Once upon a time, raid free units were game changing. Nowadays, people barely even notice them outside of their trust masters and former fusion-hell. This is understandable, given that most reviews are in terms of resource management, which includes pulls, enhancement spendings, and the occasional rare "others". That, and raid free units typically kind of suck in comparison to their current equivalent-star bases. These units, however, do benefit newer players with a limited unit pool, and as such, will be written with that in mind.

As a sidenote, I probably won't review Vagrant Knight Rain, should he arrive again. Partly because I haven't figured out how I want to handle his enhancements for new players.

Chocobo Rain - Raiders of the Free Review

Limit Burst

Chocobo Rush! (6★, 20 LB)

• 26-Hit Physical damage (5x-7.4x) to all enemies
• Auto-cast next turn: Increase LB gauge (5-15) to all allies (unaffected by LB level)
• 10-Fr Chain52-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10

Trust Reward

Chocobo Adventure! (Materia)

• HP/MP 20%
• ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR 30%
• Unstackable materia

Notable Skills

Entrust

• Use own LB gauge to fill ally's gauge

Undermine

• Physical damage (1.7x) to one enemy
• Decrease ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR (40%) for 3 turns to one enemy

Ignoring break-resistant stats, this skill would reduce damage taken from enemies to 36%, and increase damage dealt to the enemy to 166%. The break strength are definitely not good by today's meta standards, but should be usable for earlier contents like the world chapters.

Escort Leader

• Increase ATK/DEF/MAG/SPR (60%) for 3 turns to all allies

Once again, not meta numbers, but should be usable enough for earlier content, especially near the beginning of the game when stat buffs contribute to a larger portion of a units stats due to lackluster equipment selections.

Double Chocobo

• Use Choco skills twice in one turn

ChocoSummon

• Increase evocation gauge (2)
• Recover MP (15) to all allies
• Multicastable

Decent free source of evocation gauge building, with small MP support for the party. Do note that this skill costs more MP than it recovers, so CRain will lose a net of 9 MP per usage.

ChocoLimit

• Increase LB gauge fill rate (150%) for 3 turns to all allies
• Increase LB gauge (1-3) to all allies
• Multicastable

Actually really decent number on the fill rate. For comparison purposes, Rikku's Pouch provides 200% fill rate for 5 turns. Works well in conjunction with his entrust and his own limit burst for party LB support.

Choco[Element]

• [Element] physical damage damage (1.8x) to one enemy
• Increase [matching element] resistance (40%) for 3 turns to all allies
• Multicastable

Main focus is the elemental resistance it provides, giving new players protection from select elements as its not possible to have more than 6 active at any given point with a single CRain. The damage is more for "Deal [X] element damage" missions for easier mission objective clearing.

Chocobo's Potential (passive)

• 30% chance to unlock ChocoComet, ChocoFlare, and ChocoHoly for 1 turn when taking/evading physical/magical attacks

ChocoComet (Requires Unlock)

• 10-Hit Physical damage (2.5x) with ignore DEF (50%) to all enemies
• Multicastable
• Stardust Ray Family110-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10-10

Note: this ability has an effective modifier of 5x. This also gives CRain (unreliable) support chaining capabilities. That said, the number of units with SR frames are only beginning to grow, but should be getting significantly more support in the future.

ChocoFlare (Requires Unlock)

• 1-Hit Physical damage (3.5x) with ignore DEF (50%) to one enemy
• Multicastable

Note: this ability has an effective modifier of 7x. This gives CRain some finishing capabilities. That said, between the unreliability and CRain's support skills, this will probably never see use though, but the option is there.

ChocoHoly (Requires Unlock)

• Light physical damage (3.6x) to all enemies
• Restore HP (4000) and MP (50) to all allies
• Multicastable

Ignoring the unreliability of the unlock, this is a really good HP/MP restore, especially when casted twice. Like CRain's other recover ability ability, this ability costs more MP than it recovers, but the net loss is only 4 MP per use.

