chocobos have three color genes, and the color is determined by a combination thereof. For instance, if a chocobo has x2 of the same color gene, it will be that color. If it has red/blue/green genes, the colors can be yellow or black(possibly a third color?) depending on the order of the genes. The warmths of the eggs express the percentage of color, and the percents for the distribution of genes.
Let me explain this table a bit. It shows the % chance of the gene ratio distribution, and % chance of colors. This is essentially the formula the ISNM eggs take. It works the same way for bred eggs, but you know the parents so you know that if you mate two blue chocobos for example, you're likely going to receive a
I suppose I should say good luck finding people to do these nowadays, but if you have a solid group of friends and some leftover Imperial Standing, you're ready to get started.
You can also obtain chocobo eggs by breeding. The egg's warmth varies depending on many factors.
For the best results, it is recommended you find two chocobos of the color you want (male and female), who also have the ability you want to inherit. Keep in mind a chocobo can only inherit
ability. You can inherit the ability in either slot, but it seems you have a greater chance to inherit the one in the first slot.
It is also a bonus to find at least one parent with Receptivity C+, preferably the gender the corresponds with the stat up effect you wish to receive(these are based on honeymoon plans).
Honeymoon Plans:
These plans are crucial to the development of your chocobo. The increased stat gains cause your chocobo's enhanced stat to be about a level~a level and a half above what they would normally be. It is possible that having such a large bonus is dependent on other factors such as egg warmth or the parent's stats.
Gourmet Plan: Increased chance the resulting chick will be male. The chocobo's strength will increase at an accelerated rate.
Sports Plan: Increased chance the resulting chick will inherit abilities from the father. The chocobo's endurance will increase at an accelerated rate.
Hiking Plan: Increased chance the resulting chick will be female. The chocobo's discernment will increase at an accelerated rate.
Jeuno Tour Plan: Increased chance the resulting chick will inherit abilities from the mother. The chocobo's receptivity will increase at an accelerated rate.
Chocobo Feed
It is very important to consider your budget and resources when picking food for your chocobo. The food I have listed in the below care plans is the optimal food, but I understand that for some people
Vomp carrot all day e'rry day isn't going to work. I will try to alleviate some of these problems my listening alternatives, and giving you information on what each item does.
Cheap Food
bunch of gysahl greens: satisfy the chocobo's hunger (moderate amount) and increase the chocobo's affection slightly. If you don't have gil to spend on food, this is going to be your bread and butter. They're very cheap and can be bought off the auction house for ~500gil a stack, and can be purchased off
various vendors, including ones located very close if not inside the stables for 61~70gil a piece.
Three will completely fill a starving chocobo.
San d'Orian carrot: raises Endurance (by 1?) and lowers Strength (by 1?), according to
FFXIclopedia. JP Wiki states that it raises all stats by a small amount. I'd use this food with caution until I gather more information about it. If you cannot afford other carrots, personally I'd stick to a strict Gysahl Greens diet.
Three will completely fill a starving chocobo.
Stat-Raising Food
It's possible to acquire these foods through various means. I highly suggest that you garden your food if your character(s) are more than three months old, and you have a supply of mules to garden with.
You may purchase
bag of wildgrass seeds from
Khaf Jhifanm in Aht Urhgan Whitegate inside the south-most port. Use
earthen flowerpot if you want a cheap pot, but
wooden flowerpot yields significantly better results. Check your plants every day else they'll wither and die, and feed them
earth crystal if you want
Vomp carrot, and
ice crystal if you want
Zegham carrot,
bunch of Sharug greens and
bunch of Azouph greens.
On some servers, people sell the feed through the AH, but I found this is a bit unreliable. Most servers will have a character who bazaars chocobo feed for profit, and they're usually sitting outside the most popular stables.
If you cannot garden or find someone willing to sell you the food, you're for the most part screwed. You can race your chocobo when it reaches adulthood to earn chocobucks to buy food, but I find that the food is overpriced, and by the time your chocobo is already an adult it's a bit too late to be worrying about top-notch food. If you had a chocobo before this, this is a viable option.
Vomp carrot: increases Strength and Endurance by a small amount(0.5?). This is the absolute best physical food you can feed your chocobo.
Three will completely fill a starving chocobo.
