How should I go about getting into Chocobo Racing?

[tENAxc]

I'm trash at racing and haven't really touched it much. I want to give it a solid go but I'm not too sure where to start about raising a decent chocobo and whatnot. Can someone give me a good starting point or some good tips? Thanks.

[Blitzace]

Well what i've been doing is just start off with a chocobo and i use Grade1/2 food(Don't bother with 3 untill you have your perfect chocobo, in my opinion)
And at rank 40, retire it and buy a covering package and just make sure it has some decent stats.

M | F | M | F
4 | 4 | 4 | 3 -75% chance of 4 ★, 25% 3 ★
4 | 3 | 4 | 2 -50% chance of 4 ★, 25% 3 ★, 25% of 2 ★
4 | 3 | 4 | 2 -50% chance of 4 ★, 25% chance for 2 or 3 ★
2 | 3 | 3 | 2 -50% chance of either 2 or 3 ★
2 | 4 | 4 | 3 -50% chance of 4 ★, 25% chance of 2 or 3 ★


Pretty much, every digit is 25% chance of passing on a stat. If you have more than one of the same, you add the percentages together. (eg. three 4★'s = 25+25+25=75%)






4 | 3

I used that to understand how the stat thingy works. its kinda confusing but you'll get it once you start breeding. Its quite helpfull to waste a fair ton of MGP in the cover packages to make sure you have a very solid chocobo once you get to Pedigree 6/7/8.
You should also aim to get certain skills at 7/8 since once you breed it can get one skill locked in and then you have another skill you can learn him, which can be amazing (Its not garanteed he will carry that skill over as your other chocobo also has a skill and a color so there is a 50% chance)

The main stats i personally focus on are

Stamina - Increases your total stamina
Endurance - How long your chocobo can run for in max speed and reduces stamina drain(i believe)
Max speed - Which increases the max speed of your lovely chocobo.

Then we have Acceleration & Cunning. I'm not entirely sure what cunning does but i think it has to do something with terrain(Someone told me) And i usually run Sagolii Road where that stat is useless i believe so i just ignore that.
Like i said, i use Grade 2 food and i usually come out even-steven when i reach 40. Maybe a few k loss but nothing seriously. It just makes for easier win.
By all means i'm not expert in this as i'm still trying to get a perfect chocobo myself but this is how i'm doing it


PS! I also forgot to add doing the chocobo challenges in the GS gives you new and higher skill books! I personally haven't done em yet as they are not needed to rank your chocobo but in the end, make sure to get em!

[Zorafin]

First of all: https://ffxivchocoboracing.wordpress.com/
Great resource. A bit outdated, but you can figure out the new skills by yourself.

For the stats, Cunning lowers the stamina drain and max speed penalty when in rough terrain, such as water and uphill. It's necessary in Tranquil Paths, and nearly useless in Sangolii Road. It's valued as just a bit higher than Endurance, but neither are nearly as useful as Speed and Stamina.
Acceleration is the worst.
I always feed my chocobo grade 2 feed for stamina if I ran out of stamina last race before reaching the finish line, and max speed if I did not. That's worked very well for me, until I reach rank 35.

The challenges give a set of books every other run, starting at some run or another. The only good ones are from, I believe, 10 and 12? You need a pretty strong chocobo to do these, so these will be near the end of your career. Do them whenever you feel like it, but those tier 3 skills are worth getting ASAP.

If you're interested in getting a perfectly bred chocobo, you'll be disappointed to hear there's no guide for that. Here's what I've got, though.

Raise and retire your chocobo as usual. Buy a cover the same pedigree as your chocobo, with at least one 4*. Breed the two, and check the child's genes. If there's at least one 4* gene in there, consider it good. But you have ten chances to breed it, so may as well get the most out of that.
Do the same with the next, try to introduce one more 4* into the genepool.
Keep going until you have at least one 4* in each stat. From there, try to get a child of the opposite gender through covering that has a similar number of 4* genes.

Breed the two together until you get a child that has more 4*s than a parent. Then replace the parent with that child, and keep breeding. Each 4* doubles the chance of getting a perfectly bred child, so just keep doing this. Eventually you'll get a child with 4* genes this way.

If you want to introduce a color to the bloodline, get a male and female with 4* genes in every stat, and breed them to get one more of each gender. Then buy covers until you find one with the color you want. Breed, and if the color doesn't stick, try again. Note that this will end up being very expensive.
Breed this child with its parents until you get one with better genes and the same color. Then breed this one with its parents. If you run out of breeds with the parents, raise and breed the children, and breed a backup child before continuing. It shouldn't take long before you breed out the bad genes.


So... breeding might take a while. It's honestly easier and quicker than Triple Triad, but it'll still take a few weeks. You have to ask yourself if it's worth it, or if you'd rather just get something that wins races for the challenge log.

[tENAxc]

Thank you all!

[randysquirrel]

for your early pedigrees, just race to 40, buy a covering at least equal to your birds pedigree, and breed. I believe the stars you get on the covering bird are random, so be selective, if you get a rubbish covering, just discard it and buy another until you get a decent one, then breed your bird with it. Hopefully each time you will have more 4-stars on the new bird than the previous.

The gender of the new bird is irrelevant until you have a ped-8 bird, when you breed that, you want the offspring to be the opposite gender to your ped-8. That way when your ped-9 bird is retired, you can breed it with your ped-8 (it's parent, yay incest) both of which should be quite decent.

The abilities are not quite as strict as they used to be (you used to ONLY be able to get lv3 abilities from racing, no manuals), but you'll still want to get a decent hereditary ability. It's best to decide early on which abilities you'll want on your final bird, then when it learns either of those, keep carrying it through each time you breed a new bird