I hope for more big fish like Durdina Fish

[Tyonto]

I've been big fishing since 2.2 and I love FSH but EW big fishing has been disappointing to me. This disappointment hits hard because changes to the kit in 6.0 give FSH such a robust skillset now, but when it comes to EW big fishing we got one fish that lets the current kit really shine and show what I like most about the job and that's Durdina Fish.

Fishing for it efficiently involves using at least: Identical Cast, Patience II, the Hooksets, Chum, Surface Slap, Thaliak's Favor, Makeshift Bait.
There is potential to use Prize Catch and Patience as well.

Why I think this fish really lets the kit shine is not just because of the quantity abilities used relative to most EW fish, but how they get used. Fishing efficiently for Durdina Fish does not involve rote/static ability or GP use, it requires reactive decision making based on what happens.

There's a general "opener," if you will, of: prep AA stacks, IC a Sardine, start with Patience II and Hi-Cordial, but after that what to do is based on circumstance.
Whether your first heavy investment of stacks goes to MSB or TF varies. How much or often you can maintain Slap and Chum is based on what bites and how good you are at GP management. You know you will be building further AA stacks and can act now with the expectation of the GP you will be regaining from the stacks later.

Why I think even this simple distinction is important is that Durdina Fish creates friction, but the good kind, in my opinion.
With our effective GP pool it seems it's difficult at this point to really create a strain on our GP, and I personally find GP constraints enjoyable. I love this type of friction. I love when FSH requires reactive decision making as this is when the job most rewards your knowledge of it.
Admittedly we've never had a tonne of fish like this, and I also think this is fine. The older fish that maintained friction similar to this don't anymore as a result of the EW kit unless you make it yourself with something like fishing for Warden with Fish Eyes, which I would have been fine with if we got new fish that did. We're set up for it after all.

Snowy Parexus and Mayaman are the other EW fish that do this best, in my opinion, but it's a different kind of "engaing" to my mind. Gharlichthys and, to a lesser extent, Sidereal Whale do as well or at least could. For Gharlichthys you can circumvent the strain entirely, and Horizon Event not being a potential Mooch loop and being higher bite rate and shorter bite time than Shadowdart Sardine makes Whale feel less novel than Durdina does to me. If you had to catch the EBEs and Unbegottens during the Whale window, maybe, but since you can prep them in advance a lot of the strain during the Whale window itself is gone.

I don't think that all big fish should be like Durdina Fish, or even most. But I think it's really clever and fun and would really love to see more than one fish that creates this type of "constraint" or "friction" in the future.

[RareBirdAlert]

Durdina Fish gave me about a week and a half of trouble and I realize in hindsight, comparing to other fishers, that I was really lucky that was all it took. I haven't tried catching it again since getting it for my log, and maybe I should, to appreciate the design better.

I'm not the most technically-minded fisher, but I really love the design and experience of fishing for Snowy Parexus. It's such a long window and there can be so much variance in how often you get Cerule Cores that you do have to start making decisions about your skill choices and resource management as the window ticks on, especially when you're working under a very short intuition that allows between 1-3 casts while the buff is active (depending on what bites, whether you used Chum, etc). I feel like the very short intuition changes the experience from most other big fish with intuition. I think it's a very interesting "marathon" fish designed in a way so that if you weren't prepared and showed up late to the window, you have a better chance of seeing success than you do with a lot of other big fish, especially the big fish are made much easier by preparing ahead of time so that you can use skills like Makeshift Bait (for instance, Ruby Dragon).

My feelings about Sidereal Whale are not to be trusted as I've had such bad luck that I have a hard time honestly appreciating anything about it.

I definitely don't think most fish, or even a significantly higher percentage of fish, should have a more complicated experience like Durdina and Snowy. For one thing, it'd be more work on behalf of the fisher devs if they had to create significantly more of these interesting experiences, and at the same time make them appreciably distinctive from each other, and as time goes on and there's more and more fish, it's easier and easier to say "it's just like [other big fish] only with [some difference]." And for another, I still appreciate really straightforward fish that work on the lines of "show up, Surface Slap something that bites the bait, then chum and cast," because they present a contrast to the more complicated fish, and because sometimes the straightforward and low-complexity fish are what are more fun for how I'm feeling.

Overall I enjoy difficult fish more when the difficulty is in the process of using our skills and knowledge to catch it, rather "it's hard to match my availability to its rare appearances." We have so many skills now and our GP pool is so large that I like fish that challenge us to use those skills and resources wisely. At the end of the day RNG is a foundational aspect of fishing and that's not going to change, but I think it's a lot more fun for me when I feel rewarded for fishing well, compared to being rewarded for just being lucky.

[Fruity_Snacks]

I think a special shout out (of the EW fish at least) should go to Cosmic Haze. It's not as intricate as Durdina's optimized approach, but I always enjoy going for it because it's a good balance of "just catch fish" and "I have to think a little bit about what I'm doing."

Like, I think if I had to give a beginner an 'intricate' fish that wasn't as strong as Durdina, I'd probably pick Cosmic Haze (or Ambling Caltrop, which is basically the OG Haze). It has a bit of the friction you talk about, having to know which fish to slap and when, making sure you have enough GP to do it again in the future, etc. It's just a little more forgiving than Durdina in my opinion. Definitely want to see more fish like Haze.