Zegham carrot: increases Discernment and Receptivity by a small amount(0.5?). This is the absolute best mental food you can feed your chocobo.
Three will completely fill a starving chocobo.
bunch of Sharug greens: satisfy the chocobo's hunger (moderate amount) and increase the chocobo's affection dramatically. Also raises a chocobo's physical stats slightly. Best paired with Vomp Carrots when using vigorous training regimes.
Feed x2 Sharug Greens -> x2 Vomp Carrots, one by one. Four will completely fill a starving chocobo.
bunch of Azouph greens: satisfy the chocobo's hunger (highest amount) and increase the chocobo's affection dramatically. Also raises a chocobo's mental stats slightly. Best paired with Zegham Carrots when using vigorous training regimes.
Feed x2 Zegham Carrots -> x1 Azouph Greens, one by one. Two will completely fill a starving chocobo.
Other Food
These foods do various things, from healing your chocobo from an illness, to restoring their energy.
clump of Tokopekko wildgrass: is used to treat illnesses.
clump of Garidav wildgrass: is used to alleviate stomach aches. You should never need to use this if you portion your food correctly.
clump of Gausebit wildgrass: is used to treat injuries.
cupid worm: is used to increase the chocobo's affection by a substantial amount (about +3 levels) and lowers one of your highest stats by a small amount. This effect is canceled when the bird is perky or in high spirits. This is only useful if you forget to take care of your chocobo for a while, you hopefully will never need to use one.
gregarious worm: is used to restore about 1/4 the chocobo's energy, completely filling the chocobo. Chocolixirs are a superior way to fill your energy bar, so there's no reason to use this ever.
parasite worm: lowers a random stat and allows your bird to eat more. It is used to change one of your chocobo's color genes. Really only useful if you're raising a bird that came from a NPC egg and you're hoping for color.
bowl of lethe potage: is used to erase unwanted abilies. Amount needed to feed varies from 1 to 6, and the effect is immediate. Useful for if your chocobo was born with an ability you don't want.
Note that once you erase an ability, you can't get the story back to re-lean it, assuming it wasn't born with the ability.
bowl of lethe consomme: is used to erase unwanted abilies. Amount needed to feed varies from 1 to 6, and the effect is immediate. Useful for if your chocobo was born with an ability you don't want.
Note that once you erase an ability, you can't get the story back to re-lean it, assuming it wasn't born with the ability.
chocolixir: when used will restore the chocobo's energy to full (provided it is given when the chocobo is not full), and completely heal all status ailments.
Two will completely fill a starving chocobo.
chocotonic: is used to wake up a sleeping chocobo, slightly lowering affection. This was introduced as a way to fix the bird from the sleep glitch.
celerity salad: effective in curing most status abnormalities, and restores some health to the chocobo. Increases Discernment slightly.
ball of carrot paste: is feed for chicks that raises physical attributes, and fills the chick up rapidly, but lowers Discernment. Will lower affection if fed to a chocobo that is not a chick.
I do not recommend this food.
ball of herb paste: is feed for chicks that cures illness. Will lower affection if fed to a chocobo that is not a chick.
I do not recommend this food.
ball of vegetable paste: is feed for chicks, and increases affection. Will lower affection if fed to a chocobo that is not a chick.
I do not recommend this food.
ball of worm paste: is feed for chicks. Will heal it slightly while increasing energy. It dramatically increases affection, but lowers it's stats. Will lower affection if fed to a chocobo that is not a chick.
I do not recommend this food.
Choosing a Stable
Many overlook this part of chocobo raising, and just stick their eggs in their home nation. This isn't wrong, but I'd look into what each city has in store for your chocobo. Nowadays, getting to the various cities isn't exactly rocket science. If you really feel the need to change nations, go for it.
Learning stories earlier than normal isn't always that important, but giving your chocobo a weather preference is crucial for both racing and digging chocobos.
Racers tend to do well with a rain preference, and I strongly recommend you raise one in Bastok or San d'Oria if you plan to be serious about your chocobo. If you're looking into San d'Oria, try and set up your adolescence around rainy season. The seasons are based on a system similar to our months, and rainy season is spring. I think it takes about 4 real life days to go through a season, but I'm not too sure.
Diggers have a chance to dig up rarer items, and items more frequently while in the weather of their preference. However, you receive the opposite effect in weathers it dislikes. Research the items that are most profitable on your server, and make your weather preference match the zone you wish to dig in the most.
