User:Huovos/sandbox1

This page is a bare bones guide to chocobo raising that heavily references BGWiki and other FFXI related sites. Please reference at your convenience. - Huovos

Reference Table

TL;DR: See below for a quick list of what to do daily when raising a chocobo. There's minor differences between this table and the rest of the guide.

Does not include EGG. When EGG, just STARE at it to your heart's content.

Daily Chores		Details
Gardening & Garden Furrows (Farm)		Wildgrass Seeds and Earth Crystals/Fertilizers. Collect all greens and carrots. Do not trust the auction house to have enough feed.
Catch Up with Chocobo (Status)		Review results from the previous day. Check on status conditions. Check hunger levels.
Feed the Chocobo (Feed)		Vomp Carrot (Racing) or Zegham Carrot (Digging) or Chocolixir (See Learn Abilities)¹ Assess if the bird needs medicine. [2 Carrots] (Stats) [1 Carrot and 1 Green] (Greens raise affection) [1 Medicine and 1 Carrot] (Cure status) [1 Chocolixir], use stamina, [1 Chocolixir], use stamina. (Spam learning)
Learn Abilities When Ready (Learn)		¹ See Feeding and Spamming to Learn Abilities. This happens as early as adolescence and as far as near retirement. Key Items required.
Special Training (Spend)		Baby N/A		Adolescent N/A	Adult (Late): Diets and Care Plans change. Apply DSC Tokens after STR/END are at maximum rank (Racing only). Apply END Tokens after DSC/RCP max rank (Digging only).			Retired: Use specific tokens made for retired chocobo if stats are not sufficient by retirement.
Interact with Chocobo (Raise Affection)		Go on Walks and unlock Key Items for learning abilities. When there’s not enough stamina to walk, STARE at the bird until all stamina is depleted. Maximize affection.
Check and Adjust the Care Plan (Planning)		Baby: [Taking a walk] (Racing) or [Listening to music] (Digging)		Adolescent: [Carry packages] (Racing) or [Exhibiting to the public] (Digging)		Adult: [Carry packages]/[Exhibiting to the public] until MAX Rank (+3 more days) → [Basic Care]		Adult (Day 64+): [Basic Care]
Farm Chocobucks (Race and Chocobo Hot and Cold Game)		Baby: N/A		Adolescent: N/A		Adult: Hot and Cold Game + Free Runs. Amass chocobucks for Training Tokens.		Retired: Registered chocobo can still farm.

Forward

This guide serves as a supplement to existing Chocobo Raising and Racing guides. This includes explanations for chocobo stats, their limits, and how to raise them. The guide continues with a simple walkthrough, categorized by days, for building an all brawn, no brains, choco that should complete the side story and sometimes win the C1 Crystal Stakes cup.

Record keeping is encouraged but is not a hard requirement as feedback is readily available through NPCs and text.

This guide also assumes you’re actively using the Chocobo Raising and Racing guides across BGWiki, FFXIclopedia, and perhaps some data from Risae, Tinuvael, and many others posted from Zam.

Requirements and Unlocks

Get to it.

▷ Have your Chocobo License and unlock mounts

You likely already have this.

Riding your own chocobo from the Mount menu plays the chocobo theme “Dash de Chocobo” instead of the usual mount theme “Full Speed Ahead!” so look forward to that.

▷ Start growing Carrots and Greens

Grow Vomp Carrots in your garden furrow AND in your mog house. The carrots are not guaranteed and you need a LOT of them. Aim towards 6 stacks. Keep any other carrots and all azouph greens you end up farming as well. Your server will likely have few or none at all on the auction house.

▷ Get yourself a Somewhat Warm Egg from ISNM Compliments to the Chef

There’s a variety of ways to get an egg, like breeding, quests, and buying from merchants with an unreliable supply; but stomping an ISNM is quick.

You cannot tell what color you’re going to get. There’s also speculation from the masses that warm eggs produce faster growing birds and are more likely to be non-yellow. Color doesn’t matter and you can always dye feathers much later. We don’t really know, just get an egg.

▷ Pick a stable by standing in the Chocobo Circuit at the top of the hour and note which Nation is in First Place

This is only important if you want to do less travel if you’re farming Chocobucks between stables and the circuit. First place nations also get “better saddles” for racing as well as better items for training.

