Sidereal Whale is genuinely awful

[Astrahime]

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

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)

[Astrahime]

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

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.