No River Wide Enough (with timestamp)Last Updated: 2021-05-01
Hi, and welcome to my fishing guide. You're probably here because you have an interest in fishing but have no idea how to fish because you leveled up your fisher using Grand Company or leve turn-ins. This guide will attempt to de-mystify various aspects of fishing mechanics in FFXIV. Whether your goal is to complete your fishing log or to get a high score in the Ocean Fishing mini game, I hope some of the tips presented in this guide will be helpful in landing that elusive catch. For the veterans out there: This guide already covers much of what you might already know, but if there's anything I missed, please feel free to share your knowledge in the comments below!
Due to its length, I had to split the guide into two parts. Link to part 2 will be at the bottom of this post.
Getting started:1. Before attempting to challenge the Fishing Log, I strongly recommend getting the Fisher class to whatever the level cap is for the current expansion. This is so that you can take advantage of better gear and newer skills. Also, don't forget to do the job quests to unlock important abilities.
2. Bring some gil, or be prepared to farm Gatherers' Scrips. Bait that is only available from scrip vendors tend to command a high price on the marketboard, even ones from previous expansions.
3. Certain fish only bite when certain time and/or weather conditions are met. Some fish have very rare windows that may only occur as little as once a month in real life time. Be prepared to look up windows in advance and plan out which ones you'll be available for.
4. Acknowledge that fishing comes down to luck in the end. Even armed with knowledge and preparation, at the end of the day whether you catch a fish or not is determined by a random number generator. Sometimes you'll get lucky and sometimes you won't; the only thing you can do to even out the odds is to maximize your opportunities by fishing efficiently.
Fishing stats:1. Gathering affects your ability to successfully reel a fish in and Perception raises the chance that a fish will be HQ. However, catch and HQ rates are capped on a fish by fish basis. What this means is that for certain fish (usually big fish) you will never be able to achieve a 100% catch rate no matter how high your Gathering stat is. This is similar to the way that Perception works for Miner and Botanist.
2. Certain fish also have a minimum Gathering value required to even have a chance to successfully fish it up. If you don't meet this minimum value, your catch rate will be 0% and the game will display a message telling you that you need more Gathering. The same also applies to Perception and HQ catches; if you don't have enough Perception for the fish, then all of your catches of that fish will be NQ even if you use Patience I or II.
3. Gathering also affects the number of fish you can get using Double Hook.
4. GP is a good stat to meld for after Gathering and Perception. The higher your maximum GP is, the easier it is to use cordials on cooldown without wasting any GP.
Bait:1. There are two kinds of bait for fishing: consumable and reusable ones. The difference between the two is that reusable bait can be used again after catching a fish, with one important caveat: If a fish bites, and you choose not to hook it, there is a chance that you will lose your reusable bait. There are good reasons to let a bite go without hooking it, which is why you should always bring extra reusable bait.
2. Certain fish will only bite using a specific type of bait. Furthermore, the bait that you use affects the distribution and bite times of fish, meaning that some fish may bite more frequently and quickly with a different bait.
Tugs:1. There are three types of tugs: weak (!), strong (!!), and ferocious (!!!). These are the official terms used by the game, as seen in the Ocean Fishing missions. After patch 5.2 changes, 1 to 3 exclamation marks are displayed for a tug, making it much easier to distinguish between the three types of tugs. Each fish has a specific tug associated with it and choosing to ignore an unwanted tug allows us to skip the reeling animation.
2. Without exception, Powerful Hookset is for !! tugs and Precision Hookset is for ! tugs. The actual size of the fish itself is irrelevant; which Hookset to use is determined solely on the basis of the tug for ! and !! tugs. For !!! tugs, it depends on the fish. In general, most big fish are a special version of another fish that shares the same fishing hole. It's usually a safe bet to use the same hookset as the corresponding fish in this situation, but there are exceptions to this rule and which hookset to use for !!! tugs should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
3. You can use the /sit emote after casting your line. The animation that plays when your character successfully catches a fish with a !!! tug always forces your character to stand up immediately after successfully hooking a fish. If your character stays sitting after pressing Hook on a !!! tug, then it means that the fish got away. This incurs a slight animation lock but it is useful to tell if the !!! tug was successful before the animation ends. I do not recommend using /sit while Ocean Fishing because all catches during Spectral Currents force your character to stand up regardless of tug type, wasting precious Spectral Current uptime.
