silver sovereign...it can't be this bad, can it?

Ok, so I've melded my gear, at least all the gathering that is allowed, and as much perception as I can. That gives me 317 gathering and 292 perception. I know I'm well beyond the requirements to catch silver sovereign. And, I have caught 7 HQ so far. However, this has taken me almost 3 weeks of pretty much solid fishing out side of daily ex roulette. I need 30 of them for the hat and rod.

Is there anything else I can do? This is taking a ridiculously long amount of time, even for a grind. I can't advance with "feast of famine" because I need the rod and the hat to even attempt to come close to 400+ gathering it requires for the fish in that quest.

I'm just getting frustrated because I've read the forums and other guides and it seems others are not having such a hard time catching 30 HQ sovereigns.

I fished the 10 HQs for Forager's Hat and the HQ rate for them was so low (added during daytime it was annoying to get those Mahi-Mahis...) that I decided to burn my gil to full gathering melded fisher's HQ set, ilvl 70 accessories with gathering +5 melds only, Spinach Quiche HQ and FC gathering II buff and went after Olgoi-Khorkhois for Halcyon Supra Rod instead. That gave me Gathering 349, perception 233, and caught them 3/4 without any problems.

Yes, expensive but now that I think about all the time the other big fish has taken (112/112 for me), it was so worth spending the gil.

Welcome to the suffering that is Silver Sovereign. It probably took me about 30 hours of fishing to catch enough for my Rod alone, and it's highly suggested that if you can, you get the Forager's Hat using BTN/MIN instead.

If you are planning on doing Feast of Famine you've got to get a LOT more than just the Rod though. In fact, with all the other gear you'll eventually need in order to succeed, you can totally get your Gathering and Perception high enough to skip the Forager's Rod and go straight to the Halcyon Supra (Although you'll still eventually want the hat). Yes, it costs money - but there's going to be no getting around getting the Halcyon Supra eventually and all that melded gear if you want to get yourself to 400+.

You need somewhere around 340+ Gathering to land the Olgoi-Khorkoi, but that's entirely doable just with the normal Halcyon Rod if the rest of your gear and food are good enough - and trust me, landing 3 of those is way faster than gathering Silver Sovereign.

Stupid rng at it's best. Some days I'd catch zero. Some days I'd catch 4 or 5. I probably spent 25hrs catching all that were required for the upgrades. I would suggest fishing at night so you don't end up catching alot of Mahi-Mahi's.

Catching Mahi-mahis does not mean you missed catching a soverin.

My alt's SS daytime catch rate was about the same as her nighttime catch rate.

I completely skipped the sovereigns and went straight to the supra rod. If you have forager's melded and eat spinach quiche it's entirely possible to fish Olghoi Khorkhoi with the i50 quest rod. Also, you are going to need the supra rod anyway if you are aiming for the feat of famine, you are not going anywhere with the forager's rod so it's best skip it entirely.

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Catching Mahi-mahis does not mean you missed catching a soverin.

My alt's SS daytime catch rate was about the same as her nighttime catch rate.

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Perhaps not. But I got really sick of getting a "big hit" and it NOT being a Sovereign.

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Originally Posted by Black91CRX

Perhaps not. But I got really sick of getting a "big hit" and it NOT being a Sovereign.

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Totally understandable. /laugh

When my alt was going for SSs Mahi-mahis were selling for about 1K. And I can cook with them.

Have you tried lower your gathering a bit? I once get high gathering with food and catch those guys surprisingly a lot harder. I think get gathering just about the requirement should be better (308 i believe?).

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Totally understandable. /laugh

When my alt was going for SSs Mahi-mahis were selling for about 1K. And I can cook with them.

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Yeah, in my case I'm also a 50 CUL so I ended my Sovereign fishing with nearly a full stack of Mahi Mahi. And while it was a little frustrating, they're still regularly generating me like 8k profit a plate.

Similiarly I believe there's a couple other fish (especially Rothylt Oyster?) that come from that fishing hole that are part of valueable recipies (Rothylt Oysters are used in Bouillabaise which is still a favoured food by a lot of crafters for instance) and so can sell well. At least if you're making some money off of your time it doesn't hurt as much when you finish up an hour of fishing with no HQ Sovereign to show for it.

Got a lucky streak yesterday and now have the rod. I feel much better about the grind now and will get the last 10 for the hat.

Getting the rest of the foragers gear (in my case, probably buy it off MB) and melding it should put me high enough to do feast of famine quest and begin fishing for supra rod?

