Is a Chocobo Companion rework needed?

[Najara]

I'm not sure if it's been discussed before or not but I'd like to talk about reworking Chocobo Companions.

Our buddies are great and awesome. I spent a lot of time (years) getting mine to rank 20 and making sure I properly use Favorite Feed to maximize its potential.

But when it comes to using my chocobo for things like Fates or B-rank Hunts using him for anything other than Healer his performance is just massively underwhelming.

Free Stance with an Enmity +2 buff still means he can't hold aggro and he won't heal himself until he's already dead since his healing doesn't activate until he's low HP.

Tank Stance he can hold aggro but bosses flail him to pieces quickly unless I'm playing a healer, or a tank with healing which again feels like it defeats the purpose of using him at all for tanking. He takes more damage than me and eats every major ability which is especially bad against bosses who use debuffs like one kill his accuracy, eliminating his potential for holding aggro, or nastier attacks that poisons/paralyzes/the whole shebang (Morbol - Bad Breath attacks), he has no hope of avoiding those attacks and the debuffs last just as long on a player when hit.

Healer Stance is great, with or without the +2 healing potency buff, and even if he stands in AoE's i've had no issues pulling hordes of mobs in Fates and surviving.

Attacking stance is OK. He doesn't match the WoL potency of damage which feels fine to me. He's more like extra potency auto attacks but that's generally the only other thing he's good for, aside from healing.

In general I'd like to see his free stance/tanking roles improved on at a bare minimum.

If I give my chocobo a +2 enmity buff, he should be able to get and hold aggro, and at the very least prioritize his tank stance abilities even if he's in Free Stance.

I just feel our dear companions need much more love than that though and I'd be very happy to hear if the community or Devs agreed or disagreed and what your thoughts about them are. It was a major time sink for me to grind and get him to rank 20, and with all the Fate Grinding needed for Bicolor Gemstones, or even just leveling a new job, they could be more relevent than they're being allowed right now.

Thank you for reading.

[Bacent]

Yeah, some work needs to be redone with them. While leveling shows the best usage of your companion, but when you hit level cap and start getting higher and higher ilvls, they don't scale (Since it's purely level based).

Also wish there was a custom stance. Using them as a tank when you're leveling DPS, I wish they could use Choco Cure on themeselves, but you'd have to keep stance changing them and when they're in healing stance they ALWAYS have to be standing right next to you.

[Shougun]

I would love a chocobo update / rework! Chocobo hot and cold, forest, paradise, choco-archeology, Choco FF tactics jobs... Etc!

Mind dump from a while ago: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...t-Tribe-etc%29

[Jeeqbit]

Healer, Free Stance or DPS are the most useful depending on the enemy's damage output. I could only see tanking being useful on BLM to prevent cast interruption.

[Kes13a]

I wouldnt mind some updates to our faithful companion

[Asari5]

yes, please

[Rufalus]

Yes! The only change they've had since ARR was QoL making them no longer count as party members so you can still add the max number of players to a party and use the DF while the choco is summoned.

It's a prime example of a very old system that could be reviewed and upgraded substantially. So much resources are put into the usual formula content that they almost never get time to change systems like companion and squadron, or time to do event collabs with things like FF VII Remake and PSO2, or time to port the game to Xbox (no more barriers on Microsoft's end regarding online and crossplay, just the FF XIV team never has time.)

[Bacent]

Healer, Free Stance or DPS are the most useful depending on the enemy's damage output. I could only see tanking being useful on BLM to prevent cast interruption.

Chocobo tanking is best when leveling scholar, personally. I just boop the mob and run off to get a snack or work on something else in between mob pulls for stuff like that. Same for boss fates I'm alone at when I feel lazy.

[Naoki34]

Is a Chocobo Companion rework needed?

I would like a scion instead of a chocobo, even though my chocobo is LvL 20.

[Deveryn]

I would like a scion instead of a chocobo, even though my chocobo is LvL 20.

and that scion is supposed to carry the saddlebag?


IMO, it ain't broke and doesn't need fixing.