Not sure what to make of fishing

[hqdm]

The entire exercise is focused around RNG to some extent, and that's okay.
I know weather affects it for some fish, others it doesn't, and you can (to some degree) control what fish you'll end up with via a combination of weather/time/lures. Others you can't. It's really mixed bag, but that's okay too. I understood all this before I started.

I think I've geared myself as far as I can go atm, and am currently gated by the 2 mh rod upgrades. I'm 337 gather, 282 pcp with food.

But, despite knowing beforehand that fishing is essentially RNG: the Gathering, I can't help but feel utterly disenfranchised with it as a whole while trying to get these bloody sovereigns for my i70 upgrade.

Fishing as a whole does not have any inherent skill. It has planning, perhaps, in terms of figuring out what weathers, baits, time of day might be required for a particular fish. On the other hand, this info is all available from fansites, wikis, etc. The activity of fishing itself is compressed into a 1-button macro, and sometimes you'll get to mooch before jamming that macro again.

I really like the controller integration & vibration. I like that it's not needlessly complex and is generally a relaxing alternative to some of the faster-paced activities in the game. But as I'm sitting here, 16 hours in with only 6 hq sovereigns (of 20) to show for it, I can't help but go "WHYYYY", because that's literally 16 hours of sitting in one spot, pressing one button every 10s or so while I otherwise kill time via videos, chatting, and getting p.drunk. That's not even 1/3 of the way there.

Would it have been "too easy" to make it NQ sovereigns only, given lack of inherent skill? What purpose does HQ/NQ serve outside of the CUL/craft fish, besides to further decrease drop rate? I'm not sure what to make of it because the activity as a whole is rooted in RNG & bad luck is bound to happen, but man like, I don't know. Certainly, there's nothing forcing me to continue, however as I'd like to complete my fishing log, it's somewhat of a necessity to do so. I think it could have been made a bit more friendly via not putting it on a level 10 node. If at least some of the other fish that were generated by this grind, were of use for L50 gc turn-ins, or crafting (sharks, coral, etc), there'd be at least some consolation prize for not getting the jackpot fishies & add some value to our time. Within reason, anyways. If it counted towards your 41-50 luminary, that'd be cool too.

If I may dare to compare it to Atma, at least within that, you were able to choose which fates/zones to grind in, were able to level your chocobo, SB depending on fates, and weren't hindered by the Eorzean clock. There was the option of added value to the RNG grind. With sovereigns, you have a box full of crap that'll npc for maybe 2k gil every 12h or so. We'll be gillionaires before you know it.

How do you guys feel about it?

[Alurwen]

I have 13/20 and that is after fishing several weekends in a row with FC buffs on. I've only ever gotten one msg where I lost the fish, which must have been a HQ Sovereign. So I'm catching nearly all the ones that bite, they just hardly ever bite!

I'm thinking of just going for those 3 other fish and shelling out the gil for Demi's to get the Supra.....but then 2.4 is right around the corner so maybe Sovereign bite rate will be increased. Or even a better rod to more easily get will be available. So tired of sovereigns!

[NationOfZealots]

If you have full HQ gear + overmelds + food, use about 4 or 5 FC Perception buffs, that will really sky rocket your HQ total (I used a total of 3 earth days worth, so about 20-30 6pm-6am windows with 1-2 HQ catches each).

Also another trick not widely online, use Astral/Rose Gold gear in your accessories and put +5 Gathering/+5 Perception in these slots (one overmeld, so whatever is cheapest iyo) this will add a few more points of each.

But yes FSH is total RNG which is fine, I don't mind this class acting as something totally different, 1.0 FSH was a dream, but don't think they will ever go back to it sadly.

[Jeykama]

The biggest advice I can give is to level CUL desynthing, and all of the sudden all this aimless fishing will have a purpose. NQ sovereigns don't hurt as much once you realize they're great for levelling desynthing after 85-95 when you're too scared to desynth i80 fish.

The other advice is to carry a stack of yumizuno and do cancel-fishing - i.e. if it's not a huge Big Fish bite, just exit the cast then recast. This speeds your fishing by 2x.

[Moqi]

How do you guys feel about it?

You explained perfectly why my fisher is level 14 and has stayed that way since I unlocked it, tried it and abandoned it. Sitting in the same spot for hours pressing two buttons, hoping for RNG to bless you isn't fun.