You will be able to farm chocobucks when you have an adult chocobo (explained later).

▷ Drop off your egg and get started with Chocobo Raising immediately

Get your egg and throw it into the stables as soon as possible. Chocobo raising is a lengthy process that will take at least two and a half months to complete.

You have plenty of time to scour the guides.

Chocobo Statistics and Abilities

You are not guaranteed to win every race with a maxed out bird, but you are guaranteed to lose every race with a poorly raised bird.

Stats

There are four statistics of the chocobo summarized as follows:

• Strength (STR) = Determines top speed. Rental chocobo are already bred to have this maxed out. You will not have a faster mount, but you can choose to have a slower one :) - Max this out.

• Endurance (END) = Determines “stamina”, how long the chocobo can maintain top speed during a race. Chocobo with low END reach their tired “sweating” condition sooner during races and have limited time to ride out in the fields. - Get it really high or just max it out.

• Discernment (DSC) = Determines pacing, which regulates stamina loss during races. Also increases the potential to learn abilities as some abilities require certain ranks in DSC. - Get it at least high enough to learn skills.

• Receptivity (RCP) = Determines evasion rate of attacks during races. Also contributes to breeding and passing along abilities. - Dump stat, but can make for a well rounded bird.

Other Stats Specific to Raising

• HP/Energy = Limits your actions per 24 hours.
• Hunger = Feed your choco to fill up the HP/Energy bar and do activities.
• Affection = How much they love you. Just keep it maxed out for smooth sailing. I can only imagine that a lack of affection will lead to poor training.

Levels and Limits

There’s some limits that are important to understand when playing with your bird.

This info comes from FFXIclopedia and experimental data from Allakhazam: it’s worked for me well enough.

Table I lists the different Ranks of stats that your chocobo can train towards. Each stat can be ranked as follows:

Table I - Arbitrary Grades and Point Ranges

The game will only feed you the list under “Description” when asking about your chocobo. The level, abbreviation, and point-range columns are put together by the community.

With this in mind:

• There appears to be a sum cap of 637 points.
• One can reach an effective sum "level" of 23 with careful planning.
• You get a total of 129 real life days to raise and train to the best of your ability. This is a combination of feeding, training, working, playing, and setting up “care plans” (more on this later).

Additional Limits Regarding Training:

• Care plans stop raising stats starting on Day 64 but training and feeding continue to raise stats.
• You can force retirement of your chocobo as early as Day 29 to halt training.
• Registration towards racing takes a “snapshot” of your chocobo’s stats, so if they raise, or lower, it won’t be reflected until you reregister.
• There are options to affect stats even after retirement but it requires heavy investments in chocobucks.

Abilities

A chocobo can only have 2 abilities

If you want to succeed in races, you’ll want the only two abilities that matter. These act like job traits.

• Gallop = Increases speed.
• Cantor = Increases stamina.

There are other abilities:

• Auto Regen = “regains energy” but does not affect chocobo digging.
• Treasure Finder = Improves Hot & Cold minigame
• Bore = Better loot when digging
• Burrow = Better loot when digging

Abilities are learned by telling your chocobo bed time stories. The stories themselves are naturally acquired throughout the experience.

Keep the limits in mind as you map out your chocobo raising experience.

Understanding the Chocobo Stables

Let’s break down the actions you can do at the chocobo stables.

Care for your Chocobo

These actions will use up “HP” for the day, so you’re limited on what you can do.

Talk to the chocobo NPC in the stables to get started.

[Available from the beginning]

• Watch over the Chocobo = Increase affection. Use to finish depleting stamina for the day.

[Available upon hatching]

• Scold the Chocobo = Cures “Stubbornness” and can wake a sleeping chocobo. Costs some affection.
• Go on a Walk (Short) = Meet random friends. On the third encounter with the same friend, gain “Story of..” Key Item. These are necessary for learning abilities.

[Available at adolescent]

• Tell a Story = Try to learn abilities (see Gallop and Cantor)
• Go on a Walk (Regular) = Unlock Compete against Others.
• Compete against Others = Cures “Boredom”

[Available as an adult]

• Go on a Walk (Long) = Unlock “Story of..” Key Item for getting CANTOR. Need to meet Brutus in the field three times.

