Sidereal Whale is genuinely awful

Fishing is generally a "fun" activity when the RNG hits just right, but when the chips and the entire house are against you, it is outright torture.

Such is the case with Sidereal Whale, which is one of the worst legendary fish to catch in the entire game. Every aspect about it is genuinely awful to play around.

• Is only available after a rarest of rare weather changes. If you miss a window, it can take up to two weeks (or more) before you get another chance.
• Requires intuition, meaning you need to fulfill prerequisites just to even get a chance at catching the fish
• Intuition requires Phallaina, an exceptionally profitable yet exceedingly rare fish
• Is a mooch fish in a pool that lets you get 3-10 mooch attempts per 10 minutes
• Phallaina is also a fish that comes from Mooch.

To compensate, the game decides it's "fair" by offering 20 minute windows to Sidereal Whale with a 10 minute intuition buff. This means if you catch a Phallaina at the tail end of its window, you still get a full 10 minute chance at catching Sidereal Whale.

Whoever designed this fish is genuinely evil. There is no other way to describe them. They actively push the extremes of RNG and don't care how much the players end up suffering because of bad RNG. The players DO suffer, because they can end up waking up at ungodly hours just for a CHANCE to catch the fish, and then someone else shows up and catches it on their first try.

Fishing, by design, is cruel and unfair. It absolves itself of all criticism because it's literally an irrelevant RNG casino. But just like a casino, it keeps those who are addicted keep coming back for more because they don't want to be a loser at the end of the day.

I can only wish for this fish to get nerfed and future legendary fish to not require so many stupid layers of unnecessary RNG. But because this is criticism for an activity the devs don't care about having fun in, it's all moot in the first place and I look like a lunatic for having awful RNG.

The melancholy doesn't fade as fast as it comes. It stacks with every consecutive failure, every missed bite. It is definitive proof that the FFXIV fishing gods are inherently evil who want you to suffer before having fun.

I agree.

Catching Phallaina alone took me weeks >.>

At least they should remove these legendary fish from the normal big fish achievments. They are all awful with too much RNG. Normal big fish are fun, the legendary fish are just frustrating. But because they are all moved into the same achievment you don't get your reward when you don't catch all of them - which makes fishing for the normal big fish feel pointless and of course - unrewarding - when you don't plan to waste your time in the legendary ones.

Back in ARR you didn't have to catch the 6 legendary fish to get the last big fish achievment. And the legendary fish had their own achievment and title. Can we go back there please?

And please give the legendary fish a blue background on the icon when we are at it - they are clearly a different tier of fish and should be marked as such.

Two questions: 1) Is it still easier than Ruby and 2) will it be easier to catch in 1-2 expansions like every other big fish? If yes to either, I will reserve my fears.

The problem is Phallaina, I know multiple people including myself going to the Sidereal Whale window 3 hours before to try multiple attempts to even get the Intuition. Or people are trying to catch Phallaina the night before to log in in the morning just for a chance at Sidereal Whale. Phallaina is the real problem with going for Sidereal Whale. I assume people hope they would stop making Big legendary fish that would require as fishers call it "jailing" where you have to sit in the zone multiple hours before hand to even get a Intuition.

Who looked at steth or lancet and thought "I can make this worse"?
6 hours in the worst zone in the game not able to do anything useful, just for 3 chances that were all 30s unbegotten because horizon won't get on the damn hook.
If there was a decent bait for horizon it wouldn't be as terrible. If Phalliana wasn't such a pain it'd be better, if whale actually bit with a reasonable frequency it'd not be as terrible.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Two questions: 1) Is it still easier than Ruby and 2) will it be easier to catch in 1-2 expansions like every other big fish? If yes to either, I will reserve my fears.

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I would argue that Ruby pre-SHB is easier than this because you have less layers of incessantly awful RNG to go through. You simply have to catch Ku-er and pray your mooch goes through.

With regards to Sidereal Whale, it encompasses every awful RNG layer known to fishing thus far. It can't get any worse than this as any change to any aspect would be a considerable difference. And the game actively mocks your bad RNG with the intuition text itself.

