Chocobo Raising
As it is important for a cook to save every bit of gil they can, it is also important to use your time efficiently as possible in all of the traveling you must do. Raising your own chocobo is one of the ways to speed up your movement throughout Vana'diel.
Chocobo Raising Page Contents
Why Should A Cook Raise A Chocobo?
Cooks often will find themselves traveling throughout the world to get ingredients at the lowest NPC prices. This is why I have included so many tips on how to travel and get around the world the fastest. Another method of speedy travel I highly recommend is raising a Chocobo of your own so you can call it while in the field to move from one destination to another much faster then without.
Having your own chocobo has many benefits such as:
- Tailoring your chocobo to your wants and needs through the raising process via stats and abilities.
- Being able to call a chocobo at any time in the world in any area you could normally ride a chocobo, except no drudging around looking for a crag or town.
- You can train your chocobo to be faster than a rental mount.
- You can train your chocobo to dig up rare items, this includes cooking ingredients.
- Once you raise the chocobo with the stats you want most, you will be able to call him/her for your lifetime in Vana'diel, even after your chocobo retires.
On this page I will give you some aspects of general chocobo raising. After which I will discuss with directly how I raised my chocobo and how her stats turned out, along with some of my recommendations based on my personal experiences.
General Information About Chocobo Raising
Overall raising a chocobo is a long process. Before you decide to go to the effort, I highly suggest you are prepared for this event in your life. How do you do this? Well keep these ideas in mind before raising your new pet.
- Do you have time for a chocobo? It will require that you log into Final Fantasy XI at once a day to check on your chocobo, to feed and to play games with it. This means about 5 minutes a day while in egg form. Then allow approximately 30 minutes after the egg has hatched. Add another 20 minutes if you wish to play the Hot and Cold Game each day, depending on your transportation and aspirations. The growth process takes 29 days to get to an adult. A chocobo generally stops learning around age 90. And retirement age is 129, but you can retire your chocobo early if you would like.
- Do you have the gil to afford a chocobo? While it does not cost money directly to raise a chocobo you do need to buy the food for your pet to keep your chocobo well fed. This also requires medication from time to time. Bought from the auction house, this can be pricey.
- You can make your pet's food if your cooking is high enough. There are also some alchemy recipes for the food, it depends on what you want. The downside is many of the ingredients are expensive - so instead I suggest growing the plants yourself (Wildgrass Seeds are sold in Whitegate). I suggest looking at Pikko Pots for the most up to date information on growing the ingredients and chocobo food you will need through the raising process. That or just grow the seeds and see what you get, most items are useful at various stages throughout chocobo raising.
- It is recommended that you grow several pots of food in reserve for your pet before you begin the raising process. Try 10 pots in each of your characters mog houses.
- How you treat your chocobo determines his attitude, abilities and behavior. You should be sure to visit your chocobo at least once a day. If you do not visit often, your chocobo may become sad and run away.
- Raising a chocobo is much like raising a virtual pet, if this topic does not interest you, you might want to think twice about raising a chocobo. However you should not let this hold you back, if you have any interest at all in having your own personal chocobo. Even if you do not enjoy raising virtual pets, you will find the reward for a personal chocobo to far outweigh the long initial investment of time and gil.
Do not let those ideas hold you up from raising a chocobo. The benefits outweigh the negative by far! I just wanted you to be aware that you are making a commitment to raising an animal when you do raise one.
Chocobo Abilities
There are several cool abilities your chocobo can learn, but your pet can only learn two of them. Learning abilities is done through earning stories and reading them to the chocobo during his adult stage after his Discernment has reached the highest stage. Here are the abilities that your chocobo can learn during the raising process:
- Gallop (Story of an Impatient Chocobo) - Increases chocobo's running speed.
- Canter (Story of a Curious Chocobo) - Increases a chocobo's endurance.
- Burrow (Story of a Worrysome Chocobo) - Adds a few different items to Chocobo Digging.
- Bore (Story of a Youthful Chocobo) - Allows your chocobo to find less common items while Chocobo Digging.
