Legendary Fish Stethacanthus

[Starflake]

It's about having way too many layers of bad on top of each other in contrast to other fish, including legendaries. I think I have summed up all the things that make this fish brutal. I don't believe there is any fish out there that has so many RNG factors in it. That is what the discussion is about. I am not under the illusion that I am in control. I can only influence my luck so far and that's it. I don't think anyone here is contesting that. I also don't think it's a matter of desperation at all, nor is it the needing of filling that log up as quickly as possible. I have no problem at all missing The Unconditional again in two days even though I spent around a dozen hours testing it. Because the fish itself gives you a fair shot.

Is there any fish out there that combines all that Sthatacanthus does? I don't believe it does, which is why some people, including myself at least want this fish revised and hopefully ever so slightly reworked.

Make Sculptor less rare and reduce the IT window to 3-4 minutes
Increase the frequence for the right weather
Medium tug on Pearl Eyes

These are all seperate options that I personally have in mind to make this fish in line with all the other legendaries. If it doesn't happen, that's fine with me too. But I fully understand how people feel the way they feel about this particular fish and after having spent over 30 windows on it myself with not even one intuition window, I can't help but agree and hopefully SE does too. The reasons are there, I gave them.

- Long intervals between windows
- Usually fairly short windows 6-12 min
- Mooches off of very rare fish
- Mooch has no real indicator of what is what
- Very long mooch rates and a 12 - 18 second cast for Salt Rockfish, also possible to get the legendary turtle tug or white sea horse!
- Needs fish eyes

No other fish has all these things combined as far as I'm aware. That'll be the end for me of the discussion. I have put forth the reasoning as to why I feel the fish is off. It's not the end of the world if it remains the same.

[Espritduo]

I'm holding the Sea Butterfly, the worst fish I had to catch, as my measuring stick for determining how unreasonable Stethacanthus is at the end of the day. I know how many windows Sea Butterfly took to catch for me(over a hundred), and how long I spent going to those windows (over a month). If in two weeks and fifty more thunder windows Stethacanthus is as illusory as ever, I will not be surprised or amused and I will be all the more ardent about having something, just one little aspect of the catch, adjusted. Because, as you said, and as is the crux of the complaints so far, we lack control on this particular fish. Give me a medium tug on pearl-eyes and I'll be happy. That wouldn't actually change the rarity or functional difficulty of catching Stethacanthus at all. It would just give us more control over how we catch it and how we use what skills and knowledge we have to make RNG work for us as best we can, which is always what fishing has been about.

[Starflake]

Also add the fact that with 1411 gathering, Sculptor can also get away. So that's
- Long intervals between windows
- Usually fairly short windows 6-12 min
- INT off of very rare fish x2
- Mooch has no real indicator of what is what
- Very long mooch rates and a 12 - 18 second cast for Salt Rockfish, also possible to get the legendary turtle tug or white sea horse!
- Needs fish eyes
- Sculptor can get away at 1411 gathering.

I mean, is that really not a bit too much? I don't know. I guess it's up to SE. I won't throw in the towel just yet, but I sure am close.

[ServerCollaps]

dunno, I prefer stetha over unconditional, which never bites and has a 2 min window per week

[Starflake]

I guess we all have our horror stories. For me, I am over the discussion and will put myself over it. I still hope, having summed up all these factors, which do not seem to be present in other fish in the game, that SE can affort a minor tweak easing it a little. If not, I'm fine with it. We keep going.

[Catori-Mapiya]

That's the point - i also have a lot of lucky catches and a lot of horror stories.
But even with Opabinia i know what i was hooking and yes i did spend a lot of windows without even getting intuition. And still if i got it i had to to pray for platinum fish and i had to pray for opa to bite.
1 or 2 RNG factors is ok BUT i still think steth is over the top.

[Vnolan]

Anyone able to read Japanese?

https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/4079059/

Seems to suggest Steth can only be caught from 16:00 to 18:00

[Sated]

I'm dreading this one... I'm still recovering from catching a Sculptor for my fishing log, I can't fathom proc'ing intuition off something that rare.