I'm going to my 10th Phallaina window in a row and having over 50+ mooch attempts. The only mercy is that if I can catch just one Phallaina, I can be ready for tomorrow's Whale window. But if I fail to catch either Phallaina or the Whale tomorrow, it disappears for two weeks.

The devs who thought this was fun would rather turn fishing into a club of masochistic unhealthy discussions at this rate. And we'll still come back for more, right? Because fishing is fun, right guys? Just ignore the amount of havoc I caused in my own house because of bad fish RNG. Video games don't cause violence, but they are a leading cause of increased unbridled aggression.

I mean... pretty much every other EW fish was pretty bog standard unremarkable. Had to balance that somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

I mean... pretty much every other EW fish was pretty bog standard unremarkable. Had to balance that somewhere.

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"Hmmm... Yes... Fish RNG needs to remain balanced with one end being remarkably unremarkable and the other end being absolutely dreadful"

What an absolutely dogwater justification for something that is legitimately awful in every aspect. It's almost if you're implying that fishing criticism should NEVER matter!!!

I'm on my 13th dry Phallaina window, surely close to reaching 100+ mooch attempts. And then people like you are going to walk up and RNG better than me like it's nothing. It's just bad luck, right? It's my fault that I'm not spending more than one day on a SINGLE FISH just to prep for ANOTHER SINGLE FISH, right?!

I don't want to hear it. People like you piss me off.

...I spent the better part of 8 months chasing one single fish.

But do carry on about how you're not able to catch the thing so you can go back to not catching anything.

It's fishing. Not only that, it's Legendary fishing. The last fish we get until next expansion. Like so many other pieces of content, they gotta stretch out engagement somehow.

"YOU WILL SUFFER!!! YOU WILL ENJOY THE SUFFERING!!! IT'S ALL PART OF THE DUE PROCESS!!!"

My god, listen to yourself. Oh sure! Let's just turn this into a pissing contest on who has the worst RNG!! It totally vindicates the hardcore feeling of waking up at 4am in the morning and being a total LOSER when the fish doesn't bite at all.

Nobody cares about the pissing contest. It's an awful one because it's a journey that's built off of RNG alone. But you can't stop because you can't let the fish win.

It saddens me that you think that this journey is in any way shape or form enjoyable and acceptable. The fact that you need fishing RNG of all things in this game to feel something is still valid, but just as depressing.

The only feeling you'll get regardless of how much time you spend on a fish is relief. Relief from the problematic behaviours that stem from stupid hardcore conditions and the desire to meet them.

Stop trying to justify torture. You and I both know it isn't fun in any capacity unless you get it within the first couple of tries. Beyond that is suffering. So do you enjoy suffering then? Did you enjoy spending 8 months on that fish?

The devs just did their jobs. They want to keep players subscribing until the next expansion and the result for the fishing-lover players is this unbelievable RNG. They do not want you to be fun, they want you to suffer. The legendary fish things have always been like this. Opabinia, the Ruby Dragon, Lancetfish, all of them took me more than 8 months (in case of the Ruby Dragon it took me over a year). It clearly shows that the devs do not care how long it takes for you. They want to torture you and if you still keep subscribing, they made their jobs done.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

Two questions: is ruby harder and will this be easier later

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Let's compare the 2 fish with crowdsourced data.
1: Uptime.
Ruby: 0.3% uptime
Sidereal: 0.5% uptime
- Their windows are about as common as each other, Sider just has longer uptime due to having the full 0-8. In practice they're equal because Phallaina, the fish that gives you the intuition, is 0-4.

2: Mooching
Ruby: According to Teamcraft, a Ku'er mooch has a 74% chance to be another Ku'er, a 2% chance to be the Dragon, and a 24% chance to slip. Blue Bobbits, the bait used to get a Ku'er, allegedly have a 62% chance to slip, though this might be inflated due to players not reeling in non-!!! bites.
Sidereal: Again according to Teamcraft, a Horizon Event mooch has a 31% chance to be a Triana (Which has led to people in the fishing community making a meme out of it), a 35% chance to be an Unbegotten, and a 4% chance to be the Phallaina that people need. This is in addition to the 30% chance to not get anything, but this is again probably inflated due to players not reeling in the bite that they know isn't the Phallaina. There isn't enough data on Whale's bite rate yet for me to pass judgement on this.
The highest chance to hook in a Horizon Event is with Stardust, at roughly 22.2%, adding another layer of RNG onto this.
- This is comparing 2 completely different things.