San d'Oria
Trade your egg to Hantileon if you choose to start your chocobo here
Can acquire the story for
Gallop on short walks.
Can acquire the story for
Burrow on regular walks.
Has a chance to encounter
wind weather on regular walks.
Has a chance to encounter
rain weather on regular and long walks.
Has a chance to encounter
lightning weather on long walks.
Bastok
Trade your egg to Zopago if you choose to start your chocobo here
Can acquire the story for
Burrow on short walks.
Has a chance to encounter
earth weather on regular walks.
Has a chance to encounter
lightning weather on regular and long walks.
Has a high chance to encounter
rain weather on long walks.
Windurst
Trade your egg to Pulonono if you choose to start your chocobo here
Can acquire the story for
Bore on short walks.
Has a chance to encounter
wind weather on regular walks.
Has a high chance to encounter
earth weather on regular and long walks.
Has a small chance to encounter
fire weather on long walks.
Raising Your Chocobo
No matter if you want a racer, digger, or even a basic rider, raising a chocobo is the same during the beginning. You'll need to take into account your goals at a later date (around adulthood), but for now the way you wish to raise it is purely based on aesthetics.
Once you've got a vague idea of what you want to do with your chocobo, we're ready to start.
Egg and Chick
**Each real life day starts from the exact moment you traded your egg, not JP midnight.**
If you've raised your chocobo before, you should pick up
green racing silks, otherwise you should grab it once your chocobo is an adult. It's an excellent item to enhance the effectiveness of chocobo raising.
The absolute most important thing you can do for your chocobo is to watch it 100~150x during it's egg phase. I cannot stress this enough. You don't have to do it all in one day--you have four days to do so, starting from the exact time you traded your egg. You however
must do this. Doing this caps your Chocobo's affection--which is normally difficult to do--giving you an easier time raising your chocobo.
Alright, so four days have passed and your chocobo hatches. It's now when it'll tell you whether it's a male or female, and whether or not it learned any abilities. You won't know what color it is until it hits adolescence. I suggest naming your chocobo immediately if you plan to do Kamp Kweh, otherwise I'd wait until you know what color it is so you can give it a cute color-name.
DO NOT FEED YOUR CHOCOBO... after it hatches, it is completely full. If you feed it, you will potentially upset it's stomach, and it'll be a very, very sad chocobo. Now's when you set your chocobo's care schedule. This is the most important part about chocobo raising, since it gives you the most stat gains.
To access your care plan, talk to your chocobo trainer, then select
Set up a care schedule.
Which care plan you set depends entirely on how you want your chocobo to look when it grows up. Most people raising racers want to go with the traditional
'racing' look--fluffy tail feathers and sharp claws. If you wish to have a chocobo that looks like that, then set your care plan to
Taking a Walk. Do seven days and fill up all the slots. You'll need to remember to check this again later, as you don't want your care plan switching to basic care.
If you desire your chocobo to look
more intellectual, with a large beak and fluffy head feathers, you're going to want to set your care plan to
Listening to Music.
For the end-result of your chocobo, it doesn't matter much which stats you choose to raise first. If you're raising a chocobo strictly for PC Cup races, I do not recommend raising it's INT stats first, since those chocobos do not raise receptivity. However, all other racers--especially if it's your first racing chocobo--will require moderate receptivity to win a Pullus Torque and gain Solo Victory Points. I should note that it is entirely possible to place first in a C1 race with a chocobo with receptivity. Diggers of course will benefit from high-mind stats, but they also will need some physical ones as well.
Now that you have your care plans set, it's time to care for your chocobo. To do this, talk to your chocobo trainer, and select
Care for your chocobo. You'll have the options
Watch over the Chocobo,
Scold the Chocobo and
Go on a Walk (short). For
Go on a Walk (short), it doesn't matter if you choose
Leisurely or
Brisk. They have the same effects,
Brisk just skips the cutscene.
You're going to want to spam
Go on a Walk (short) until you're unable to, then spam
Watch over the Chocobo until it's out of HP.
