If you’re the kind of player who’s interested in glamour, I’m betting that probably extends to your Chocobo companion as well, and you’d prefer to give them a stylish look that complements your own attire. As soon as you unlock your combat buddy you actually have the ability to change its appearance without requiring any further quests.
The first aesthetic option is to change the colour of its feathers, which requires access to a Chocobo stable, either from a private estate, FC estate, or apartment building. The second customization is to change the barding it wears. While barding is typically a type of armour, for gameplay purposes it’s purely aesthetic and doesn’t affect your chocobo’s stats or survivability in any way.
You might also be a completionist looking to get as many of these bardings in your collection as possible. I’ve organized the bardings into categories based on how you go about obtaining them, so you can see which ones are easy to pick up, and which ones will require more time (or money) to collect.
Most Recent Barding
Patch 6.5 brought us a barding from the new Extreme Trial. The Abyssal Barding can be crafted using a material drop from The Abyssal Fracture (Extreme). It’s an Armorer Specialist Master X Recipe, meaning you’ll need the Master Armorer X Recipes and the Soul of the Armorer in order to craft it. It can also be purchased on the marketboard.
How to View and Change Your Bardings
Head to the Companion Window under Character > Companion. Once there you’ll see three tabs: Actions, Skills, and Appearance. The appearance tab will show you the current colour of your Chocobo, as well as the barding equipped on its head, body, and legs.
Therefore, most Bardings are really a set of three pieces, and you can mix and match these pieces for your Chocobo to wear. They don’t have to be wearing a complete outfit either. You can select the currently selected piece from the list to unequip it and leave that slot empty.
Unfortunately this won’t allow you to actually see the Barding displayed on your Chocobo unless you’re outside of a city and have it summoned in front of you. The visual of your Chocobo in the Companion Window will only display the bare model in the current colour, without any barding shown.
Simply head to any area outside city walls and use a bundle of Gysahl Greens so you can play around with different Barding combinations and see them displayed on the Chocobo right in front of you.
How to Get Chocobo Bardings
If you’re curious to see how the bardings look in game, I’ve made sure to link to clear images of all bardings further down, and I’ll be covering how you get every barding in the different categories.
An asterisk (*) denotes a barding that can be purchased from other players on the marketboard. Keep this in mind if you would rather spend gil instead of time. There are 40 bardings you can buy and sell on the marketboard.
Many of these buyable ones can be crafted using materials from extreme trials. There’s also the Machinist Barding which can be obtained with Skybuilders’ Scrips and the Queen’s Guard Barding which is a direct drop from Delubrum Reginae. 3 more are from loot boxes: Abigail Barding (Palace of the Dead Deep Dungeon), Allagan Barding (Eureka Orthos Deep Dungeon) and Red Mage Barding (Eureka Anemos). 3 are from past seasonal events: Starlight Barding (from the Starlight Celebration Seasonal Event), Egg Harness (from Hatching-Tide 2014), and Paramour Barding (from Valentione’s Day 2015).
In-Game Currency Exchange
There are tons of activities to do in FFXIV, and I guess Square Enix wants to encourage us to try them all out. There are so many items that can only be bought with a specific currency, so you’ll have to dip your toes in specific parts of the game in order to earn these items. The following bardings involve different currencies from Hunts, The Gold Saucer, Gathering, Grand Companies, PvP, and Island Sanctuary.
Chocobo Raincoat (800 Gatherers’ Scrip)
Felicitous Barding (4,000 Seafarer’s Cowries)
Gambler Barding (20,000 MGP)
Gridanian Barding (6,000 Company Seals, The Order of the Twin Adder)
Gridanian Crested Barding (8,000 Company Seals, Order of the Twin Adder)
Gridanian Half Barding (4,000 Company Seals, The Order of the Twin Adder)
Gridanian Saddle (Default Barding or obtained from purchasing any other Gridanian Barding, The Order of the Twin Adder)
Hingan Barding (4 Veteran Clan Mark Logs = 2,000 Centurio Seals)
Ishgardian Barding (350 Centurio Seals)
Isle Pioneer’s Barding (4,000 Seafarer’s Cowries)
Lominsan Barding (6,000 Company Seals, The Maelstrom)
Lominsan Crested Barding (8,000 Company Seals, The Maelstrom)
Lominsan Half Barding (4,000 Company Seals, The Maelstrom)
Lominsan Saddle (Default Barding or obtained from purchasing any other Lominsan Barding, The Maelstrom)
*Machinist Barding (1,200 Skybuilders’ Scrips)
Mandervillian Barding (150,000 MGP)
Ul’Dahn Barding (6,000 Company Seals, The Immortal Flames)
Ul’Dahn Crested Barding (8,000 Company Seals, The Immortal Flames)
Ul’Dahn Half Barding (4,000 Company Seals, The Immortal Flames)
Ul’Dahn Saddle (Default Barding or obtained from purchasing any other Ul’Dahn Barding, The Immortal Flames)
Wolf Barding (1,000 Trophy Crystals)
Loot Boxes
If you spend enough time in these areas you’ll amass quite a collection of loot boxes to sit down and open up. If you’re unlucky or impatient you can buy a couple of these bardings on the marketboard.
