FFXIV Chocobo Racing Basics Guide

FFXIV Chocobo Racing Basics Guide by Fawks8

Alright, this guide is going to be as inclusive as possible, however, I will not be covering Chocobo Raising and Breeding. That system is quite complex and requires it’s own guide. This is going to cover everything you encounter while racing, including item and ability effects.

CHOCOBO STATS AND EFFECTS There are five stats that affect your chocobo.

MAX SPEED – Simply affects how fast your chocobo can go.

ACCELERATION – How fast it takes to go from minimum speed to max speed.

ENDURANCE – How long it takes while running to enter Lathered state.

STAMINA – Maximum Stamina pool

CUNNING – AKA Balance or Traction, it’s how easily you can change lanes and also how fast you can take corners without slowing down.

Now, the following negative status effects can be inflicted during battle through attack items, or by hitting panels and mobs.

HEAVY – Slows down the chocobo.

FRENZY – Makes the chocobo run at full sprint and increases Stamina Drain

SILENCED – Unable to use any active chocobo abilities.

DISTRACTED – Unable to use any items.

LAMED/EXHAUSTED – Drops chocobo to minimum speed and unable to accelerate.

BASIC CONTROLS AND RACE LAYOUTS

Controls are fairly simple for Chocobo Racing. You can accelerate, steer left and right, and jump. That’s it. As you accelerate, you will start to burn through your Stamina. You’ll quickly notice that there is a delay between using/losing Stamina, and it reflecting on your gauge. This is very important when trying to control your Stamina, as even if you let go of the accelerate button completely, it takes almost 10% Stamina before you stop using at all.

If you keep the accelerate button held down, you’ll soon enter the Lathered state and the Stamina gauge will start to blink/glow, and suffer increased Stamina Drain. This isn’t too critical, as you’ll need to enter it quite often during a race, but it does require some control. If you completely run out of Stamina, you’ll enter an Exhausted state and there is no way to recover from it without using items, abilities, or panels that recover some Stamina.

Through the racetrack, you’ll encounter panels and item coffers. Item coffers give random items that are displayed in order before approaching the coffer. You can only hold one item at a time (unless a passive ability exists that allows more). Simply run through the coffers or jump to get the high ones. There are 4 kinds panels through the race courses as well. During Maiden division, there are no harmful panels, but every division after that has them. As of R-100, I’ve let to encounter any race track where you can’t just simply steer around the panels, however this changes in R-120+ – Panel effects are as follows.

BLUE – Grants Sprint

PURPLE – Grants Heavy

GREEN – Restores 10% Stamina

RED – Deals 10%~ Stamina

Once you reach R-60, mobs will start appearing on race courses. Each mob has a different effect, from R-60 Costa Jellyfish causing Silence and Distracted, to R-80 Tranquil Imps stealing items, to R-100 Tranquil Malboros doing a large aoe Heavy. Either way, it’s always best to just avoid them outright.

Experience points vary by division, with R-40 giving 180 XP for a 1st Place, R-60 gives 210 XP, R-80 gives 240 XP, etc. etc. After every race, one racer at random will be chosen from 2nd-8th place to receive bonus XP. This Bonus regardless of ranking will give the player XP equal to between a 1st and 2nd Place finish.

ATTACK ITEM/ABILITY EFFECTS

GRAVIBALL – Causes 5s Heavy to the racer in front of you. If you’re in 1st, No Effect.

BACCHUS WATER – Causes 15s Frenzy to the racer in front of you. If you’re in 1st, No Effect.

BRAIR CALTROP – Creates a field of Brairs around you that deals up to 20% Stamina to anyone caught in the area of effect.

CHOCO SILENCE(A) – Creates a field of gold chains around you that causes Silence to anyone caught in the area of effect. Duration is determined by rank.

CHOCO SHOCK(A) – Creates a field of blue chains around you that causes Distracted to anyone caught in the area of effect. Duration is determined by rank.

CHOCO STEAL(A) – Has a chance to steal the item from the chocobo in front of you, the higher the tier of Steal, the better chance you have to succeed.

CHOCO METEOR – Causes 20% Stamina damage and 6s Lamed to every chocobo in front of you.

BENEFICIAL ITEMS/ABILITY EFFECTS

CHOCO POTION/CHOCO CURE(A) – Restores Stamina. Choco Potions restore 9% Stamina, Choco Cures restore 3% per tier.

SPRINT SHOES/CHOCO DASH(A) – Chocobo enters Sprint. While Sprinting, you’ll achieve higher then max speed and also suffer no Stamina Drain temporarily. Sprint Shoes lasts 3s, Dash for 1s per Tier.

CHOCO ESUNA(A) – Removes status effects. Esuna has a percent chance of removing all Status Effects (except Silence because you can’t use it then). The higher tier, the higher the chance of success

CHOCO CALM/EASE(A) – Calm and Ease remove Frenzy and Heavy respectively with 100% success, and also restores some Stamina. Higher tier abilities restore more Stamina.

CHOCO REFLECT(A) – Reflects back any non-aoe attack back at the caster. Duration of reflect lasts depending of tier.

CHOCO AETHER – Restores the use of your Active ability. If you have no active ability, or it hasn’t been used yet, the item will be wasted. If you have two Active abilities and both have been used, only one will be restored.

STAMINA TABLET – Chocobo becomes immune to any Stamina Drain/Damage for 10s. This includes Stamina Drain from sprinting, as well as attack items like Briars. If your Chocobo is already at 0%, the item will have no effect.

HERO TONIC – Increases all stats and become immune to all enfeebling effects for 15s.

PASSIVE ABILITIES

There are multiple passives available in the game, it’s a little too early to say all of them for sure. Some trigger at the beginning of the race, such as Head Start. Some are always active like Heavy Resist. Some boosts the use of items like Speedy Recovery.

ACQUIRING ABILITIES

Abilities will be acquired from Rank 10 onwards. Your chocobo will learn one ability at random. If you don’t like the ability you’ve learnt, you can use a Lithe Water which can be purchased for 800 MGP to erase it, and the next time your Rank goes up, you’ll learn another ability. You’ll also get a secondary ability through breeding which can not be changed except through more breeding.

And that’s it for the basics. More advanced topics are covered in my second Chocobo Racing guide. But right now, this will cover almost everything you’ll see for your first couple of chocobos. Any questions, I’ll try to answer below.