Going on a walk raises it's affection and endurance slightly, while watching over your chocobo raises affection slightly. Spamming watches will help deplete your energy bar completely, which will allow you to eat three carrots the following day. If you do not completely drain the energy bar, you will only be allowed to feed it two carrots. There's talk about how if you completely drain your chocobo's energy it has a higher chance of getting sick and whatnot--I'm pretty sure it's complete BS. It's just random. And you're hurting yourself more by not getting in that extra carrot.
Day two onward, you start your day by talking to the chocobo trainer. He'll tell you the success (or failure) of your care plans, and if your chocobo has any statuses. Statuses can be positive or negative, we're going to ignore this for now, I'll come back to it later. If your chocobo does have a negative status ailment on day two, you'll potentially need to feed it a status-curing item along with it's normal food plan. I'll discuss this shortly. Assuming everything is normal, move on to the next step.
On day two it's finally time to feed your chocobo. If you're using
Taking a Walk care plan, feed your chocobo
Vomp carrot one at a time(you do this by trading the item to the trainer). Stop feeding it when it says that your chocobo is
completely full. Feeding it something potent(such as
bunch of Azouph greens or a carrot) at
quite full will not cause it to have any stomach aches, so don't worry. You should easily be able to feed your chocobo three carrots a day.
If your chocobo is on
Listening to Music, feed it three
Zegham carrot one by one as stated previously.
Your typical days consist of this routine:
Check your chocobo. If it has a status ailment, what is it?
Ill: feed it
clump of Tokopekko wildgrass after feeding it it's appropriate food minus one item.
Injured: feed it
clump of Gausebit wildgrass after feeding it it's appropriate food minus one item.
Lovesick: feed it a
celerity salad after feeding it it's appropriate food minus one item.
Bored: Compete against Others.
Spoiled: Scold the Chocobo(once).
These are the most common negative ailments your chocobo will experience. More statuses can be found
here, most of which won't happen unless you neglect your chocobo. Hopefully you won't experience those.
If your chocobo doesn't have a status ailment, you're free to feed it it's regular food.
After your chocobo's fed, it's time to care for it directly. Once you're finished with that, it's always a good idea to check your care plans and make sure that they're set. It takes a day (after the day you set it) for the care plan to take affect, so be careful!
Kamp Kweh
I highly recommend participating in this
event daily. If you have a friend with a chocobo in the same stables as yours, nag them to party with you, and talk to one of the following NPCs:
Gerahja(Bastok),
Fonteloube(San d'Oria), and
Shaty-Monty.
Once you're done nagging your friend, make sure they're in the same zone otherwise this won't work. You both have to have checked your chocobo that day, and they need to be named. Once all that is taken care of, talk to your NPC. You're given a bunch of options:
Call your chocobo,
Let it play with others,
Check the chocobos' vitals,
Check mating compatibility, and
Nothing.
Usually I start my visit with
Call your chocobo. I don't know if it does anything, but I do it anyway. It's possible it's affection+, but I have no way to prove or disprove this.
After that I'll do
Let it play with others. This will trigger a cute CS of the chocobos playing together and you may receive a stat-up. You can only receive one stat up per day(resets at JP-midnight), and it seems if you don't get a stat up with the first chocobo you play with, you won't get one for the rest of the day. These stat ups include:
Your chocobo's strength has slightly improved(STR),
Your chocobo has become slightly more patient(END),
Your chocobo has become slightly more intelligent(DSC), and
Your chocobo has become slightly more receptive(RCP).
The other options are fun to do.
Check the chocobos' vitals allows you to view your chocobo's information and your friend's in a nice easy to read layout.
Check mating compatibility will show you what color your chick will be if you mate the two chocobos, and you can do this once every day(resets at JP-midnight). If the parent chocobo is still a chick, it'll show it as a yellow chocobo regardless of it's actual color. The color of the chick may change daily depending on your genes. For example, my chocobo(blue) and my friend's chocobo(red) did mating compatibility quite frequently for funsies. Usually the chick turned out red, but occasionally it'd turn out to be green.
Nothing will quit you out of Kamp Kweh when you're finished.
Adolescence
Yay! You finally know what color your chocobo is. It'll either be
yellow,
red,
blue,
green, or
black! If you haven't given your chocobo a
name, you should do so.
Once your chocobo reaches adolescence, it has more care and careplan options. You may now
Tell a Story
(DSC+),
Go on a Walk (regular)(affection+ END+) and
Compete against Others(STR+).