Feed your Chocobo

Actively use all 10 flowerpots in your Mog House AND use the plots in the furrows of your Mog Garden to build a steady supply of Carrots and Greens.

Trade your feed to the VCS Chocobo Trainer to feed the chocobo.

Don’t overfeed the chocobo. Pay attention to the prompts and stop when they’re full.

Daily feeding will often resolve with to two vomp carrots or a combination of 1 vomp carrot and 1 “greens” for an intended effect.

DO keep on hand:

• Vomp Carrots - Raise STR and END by a “very tiny amount”. Farm them.
• Azouph Greens - Big affection boost and great filler when you’re running low on Vomp Carrots. You’ll likely pull these up when farming Vomp Carrots.
• Medicine - This includes greens to cure your chocobo when it’s injured, depressed, or horny. You are likely able to procure medicinal greens same-day to administer.
• Zegham Carrots - for when you wish to pivot towards DSC and RCP. Like Vomp, they raise by a “very tiny amount”.

Keep the bird fed, and maintain affection high. This will serve to benefit the effects of the Care Plans.

Regarding Status Conditions

Your chocobo will experience a variety of status conditions that need to be addressed most of the time (There are some beneficial ones).

When something appears abnormal, reference the wikis to administer the appropriate cure (1 carrot + 1 cure).

A Note on Chocolixirs

• ¹Chocolixir - If you really need to spend a LOT of time with your bird (like trying to learn an ability), you can feed a starving chocobo 1 Chocolixir to max their HP/Energy, use it all up, and feed another Chocolixir to do even more activities on the same day.

Set Up the Care Schedule

By far the most impactful way of raising your chocobo’s stats, and one that benefits from your chocobo’s affection levels.

Navigate the menus to select 4 activities and their duration. Both wikis use the following chart.

You will likely spam the same activity every day. Exceptions include rest when the chocobo is sick or injured.

If you fail to line up plans and allow the current set of plans to run their course entirely, the stables will default to “Basic Care”.

On Care Plans

If we continue to use those values in Table I, an approximation of growth can be seen in Table II

Table II - Care Plan Activities and Estimate Growth

Real days will progress, the chocobo will gain "some" amount of stats, those stats rank up, and you’re on your way to making a good racing bird.

Quick Review

• Keep food handy
• Check on your bird every day to maximize affection and maintain good health
• Check on the Care Plan
• Check for an assessment on the bird (review the stats) and record when you get a rank up
• Adjust plans accordingly and feed chocobo every day
• Aim for a bird with a sum total level of 23 across the stats (22 is good enough)

You get 129 days to make mistakes and learn. So let’s finally talk builds.

Making the “Speed Chocobo”

Day 0: EGG and more preparations

You don’t actually have to start a journal and keep hard records of things. It’s perfectly viable to run off of vibes and still pull off a high performing chocobo. If you choose to start a record, then I will stress that the above mentioned points are approximate.

If logging points, and you notice the rank just increases ahead of schedule, then readjust the numbers to fit the information.

• Get the egg in the stable.
• Stare at it a bunch of times if you want.
• Make sure you keep up with Carrot and Greens production.

Egg Phase lasts 4 days.

Day 5: Baby Chocobo

Days 5 through 19
All baby chocobo are the same color.

• CARE PLAN: TAKING A WALK
  Just have it permanently TAKING A WALK.

• ACTIVITY: Go on a Walk (Short) as many times as you can every day and start collecting Key Items. When you don’t have enough stamina to go walking anymore, then spam STARE until the HP bar is fully depleted.

Day 19: Adolescence

Adolescence lasts 10 days.
The tips of a bird’s tailfeathers will show what color it will be as an adult. Congrats if you got something other than yellow.

• CARE PLAN: CARRYING PACKAGES
  All the time.

• ACTIVITY: Go on a Walk (Medium) as many times as you can followed by Go on a Walk (Short), and again back to STARE until all depleted.
  

Don’t be afraid to scold or compete when the situation calls for it.

Day 30: Adulthood

Adulthood lasts from Day 30 to 129 or retirement, whichever comes first.

• CARE PLAN: CARRYING PACKAGES until STR and END are both “First Class”.
  Give it three more days of CARRYING PACKAGES to give STR and END some buffer so it doesn’t drop rank when focusing DSC.

