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

[kuikui]

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.

[Highwilds]

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.

[Garlyle]

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.

[Black91CRX]

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.

[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.

[Gallus]

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.

[Black91CRX]

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.

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

[Shadygrove]

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

Totally understandable. /laugh

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

[Normalizer]

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?).

[Garlyle]

Totally understandable. /laugh

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

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.