Notable Others

• Entrust, 100% LB gauge fill rate, low LB cost, and LB fillrate ability
• 5% innate MP refresh (10% when enhanced)
• 50% innate wind resistance
• (Small) Auto-heal every turn for self

Notable Issues

• Suspectible to status ailments, particularly the big ones (petrify, paralysis, confusion, sleep)
• Unreliable unlocks with no innate way to increase the chances (ie: provoke, covers)
• Cannot equip robes, a source of elemental resistance (notably, Rainbow Robe)

Interesting Tidbit

• From the 6★ Bios: "A vision borne from a crystal of Rain's memories of having fun riding on a chocobo with his companions in the Farplane. As a dark cloud looms overhead in Paladia, what could the real Rain be thinking of now?"
  • Potential Spoiler:

Nude Expeditions

^{Subject to rounding errors
Success capped at 16%, anything above is solely for comparison purposes
No gear equipped or using a 0-statted variant for mastery
Parentasis denote with masteries}
Expedition Charts

Nude Comparisons

• All units will only have access to one of their own TMR, unless noted otherwise (mostly to equalize TM ability access). If the unit has easy access to their STMR, it can also be used for themselves.
• If any passive are conditional on equip, assume that the unit have a 0-statted variant of it equipped (unless its his/her S/TMR)
• Also assume spark chaining, whenever chaining math is done
  • Assume exactly 2 chainers, with the result calculation being damage dealt by a single chainer
  • Assume single-element for physical/hybrid, unless otherwise stated
• Base stat's only, no pots of any sort.
• If Limit Burst is used, calculation is done using a Lvl 1 version (unless noted otherwise).
• All units will get a minimum of 40% stat boost while in battle (via Leadership - Rain)
• All units will get a minimum of 35% imperil (Crazy Day)
• Using the below formula for calculations and comparisons, unless noted otherwise:
  • Phys eHP = HP * DEF
  • Mag eHP = HP * SPR
  • Offensive Break = 1 / (1 - break)
  • Defensive Break = (1 - break)²

Rain Chocobo Rain

HP: 5031
Def pre-buff: 192
Def post-buff: 294 (via Escort Leader)
Spr pre-buff: 180
Spr post-buff: 243 (via Escort Leader)
Break: 40%
Esper: 4 orbs/turn

Phys eHP: 1,479,114
Mag  eHP: 1,222,533

Offensive Break: 166% of damage dealt to enemy
Defensive Break:  36% of damage taken from enemy

For comparison purposes, I'll mostly be looking at each units support abilities and capabilities, with some considerations to general tankiness (ignoring break-only units, mostly because its self-explanatory). Something to note, CRain dips alot into various support roles, so finding a perfect comparison will be near unlikely. Hence, this is why I opted to primarily focus on mostly on elemental protection, with mentions of other support capabilities. The numbers you see, notably survivability, is more of a side comparison, totally not because I need my math fix.

I've included several (sample) builds below. These ignore STMR, limited, premiums, and IW stats. Honestly, both builds are on the extreme ends, so a more moderate, balanced build would be more appropriate, based on the content and role that CRain needs to fill. I'm also not going to do the equipped build for each comparison, as there is generally no right way to build a support unit as it largely depends on the content and role s/he fills.

LB Spam Build

HP : 7,537
DEF: 444
SPR: 550
LB: 12/turn (and  200% fill rate)

Phys eHP: 3,346,428
Mag  eHP: 4,145,350

*No stat buffs included in calculations, including native buffs (same with the two below)

Phys Tanky Build

HP : 13,640
DEF: 759
SPR: 363
LB : 0/turn

Phys eHP: 10,352,760
Mag  eHP: 4,951,320

Mag Tanky Build

HP : 13,092
DEF: 503
SPR: 747
LB : 3/turn

Phys eHP: 6,585,276
Mag  eHP: 9,779,724

Rain Rain

* Using CRain's TMR, as Rain doesn't have one himself

HP: 4204
Def pre-buff: 171
Def post-buff: 216 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 135
Spr post-buff: 176 (via Leadership)
Break: 30%

Phys eHP: 908,064
            61% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 739,904
            60% of CRain's survivability

Offensive Break: 143% of damage dealt to enemy
                    86% of damage dealt compared to CRain
Defensive Break: 49% of damage taken from enemy
                   136% of damage taken compared to CRain

• CRain has better supports (of all flavors)
• CRain has wind elemental resistance
• Rain can equip H.Shield
• e.Rain has innate fire elemental resistance

News just in: Chocobo has been proven to make an unit better.

From a pure tanky-gearing comparison (because Rain really has nothing else to gear for), he (Phys; Mag) still loses out to his Chocobo form.