[DenebPunkin]

This is primarily one of the reasons Ive been so slow on doing fishing. Im lvl 50.. but have yet to get any of the gear and melds since its still so RNG based. Damnit RNG kills everything -_-

[Black91CRX]

I've landed more HQ sovereign's when NOT using food/FC buffs. RNG can be very frustrating.

[Nyalia]

If you don't want to cancel-recast because it takes too much attention to do so, you can also just wait until the fish goes away, then cast again. You can do that without looking at the screen once you know the sound/vibration of a Big Fish.

Also, you can work Mooching into your macro, so it really is only one button. Just do Mooch -> Cast -> Reel, so you mooch if able, cast otherwise (reel would cancel fishing if you can cast and you reel instead), and reel if you have a fish hooked.

Another thing to keep in mind about the SS - if you aren't fishing in 24 Eorzean-hour stretches, try to time your fishing to occur at night. Mahi-mahi can't be caught at night, so that should increase your chances of getting SS instead. For a graphical representation of this, look at the graph here: http://na.ff14angler.com/fish/213 (mahi-mahi can only be caught between 10am and 6pm).

Make sure you use a different DoL class to get the hat. Don't fish for the hat, and don't fish without the hat. You can likely level another DoL from 1 to 50 AND get the hat in less time than it would take you to fish for the hat.

I had an exactly 25% HQ rate with my sovereigns. I have 60 NQ SSes just sitting around, taking up space. With a 25% HQ rate (what I had) and a 6% chance to catch SS (23,204 SS catches out of 396,231 fish), that's a 1.5% chance per cast to catch an HQ SS. If a cast takes 15 seconds (5 Eorzean minutes), then (theoretically) you should catch 1 every 17 minutes of fishing, and all 20 after just 6 straight hours of fishing. If it's taking you longer than that, maybe I an underestimating the time it takes to cast...

On the plus side, Fishing (plus my wife's CUL desynth) has earned us over 20 million gil so far. The profitability is declining over time, but it's still profitable. And that's with giving away about a dozen blue swimsuits to FC members.

For me, fishing is how I make gil when what I really want to do is watch anime. I don't even look at the screen while fishing, I just have the sound up, the BGM off, and my finger on the only macro needed. I've fished well past a fish's window doing this by accident many, many, many times!

[hqdm]

I'm pretty much running by controller vibration atm while I do other stuff.
In the end it's just something to keep slogging at and I'll eventually get through it.

Total's up to 9 hq sovereigns, 42 nq, 21 hours.

On the plus side, Fishing (plus my wife's CUL desynth) has earned us over 20 million gil so far.

Given the time sink so far on sovereigns alone, 20m doesn't sound super exciting.
Part of this is balancing time/profit ratio with "am I having any semblance of fun?". If I evaluate fishing as an investment or activity based on profit-over-time, it's not worthwhile to me, compared to other crafting/grind methods. At the same time, it's good that it's still possible to run a profit through an alternate source (that FSH has a viable endgame), different strokes, etc. But I just want to 100% the log and to that end it becomes worth pursuing, even if less efficient, I suppose.

The biggest advice I can give is to level CUL desynthing, and all of the sudden all this aimless fishing will have a purpose. NQ sovereigns don't hurt as much once you realize they're great for levelling desynthing after 85-95 when you're too scared to desynth i80 fish.

The other advice is to carry a stack of yumizuno and do cancel-fishing - i.e. if it's not a huge Big Fish bite, just exit the cast then recast. This speeds your fishing by 2x.

Cancel fishing sounds interesting, will give it a go.
The desynth is a fair point, and I've been stashing my nqs for this. I've fished through a few of the daytime cycles for mahi-mahi's desynths as well, though lower-level.

Also another trick not widely online, use Astral/Rose Gold gear in your accessories and put +5 Gathering/+5 Perception in these slots (one overmeld, so whatever is cheapest iyo) this will add a few more points of each.

Yup, this was interesting because when the i90 accs released, seeing them locked to DoW/M as opposed to All Classes like the i70 seemed like it was specifically targeted against this sort of thing :P

[chidarake]

to op... its simple skip that rod and go for the supra instead.

I just did it and it took about 4hrs in all to catch the 3 olgoi-khorkhoi I needed.... oh and they don't need to be hq.

basically have a full set of gear melded and use the i70 jewellery melded with perception and gather then use the fc buffs for +10. this should put you at the requirements for the catch. doesn't guarantee a catch every time as 4 got away on me before I got my 3 but its a lot quicker and easier than catching those sovereigns.