*Abigail Barding (Silver and Gold-trimmed Sacks from Palace of the Dead)
*Allagan Barding (Bronze and Gold-tinged Sacks from Eureka Orthos)
*Red Mage Barding (Anemos Lockbox from Eureka Anemos)
*Samurai Barding (Heat-warped Lockbox from Eureka Pyros)
FATEs and FATE Tokens
Grab some friends or join a party finder group to grind out the Shared FATEs in the Shadowbringers or Endwalker zones. For some of the other bardings, the FATEs are kind of rare so keep an eye on the appropriate server linkshells for callouts. I often see callouts like these in the same linkshells people use for The Hunt A and S ranks.
Many people also use the FATE tracker Faloop! site or the Faloop! Discord Server to keep an eye on when special boss FATEs are off cooldown on their server or others.
Ala Mhigan Barding (‘Rattle and Humbaba’ FATE in The Peaks)
Dancer Barding (350 Bicolour Gemstones [Rank 3 in all Shared FATE zones])
Deepshadow Barding (350 Bicolour Gemstones [Rank 3 in Lakeland Shared FATEs])
Ishgardian Half Barding (‘Vedrfolnir Devoteth’ FATE in The Churning Mists)
Ixion Barding (5 Ixion Horns from ‘A Horse Outside’ FATE in The Lochs)
Sleipnir Barding (5 Odin’s Mantle from ‘Steel Reign’ in The Black Shroud zones)
Thavnairian Barding (3 Daivadipa’s Beads from ‘Devout Pilgrims vs. Daivadipa’ in the Thavnair zone)
Drops
Some bardings drops directly from duties or chests within duties.
*Queen’s Guard Barding (Delubrum Reginae, part of the Shadowbringers Resistance Weapon quest line).
Yojimbo Barding (Kugane Ohashi, part of the Hildibrand quest line)
Chocobo Skill Tree
These are super simple to get, they just take time because your Chocobo Companion needs to level up. Getting enough skill points to max out a single tree can take a decent amount of grinding, so just keep at it and take advantage of the companion tasks in the Challenge Log each week.
Dragoon Barding (Maxed Attacker skill tree)
Paladin Barding (Maxed Defender skill tree)
White Mage Barding (Maxed Healer skill tree)
Achievement Points Exchange
These bardings used to be veteran rewards, but are now available to buy with achievement certificates from Jonathas <Master of the Rolls> in Gridania.
Barding of Light (3 achievement certificates)
Black Mage Barding (3 achievement certificates)
Wild Rose Barding (3 achievement certificates)
Flyer Shaffron (3 achievement certificates, complete ‘The Ultimate Weapon‘ a.k.a. the base game) Head slot only
The requirement for the Flyer Shaffron used to be the quest ‘I Believe I Can Fly‘ in Foundation, but that was removed with patch 5.3.
Achievement Unlocks
You (or I guess your Chocobo Companion) will be rewarded for certain feats you accomplish. Check out your Achievements window to track your progress on these bardings.
Race Barding (Ride to the Challenge I – Complete the first 15 Chocobo Challenge races)
Plumed Barding (Breaking Bo – Train another player’s chocobo 30 times) Head slot only
Sovereign Barding (Leaving a Good Impression IV – 300 player commendations) Head slot only
Extreme Trial (Token Exchange)
I don’t know why this particular barding is different from the rest of the Extreme Trial bardings, but you need to earn enough tokens from the fight and then purchase it.
Round Table Barding from Thordan EX – 15 Heaven’s Ward’s Helm Fragments from The Minstrel’s Ballad: Thordan’s Reign.
Extreme Trial (Crafted From Drops)
If you’re lucky enough to see the crafting material drop after the fight, and lucky enough to win the roll, you can craft a barding set in the theme of the boss you just fought. All of these are sellable on the marketboard so you can probably find one there if you don’t craft.
If you do craft, be sure to check to see if you need to be a specialist to make the recipe. This is common for bardings from the most recent extreme trials while they’re in the High-end Duty tab of Duty Finder.
*Abyssal Barding from Zeromus EX – Abyssal Diamond in The Abyssal Fracture (Extreme). Armorer Specialist Recipe.
*Blissful Barding from Lakshimi EX – Blissful Shroud in Emanation (Extreme). Goldsmith Recipe.
*Bluefeather Barding from Endsinger EX – Blue Feather in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Endsinger’s Aria. Armorer Recipe.
*Byakko Barding from Byakko EX – Byakko’s Mane in The Jade Stoa (Extreme). Goldsmith Recipe.
*Diamond Barding from Diamond EX – Diamond Plating in The Cloud Deck (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Divine Light Barding from Hydaelyn EX – Crystal of Divine Light in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hydaelyn’s Call. Weaver Recipe.