3: Preparation
Ruby: It's pretty simple to set up 10 Angler's Art stacks half an hour before the window, then slap a Coeurl Snake Eel, use Patience II, and try to moochloop till you get the Dragon, using Makeshift Bait if you currently have a Ku'er on your hook and Patience has worn off.
Sidereal: Show up 12 hours early and try to get Phallaina. Try again in the next window. Try again in the next window. Try again in the next window. Try again in the next window. Cry. Actually get Phallaina this time and realise that you need to stay in this area for the next 4 hours. Get the 2 Unbegotten if you didn't get them already, and 2 of the 3 EBEs. (Anyone who tells you that it's impossible to get Phallaina without catching the 3 EBEs early is bad at fishing and doesn't own a stopwatch.) Get the rest of your AA stacks if you still need to by hooking up ! bites or !! bites you know aren't EBE due to how long it took for it to bite. Stop fishing so that you don't hit Amiss. Play another game while you wait for the window to show up. When the window starts, hook up an EBE, then immediately Surface Slap it and use Patience II. Hook up the !! bites you know can be Horizon Event and hook in the !!! bites you think are Sidereal, using your Hi-Cordials or AA stacks on Makeshift Bait so that you can have a 100% mooch-able uptime. If you want to make the chance even higher, start around 3:30 ET instead of 0 ET so that you can't be jumpscared by the Phallaina that you didn't catch 12 hours ago.
- Sidereal is harder.
(1/2)

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Originally Posted by Astrahime

(1/2), sorry for editing your quote because this is 5+k characters total

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4: Can it be made easier?
Ruby: Makeshift Bait got added. While Fish Eyes did get reworked, it doesn't affect Legendary Fish and Jailing with a Ku'er is both downright insane and won't help you due to Amiss.
Sidereal: If they make Fish Eyes work on ShB or EW fish, Jailing with a Phallaina will be extremely expensive outside of its window, but still possible. (This would have the side effect of making a lot of ShB/EW Big Fish easier, and make Ronka the easiest Legendary Fish ever by removing the difficulty of catching both the Priest and the Serpent in the same window. Yes, this is possible as-is if you get the Priest at the end of the window and wait till 10 ET again because Amiss isn't triggered on Mooches, but this would make it so that you can set it up whenever.) This might affect EW fish in 8.0 if they decide to make Fish Eyes "No time needed for current expansion -2 fish".
Another way they can make this easier would be to make Surface Slap have 2 stacks when used, making it so that it's possible to use on Mooched fish and thus making it so that you can't get the same Mooch twice in a row. This would both make getting the intuition (By being able to slap the Triana), and the Whale itself (Again by slapping the Triana) easier. (This wouldn't make Ruby easier unless they make it so that you can slap 2 different fish, or remove the part of Surface Slap that prevents you from mooching after slapping.)
- Sidereal would require a complete rework of a skill to be made easier rather than the simple addition of a new class trait.

Given that several people are jailing for this, maybe it'd be better to compare it to a fish that requires Big or extremely rare fish for its intuition. Shadowbringers has the Aquamaton which needs the Shadeshifter, and Lancetfish who is the reason why "Jailing" is even a term in the first place. Stormblood has the Drepanaspis, but it has a much higher uptime. ARR has the Namitaro which requires switching baits and has the second lowest Intuition duration of any Big Fish, and was the lowest prior to 6.55. Sidereal is still harder than all of these.

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Originally Posted by ultima100

They do not want you to be fun, they want you to suffer. The legendary fish things have always been like this. Opabinia

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Opabinia isn't that hard. It's the highest uptime Big or Legendary fish that's been mentioned in this entire thread. Raim, Charibenet, and Sea Butt all have harder (read: you can't get int in 1 DH) intuition requirements, lower uptime, and Sea Butterfly requires 2 different fish for intuition at that.