If you're going for physical stats, you have your choice of two regular walks and a bunch of watching your chocobo, or a mix of compete against others, walks and watching.
If your goal is to raise mental stats, you should spam
Tell a Story, and make sure it's either random chit-chat, or a story you want your chocobo to learn. Nothing is worse than accidentally learning an ability you didn't want to learn. Deplete the rest of your chocobo's HP bar by spamming watches as usual.
As for the new care plans, you gain access to
Exercise Alone,
Exercise in a Group,
Interact with Children,
Interact with Other Chocobos,
Carry Packages, and
Exhibit to the Public.
If your chocobo is raising physical stats, switch your care plan to
Carry Packages. If raising mental stats, switch to
Exhibit to the Public. Set it to 7 days, all slots. You'll need to check this again before your chocobo reaches adulthood otherwise it'll switch to
Basic Care.
Continue feeding your chocobo three of the appropriate carrots, and you're good to go until it reaches adulthood.
Adult
Now that your chocobo's an adult, you need to plan out it's future. I can give you tips and feedback, but this is ultimately your decision. I'll do my best to make this an informed one.
To make such a decision, you must understand the stats, and their effects as well as understanding how to allot points towards each stat to make your chocobo the best it can be.
Chocobo Attributes
Strength: is a physical stat which on the field affects your chocobo's movement speed. In races, it affects both it's base speed and top speed.
Endurance: is a physical stat which on the field affects your chocobo's riding time. In races, it affects how long you can maintain top speed.
Discernment: is a mental stat which on the field affects your chocobo's ability to find items while digging. During chocobo raising, various amounts of DSC are necessary to learn abilities. For racing, DSC allows you the chance to leave the gate early, and higher DSC allows your chocobo to pace itself so it doesn't burn all of it's Endurance at once.
Receptivity: is a mental stat that affects your chocobo's ability to communicate with other chocobos. It increases your chocobo's chance to pass down abilities to it's young through breeding. In races, it affects your ability to dodge attacks, and potentially increases your offensive item accuracy. It is also possible that higher receptivity increases the likelihood of meeting other chocobos during walks.
Attribute Points
Please reference the chart below, it displays the stats a chocobo has, and the number of points it takes to obtain it.
Physical and mental attributes have a combined hard cap of 637 points. Please take this into consideration while choosing a stat distribution for your bird. For
Cup races it's possible to break the 637 cap by using saddles, which explains why you'll sometimes see chocobos racing there with seemingly impossible stats.
Note: a bird with 224 points in STR and a bird with 255 points in STR will have noticeably different top speeds.
Attribute Levels
| Level | Description | Abbreviation | Point Range |
| 1 | Poor | F | 0-31 |
| 2 | Substandard | E | 32-63 |
| 3 | A bit deficient | D | 64-95 |
| 4 | Average | C | 96-127 |
| 5 | Better than average | B | 128-159 |
| 6 | Impressive | A | 160-191 |
| 7 | Oustanding | S | 192-223 |
| 8 | First-Class | SS | 224-255 |
To give you an idea how to build your chocobo, here's some examples of racing chocobo stats. An extra letter added to one of the stats means that the stat is hardcapped or within a few points from it. SSS/B/A/D, SS/B/A/C, SSS/C/AA/C, SSS/E/SSS/C, and SSS/S/B/D are some of the builds I have witnessed in races.
If you want a
chocobo pullus torque, or you just want to rack up
Solo Victory Points, SS/B/A/C will give you the easiest time achieving your goal. If you're trying to win C1 races, you're going to have to be a bit more creative, and examine your competition. For instance, if you have a lot of NPCs in the race, you'll want at least D receptivity, preferably C. If you're racing against a bunch of PCs, receptivity isn't a huge factor.
A digger chocobo's build is a bit more set in stone. SSSing Discernment and Endurance is your main priority, all other stats coming secondary.
Abilities
All race chocobos regardless of what their goal is will want to have the abilities
Gallop and
Canter. If you cannot learn Canter for whatever reason,
Auto-Regen is a suitable replacement. It's not as great, but it's better than nothing.
The most common abilities taught to digger chocobos are
Bore and
Burrow. However, the decision to teach your chocobo bore/burrow should not be made lightly. These abilities allow the chocobo to dig up items normally unavailable. Some of these rare items are profitable, but some are not. Since digging these items will cause your chocobo to fatigue faster, it'll potentially reduce your profit margin.
