-P and co, should realy have another look at it.

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Not only is the chocobo worthless at higher level, but it prevents you from queuing while doing fates with the chocobo. This system is bad and Yoshi-P and co, should realy have another look at it.

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This. As long as you are not able to queue up for content whilst you have a chocobo out, it's a worthless companion. This really ought to change.

Medica was the only thing that I hated about my Healerbo~ After I got rid of it, the heals are fine. I can usually solo stuff a few levels above whatever class I'm leveling with my choco on dedicated heals.

7 healer, 3 defender and 6 attacker is the best build if you don't go beyond rank 10.

No medica, no stun. Good healer and decent dps.

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Originally Posted by Fyrebrand

I made the mistake of trying to make my chocobo a tank, which as it turns out is not a good idea. It can't hold threat at all, even against the most lackluster of White Mage damage.

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Well, I'm a White Mage too, and mine was of a tremendous help until level 50. Playing would have been a real pain without him.
Of course he can't hold threat when you start to go above ilvl50, but I remember really well how useful he was before that. Once, he even tanked the big crab boss in Costa del Sol area for me, during the entire FATE. And didn't loose the aggro while I was healing. I found it amazing.

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The main problem for me is that, after learning choco medica,

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Found your problem. SE already gave you a (hopefully temporary) solution: Reagan Peppers.

Skill is currently trash. Until they can make it not trash, your best bet is to unlearn it.

Healer path isn't the only one with a trash rank 10 skill, either. All of them should not be kept and only really exist to reward you with bardings. (The other two are AoE attacks, which just serve to get even more mobs pissed off at your chocobo than Choco Medica already was)

Hmm. I've had a rank 10 healer chocobo for quite some time now and it certainly has helped me level up some of my jobs. When I was leveling Monk and Dragoon there was no way I would have been able to stay alive in some fates had it not been for my chocobo healing me and providing additional dps (while low, it was still enough to bring boss monsters down quicker than I could have done solo).

Piece of Advice, don't put your healing chocobo on healer stance. Use free stance and position boss mobs so that they are facing away from your chocobo. This has worked wonders for me, and proved so much more effective than Healer Stance.

Chocobo's do heal themselves and sometimes might heal themselves over healing you if you let them get hit by aoes. They won't dye or anything from a circular aoe, but they can avoid cone aoe move just by not having the boss face them.

At level 50 with my healer chocobo, as a Summoner I have my own personal holy trinity. Now sure, unfortunately chocobos do not heal summoner pets, but if you take any damage they will heal you at least keeping up your own survivability.

I don't use my chocobo much anymore, unless I'm leveling a new job in the early stages. Otherwise I only pop him out when I'm doing maps.

what about dont teaching him medica?... max the skill for the barding, reset it, reskill till 9 , profit

and it only costs 20 or 30 hunt seals..

A lot of you are suggesting the work around of NOT learning abilities beyond a certain rank, and I agree that is the best way to handle it for now. My point is, it SHOULDN'T be the best way to handle it. There hasn't been much discourse about chocobo training recently, not since the addition of thavnarian onions. And with chocobo breeding coming up, I really don't want the devs to continue adding more without fixing the broken system.
Current problems:
can't wait in Duty Finder with chocobo summoned
chocobo stance efficiency drops as it learns more moves within each rank
chocobo moves have detrimental effects such as stun resisting and aoeing passive mobs
Solutions:
smarter AI checks the number of injured players / engaged enemies before choosing moves
make chocobos similar to summoner pets and allow abilities to be manually activated

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Originally Posted by Wobble

Yeah they are pretty stupid with their healing. I really don't understand why they don't scale more with the levels. As someone said eos heals better at lower levels, I literally had a SCH that went on follow and afk in a dungeon once and I never died or came close. They don't want the companions to be OP but eos kind of is so what's the difference?

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Because... bird brain :p

Jokes aside, they really should scale our feather friend's stats according to our ilvl.

I don't need my tank-bo to be able to secure agro as I pop all my cds on my drg, but I really hope they increase the AI and the stats a little :)

One more thing, I know it's tough to allow us to queue for df with our feather friend out, but can we first have a band aid fix with a pop up confirmation window to remind us that summoning our chocobo will drop us from the queue? It really suck to queue for hours and lose the queue just because we forgot that we were queueing for df and summon our feather friend so we wouldn't feel lonely :(