r/ffxiv • u/Maeyven Teal • Jun 02 '17
[Guide] Chocobo Breeding Guide
Okay, so. Over the last few days I've been getting lots of questions on how the heck this breeding thing actually works. Probably cause of the Make it Rain event which revived the interest in chocobo racing. There are a few guides out there, I'll link them below, yet none of the guides make breeding clear enough for most people to get it. Disclaimer: I am by no means a proper guide-writer. I will be confusing here and there, just trying to put my thoughts on to paper. Bear with me. Please, do leave corrections and suggestions on formatting in the comments :( I'd like this to be as readable as possible.
First things first. Yes, Chocobo Racing is the fastest and easiest way to get MGP, with over 1k mgp every 1~2 minutes, and all you have to do is press a single button. In comparison, Triple Triad farming and the Woodcutting minigame are about half the payout, and require more attention. That said, it will take a good few /months/ of effort to get that perfect pedigree 9 chocobo. If you start now, you won't reach that glorious spot before the end of the event.
Now, on to the breeding. First of all, every chocobo has two parents, a daddy, and a mommy. You can check out their stats in your chocobo screen or on your retirement card. Let's take, for illustration, a female chocobo with the following parents:
female
DAD MOM
2 1
2 2
2 2
2 4
2 3
The moment you take a chocobo to the Race Registration counter, your chocobo will set his own stars in stone. This is a major source of confusion: The stars that are set in stone are -race stars- only, and will be used for -nothing other than racing-. I repeat, your chocobo's own stars are used for -nothing else than during the race-. Not for breeding! For example, your chocobo could get race stars of "2(dad), 2(mom), 2(mom), 4(mom), 2(dad)". They're a random pick of what their parent had. When you retire your chocobo, these stars are dumped in the gutter and -never used again-.
Next up, you buy a random chocobo from the chocobo breeding permit merchant in the Gold Saucer. It will have random parents as well, let's say we buy a male chocobo partner with the following parents:
male
DAD MOM
1 4
3 1
1 1
3 4
1 2
We'll now pair together our own female chocobo and the rented male chocobo:
male female
DAD MOM DAD MOM
1 4 2 1
3 1 2 2
1 1 2 2
3 4 2 4
1 2 2 3
Here is a second source of confusion: It is often stated that the stats of the baby chocobo are a random pick between the grandparents stats. So this baby chocobo would have a 25% chance of getting a 4 in the first stat, and a 50% chance to get a 2 in its second stat. This is also wrong. Or, at least.. this is a wrong interpretation. You would have that 25% chance of getting a 4 star in the first -racing stat-, but those stats are irrelevant for breeding, completely. Your chocobo will in fact have a 50% chance of inheriting that 4 star. Either it will be a 1, or a 4, on the male side, and the female side will never have a 4 at all.
Every time these two chocobo's breed, you will get a baby chocobo. This baby her mommy will have a random set of stats picked from the mommy her own parents. This baby her daddy will have a random stats picked from his own parents. -These- stats are -the most important stats when breeding-, and basically, are all that matters.
male female
DAD MOM DAD MOM
1 (4) (2) 1
(3) 1 2 (2)
(1) 1 2 (2)
3 (4) 2 (4)
1 (2) 2 (3)
It means, in above example, that a mommy with "2, 2, 2, 4, 3" will be the absolute best the mommy can become. It means that "4, 3, 1, 4, 2" will be the absolute best daddy this can be. Of course, those only have smal chances, and you know how RNG works.. That means your new baby will have a small chance of becoming:
female
DAD MOM
4 2
3 2
1 2
4 4
2 3
Remember: The chocobo itself has -no stats-. Its only the parents that do.
Our original chocobo has definitely improved on the first two stats, the fourth stat is now a perfect 4, but the third stat actually went down a bit..
So, now only one question remains: How to get to all 4 stars?
When you start, your chocobo has perfect 2 star parents across the line. You will need to mix in rented chocobo's to add in some variation to your family tree, get in some 4 stars. When all your stats have at least one or two 4 stars on /both/ the parents sides, start inbreeding. Race a male chocobo to level 40, retire it, race a female chocobo to level 40, retire it as well, and let them breed together. The advantage of inbreeding is that both your chocobo's can breed 10 times total, whereas the rented chocobo you can use only once. This means that you have 10 shots at the RNG, hoping that you get a male and a female chocobo with better stats than the original. If you understood everything up till this point, all that remains is time and a lot of racing. Slowly work out the less-than-perfect DNA and keep the 4 stars.