4. In addition to the type of tug, each fish only tugs after a certain amount of time has elapsed. This fact can be used to your advantage to target a specific fish. For example, if you know that a fish only bites between 5 and 10 seconds from when you press Cast, then you can just cancel the cast by pressing Hook when more than 10 seconds has elapsed.
Time, Weather, and Fishing Windows:1. A window is a period of time when certain conditions are met, allowing a fish to bite. This is affected by in-game time (Eorzean Time or ET) and in-game weather. If the window is not up, the fish will not bite no matter how much you try.
2. The time condition of a window is simply the period of in-game time when a fish will be available. For example, 00:00 to 04:00 ET.
3. It is possible for fishing windows to start at times other than XX:00. For example, The Unconditional has a window from 05:30 to 06:30. Most websites that list fishing windows only show windows starting on the hour, however.
4. Weather lasts for 8 Eorzean hours, changing at 00:00, 08:00, and 16:00 ET. The icon that displays weather next to the minimap does not update immediately at the XX:00 minute, but this has no effect on the actual weather in the area. That is to say, the weather changes at XX:00 regardless of whether the minimap icon has changed or not.
5. It is possible for the same type of weather to occur consecutively.
6. An hour of Eorzean time is 2 minutes and 55 seconds in real life time.
Buff and Condition Snapshotting:1. The fish that tugs is determined the very moment you cast your line, and will snapshot any conditions at the time of the cast. This means that Fish Eyes and/or Fisher's Intuition can drop, time and/or weather can change while waiting for a fish to bite and will it make absolutely no difference as to what will actually be on the line when the fish bites.
Mooching:1. Mooching is when you use a fish you've hooked already as bait for another fish. This can only be done with an HQ fish or with an NQ fish if you spend 100 GP to use Mooch II. Mooch II has a 3 minute cooldown while Mooch has no cooldown at all. Unfortunately, you cannot use a fish from your inventory for the purposes of mooching.
2. Mooch II can only be used within 15 seconds of hooking an NQ fish while an HQ fish can be held indefinitely for future use. The reason you'd want to hold an HQ fish is to prepare a mooch in advance for another fish that only appears during a certain time window.
3. Use Patience II to guarantee that all catches will be HQ for the purpose of mooching (as long as you meet the minimum Perception requirement for the fish).
4. Using any of the following skills while holding onto a fish eligible for mooching will cancel the opportunity to mooch: Patience I/II, Fish Eyes, Surface Slap, Identical Cast, Chum.
Patience I and II, Powerful and Precision Hookset:1. Patience II doesn't increase the chance that a big fish will bite. What it does is increase the size (in ilms) of a caught fish, which affects whether or not it will be HQ. Size only matters for the purposes of collectability rating and fishing records.
2. After 5.2 Fisher changes, Patience I had its duration and GP cost reduced. In addition, it (along with Powerful/Precision Hookset) is now available much earlier, at level 15. With these changes, there may be some niche use cases for Patience I (for example, when you don't have enough GP for Patience II at the end of a window), but Patience II is still better when you absolutely need an HQ (mooching!)
3. Use Powerful Hookset for !! tugs and Precision Hookset for ! tugs. It depends on the fish for !!! tugs, so check online resources when in doubt.
4. Always keep enough GP for Powerful/Precision Hookset when Patience is up, but if you don't have enough GP you can still try to use the regular Hook ability. However, there is a high chance that the fish will escape if you do this.
To be continued in Part 2...Part 3: Ocean Fishing