- Auto Regen (Story of a Happy Chocobo ) - Increases the rate at which your chocobo restores energy.
- Treasure Finder (Story of a Diligent Chocobo) - This ability will increase a chocobo's ability to locate treasure when playing The Chocobo Hot and Cold Game. Obtained from the Lost Chick quest.
Chocobo raising is a long and complex process - but it is extremely rewarding! While I have illustrated above some of the aspects involved in chocobo raising, I have hardly touched on the topic. I suggest FFXIclopedia for a much more detailed guide to raising the chocobo you desire.
Vysala's Chocobo: Cerulean Breeze
Now that I have given you a taste of chocobo raising in general, I would like to tell you about the choices I made in the raising process.
Chocobo Plans
What kind of Chocobo do you want? This is something to consider ahead of time.
- What abilities do you want your chocobo to have? Keep in mind you can have only two abilities per chocobo.
- What color do you want your chocobo to be? Do you want yellow, orange, green, black or blue? Chocobo color is random, but you can heavily influence this by mating a chocobo with another who is the color that you wish to obtain the child to be. Raising a chocobo from egg stage from an egg bought from a vender seems most likely to become a yellow chocobo (the same yellow as a rental chocobo).
- What stat is most important to you? Strength influences speed, Endurance effects riding duration, high Discernment allows your chocobo to learn new abilities and Receptivity effects how your chocobo communicates with other chocobo's. These stats can be changed throughout the raising process based on what activities you choose for your chocobo in the care plan and daily activities.
I really wanted a blue chocobo who was a fast runner and good at digging. This would mean that I would need to raise Discernment early on, then strength later on. The color part would be influenced souly by luck, so I needed to find myself another owner with a blue chocobo to help me out. So that was my plan.
First, Second or Perhaps a Third Chocobo?
Before I understood the details of raising a chocobo, I raised two chocobo's, just to see what I would get. I did not research and ended up with very average chocobo's, average stats and the color yellow on both. I did obtain a few of the stories available, though. If you want certain stories available to your chocobo so you ensure they are on the list when your chick grows into an adult, I suggest raising a chocobo or two before hand, just to acquire the stories you want. FFXIclopedia has more details on which stories are available and from where.
For each chocobo you raise, you get a plaque to display in your mog house (of the same color of your raised chocobo) and papers so you can race your chocobo. Raising multiple chocobo's can give you a chance to experiment so you can raise them for specific purposes - such as for participating in chocobo races, digging and fast travel or a combination of each.
While this may sound daunting, you may have a plan in mind for your chocobo and this way is the best way to ensure you get the abilities you want - by having them already available - because the key items for these stories do not disappear until used (regardless of how many chocobo's you raise).
This step is optional.
Preparation
Before I began the raising process I did two important steps:
- I obtained 40 packets of Wildgrass Seeds and grew 10 in each of my four characters mog houses. I used various crystals, trying to get a wide variety of foods.
- I got a card from a friends mule for a female chocobo that was blue, a fast runner, and who had the ability Burrow. I used one of my previously raised chocobo cards (a yellow runner named TempestStorm who possessed no abilities) and mated him with the female chocobo in Jeuno. I chose "The Jeuno Tour" for the mating process so that my baby chick would likely inherit the female parent's stats.
With the Jeuno Tour, I was really hoping to get a blue chocobo. Any abilities inherited would be a bonus.
I waited until I had grown a whole load of chocobo feed before beginning the raising process.
Caring For The Egg
Having raised my first two chocobo's in San d'Oria I chose a new environment this time and went to Bastok to hatch my egg.
While I do not know if it is rumor or actual fact, I was told that if I "watch over" my egg before it hatches at least 100 times, that the chick will hatch from the egg with the ideal Affection condition - "regards you as a parent". I did do this method, all in the same day I checked my egg 100 times and the next day or two before the egg hatched I checked it another 25-50 times more.
The Egg Hatches!
Apparently the 'checking' method worked because unlike my other two chocobo, my new chick hatched with 100% affection, saying she sees me as her parent.