I've only seen a handful of windows to even try and that itself is another concern, though I suppose it could be worse.

[Catori-Mapiya]

At least he DOES exist 19 Seconds Bite for me

[Myriads]

I got lucky and caught my Stethacanthus today. Having done so I feel what I can add here might have some merit.


With this catch I have only two fish left to have all of them, I'm missing the Ruby Dragon and Unconditional, so I have experience with all the other fishes and can make what I think is a good comparison with Stethacanthus.

Most of the tricky fish call for one to develop a strategy to max your chances at getting at least a shot at them. Each seems to have a way to tip the odds in your favor for at least getting that one chance a window at least, and then it's a matter of stacking try after try until the slot machine pays off with the fish in your sack.

I think the problem most fishers are having with Stethacanthus is that no fish has ever been so hard to find a working strategy for that offers that feeling of at least regular tries for it. Everything seems tipped against one.

Mostly its a GP management thing. You need to put up Fish Eyes for the sculptor. There is 350GP every 3 minutes. Then you need to catch the Sculptor which usually involves a 100GP Mooch 2 and if you are lucky enough to get one and tell it from a Pearl Eyes thanks to their heavily overlapped catch timers that is another 400GP there. Now you have your 5 minute intuition (Or you held it to 4PM with the collectable trick) to try and pull the Stethacanthus up. You need to get patience 1 or 2 up and manage the hook costs. Even chugging Hi-Cordals every time they are up it's a real trick to manage this. This is the skill part of the fish. I and others figured this plan out, or one like it. The plan is all the control we get.

It's doable, because I managed it, and others have also. But it feels unfair at a few points.

1) The honest rarity of a Sculptor bite. I went well over 40 windows before I saw my first of these.

2) The Sculptor and Pearl Eye overlap. They both are in each others pull in window and are both big fish, they cannot be distinguished and as a result it's easy to blow 400 irreplaceable GP and get Pearl Eyes. That pretty much shuts you down for most windows effectively. And it happens a lot.

3) The windows for trying this entire juggling act can often be most of a day apart. So it's hard to build up shots at Stethacanthus.

The third point is not such a big deal in my eyes if its the only factor. Both the Unconditional and Ruby Dragon have this feature. But with them you almost always get one or two shots at the fish in the window. You can Mooch for the Ruby two to five times if lucky, you tend to get one Unconditional bite per window. You feel like you have a shot while you are there. And you have some control over it. I can mooch 2 for the Ruby, I can hope I real in the Unconditional. So it feels fair, if not a bit frustrating at the window lengths. But I feel eventually the slot machine will pay off. Just tries, and they are not demanding.

Points 1 and 2 though are different. If Sculptors were a bit more common, then you'd have more shots to double hook them in a window even with the pearl eyes in the way, and thus more tries at Stethacanthus. Or if you could tell a Sculptor from a Pearl Eyes (Perhaps by Pearls being medium tug fish) then you'd not be wasting 400GP and shutting yourself down for a window by something you cannot control.

Either one of these would balance the fish more in my eyes.

For my catch everything just lined up perfectly.

Fish eyes up. Hi-Cordial to refill GP, Cast, right fish to mooch caught, Mooch 2, 29 second wait for a bite It should be Sculptor it was. Double hooked. Had glove on so I could hold them to 4PM, clicked no and got intuition and had full GP thanks to the wait. Patience 2, Hi-cordial, cast, get the right fish to mooch with powerful hook and it was HQ, Mooch 1. Legendary Bite, Powerful Hook and surprise! Stethacanthus!

I just used up a years worth of luck. And I do feel that. I had a plan, but my plan could die on the reefs of bad luck at every turn, and not be recoverable. A dot more control would feel good. I'd like to feel that something I did was a factor along with the luck.

No other fish I caught felt like this. So I get why folks in this thread feel as they do. And I'd support a change to make things more balanced for my fellow fishers in days, months and years to come. It seems right.

Heck perhaps in some expansion we'll see a Veteran Trade for regular fishing. Then we can banish those Pearl Eyes and make Stethacanthus as simple as many of the HW problems became with Mooch 2.

Good luck folks!