cashew | FF14 - Chocobo Breeding explained

OK, so I looked around online and found that Chocobo Breeding is literally the worst explained mechanic by people who can't just explain biology, so. I'm gonna explain things in a way that's easier to follow.

Chocobo Breeding

There's two stats that matter in Chocobo Breeding: Grade and Stars. Grade goes from 1 to 9. Stars goes from 1 to 4. You want to max both as much as possible.

You can only breed a male and a female chocobo together. One of the breeding pair must be a retired chocobo. You can purchase a "covering" chocobo (breeding mate) or retire a second chocobo. However, in order to increase star rating, you need to buy "covering" chocobos to mate with your racing chocobos until you get some genetic variance.

When you retire a chocobo or buy covering chocobo, you will get an item called a "proof". When you select the item, it will have a description such as "G1-M" or "G2-F". The G number (G1, G2, etc.) indicates the Grade. M or F indicates male or female. Proofs are used to select which chocobos breed at the breeding NPC (located at Bentbranch Ranch). Retired proofs can be used 10 times. Covering proofs (the purchased ones) can only be used once.

Again, this is sexual reproduction we're talking about, so you must mate male with female.

Grades

The grade of the offspring chocobo = lowest grade of parent + 1.

Ex: G1 x G2 = G2. G1 x G9 = G2. G1 x G1 = G2.

The most cost effective way of increasing grade is always to breed the same grade together. You want to get to G9 for the best rewards in chocobo racing.

Stars

This is the one that no one can explain adequately.

Chocobo star rating is the "genetics" of chocobo and uses basic Mendelian genetic principles. So let's quickly review high school biology using blood type.

Phenotype: What appears as the trait.

Genotype: What the genes actually are.

Phenotype is determined by genotype. Genotype is determined by two alleles.

Alleles: The variables that make up the pool of genotype.

So, If you're blood phenotype is A, your genotype could be AA or AO. If you have AA genotype, you are homogenous. If you have AO, you are hetergenous.

If you are heterogenous (e.g. AO), you can pass down one allele, either A or O. Each allele has 50% chance to get passed down. The other allele comes from the mate, who also only passes down one allele, and which one is also 50% chance.

So if AA breeds with AO, the offspring has 100% of inheriting A from the AA parent (it only has the A allele), and 50% chance of inheriting A from the AO parent. Which means the offspring has 50% of being homogenous (AA) and 50% of being heterogenous (AO).

Chocobo works on the same principle of inheritance. Except, in the chocobo's case, there are 4 alleles: 1⭐, 2⭐, 3⭐, 4⭐.

And there are 5 traits (stats): Speed, Acceleration, Endurance, Stamina, Cunning.

You want at least one 4⭐ allele in each trait, preferably homogenous 4⭐ for easier breeding. However, your starter chocobo is homogenous for 2⭐ alleles in every trait, which means, you need genetic variance from the "cover" chocobos, which you buy from gold saucer.

In the chocobo proofs, the genotype is indicated with blue and red coded stars. Blue came from dad and red came from mom. Blue is listed first and red is listed second. That's the order I'll be using in my examples.

Now, let's say you have a female♀ chocobo you're trying to increase speed of your offspring chocobo and your cover male♂ chocobo's speed genotype is 1⭐3⭐. Breeding with your 2⭐2⭐ starter chocobo♀ will result in the following possible outcomes for speed:

1⭐2⭐ - 50%
3⭐2⭐ - 50%

(Remember, homogenous genotype passes down the stats with 100% chance). Say you got lucky and got a 3⭐2⭐ in the male♂ offspring's speed and you breed that with another covering female♀ chocobo that has 1⭐4⭐. The possible outcomes are:

3⭐1⭐ - 25%
3⭐4⭐ - 25% 2⭐1⭐ - 25% 2⭐4⭐ - 25%

Etc, etc.

As long as your offspring has a 4⭐, it's fine to keep breeding to try to pass that 4⭐ allele onto the next offspring. However, once you start getting higher in the grades, it's advised to stop using cover chocobos and start inbreeding your own chocobos. Inbreeding increases the chance of getting a homogenous star genotype and once you've got a 4⭐4⭐ genotype, that chocobo will always pass down 4⭐ to the next generation.

General rule of thumb, focus on increasing grade first. Once you get grade 5-ish, then you'll want to start inbreeding your chocobos to get higher star genotypes. Try to breed out the 1⭐ and 2⭐ alleles (as in, pick only chocobos with 3⭐ or 4⭐ in their genotype to breed the next generation).

The most important racing stats are Speed and Stamina, secondarily Endurance and Acceleration. Cunning comes last (although higher cunning means easier controls). Prioritize getting 4⭐ phenotype in Speed and Stamina first for better racing success.

When the chocobo is heterogenous for a stat trait, the phenotype is randomly chosen between the two alleles. In other words, if you have 1⭐4⭐ in speed, the chocobo's speed stat could either be 1⭐ or 4⭐. You don't need perfect chocobos, as it's enough to get a 4⭐ phenotype across the board. Once you have your perfect 4⭐ in all stats chocobo at Grade 9, it's time to race and feed it the best feed you can buy to get your super racer and start watching those gold saucer points roll in.

Good luck, breeders, here's to hoping you get the super chocobo of your dreams!