• ACTIVITY: Go on a Walk (Long) as many times as you can followed by Go on a Walk (Medium), and so on to keep affection up. Try to unlock more Key Items. .

Also Day 30: Register for Racing

• Register with a nation.
• Get your VCS Registration Card and register for races.
• Reregister as needed as stats and abilities improve.
• Push Official Races when you’re strong enough. Size up on official Circuit Races (C4) and slowly learn the ropes for PVP Racing even though you're up against the cpu most of the time.
• Do “Free Runs” in order to farm Chocobucks as you will need a LOT of it moving forward.

Day 3X: Register for Riding

The Chocobo Whistle Quest will pop up at some point during raising. Refer to BGWiki to complete it. It may take a few days to pull off.

Trade your Chocobo Whistle to Mapitoto (Mount NPC) once you have the KI and your chocobo will be registered as a mount.

Day 4X: Pivot to DSC at SS/SS/F/F

It's possible to reach this earlier or later than the 40s. This is fine. Chocobo Raising has a lot of wiggle room for error with the 129 days.

The goal here is to maintain First Class (SS) STR and END while bumping up DSC high enough to learn Gallop and Cantor.

• CARE PLAN: BASIC CARE
  Allows a steady increase in all stats until Day 64.

• Spend Chocobucks on DSC Training Tokens which "feels" like +5 to the stat. It takes a lot of tokens and it's very expensive. Hopefully you've been farming. In my records, I used a total of 24 Race Chocobo Training Token: DSC, which is worth 2160 chocobucks. Some of them were purchased on the Auction House.

• Starting at “A Bit Deficient” (D), start spamming books at the bird.

• ACTIVITY: Story Telling until they learn Gallop and Cantor.

They might level up DSC a couple more times.

DSC at “Better than Average” (B) is a good enough stopping point with a sum level of 22 as an SS/SS/B/F. You can push for an “Impressive” (A) but it will pull from the other stats and I’m not sure what the priority is on that.
A higher end of SS in STR is noticeably faster than the lower end of SS in STR.

Day 7X+: RACE

Once you’ve achieved your lvl 22 or 23 bird, get your registration cards, retire the bird, and go reregister your bird's final form.

Assuming you’re with the 1rst place nation, always use the highest tier Saddle available, always have a “speed apple” equipped, and then just PRAY that you win since despite everything, it’s all still luck based.

Bonus: Digging Chocobo Plan

We have mounts. They’re just as fast as rental chocobos. It makes perfect sense to create a solid Digging Chocobo to exclusively use for digging despite the lack of running speed.

We’ll want high END and DSC

CARE PLAN:

1. LISTENING TO MUSIC ⇒ EXHIBITING TO THE PUBLIC until (SS) for DSC and RCP.
2. Burn about 5 more days into EXHIBITING TO THE PUBLIC to max out the (SS) value
3. CARRYING PACKAGES will boost STR and END while burning DSC and RCP. STOP the moment DSC and RCP drop to (S)
4. BASIC CARE
5. IF DSC and RCP are not (SS) by Day 64, THEN use R Choco Train DSC and RCP to close the gap.
6. Pump R Choco Train END until (B) rank. Good enough.

If you REALLY want to MinMax, go (A) on END, and pray you don’t lose stats in DSC and RCP. It might turn into a game of schlepping Choco trains until you get the appropriate spread of stats at F/A/SS/SS.

Additional Info

Chocobo Appearance

Your bird can have some different features if their stats are high enough. Some sources say a value of “29” others say “Average” (96). You can have multiple appearance features on the same bird.

• High STR = Larger claws.

• High END = Additional tail feathers.

• High DSC = Larger beak and head plumes.

• High RCP = Absolutely nothing.

Dying Feathers

They cost chocobucks

You can buy dyes and apply them to your bird. Reregister your bird afterwards and it’ll take on the color for your mount.

Red dyed bird with large claws and extra tail plumage

I’m not going over Racing Silks. They also cost chocobucks and have their own effects.

Kamp Kweh

Form a party with people also raising chocobo. Watch the chocobos interact with one another. It’s cute and I barely know anything about it. It’s possible to gain some stat boosts through this activity.