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Is there any sort of endgame fishing guide out there?
I'm interested in leveling up fishing and cooking (despite how boring and rng fishing is) but I don't really understand the endgame mechanics of fishing. All I understand about this class is that you can fish up HQ fish and use it in cooking or "desynth" which I dont understand much about either..... and also, some people are saying how it wont be possible to HQ cooking/fishing with just these two classes?
There are numerous guide under the appropriate class & jobs sub forums for respective subjects. If you google deciplesoftheland it should find a user run website offering help (haven't been there in a while so not sure if kept up to date anymore).
I don't have any advice on the fishing part of that, but the reason people say it won't be possible to HQ cooking without other classes is because crafting relies on a wide range of skills. Each crafting class provides one skill at level 15, another at 37, and another at 50 that can be used cross-class on other crafting classes to increase your HQ success in one way or another. The wider the selection of these cross-class skills you have access to, the better your crafting success will be, especially as you get up into higher-level recipes.
(It's actually still possible to HQ even without any of these cross-class skills, but only when you get lucky with RNG. Once you start dealing with expensive materials, you may not want to risk them on an RNG gamble. You'll want to be able to HQ more reliably than that.)
Botany has been very helpful for me for weaving, fishing is helpful for cooking along with botany, I've taken all four of those to 50 cause they compliment each other so well. Look at the subjects in the DoL thread in these forums. I've just hit 50 in fishing and that thread has been very helpful, there is still a lot of stuff to do at 50.
This is what I use as a reference. There's some things I disagree with or that it doesn't cover, so give me a moment to edit this post and I'll note.
Rod: Start with the Halcyon Rod from the level 50 quest. Once you are melded enough to have around 310 Gathering after food/FC buff/etc, you can start fishing fairly reliably for the Silver Sovereign HQ at Oschon's Torch (any time, use Yumizuno as bait) - you need 20 of the bastards to get your Forager's Rod, and yes, it's going to take a long time. Probably took me longer than it did to get Fisher to 50, frankly. Forager's Rod is the most sizeable upgrade and there's lots of big fish that you'll need everything else maxed to catch, if you even can. Halcyon Supra's requirement fish are easy to catch but the demimateria is very expensive, it's up to you if you want it.
Hat: Get the Hamlet Puller's hat and slap a Gathering I (II?) and Perception I on it. That'll do you until you can get a Forager's Hat. If you don't have Botany/Mining, get the Hat after the Rod as its added stats are less important, even though it's available sooner ; if you do have Botany/Mining save yourself the trouble of fishing up an extra 10 sovereigns and just get the Forager's Hat via theme it's so much easier.
Belt: Just get a Raptorskin Belt and throw a Gathering I/Perception I on it. You will miss maybe 2-3 perception and 1 gathering total compared to a Dodore, but also pay about 1/5th of the price.
Melding: Look up materia prices on your server. On my server for instance, the cost of a single Gathering/Perception I materia often goes as low as 4k ; those are chump change to risk on overmelding, and I can fail 5-6 of those before I even meet what it would've cost for a single III. For instance, it was far cheaper on the body for me to do this:
(Gathering III) (Perception IV) (Gathering I Overmeld) (Gathering I Overmeld)
Compared to what the guide offered. Even if the success rate of the second overmeld was only 25%, I saved probably a good hundred thousand gil or more than if I'd followed the guide and never failed an overmeld with that method.
Accessories: The i70 accessories, plus materia to meld them, runs me about 100-120k each piece on my server. By comparison, however, getting a set of i40 meldable goodies and slapping a single Gathering I/Perception I into each slot, even after overmeld cost, ran me about 100-120k total. It's not maxed, but until you can afford maxed slots, it's still a vast upgrade to having nothing at all.
Food: There's a few options. For general purposes I use Trapper's Quiche HQ as I can make it as a level 50 CUL really reliably without having melded a single thing. Tomato Pie and Spinach Quiche are even better but may be even pricier, so save them for when you really need every point of Gathering you can get. If you're fairly safe on Gathering but need Perception, get Stuffed Artichoke instead (or Landtrap Salad if you don't need any Gathering whatsoever).
As for what you can do of note for fishing:
Ingrediants: There are a handful of ingrediants in high demand from fisher. For instance, Mahi-Mahi are a fish only high level fishers can catch that is used to create Pan-Fried Mahi-Mahi, the best +Control food in the game right now, which is always in demand by crafters. Raiders want potions from Alchemist in order to maximize their DPS, and so the Hammerhead Sharks and Silver Sharks used to make Shark Oil, a key ingrediant, sell fairly steadily. There's a few others as well. You don't make as much money off of Fishing as you would Botany or Mining though, and a great many fish are literally just vendor trash.
Desynthesis: If you work on fishing as well as have at least a level 30 Culinarian, you can start Desynthesizing the fish you catch. It's worth noting, unlike the other crafting desynths, Culinarian desynth is worthless except at extremely high level. Some extremely high level fish (including one that requires nearly-maxed gathering/perception) have a chance on successful desynth of producing cosmetic gear that can't be gained through any other method, such as the Sea Breeze Summer Pareo, Waterproof Cotton (used to make Coeurlskin bathing suits), Coronal Summer Halter, etc. These are worth small fortunes in many cases - anywhere from a couple hundred thousand to a couple million... but that's if you successfully obtain any of them, which is a big if: the fish have low appearance rates/have to be mooched, in limited weather/time combinations, and then you have to successfully Desynth them (you won't have 100% success even at maxed skill in most cases) and then it's still only a 1/10 drop for any of the pieces...