Chocobo Racing

[Jem]

Do you think this covering is worth using?

On one hand, Choco Cure III. On other hand, I could get royally shafted on stats.



EDIT: My choco has the following parentage

[Karbuncle]

So, I'd like to ask about the basics Chocobo Breeding. I know theres Rank 1 through 9 you can buy from the NPC.. I guess higher Rank = better Stats/Pedigree? If so, Can my beginner chocobo breed with a Rank9 or do I have to go in some order? Is it just smarter to breed with a R-4/5 since it seems to take a Pokemon route to breeding (Selects from either Mother or Fathers "Stat" and passes it down to child), and its cheaper to get a decent bird using that ranking and then working up?

[Jem]

You can only go up 1 Pedigree at a time. I think all buying a higher covering does is increase your chances at better stats. Lucavi advise to buy a covering 2 higher than your current choco.

Also don't need an answer that last question, bought another covering and got this. Obviously becomes a no brainer. Although new question, should I be hoping for Head Start or Choco Cure III?

[Lucavi]

@Jem: I wouldn't roll the dice on that one. Too many bad rolls on stats to make up for a 50% chance at getting that good skill.

@Karb: Higher ranks of covering = higher rank skills. I'm not sold on the better stats. Maybe a better % of getting favorable stats, but its not a guarantee at all. Its much smarter if you're trying to save MGP to go with a lower grade, especially since you'll only ever gain one pedigree at a time - there's no skipping. Going higher pedigree only ensures that you'll be having that 50% chance at a higher level ability as far as anyone can confirm at this point and time.

@Jem: Both are nice. Choco Cure III is 9% stamina every time you use it, and if you get a lot of aethers, you wont run out of gas ever. Head start burns more stamina but starts you off at top speed, so you can entirely ignore accel (you should anyway as its nowhere near as useful as other stats, IMO).

[Karbuncle]

Mmk, That covers about all the questions I have. Think I'll start breeding when I hit 40 then. Thank ya both.

[Korialstrasz]

So I'm at the part now where I'm buying multiple covering permissions and picking the best out of them, but just for fun I decided to breed my bird again while I got the current one to 40. Got the bird back, and it was a shitty 2/4/1/1/1 layout so I obviously retired it at lvl 1.

You know that happy cutscene you get when you retire a 40+? You don't get that if you retire early <_<; The game has successfully filled me with sadness and regret over the um... "removal" of a digital pixel bird.

Spoiler: show

Soylent gysahl green is chocobo

[Lucavi]

Choco Ease 2 at level 18 on a P9 bird. Looks like the higher the pedigree, the lower the level you can start learning solid tier II and III abilities.

Edit: ...Yeah... I felt reeeeally bad when I had to retire my P8 3/3/2/4/3 bird that I made as a backup to my original P8 that I decided to keep. A bird with a statline like that didn't deserve to be chopped up and served for dinner.

[Jem]

I swear my RNG stats for luck is awful.

Ped 1 : 2/2/2/2/2 (obviously)
Ped 2 : 2/2/2/2/2
Ped 3 : 2/2/2/2/2
Ped 4 : 2/4/2/2/2 (It could 3/4/4/3/2 so I only rolled 1 good side)

[Shaano]

What role does cunning play? Just sent my first bird off to hump another :D

[Jem]

It's basically cornering ability. It's how much speed you lose whenever you move out of lane or turn a corner. I assume it affects the control slightly too but as all my birds have had low cunning I'm not sure what a good cunning bird feels like.

[Judai]

Yea, that's basically it but your bird switches lanes much easier as well, I think higher cunning feels pretty good as your bird moves much easier. I know the one bird I had with terrible cunning was awful to use and couldn't win until I fed it to raise it's cunning up. People bitch about the controls and the birds feeling sluggish and I keep telling them, that's the shit cunning stat and it gets better as that goes up but they don't get it and just say it's shit controls.

[Jem]

Having an undesirable stat way higher than the rest seems such a pain. Rolled 2/4/2/2/2 so just from natural level ups my Acceleration is almost double the rest of my stats and it feels awful as with Head Start it's not even getting put to much use. So I get into the lead and then slowly get caught due to a lack of Max Speed.

Hopefully as I level up it gets less significant but it feels so bad right now.

[Lucavi]

You will love high cunning from R240 onward. I will love Acceleration never, so long as I have head start. I'll take accel for when I dont, and having it high means I'll never have to even sniff putting a point into it, but give me 4 star speed/end/stam with a 3 in cunning and I'd dance a jig even if I ended up with 1 accel.

[Jem]

Yeah it feels like such a sack of shit. Despite being statistically my best chocobo so far, it feels like by far the worst and most grindy as I can't consistently win (I do tend to do just as well at R100 as R80 at least). I'm thinking of throwing some higher grade food at it in order to try make it less terrible. Before I went to bed last night I was even thinking of rebreeding.

This is what it looks like right now (0 training put into Accel)



I would have taken extra stars in anything else but accel if given the choice. At least the cunning would have been more useful.

[Lucavi]

Throw a few grade 2's into your speed and you'll be fine.

Edit: Oh, Lord. R300. Revenge of Joe. Teioh (the real one). Oh, God.

[Jem]

Yeah it worked out fine after a few Grade 2's into speed. It's at 37 right now because I fell asleep trying to make 40, will finish it off after work.

I've been using Lethe Water religiously from 29>40 every choco and I think higher tier abilities turning up is based on Choco Rating rather than level (or maybe both). I didn't see a single Tier 2 ability until my Ped 4 Choco which gets them frequently on reset. So I would hazard a guess that they start unlocking somewhere around the R80-90 range (Ped 4 was R94 at level 29 which was when I first got one). I can't remember what my Ped 3 one was but I know it reached R120 races late so it probably didn't break R80 until mid-high 30's.

And that is good news with Teioh! I had been wondering why the choco wasn't named the same! Now we know.


EDIT: Also I feel Chocobo Ease is probably underrated. I got Choco Ease 2 and it seems to give back like 7-10% stamina whenever I get heavied. And you can manipulate yourself into getting heavied (leaving boxes, firing into reflect, deliberately hitting obstacles). So it's basically a slightly less reliable Choco Cure 3

[Jem]

If you rolled a Chocobo with the stats 2/4/1/4/2 and Head Start would you use it? (Ped 5) The retired chocobo base isn't great for reference (2-2 / 3-4 / 2-4 / 2-4 / 2-2)

EDIT: Nvm did a rebreed and got 4/4/1/3/2. Basically the same but slightly better, will use that and just dump into stam/end I guess.

[Lucavi]

So P9 is the cap, in case no one on reddit has confirmed it yet. A P9 with a P9 yields a P9. If I get a strong enough male bird this time I'll breed it with my female P9 and see what I get.

Trying to hurry and get enough 4's in the good spots to start using nothing but grade 3 food.

[Korialstrasz]

There's going to be so much inbreeding that by the end of this, Eorzea is going to be filled with birds with 2 heads, 3 wings, half a beak and flippers for feet.

[Lucavi]

Considering how there are literally NPCs in the choco square that talk about why the gold saucer serves so many chicken dishes... I don't think many people mind that much.