As a final tip: If both your female and your male chocobo have 4 stars on both -their- parents all on the same stat, you will never ever ever lose that 4 star again in the entire heritage. Similarly, if you ever end up with a chocobo that has no 4 on either of their parents on a certain stat, you will never ever be able to reach 4 star by inbreeding, which basically means you have to gamble big and bring in outsider DNA.
Some suggested reading:
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/491287/blog/2077744/
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/491287/blog/2077797/
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/491287/blog/2077795/
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/491287/blog/2077787/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2xhn2v/chocobo_racing_tips_stats_and_a_bit_about/
3
u/DeadlyFatalis Jun 02 '17
I'll add that with the difficulty of perfecting both mother and father side of two chocobo and having to hope that one is male and one is female, you're better off getting to P9 and using this knowledge and a bit of RNG to get 20/20 racing stats even with an imperfect parentage.
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3
u/Nayaad Azeyma Jun 02 '17
It's some fairly basic genetics. Each chocobo has a maternal and paternal allele for each parameter, one of which is randomly expressed. It's offspring will randomly inherit either of the alleles for each parameter, and get its other allele from the other parent.
2
u/Maeyven Teal Jun 02 '17
Today, I learned a new word. Thanks \o/
2
u/tallandgodless Samurai Jun 02 '17
This is what is taught in biology as an introduction to genetics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punnett_square
They make for fun puzzles.
3
u/pleasejustdie Jun 02 '17
Another tip: Do your challenges, the more challenges you do, the more abilities you can purchase from the vendor, which makes getting that perfect bird with perfect abilities a lot easier. Once you get to a point where you're inbreeding, you can guarantee passing a specific ability to the child.
I, personally, prefer Chocobo Cure III to be the hereditary trait, then when I leveled my perfect chocobo, I could put the exp bonus in the other slot, or choco dash 3 in the other slot, then once it hit rank 50, I was able to swap it out for super sprint (which I would not recommend using unless you have 500 in max speed, endurance and stamina, but due to it providing immunity to heavy, and negating all terrain penalties, its broken as all hell).
2
u/KariArisu Jun 03 '17
First things first. Yes, Chocobo Racing is the fastest and easiest way to get MGP, with over 1k mgp every 1~2 minutes, and all you have to do is press a single button.
Am I missing something or do you not actually mean one button press? I have a non-perfect pedigree 9 chocobo but haven't really bothered continuing because the payout required a lot of attention.
1
u/Maeyven Teal Jun 03 '17
To be fair, I am literally meaning two button presses, which puts me in first place about 70~80% of the time.
Super Sprint and Cure III, both used right at the start, staying on the far left of Sagolii. If I keep off using them for the first 30 seconds and be a little smart about which boxes I pick during the race, it bumps to a good 90~100% win rate. It's very sexy.
Of course, the odd meteor or frenzy kills the auto-pilot and dumps me back in the latter echelons with no stamina left, it's not foolproof, but if you don't want to win a literal 100%, it's really just pressing two skills, moving to the left, and afk'ing 1.30 minutes.
1
u/KariArisu Jun 03 '17
What race class is that? Maybe I'll get back into it to make a bird for this lol
1
u/BeclemReyes Jun 02 '17
Leaving note if plan to get pedegree 9 chocobo, I wouldn't worry about getting all 4 stars since you have to buy it's partner(which rng stars) to breed out a higher grade chocobo
2
u/jbniii Ibi Risasi on Hyperion Jun 02 '17 edited Jun 02 '17
That's one way to do it.
The other option is to start raising two chocobos per pedigree along the way and interbreeding.
The downside is that method is that you have to level more chocobos along the way to pedigree nine. The upside is that you have more control over the process, and leveling a lower pedigree chocobo takes less experience than leveling a higher pedigree chocobo. It's a bit of a balancing act.
I know when I was raising my racing chocobos I started interbreeding at pedigree six, and (with a bit of luck) was able to have a pedigree nine chocobo from my first pair of pedigree eight chocobos have 4 stars in every stat from both parents.
1
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u/KenseiSeraph Soria Seraph on Lich Jun 02 '17
Thanks for the guide. How do abilities get passed on?