Party Support

Cerius Enh. Cerius

* Using CRain's TMR instead

HP: 3693
Def pre-buff: 166
Def post-buff: 217 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 176
Spr post-buff: 231 (via Leadership)

Phys eHP: 801,381
            54% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 853,083
            69% of CRain's survivability

• CRain has more on-demand elemental resistance coverage
• CRain has LB support
• CRain has MP support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain has better (outdated) breaks
• CRain is tankier
• CRain can equip L.Shield
• CRain has innate wind elemental resistance
• Cerius provides better resistance for fire/ice/lightning/dark (especially when enhanced)
• Cerius provides better resistance to all elements if LB is leveled
• Cerius can provide petrify immunity to party
• Cerius can equip robes.
• e.Cerius can provide reliable (side) healing

Not much to say. For elemental resistance fights, unless the four elements Cerius comes up, CRain will generally be a better fit for the fight due to his other support abilities. But when those elements kick in, up-to 100% elemental resistance is amazing. Also, not being able to equip robes with many elemental resistance (notably Rainbow Robe) does hurt CRain a bit.

Sylvia Silvia

* Using CRain's TMR instead

HP: 4321
Def pre-buff: 169
Def post-buff: 221 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 167
Spr post-buff: 219 (via Leadership)

Phys eHP: 954,941
            64% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 946,299
            77% of CRain's survivability

• CRain has more elemental resistance coverage
• CRain has LB support
• CRain has MP support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain has (outdated) breaks
• CRain has multicast
• CRain is tankier
• CRain has innate wind elemental resistance
• CRain has innate auto-refresh
• Silvia provides better resistance for wind/fire/ice/light
• Silvia provides immunity to stop and breaks
• Silvia can equip H.Shield and Robes

Same as Cerius in terms of comparison, except that she also provides break immunity and stop immunity. As a sidenote, Silvia's enhancements only improve her damage, hence, why they have been generally ignored for this conparison.

Chloe Enh. Chloe

* Using CRain's TMR instead.

HP: 5031
Def pre-buff: 154
Def post-buff: 202 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 223
Spr post-buff: 283 (via Leadership)
Break: 45%

Phys eHP: 1,016,262
            68% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 1,423,773
           116% of CRain's survivability

Offensive Break: 181.81% of damage dealt to enemy
                     109% of damage dealt than from CRain's break
Defensive Break:  30.25% of damage taken from enemy
                     84% of damage taken than from CRain's break

• CRain has multicast (including for elemental resistance)
• CRain has LB support
• CRain has MP support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain is physically tankier
• CRain can equip L.Shield
• CRain has innate wind elemental resistance
• Chloe has better on-demand elemental resistance support (if multiple are not required immediately)
• Chloe has better all-element resistance support via LB
• Chloe has Mag killer support (beast/bird/demond/dragon/plant/stone)
• Chloe has immunity to all status ailments
• Chloe is magically tankier
• Chloe can equip robes

The main concern is how many elements you need to cover and when. If you have some time and/or don't need to cover all elements quickly, Chloe is generally better, especially once she gets her LB going. Generally though, due to better strength resistance, you might be able to get away with slower resistance buildup when compared to CRain.

As a sidenote: Chloe also has better breaks, though like CRain, she won't be able to apply both the break and protection on the same turn.

Garnet Enh. Garnet

* Using CRain's TMR (though you'll probably want to get her TMR down the road)

HP: 3897
Def pre-buff: 141
Def post-buff: 174 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 319
Spr post-buff: 380 (via Leadership)
Esper: 3 orbs/turn (spam)
       6-10 orbs/turn (LB)

Phys eHP: 678,078
            45% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 1,480,860
           121% of CRain's survivability (151% w/ evasion)

• CRain has LB support
• CRain has MP support
• CRain has (outdated) breaks
• CRain has multicast
• CRain is physically tankier
• CRain has more innate wind elemental resistance
• CRain can equip L.Shield
• Garnet has better elemental resistance coverage (as in all simultaneously)
• Garnet has better Esper support
• Garnet has (reliable) heals and raise
• Garnet has immunity to sleep/silence
• Garnet can equip robes
• e.Garnet is magically tankier
• e.Garnet has better general innate elemental resistance

From an elemental protection standpoint, Garnet is generally just better (with the slight exception of wind-only content). Beyond that, the support will vary. Do you want better LB and MP support? Or do you want better Esper support with side heals?

Marie Enh. Marie ^7★★

* Using her own TMR (need to explicitly say this due to above exceptions)

HP: 5434
Def pre-buff: 276
Def post-buff: 342 (via Leadership)
Spr pre-buff: 373
Spr post-buff: 450 (via Leadership)

Phys eHP: 1,858,428
            125% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 2,445,300
            200% of CRain's survivability

• CRain can on-demand protect light/dark and another element on the same turn
• CRain has LB support
• CRain has better MP support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain has (outdated) breaks
• CRain can equip L.Shield
• Marie has better elemental protection
• Marie has better innate elemental resistance
• Marie has innate protection against sleep/silence
• Marie is tankier
• Marie can equip robes
• e.Marie has reliable heal-regen
• e.Marie can provide protection against all status ailments

For elemental protection only, Marie wins (in addition to some side heals). Beyond that, CRain can provide other support to the party.

