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.