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Dusk's Comprehensive Final Fantasy XIV Fishing Guide!
What's a Fishing?
Here’s how to acquire the fishing job and how to start leveling!-
First of all - to acquire the FSH (Fisher) job, you must first have a job lvl 15 or above.
Here’s where to get started, Limsa Lominsa Lower Decks at location x 4.9 y 12.2. Talk to the guildmaster, he’ll provide you with your first fishing pole to start the job 🤭
What to do now then?
You get some basic bait from the first fishing quest, but before you progress beyond that, I would heavily recommend you familiarize yourself with two NPC's.
Who’s the other NPC then?
Now to actually start fishing-
Now that you have some basic materials to get you started, we can focus on actually fishing.
Basic Abilities
Bait opens up a menu that shows all the baits in your inventory.
Once you’ve equipped a bait you can start to Cast at any given body of water.
Cast lights up whenever your character is facing a body of water, be it fishable or not fishable.
Try to then Cast at a body of water in Limsa, once you do so, Hook will light up as an available ability.
After a brief while, your character will have an exclamation mark pop up above it’s head, that’s your queue to use Hook!
It is important to note that once you Cast at a body of water, your character goes into a sort of “Fishing Stance” - during this fishing stance, you cannot target other players, or move. You can leave the fishing stance by casting Quit
Quit cancels your fishing stance. It is important to know that attempting to do ANY form of movement will also quit your fishing stance. Right-clicking to change camera view cancels your fishing stance. using W A S D, cancels your fishing stance. jumping? Cancels. This can be very frustrating when you don’t know what prompts your character to stop fishing. Keep this in mind, always!
Cast Light puts a small green light at the end of your fishing rod, it doesn't serve any practical use, but it's a fun little effect 😄
So far so good. With this knowledge, you should be equipped to catch your first fish. Don’t feel overwhelmed, there's a lot to remember and it's okay to trace back to earlier steps if you forget a thing or two 🥰
You will primarily be using your Fishing Log ( Hotkey: Y ) to keep track of what you've caught. Once you've caught something, you'll be able to check up on where you've caught it.
Lets start off by catching some Lominsan anchovies and some Harbor Herrings! These can be caught anywhere there's water in Limsa Lominsa, both lower and upper decks. Both should be fishable with Versatile Lures!
^ If you catch a Harbor Herring in lower decks, then if you navigate to Upper Decks in the Fishing Journal, it should also register that you’ve caught it there.
That should cover Basics, next up is how Stats affect fishing!
Stats and Gear
Lets talk about stats and how they matter with fishing.
Having higher stats in fishing does not make you better at fishing, they're just like check-marks that allow you to catch harder to catch fish.
Gathering is the stat that allows you to catch higher level fish.
Lets say a fish requires 50 gathering and you have 40 gathering, then you wont be able to catch it. Do you however have exactly 50 gathering, then you're allowed to catch the fish.
Perception helps with your chance of catching Large sized fish. Catching a Large fish, later on, grants you a stack of Anglers Art which is a sort of token that can be used for certain fishing abilities.
GP (gathering points) is your mana source as a fisher. GP is really not relevant until you hit max level as a fisher.
How often do I need to upgrade my gear while leveling?
Theoretically, Never! but you should get level equivalent gear every 10 level or so to keep up with your fishing questline - Otherwise, the best way you can level is by doing Ocean Fishing!
What the hell is ocean fishing?
Ocean fishing is a really fast paced (relative to normal fishing) experience that almost requires it’s own page, so here it is!
To be brief and keep it short - Ocean fishing is the most effective way to level the job.
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