Gar's Lair

I’m actually surprised that I’m writing this, but I’ve come across a number of people who have ignored that little yellow Grand Company Chocobo not realizing what it can evolve into.

Are you using your Battle Buddy Bird?

That unassuming bird you obtained from the Grand Company early in your Sproutness can be trained to be a Tank, Healer, or DPS as needed.

There are three quests on this path:

• My Little Chocobo (Immortal Flames, Maelstrom, Twin Adder)
  • Class/Job Level 20
  • Obtain your chocobo, your first riding mount.
• My Feisty Little Chocobo
  • Class/Job Level 30
  • Summon your chocobo to help you do battle
• Bird in Hand
  • Class/Job Level 30
  • Training your Chocobo to Rank 10 and beyond.

My Little Chocobo

This is a simple quest that allows you to summon your chocobo as a riding mount. This will help you get around a bit more quickly than trotting everywhere.

There are three versions of this quest. The one you select depends on which Grand Company you have joined.

• My Little Chocobo (Immortal Flames, Maelstrom, Twin Adder)
• FFXIV Guide
• Requirements:
  • Member of a Grand Company
  • 200 Company Seals
• Drops
  • Chocobo Whistle

Summon your bird as you need to so you can run around Eorzea.

My Feisty Little Chocobo

Okay, this is the beginning of your “Battle Bird.”

• My Feisty Little Chocobo
• Requirements:
  • Complete My Little Chocobo
  • Level 30 Class or Job
• Other
  • Use Gyshal Greens to summon your companion
  • Earn a saddle bag for additional inventory storage

This quest teaches you how to summon your bird using Gyshal Greens to help you in battle and to be a general companion as you explore Eorzea.

Gyshal Greens

Gyshal Greens are available from a number of vendors around Eorzea. Once you get this ability, you probably want to keep some in your inventory. If finances allow, I’ll buy a large number and then replenish when the supply gets low.

‘Ranking’ (leveling) Your Bird

You should be able to easily level up your companion to Rank 10 by letting them join in fights with mobs and vermin, participating in Fates, doing Levemetes, or any non-duty battle encounter. Sadly, they cannot enter a dungeon, trial, or raid with you.

Abilities

At this point, your buddy will help you fight but you will have limited capabilities:

• Follow – Don’t fight, just follow you around.
• Free Stance – Contribute to the battle as it can.
  • If you are aborting a battle or at the end of a fate, you may want to temporarily transition it to “Follow” otherwise, your buddy may decide to continue fighting.
• Withdraw – Dismiss your chocobo. You will need another Gyshal Green to summon it again.
  • You will need to either Withdraw your chocobo or let the latest Gyshal Green expire before stabling your chocobo. You will get a message if you try to stable it when it is serving as a companion. An easy way to remedy this is to go to the nearest non-major city and Withdraw it.

Beloved Beckon Levemete Benefits

One benefit of having the chocobo out and ready for battle during those beloved beckon Levemetes, is the chocobo will start strutting when an “enemy” is nearby. More than once, this has helped me find one I might have otherwise missed.

I’ve also noticed that they will watch behind you in some circumstances. If they start strutting and you don’t see why, look behind you.

(And, yes, the title of this paragraph is a bit of sarcasm if that wasn’t obvious. Both Gar and Rauwrer hate those quests.)

Checking Your Chocobo’s Rank

Once the “Companion” window is open, then select the “Skills” tab to see your companion’s level.

At rank 10, the following display will be mostly empty.

Note that Rauwrer’s bird has some unused “SP” points. This is NOT recommended. Use the SP points to acquire more skills for your bird by selecting them below. The higher the skill, the more SP it will cost.

Bird in Hand

This is the important one. It will allow you to train and level your companion to rank 20. Rank 20 is where leveling your bird friend gets a bit complicated.

• Bird in Hand

To do this, you will need access to a stable.

Stables

There are four ways to gain access to a stable.

Gar’s Chobobo Stable Guide gives you guidance on how to gain access to a stable.

Getting Beyond Rank 10

Increasing Rank / Thavnairian Onions

When you get to the max points for a rank, to move on to the next rank, you have to feed your chocobo a Thavnairian Onion.

These can be purchased on the Market Board, but they are not inexpensive. If you can access a planter or a garden plot, you can grow them from seeds. However, the Thanvairian Onion Seeds are also not cheap on the Market Board.

The Thavnairian Onion Seeds can be produced by cross-breading plants if you have a garden plot. Garden plots require a house. It cannot be done in indoor planters. This process is not simple, but selling onion seeds can be lucrative.

Depending on how much fighting you do with your chocobo, you might want to start growing an onion as soon as you use one. They take a while to grow.

And don’t forget to tend your onions. They will die if you don’t tend them.

Free Companies and Thavnairian Onions

Some FCs will provide Thavnairian Onions as part of their membership benefits. Something to look out for if you are looking for an FC or to discuss with your current FC if they don’t offer them.

Other Training Feeds

While working to get your bird to the next rank, you can also train them using certain foods:

• Curiel Root – increases experience
• Sylkis Bud – increases attack
• Pahsana Fruit – increases enmity
• Tantalplant – increases hit points
• Mimett Gourd – increases healing

These, too, can be purchased from the Market Board or grown from seeds.

As Gar was leveling as a Bard, he focused on increasing his chocobo’s healing abilities by feeding Mimett Gourd, allowing him to survive battles that would have been much more difficult otherwise.

He also could have used Pahsana Fruit to increase the chocobo’s enmity so it would serve as a tank.

Assigning Skills

As you gain experience and level, you obtain “Skill Points” (SP). You can then use those skill points to increase the skill level of your chocobo. You can see that Rauwrer has been a bit remiss in doing this. He has 55 skill points that he hasn’t allocated:

You decide on which skill class you want to assign it to and then select the next skill available.

Don’t worry, when you hit level 20, you will have enough skill points to maximize all three skill classes. This can be seen in Gar’s companion skills:

Battle, Battle, Battle…

And, of course, using your Battle Buddy Bird in battles will expedite the leveling.

One fun and lucrative way to do this is through Treasure Hunts, but that’s another story.

Rinse & Repeat

When you max out each level, this cycle repeats… Feed another Thavnairian Onion, and then continue getting experience until you hit level 20.

aside: What’s Up with the Chocobo names?

As a bit of tounge-in-cheek homage to an in-game friend of mine and mentor, Sylv.

Sylv’s main is a healer, so it started out with Gar’s chocobo wanting to be the same level of healer for Gar as Sylv. This resulted in the name “Aspires-To-Be-Sylv.”

Rauwrer started out on Adamantios, waiting for the day he could transfer to Faerie to join the crew. During that period, his chocobo’s name was “Hasn’t-Met-Sylv.” He had heard a lot about Sylv. Once he moved to Faerie and met Sylv, he changed his name to “Finally-Met-Sylv.”

I’ve had a number of excellent mentors in this game.

Sylv stands out because of the quantity of stuff we have done together. Sylv has pushed me to do things, increasing my skill level along the way and improving my confidence. He is an excellent example of what mentoring should be about.

This started a trend among our little gang… If you see a chocobo in the wild with Sylv in the name, it is likely to be a member of that gang.