Sidereal Whale is genuinely awful

[Hasrat]

...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.

[thedude28]

"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?

[ultima100]

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.

[Astrahime]

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

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.

[Sepher]

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.

[Astrahime]

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

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.

[VictorSpoils]

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

[Lydia77]

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

[Raenra]

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.

[Lydia77]

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!