*Emerald Barding from Emerald EX – Emerald Plating in Castrum Marinum (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Expanse Barding from Bismarck EX – Bismarck’s Baleen in The Limitless Blue (Extreme), not to be confused with the Expanse Baleen which uses the same icon but is for crafting the weapons and minion. Armorer Recipe.
*Eternal Darkness Barding from Zodiark EX – Crystal of Eternal Darkness in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Zodiark’s Fall. Armorer Recipe.
*Flamecloaked Barding from Rubicante EX – Pearl of Flames in Mount Ordeals (Extreme). Weaver Recipe.
*Hades Barding from Hades EX – Hades’s Auracite in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Hades’s Elegy. Armorer Recipe.
*Hive Barding from Ravana EX – Ravana’s Forewing in Thok ast Thok (Extreme), not to be confused with the Hive Forewing which uses the same icon but is for crafting the weapons and minion. Armorer Recipe.
*Horde Barding from Nidhogg EX – Nidhogg’s Scale in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Nidhogg’s Rage. Leatherworker Recipe.
*Ice Barding from Shiva EX – Diamond Tear in Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Extreme), not to be confused with the Ice Tear which uses the same icon but is for crafting the minion. Leatherworker Recipe.
*Innocence Barding from Innocence EX – Immaculate Wingblade in The Crown of the Immaculate (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Levin Barding from Ramuh EX – Levin Orb in The Striking Tree (Extreme), not to be confused with the Large Levin Orb which uses the same icon but is for crafting the weapons. Leatherworker Recipe.
*Lunar Barding from Tsukuyomi EX – Celestial Kimono Remnant in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Tsukuyomi’s Pain. Weaver Recipe.
*Reveler’s Barding from Susano EX – Blade of Revelry in The Pool of Tribute (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Ruby Barding from Ruby Weapon EX – Ruby Plating in Cinder Drift (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Seiryu Barding from Seiryu EX – Seiryu’s Scale in The Wreath of Snakes (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Sephirotic Barding from Sephirot EX – Sephirot Sap in Containment Bay S1T7 (Extreme), not to be confused with the Fiend Sap which uses the same icon but is for crafting the weapons. Leatherworker Recipe.
*Shinryu Barding from Shinryu EX – Shinryu’s Scale in The Minstrel’s Ballad: Shinryu’s Domain. Armorer Recipe.
*Sophic Barding from Sophia EX – Sophic Bead Fragment in Containment Bay P1T6 (Extreme). Goldsmith Recipe.
*Suzaku Barding from Suzaku EX – Scarlet Tailfeather in Hell’s Kier (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Tidal Barding from Leviathan EX – Leviathan’s Barb in The Whorleater (Extreme), not to be confused with the Barb of the Whorl which uses the same icon but is for crafting an outdoor furnishing. Armorer Recipe.
*Titania Barding from Titania EX – Dancing Wing in The Dancing Plague (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*True Barding of Light from <Spoiler> EX – Plate of Light in The Seat of Sacrifice (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
*Voidcast Barding from Golbez EX – Voidcast Pauldron in The Voidcast Dais (Extreme). Armorer Specialist Recipe (Master X).
*Windswept Barding from Barbariccia EX – Pearl of Winds in Storm’s Crown (Extreme). Leatherworker Recipe.
*Zurvanite Barding from Zurvan EX – Zurvanite Carapace Fragment in Containment Bay Z1T9 (Extreme). Armorer Recipe.
Crafted
There are a couple of low level crafting recipes that let you make your very own barding.
*Highland Barding (Level 40 Leatherworker using Blue Fox Hide – Treasure Hunt Drop)
*Orthodox Barding (Level 56 Weaver)
Seasonal Event
These are bardings from past seasonal events which are now mostly unobtainable in game, though many have become available for purchase on the Mog Station.
Egg Harness (Hatching-tide 2014) Head slot only
Egg Hunter Barding (Hatching-tide 2016)
Eerie Barding (All-Saints’ Wake 2014, now Mog Station)
Noble Barding (Hairstyle Contest 2015/FanFest 2016)
*Paramour Barding (Valentione’s Day 2015)
Postmoogle Barding (Valentione’s Day 2022)
Saintly Barding (Starlight Celebration 2019, now Mog Station)
*Starlight Barding (Starlight Celebration)
Cash Purchases
These bardings are available for real money. Head to the Mog Station for most of these if you’re interested in them.
Angelic Barding (Mog Station)
Behemoth Barding (Collector’s Edition)
Butlery Barding (Mog Station)
Demonic Barding (Mog Station)
Far Eastern Barding (Mog Station)
Nezha Barding (Mog Station)
Oriental Barding (Mog Station China)
Summary
While there are some chocobo bardings that are locked behind Mog Station purchases or limited-time events, the majority are always available, and some are really quite simple to go pick up. There are so many styles that I’m sure there’s something in here for everybody, too. And of course, they’re always adding new bardings when they release new trials, seasonal events, and other content.
Being able to mix and match different barding pieces as well as chocobo colour gives you a lot of power to customize your companion to your personal tastes. So, which barding do you like the most? And what colour chocobo do you think it goes best with? Let me know in the comments.
