Rank 10 Chocobo Reached!

[BlazeChronic]

I'm going to level my Chocobo, any tips?

Yes : Don't do like the Op and throw darts at the skill tree. Focus on one stance, don't gimp yourself.

[OmegaXtc]

Yes : Don't do like the Op and throw darts at the skill tree. Focus on one stance, don't gimp yourself.

Why would you waste 27 pts for the last three in any tree when you could get 7 in another tree and 3 in another tree for a lot of passive buffs? Are the aoe attacks and aoe medica worth it? Really?

[Maelwys]

Yes : Don't do like the Op and throw darts at the skill tree. Focus on one stance, don't gimp yourself.

You completely messed up the skill points ... you are supposed to put everything in one role.

If those were true, we wouldn't have any need for a Dev to post this.

Yes, there is an achievement for hitting Rank 10 in each stance.
No, your chocobo will not be as effective if you do this.

"Hybrid" builds have more abilities, greater damage potential and higher stats than "Pure Stance" builds. This is because higher rank abilities cost more SP to make them available. for the same SP cost, you can get Rank 10 in one stance, or Rank 9 in that stance plus Ranks 1-4 in a secondary stance. And gain access to ALL those abilities in "Free Stance".

If the Rank #10 abilities were jaw-droppingly good, I would agree with you. However, they are AoE abilities with mediocre Potency. You cannot trigger them manually, and the AI is notoriously bad at using AoE abilities sensibly.

Oh! and free stance yeah its work nice but i notice that i have to switch stance from free stance to healer stance for Choco Cure. Because i was ending up at half of life without he Choco Cure me until i switch him to Healer Stance. But at free Stance he only does Choco Regen.

In Free Stance, the AI starts trying to Cure whenever either of you drop below 50% HP. In Healing Stance, this threshold is higher (75-80%). The cures will be slightly less regular in Free Stance since it has Autoattacks and other abilities available and can be caught mid-animation whenever the Cure is back off cooldown. As a Paladin, I can reliably idle around 40%-50% HP and get regular Cures from my "Free Stance" Chicken.

That is not excatly how the companion system works - the passive/actives he gains is based on the specific stance he is in - unless you are in defender or attacker all those crit bonuses are pretty much in active sorry to break it to you :/

You can see very clearly that this is not the case for passives by stacking multiple +HP% passive buffs from more than one stance and observing the corresponding spike in your Chocobo's HP value.

Stances make abilities and weaponskills unavailable (and in the case of Healer Stance, autoattacks unavailable) but passives stack across stances.
There's very little reason to run in anything apart from Free Stance unless you specifically want your Chocobo to act as a "Pure Healer" and not melee attack anything.

[BlazeChronic]

You can see very clearly that this is not the case for passives by stacking multiple +HP% passive buffs from more than one stance and observing the corresponding spike in your Chocobo's HP value.

... but passives stack across stances.

Pics/vid or it didn't happen. I'm not risking gimping my choco to test this.

[Maelwys]

Pics/vid or it didn't happen. I'm not risking gimping my choco to test this.

Look in the OP.

At timestamp ~5:50 he has hit Rank 10 and picks a HP boost from the Attacker Tree, his Chocobo (in Healer Stance at the time) immediately gains the benefit of it.

The OP initially has a +10% HP trait from the Defender Tree, and a +5% HP trait from the Healer Tree.
This puts him at 2235 HP (115% base if all traits stack)
So his Chocobo's base HP is potentially 2235/1.15 = 1943.478 HP

He then picks a +5% HP trait from the Attacker Tree.
This puts him at 2332 HP (120% base if all traits stack)
2332/1.2 = 1943.333 HP

Proof Positive.

-----------------------

You can even try it yourself:

Have you got any HP traits in your current chocobo, in any stance tree? (the first one is Rank #3 in each of the three trees)

Yes? Good.
Check the number on its HP bar.

Now put the chocobo into a stance that doesn't have the HP trait on its corresponding tree.
Check the number on its HP bar again.

If HP traits weren't active across stances, those would be different numbers.

[OmegaXtc]

Maelwys, thank you for intelligently destroying all the doubt in this thread. You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks dude!

[Maelwys]

Maelwys, thank you for intelligently destroying all the doubt in this thread. You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks dude!

No worries, with very few people investing heavily into Chocobo raising at the moment there's a lot of misinformation and rumor floating about!
I'm hoping for a bit of a rebalance whenever Player Housing/Chocobo Breeding is patched in and people start looking at them more closely.
I'd love to be able to trigger abilities manually via macro or equip things to boost their stats. But I'm REALLY hoping that we eventually become able to take them into certain dungeons...

(Also I'd say I'm more of an amateur Arcanist than a Scholar - I don't even have the Job Crystal unlocked yet...)