Testing perception and big fish.

As we upgrade our gear I am seeing many threads about loosing too many fish. I experienced it myself while fishing for my last Olgoi-Khorkhoi and after upgrading to Forager's. Lost 4 landed none.

My test: Traded out the waders (melded to G4 P37) for a pair of Patrician's Gaiters (3 G) and ate HQ crowned pie (G =7% max 17)

Stats with food: Gathering 364 Perception 251. Normal, no food, G 348 P288.

Just hooked two last heat wave, landed one. Totally inadequate statical sampling.

Still, I now have three.

My fishing alt: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/1417349/

People have been saying this theory after obtaining the Supra from the foragers. Most of these fishermen already had full melds when they were hunting their Olgoi to obtain the supra. Judging from that we can say those users only obtained a 6 perception increase. Judging by the way other gathering classes work we can see that perception solely effects the HQ rate. We also know the max HQ rate is 20%. So the theory goes that the extra perception is qualifying us for fish so large we can't catch it.

I think the entire theory can't possible be true.
Reason 1: If the theory holds true your perception would suddenly have increased your HQ rate far above the confirmed 20% to produce all those "too big to catch" fish. This we can show is not the case. HQ rate is at most 20%. You simply are not catch tons of HQs all of a sudden and it's known that those tend to be the larger fish that set records.
Reason 2: The perception increase to the supra was all of 6. If I really don't have the perception to pull the fish in then why does the fish still have a poor catch rate with guild buffs giving me plenty extra gathering? Unless that last 6 was somehow weighted more strongly than all the perception that preceded it then there is no way this makes any sense. Regardless it's still capped by the 20% HQ rate.

I think theory is just a way for people to attempt to explain pure rng. People try to see patterns where there are none. These fish were always hard to catch. Sometimes you get streaks, sometimes you lose catch after catch. This was true both with and without the supra.
It is my personal theory that some high end fish are just simply hard to catch. Period.

For example. Rivet Oysters.
I sometimes would hunt these before I got my supra for desynth skillups. I would easily lose 4/5 times I hooked it.
Then I got my supra, got some HQ Quiche, and got my guild to put the buffs up for a day. That gave me an extra 44 gathering. I still lose 4/5. To be clear a boost of 44 extra gathering did nothing to improve catch rates.

Despite the extra stats the fish still gets away as a point of course. I have no doubt the Olgoi, as the same two star class of fish, are the exact same way.

It's entirely possible that the gear required to catch the highest end fish in the game on a consistent basis does not yet exist. Olgoi's have been perceived to have this problem solely because we can not easily hook them so those loses stand out in our mind more.

It doesn't help that this theory is based entirely on people sitting around going "God, I swear I used to catch more" on a fish that you frequently won't even get a bite on in a whole window. There is absolutely no data to support the evidence. It's my fisherman's opinion based on olgoi rates compared to other 2 star fish rates that Olgoi's just like Rivets have a roughly 1/5 (20%) catch rate.

A 20% chance to catch these 2.3 big fish sound about right