The abilities however increase the rate of successful digs since the pool of items you can dig is much larger. You should research the profitable dig sites and see if these abilities benefit your chocobo before you teach it to them.
Capping Your Bird
Hopefully you understand the basics of your chocobo's stats, and what each of the attributes mean. Now it's time to pick a build and stick with it. If you've looked over the
care plans, you'll notice that because each plan lowers certain stats, that it'll be very hard to actually have high physical and mind stats just based on the care plans alone. It's actually impossible.
The only way to fully cap your chocobo is to invest in
chocotrains. The easiest way to go about obtaining them is to spam
Free Runs which is explained in the racing section. Alternatively, you may obtain chocobucks via
Chocobo Hot and Cold or Cup Races.
To obtain chocotrains, talk to your nation's
VCS Chocobuck Exchange Center NPC.
Pabelle(San d'Oria),
Gavoroi(Bastok), and
Robino-Mobino(Windurst) are happy to assist you in making improvements to your chocobo.
Talk to your nation's NPC, and ask them about
Raising Attributes & Dying Feathers. Select the 80 chocobucks option, and select the stat which you wish to raise. Keep in mind it takes about 9 sessions to raise a stat by one letter grade.
If you have access to a secondary account, or have someone who will sell you
race chocobo training tokens, you can acquire these tradeable/AHable trains for use on your own chocobo.
race chocobo training token randomly raises a stat, while
race chocobo training token: STR,
race chocobo training token: END,
race chocobo training token: DSC,
race chocobo training token: RCP, raises their respective stats. As long as your chocobo is still actively being raised (IE, not retired), all you have to do is trade these chocotrains to your nation's
VCS Chocobuck Exchange Center NPC, and let them know that you indeed wish to raise this chocobo's attributes.
Alternatively, if your chocobo is retired, as them about
Purchasable Items. Select the 100 chocobucks option, and select the stat which you wish to raise. To turn in, trade it along with your
VCS Registration Card to the
VCS Chocobuck Exchange Center vendor. I should note that these chocotrains are not as potent as ones for un-retired chocobos.
Food and Care
Depending on your chocobo's current condition and what you plan to do with it in the future, your food and care will change accordingly.
If you're currently raising physical stats, feed your chocobo
bunch of Sharug greens x2,
Vomp carrot x2. Your Care plan should be set to
Carrying packages unless STR or END is severely lagging behind. If that's the case you'd pick
Delivering messages to increase STR, or
Exercising in a group to increase END. Once your STR/END reach S or SS you should switch plans to increases your other stats.
However, if you're currently focusing on your chocobo's mental attributes, you should be feeding your bird
Zegham carrot x2,
bunch of Azouph greens x1. For care plans, I would recommend
Digging for Treasure, then if you plan to raise RCP use chocotrains (assuming you started with physical attributes first) otherwise
Exhibiting to the public is an option to raise both DSC and RCP at the same time. Once your DSC/RCP reach S or SS you should switch plans to increase your other stats.
Adult: Day 64+
After day 64, your chocobo's stats will not raise any further via careplans. The VRS Trainer will note how distinguished your chocobo appears.
Switch your careplan from whatever it was to Basic Care. Ideally, you should change your careplan before day 64 so that it rolls over to Basic Care right when day 64 hits, but this isn't extremely important.
Once your chocobo is on the Basic Care plan, you no longer should need to feed it greens daily to keep its affection capped. You should still monitor your chocobo's condition daily, and adjust your feeding habits as you see fit.
Feed your chocobo x3 carrots of whichever kind fits your stat growths, and spam whichever
care for your chocobo you need. If your chocobo's stats are capped, feel free to feed your chocobo three
bunch of gysahl greens daily until retirement.
You're still able to acquire stories and learn them, so if you need to I suggest doing so.
If you're trying for a weather preference, continue doing so. Creating a mule and sitting it outside of your chosen zone is the most effective method I've found for doing this.
You should keep doing Free Runs and capping off your Chocobo's stats if they're not to your liking.
Your chocobo is force retired on day 129, so make sure you get everything done that you need to get done before then. You can still raise your chocobo's stats with chocotrains, but they're not as potent.