Yeah, I haven't complained about any other fish, but the fact that people feel it is necessary to subject themselves to hours of Ultima Thule jail is a pretty big indicator that something is off about this fish. The Phallaina rate needs to be bumped up. This isn't fun or engaging, it is just a big time waste.

At least when it is Ruby and other rarer fish, you actually spend the time actively fishing for it.

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Originally Posted by Sepher

The Phallaina rate needs to be bumped up. This isn't fun or engaging, it is just a big time waste.

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It's one of the 4 Big Scrip Payout fish, so it's going to be rare/low rate.
Heavensward (Barreleye) - It's in a Legendary Fish's pool, but it just bloats the mooch table. Also it's the most common of all of these according to Teamcraft lol
Stormblood (Sculptor) - It's in a Legendary Fish's pool. Also everything except 2 of the 4 fish you can get from regular bait is a !!! bite and one of them overlaps literally everything's window. The only reason why you don't see as many people complaining about Stethacanthus is because Double Hook can be used on Sculptors alongside Collect to jail for it. That's right, you need 2 of the things for intuition, though despite Sculptor needing a weather condition, Steth doesn't.
Shadowbringers (Aapoak) - this unironically took me more time to get than a few of the ShB Legendary fish but it's not in a Legendary Fish's pool so who cares
Endwalker (Phallaina) - Enough has already been said about how much of a mistake Limne 3-Beta's pool is.

Now imagine listening to Ultima Thule's BGM for that many hours. It's bad enough just passing through there for hunts.

Ive been fishing since ARR and its too late for me to give up. right now this whale is the last fish i have to catch. And i am NOT looking forward to it. I tried it twice so far and decided that 3 hours of prefish should be enoth. i can try Elpis salad 2.0 meanwhile. i was wrong. ive met people who were siting in the zone for 8+ hours. This is not right. Ofc 3 windows didnt bring me Phalla (why would they) and it went for 13 days vacations. and next window is in the mid of my work day so i cant even try it.
All i have to do now is to wake up 7-8 am to have 7 windows to get Phalia. then i can get last Ungewhateveritsname to triger intuition. Should i wait till the No-Phalia-Window?
Maybe i can ignore 1% extra bite chance. Maybe i cant ignore 1 mooch chance in 12 minutes. Do i feel lucky, punk? Do i?
I mean if i fail there is always the next chance. just sit in a zone for 1-8 hours for another try if your life allows it.
Your boyfriend wants to do stuff? too bad! fishing! Your friend asks you for help? screw her! ill sit in this place unable to do anything at all for hours just to have a CHANCE to fish the big fish. Its not a problem at all!
And that is in case you were ABLE to get the damn thing. Ive heard stories of people who failed to get Phalla in 10 windows.
Sure fishing is fun!
-Sa'eln Wolndara. Former fisher queen who gave up her title jest because of these *fair* fishies
P.S. Thule theme SUCKS after 2 minutes of listening to it.
Next hated theme is Ruby Sea

The prep for this one, and a lesser extent Gharlichthys (which only took ~2 prior windows), is the worst part.
It's Saturday, the window starts in two hours. Gave myself 10 windows to catch it, and got it in the second. 8 hours of weekend prime-time sitting afk in Thule. Yee-haw.
Did I start too early? Honestly no. It might take 2, or it might take 10 windows to catch Philaina.