CG Fina Lotus Mage Fina ^7★★

HP: 5923
Def pre-buff: 208
Def post-buff: 264 (via Leadership, though I should include Divine Veil due to being her elemental resistance ability)
Spr pre-buff: 479 (only staff mastery, due to only 1-H bow being limited)
Spr post-buff: 564 (via Leadership; only staff mastery)

Phys eHP: 1,563,672
            105% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 3,340,572
            273% of CRain's survivability

• CRain has better LB support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain has (outdated) breaks
• CRain can equip L.Shield
• CRain has innate wind resistance
• LM.Fina has better elemental protection
• LM.Fina has better innate elemental resistance
• LM.Fina has innate protection against sleep/silence/paralyze/petrify (all w/ her TMR)
• LM.Fina has better MP support
• LM.Fina is tankier
• LM.Fina has earth/light/dark resistance (depending on gear and finishing her short story)
• LM.Fina can equip robes
• LM.Fina can heal

Not much to say. With the exception of LB support and niche Esper fill, LM Fina is better. That said, until a later point though, Fina will have a hard time both healing and giving elemental protection as a solo healer.

Sylvie Sylvie ^7★★

HP: 9576
Def pre-buff: 359
Def post-buff: 585 (via Growing Defense)
Spr pre-buff: 391
Spr post-buff: 638 (via Growing Defense)
Break: 45% / 70% (via Withering Arms/Guard and Hop into Battle!/Hop to the Rescue!, respecively)

Phys eHP: 5,601,960
            378% of CRain's survivability
Mag  eHP: 6,109,488
            499% of CRain's survivability

Offensive Break (on-demand): 181.81% of damage dealt to enemy
                                 109% of damage dealt than from CRain's break
Defensive Break (on-demand):  30.25% of damage taken from enemy
                                  84% of damage taken than from CRain's break
Offensive Break (CD): 333.33% of damage dealt to enemy
                          200% of damage dealt than from CRain's break
Defensive Break (CD):  30.25% of damage taken from enemy
                           25% of damage taken than from CRain's break

• CRain has better LB support
• CRain has Esper support
• CRain has innate wind resistance
• Sylvie has better elemental protection
• Sylvie has innate protection against sleep/silence/paralyze/petrify (all w/ her TMR)
• Sylvie has better MP support
• Sylvie has better breaks
• Sylvie has imbues
• Sylvie can provide break/stop protections buff
• Sylvie has phys/mag mitigation buff
• Sylvie can "provide" support chaining
• Sylvie is tankier (even without buffs)
• Sylvie has earth resistance (depending on gear and finishing her short story)
• Sylvie can equip robes and H.Shield

Barring LB support, Sylvie eats CRain alive. Man are bunnies vicious creatures.

Conclusion - New Player Variant

Chocobo Rain does alot of things nice for newer players. First of all, he provides full elemental coverage. Granted, the numbers aren't meta numbers and he cannot do it all at once, but the flexibility is still great. In addition, in his kit, he can be used to enable the other party members to do their stuff. First, he can provide both MP and Esper orbs for the party, with some breaking and stat buffing. However, more importantly, his LB support capabilities is fairly big. Being capable of granting 150% LB fill rate in addition to an average of two LB crysts per cast is fairly good, especially as it also affects himself. With both a low LB cost and innate fill rate, he can either entrust to fill up another one LB faster, or user his own LB to fill all party members LB, which once again, includes himself so he can repeat the process. In addition, while conditionalized on usage, he can also provide both massive ammount of HP/MP healing and SR support chaining.

Truly, a jack of all trades...

Conclusion - Veteran Variant

But a master of none.

With the exception of his LB support, everything he provides is either to weak compared to the meta standard (breaking/buffing/element resistance/Esper support), or too unreliable to really use (support chaining/healing).

That said, with max auto-LB gearing and another source of 100% Hightide (like an IW dagger), you can spam CRain's LB every turn if he picks up just one LB cryst each turn on its worst roll, something that shouldn't be a problem with his 26-hit LB. Esentially, you would be trading one party slot for an average of 10 auto-LB on the rest of the party. How big this is is dependent on how reliant the rest of the team is on their own LB's, and how hard it would be for them to reach it on their own.

^{Math Fix Status: Satisfied}

^{Edit 1: Typo on expedition number}