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.