Another great thing happened - my chick hatched with the ability Burrow! So it would seem that using the influence of the mating process really does work. This is especially true since my male was a regular yellow with no abilities. I would guess that the choice of mating process and parents DNA has an extremely strong influence on the child.
I highly recommend mating two adults whose qualities you'd like your chick to inherit, then be sure to select the correct honeymoon ticket so that your chick is more likely to inherit the ideal things you want from the right parent.
Baby Chick
During the baby chick stage I did these important things:
- I always had the Care Plan set to "Listen to Music". This would raise my baby chicks Discernment.
- I always fed my baby chick Vegetable Paste - this increased Affection.
- Everyday I made sure to watch over my chick 2-3 times and take her on walks for the rest of her energy.
While the Discernment stat moves very slowly, the music option at this stage is the best choice for raising that stat. Since it lowers Strength, I had to concentrate on one thing at a time - running speed would have to be concentrated on later.
The Young Adolescent
At this stage Cerulean Breeze had blue feather tips, indicating she might become a blue feathered adult.
During the teenage stage I did these important things:
- I had my Care Plan set to a mixture of "List to Music", "Exhibiting to the Public" and "Interact with Children". I mostly concentrated again on "Listen to Music" - this is because it lowers affection at a lesser rate then the other two options.
- I always fed Cerulean Breeze Zegham Carrots to increase the mental attributes and Azouph Greens to increase her affection during this stage.
- I would expend her energy by watching over her 2-3 times a day, using the remaining energy on competing in races and going on walks.
An Adult
When Cerulean Breeze grew to an adult, she became a fully beautiful blue colored chocobo. She remained with the ability Burrow from her mother. This would mean that the influence of the parents is extremely high and must be taken into consideration when planning for a "perfect" chocobo result.
When she became an adult I switched her to Digging for Treasure for three days to greatly increase her Discernment.
At age 32 with her Discernment at Average, I begin reading the Story of a Diligent Chocobo to her. It took several tries to get her to learn the Treasure Finder ability. I had to feed her a Chocolixir to restore her energy during the process to keep attempting to teach her. Cerulean Breeze did finally learn Treasure Finder, though.
Working on Strength
Now that Cerulean Breeze had learned her two abilities and was the color I wanted, it was time I turned my focus to making her a speedy runner. Since all chocobo's start off with a Poor strength, she would walk slower then myself if I were to try and ride her now. So time was of importance to switch her from Discernment care straight on over to Strength care.
Because chocobo's start to slow down in their learning processes around age 90, I needed to quickly change her lifestyle.
I proceeded to change all of the care plans to 7 days worth of Delivering Messages. I then began feeding her only Vomp Carrots with the occasional Azouph Greens to influence affection. This was the fastest way I understood on how to raise the strength stat.
Cerulean Breeze
While I have raised three chocobo's, I consider Cerulean Breeze to be the only real success. I did not focus or plan on my first two, however Cerulean Breeze is the only one I had a plan for and was actually able to make that plan a success.
These are Cerulean Breeze's final stats before she was retired to be with the Chocobo Society.
Cerulean Breeze
Age: 108
Strength: Outstanding
Endurance: Poor
Discernment: A Bit Deficient
Receptibility: Poor
Enigmatic Personality, making it difficult to know what the animal is thinking.
Likes clear days.
Abilities: Burrow and Treasure Finder
Conclusion
Raising a chocobo was an awesome experience, especially knowing that my actions had a real influence on the growth process. If you know what you are looking to do with your Chocobo, then you will be able to do it - it just takes a little preparation and planning.
If you are a cook, regardless of what abilities you want, I highly suggest raising your Chocobo so in the end the strength is at "Impressive", "Outstanding" or "First-class" - so that you may at least have a chocobo that runs as fast or faster then a rental chocobo.
If you would like to see a more detailed story-like version of my Cerulean Breeze's raising process, I suggest reading my story here in the TSS Virtual Pet forum on Mimitchi.com.
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