All other RNG aside, I feel this degree of expected prep is getting in the way of actually playing the game. I hope it doesn't become the norm in DawnTrail.

reporting:
window 1) (after 13 days) took me 6 hours to get phalania. then 3 hours of siting there before my work shift. 4 mooches. nothing. 7 other people got it made sure to link it in chat so we can be even more miserable
window 2) took me 2 hours to get phalania. 7 mooches. nothing.
window 3) (just now) took me 5 hours to get phalania. i missed my count and accidently got 2nd ebe ruining my prefect prefish. Started intuition at 3 AM to be safe. Very first mooch gave me !!!. Phallania. for the split second i thought its over. 6 other mooches didnt bring me anything. 11 other people got it

And then we have some fishing content creator or something saying i dont have to jail myself there. Sure. I might as well not go for the damn thing at all. Just hope to get 5% catch or wave goodbye to 90% of whale windows. Mb its fun for some people and their content for some people to see but i jsut want it done. its the very last fish in the game for me and i WANT IT BE OVER ALREADY.
I swore i will not leave that cursed island untill i catch the whale and i will stick to it. If devs think its how it is supposed to be - i will follow.
670 star dust later.....
PS Gharlichthys is not that awfull. First of all prefish is not that bad. And then you can collectable hold triple hook untill the actual window. And after that its a simple !!! bite (not a mooch) with 2 or 3 other fish in the pool

-update: it was 9 hours and i still didnt get phallania >.<
-update: 13 windows. 13 hours. still no phallania. 7 mooch per window average. fish is TOTALY fair
-update: 15 hours

well in the end it took me 18 hours to get phallaina. we shall see if the whale will cooperate. fun times!

Gharlichthys definitely isn't anywhere near as bad, I'm more concerned that it indicates a trend.
There's only one fish prior where I would turn up more than 30mins prior to the window, and that was the Lancetfish which needed 2x Mora Tecta.
Consider, that's 5 expansions where 'jail' only felt advisable once, and now it's twice in a single patch.

That said, I've definitely had a 23min window where I caught one Basilosaurus (had patience going so couldn't double/triple hook), then lost it on the mooch, and that was it for the rest of the period.
So I always give myself 3 windows to ensure I'd catch enough. A far cry from showing up 12hrs prior for Phallaina, but still the same fundamental issue.
(On the up-side, sold like a million gil of kalamari from it)

TL : DR - Sidereal Whale is a sadistic waste of time. Even by WoW standard it's new levels of horrific. The only reason I'm even trying for it is because my time is worthless, I have no idea how anyone with any kind of commitments (real or digital) could even attempt to catch this fish.

One 'solution' they could implement while maintaining the idea of the style, is perhaps a noticeable increase in the chance to catch Phallaina during the Sidereal Whale's uptime.

Well i finally got it. that 18 windows phallaina farm payed off (not in 1 settion of course). NO more fish till DT.
And i am not worried about some trends like jailing fishers or having a fish that is up 30 sec once a week. After all Elpis salad 2.0 got 1 game hour window split in 2 so its up more often unlike its older brother.
My problem is that this kind of bs is not geting fixed. Like its something normal and works as intended. Why not get all this feedback and adjust the requirements? Make phall bite more and ballance it by cuting scripts reward (who cares about those anyway). Why not stop ignoring the fact that this silly time / weather chain they didnt test occurs once every 8 IRL days and change it a bit? Wait for 29 REAL DAYS for an egg window only to relise its in the mid of your work day or early morning. I am fine with 99% of these fishes if i can actually try and fish them.
PVE fixes are done as soon as some FCs cry about them not pasing enrage timers in a couple weeks. Fishing wasnt changed once.
All we can hope for are some new skills next expantion that make some of these easier like makeshift bait, mooch 2 and prize catch did in endwalker

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Originally Posted by Lydia77

PVE fixes are done as soon as some FCs cry about them not pasing enrage timers in a couple weeks. Fishing wasnt changed once.
All we can hope for are some new skills next expantion that make some of these easier like makeshift bait, mooch 2 and prize catch did in endwalker

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At the start of Stormblood, various HW fish (notably the legendaries) had bite rates changed due to player feedback. It was announced in the blog post, there has not been any changes since then.

well its my bad then. i came in the game about that time and didnt care for fishing yet.

Guess how much time I have wasted on this and still have no whale:

https://i.imgur.com/GXxOkfV.png

And no I don't fish when the phal window is still up, I only did that once and caught a dupe phal which isn't included in this picture.

And no I'm not fishing wrong, I'm doing everything in my ability to maximize the chances of mooches a window.

I've only gotten one bite and it got away.

