Chocobo Companions and You: A Guide

[AylaYukihana]

Dont forget, there's many FATE bosses that cast spells with a timed cast, not just simple auto attacks and instant WS spam. Slow makes them cast slower. DR reset after 10 or 15 seconds (closer to 15 is what it feels like), so essentially the boss is slowed 20% for 2/3 of the time, pretty useful. They deal less damage to you, your choco spend less time healing and more time attacking.

Just an example, at 50, in crap gear, my WHM's Aero ticks almost twice as hard as the Choco's DoT, so it really doesnt scale well. 20% slow always scale. BLM has a 20% slow, its on a 30s cooldown, its worse than the Choco's and its a class ability.

[Maelwys]

Dont forget, there's many FATE bosses that cast spells with a timed cast, not just simple auto attacks and instant WS spam. Slow makes them cast slower. DR reset after 10 or 15 seconds (closer to 15 is what it feels like), so essentially the boss is slowed 20% for 2/3 of the time, pretty useful. They deal less damage to you, your choco spend less time healing and more time attacking.

Or alternatively; you could ignore the autoattacks, and just deal more damage in the first place to kill it faster (and stance switch if the situation calls for it - healing whilst still dealing DoT damage).

As mentioned at the end of the OP, Chocobo builds rely heavily on personal preference.

You seem to like the Slow: fair enough, I'm not saying you're silly for taking it if you consider it useful!

I consider it useful, but not as useful as a powerful attack or an extra +15% Critical Hit chance, and I place some value on being able to force the Chocobo to spam a Hate generating ability on the offchance that the occasion ever calls for it.

Reducing the rate of autoattacks for a single enemy just isn't particularly important to me. I have never been in a situation in a Fate boss fight where I thought it would be more beneficial to deal slightly less damage in order to have the Boss perform slightly less frequent autoattacks on me, and unlike "player" slows you can't rely on your Chocobo to use it on cooldown.

at 50, in crap gear, my WHM's Aero ticks almost twice as hard as the Choco's DoT, so it really doesnt scale well.

The DoT effect is a bonus to the attack, like a slow or a stun. It is not the attack itself. The individual ticks are weak, but there are a lot of them - the initial 130 potency hit combined with the DoT ticks makes it the highest damage attack a Chocobo can perform.

But I'm glad you're having fun with your Chocobo

[AylaYukihana]

I consider it useful, but not as useful as a powerful attack or an extra +15% Critical Hit chance

Its not Atk/Slow versus Atk/Dot AND 15% crit chance, its just slow vs dot, because you can get rank 6 on defender to get 15% crit as well. 7 Healer, 6 Defender, 3 Attack, yields 30% crit boost, 3 WS and potent healing, the only difference is DoT WS or Slow WS.

[Maelwys]

I consider it useful, but not as useful as a powerful attack or an extra +15% Critical Hit chance

Its not Atk/Slow versus Atk/Dot AND 15% crit chance, its just slow vs dot, because you can get rank 6 on defender to get 15% crit as well. 7 Healer, 6 Defender, 3 Attack, yields 30% crit boost, 3 WS and potent healing, the only difference is DoT WS or Slow WS.

I didn't say it was an AND situation, I said it was an OR situation.

You have enough SP to take:
+ Rank 7 Healer, plus Rank 4 Defender and Rank 5 Attacker (or 5 Defender + 4 Attacker, abilities are equal).
+ Rank 7 Healer, plus Rank 3 Defender and Rank 6 Attacker.
+ Rank 7 Healer, plus Rank 6 Defender and Rank 3 Attacker.

Therefore the choice is: (i) SLOW, (ii) DOT, (iii) CRIT BUFF.
Three abilities, pick two.

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

Where we appear to be disagreeing is that I'd prefer the DoT and the Crit Buff, and you seem to prefer the Slow and the Crit Buff.

This is a perfectly fine point to disagree on, because Chocobo builds depend heavily on personal opinion.
I merely place greater value on a dependable additional damage increase (plus higher hate generation capability) over situational additional survivability.

[Maelwys]

Addendum: From the Patch Notes for 2.1

The following changes have been made to chocobo companions:
+ Players can now examine chocobo companions to view their rank and barding.
+ Enmity generated by the actions Choco Drop and Choco Strike has been increased.

Tested: "Choco Drop" (the first Defender Stance attack) now generates noticeably more hate.

My Chocobo has the first three ranks in Defender Stance.
If I put it into Defender Stance so that it spams Choco Drop, it can now hold hate over my Paladin as long as I'm not in "Shield Oath" or using my enmity combo.
Whilst it's certainly not a "proper tank", this should be enough to force your Chocobo to grab hate for you whenever you need it to.

(I made it tank a Fate boss for me, just for giggles)

[Solfleur]

I had to vote you "up" just for the image of big bad you giggling! (...and it doesn't hurt that I agree with you). Cheers!

Addendum: From the Patch Notes for 2.1



Tested: "Choco Drop" (the first Defender Stance attack) now generates noticeably more hate.

My Chocobo has the first three ranks in Defender Stance.
If I put it into Defender Stance so that it spams Choco Drop, it can now hold hate over my Paladin as long as I'm not in "Shield Oath" or using my enmity combo.
Whilst it's certainly not a "proper tank", this should be enough to force your Chocobo to grab hate for you whenever you need it to.

(I made it tank a Fate boss for me, just for giggles)

[distant-cubix]

Will you add some information posted 2.3 plz

[Espritduo]

Word to the wise: If you are thinking of using Reagan Peppers to get all three bardings quick and easy, think again. I had the white mage barding and used the pepper to switch to the attacker role. Used the SP to level all the way to Attacker 10 and the final ability and got nothing for it. Same when I reset again and switched to Defender. I assume the only way to get all the bardings is to legitimately level your chocobo all the way through every ability by raising it to level 20 or whatever level it takes to learn everything.

[Alpheus]

Getting additional bardings requires you to break the level cap it was mentioned in the patch notes.