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Originally Posted by kuikui

Got a lucky streak yesterday and now have the rod. I feel much better about the grind now and will get the last 10 for the hat.

Getting the rest of the foragers gear (in my case, probably buy it off MB) and melding it should put me high enough to do feast of famine quest and begin fishing for supra rod?

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If you have the Forager's rod, the bonus that gave you should actually be enough to start fishing up Olgoi-Khorkoi (You need 340-ish).

Also congrats.

your a better dedicated fisher than me. i caught 3 hq sovereigns and gave up, skipped that step and grabbed supra using food and fc buffs, got that rod in about 4hrs of fishing time since its timed.

now im on the crazy part of trying for all big fish for ironworks rod.... oh the joy...p

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

Olgoi-Khorkoi (You need 340-ish).

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I can tell you that olgoi needs more then 345 because I hade like 344 and 345 and still said both times i have not enaugh gatharing to even try to have chance at landing that fish. tried 2 times went whole times with food and all my tries 4 i think said my gatharing is not enaugh -_- so id say eihter i had some unlucky bug or or i need 346 to have the chance of getting 'fish got away' message.

With hq food and fc buff you can skip this and just get supra.

People on http://en.ff14angler.com/ report catching Olgoi-Khorkhoi with gathering 350.

So I will bet it falls somewhere between 345 and 350.

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Catching Mahi-mahis does not mean you missed catching a soverin.

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Actually, it might. It depends on how SE chose to calculate fish odds. If you cast the line, you have a 100% chance to hook a fish. This 100% is divided among the catchable fish. For an example using entirely made-up numbers:

10%: Sea Cucumber
15%: Vongola Clam
15%: Moraby Flounder
20%: Pebble Crab
20%: Tiger Cod
15%: Rothlyt Oyster
5%: Silver Sovereign

If you add in an additional fish, now, that fish has some percentage chance to be hooked. Since the total percentage can't go over 100% the percent chance of at least one other fish has to lower to make room. If SE was kind, the percentages of only fish that aren't Silver Sovereign will be lowered. However, if SE was kind, they would not be having us fish up 20 HQ of these wretched things in the first place. So, I tend to think that adding Mahi-Mahi to the mix DOES lower the odds of catching Silver Sovereign, at least a little:

9%: Sea Cucumber
14%: Vongola Clam
14%: Moraby Flounder
19%: Pebble Crab
19%: Tiger Cod
14%: Rothlyt Oyster
7%: Mahi-mahi
4%: Silver Sovereign


It may not be a noticable difference, but after you've spent enough time staring dead-eyed at the screen, watching for the tug of the line, and dying a little inside when you reel in yet another fish that is not HQ Silver Sovereign, you start looking for any possible way to improve your odds. :P

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Snip

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http://na.ff14angler.com/ has the exact odds on catching any fish divided up by bait.

SS = 5.9%

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

http://na.ff14angler.com/ has the exact odds on catching any fish divided up by bait.

SS = 5.9%

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Those numbers, however, are displayed based on total fishing at that location - not in any way reflecting things like when the fish became available, or what happens to rates based on other conditional aspects (such as fish that are time or weather gated at a location).

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

Those numbers, however, are displayed based on total fishing at that location - not in any way reflecting things like when the fish became available, or what happens to rates based on other conditional aspects (such as fish that are time or weather gated at a location).

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True but the SS is an all day any weather fish.

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Originally Posted by Shadygrove

True but the SS is an all day any weather fish.

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But Mahi-Mahi is a day-only. Adding Mahi-Mahi to the pool of catchable fish may change the percentage chance of catching Silver Sovereign - and THAT is not reflected on ff14angler.com. That website only displays overall percentage catch chance, day AND night, built by averaging out submissions from fishers.

To present an exaggerated case to illustrate my point, suppose you had a fishing hole with only two fish, one available all the time (Silver Sovereign) and one only available during day (Mahi-Mahi). If you fish at night, your catch rate of SS is 100%. If you fish during the day, you catch 50% SS and 50% MM. If you looked up the Silver Sovereign on ff14angler.com, it would list the catch rate of SS as 75%, the average overall catch rate. Smart fishers, though, would fish only at night, since it brings their catch rate of SS to 100%.

Bottom line, unless you need/want Mahi-Mahi, it's a better idea to fish for Silver Sovereigns only at night, as the addition of Mahi-Mahi to the pool very likely impacts the likelihood of hooking a Silver Sovereign (even if not by much).