At the very least at least I can stock these fish for some scripts or something I guess so not completely worthless like some other time consuming fish.

and what are you going to spend those purple scips on if you dont mind me asking? 7k gil materia? A bait you no longer need? A housing item you probably already have?
Problem is it may take you 1 or 18 tries to get phalaina. You make come 6h earlier (a no-life like me) and still dont get any to even have a CHANCE to fish. Or you can come at the whale window and get one immideatly to hold it as collectable hostage.
Or you can maximase your chances and self lock yourself there, loging off as soon as you get one, seting alarm at 4 AM. Or just sit there till 4 am becuase the damn thing doesnt bite. No matter what you have 2 choises: luck route every ~2 days or prison.
At the very least the whale itself is not TOO too rare and not slippery. It took me 5 windows and 0 escapes to get one. Every try took about 5-6 hours each only because of phalaina.
I thought ruby dragon is the worst for taking me 8 real months to get it by doing almost every window avalabdle. But this... thing... is its rival.

It's moderately slippery.
Haven't yet caught it after about a dozen intuitions. Bit once and got away. Had someone else say it got away 3 or 4 times on them before they caught it.
Napkin math, it's approx a 15% chance to catch Phil during any of its windows, and about the same 15% for Sidereal to bite, then maybe 1/3 for it to catch.

Assuming any of that's accurate, if you only show up for Sidereal windows, there's a 0.75% chance to get intuition, have sidereal bite, and reel it in. So 133ish windows, maybe a year?
However if you prep, it goes up to 5%, 20 windows, probably a month.
Whatever the numbers may be, prepping is hugely beneficial to your odds.

Regarding script, might be worthwhile sitting on the whales for next expansion to buy rank-11 materia.

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Originally Posted by Raenra

It's moderately slippery.
Haven't yet caught it after about a dozen intuitions. Bit once and got away. Had someone else say it got away 3 or 4 times on them before they caught it.
Napkin math, it's approx a 15% chance to catch Phil during any of its windows, and about the same 15% for Sidereal to bite, then maybe 1/3 for it to catch.

Assuming any of that's accurate, if you only show up for Sidereal windows, there's a 0.75% chance to get intuition, have sidereal bite, and reel it in. So 133ish windows, maybe a year?
However if you prep, it goes up to 5%, 20 windows, probably a month.
Whatever the numbers may be, prepping is hugely beneficial to your odds.

Regarding script, might be worthwhile sitting on the whales for next expansion to buy rank-11 materia.

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This is not accurate.

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Originally Posted by Raenra

Napkin math

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If you could clarify: the numbers for Sidereal Whale you're asserting are based on your twelve intuitions, and four or five reported bites?

I'm curious as I've been collecting data from members in the Fisherman Horizon discord about the results of Sidereal Whale windows here. From 64 Sidereal Whale bites there were 11 reported escapes, resulting in a 17.19% escape rate.

What is the Phallaina number based on?

Curious about this as well as I've caught 208 Phallainas which has not resulted in similar numbers, so I'm curious about what this asserted number is based on. The Phallaina reports from the same data sheet result in a similar bite rate, though is only 28 Phallainas at the moment as its just those which were caught while already under the Intuition buff.

What is the asserted expected Mooches per window?

Oh I made them up, that's why it's napkin maths.

It's fine, napkin made up math is still far more accurate than Teamcraft's partial cosmic mystery stats

1 bite 1 catch for me and several other people around me.
I dont midnd somewhat slippery fish but for Twelve's sake make it fair!
Phalaina as int requairemnt is the worst!

5 months since release. 10 total Phallaina caught. On average 4 days of time spent not at work/sleeping logging onto the game to try for 12 minutes for a Phallaina, once it took my 9 days with 5-6 windows a day. 0 bites on Sidereal.

It took me 2 years off and on for Sea Butterfly, 10 months of waking up at 4am/leaving work early to catch most every window for RD, I stopped counting Xenacanthus after 250 misses. Never discouraged me.

But this, next to Problematicus during HW, this is the worst designed legendary they have ever done. Starting to accept that I'll be going into Dawntrail without it.

So fun :)