About this Guide

Hey folks, I haven't found something similar within the half a dozen fishing guides (counting other websites as well :D) there already are, so I'm starting my own Guide.

This guide is not just about fishing. It also encompasses possibilities to level other crafting skills, especially Cooking & Alchemy, but also - to some extent - Woodworking, Smithing and Goldsmithing, with less gil spent then most normal guides require.

All you really need is a rod and a bait, to get started. But you'll of course need crystals to craft, as well as additional materials. I will try sticking to recipes that only require a fish, a crystal, and materials that can be bought from NPCs. The scope of this guide is getting you to Fishing 100 (in the long run... I haven't even closely gotten there yet, so I'll have to rely somewhat on other guides' lead and some patience from you towards me finishing this guide :D), Cooking 60 and Alchemy 60, with opportunities to easily lvl other synths added where possible.

Keep in mind this guide is not about getting a huge amount of gil off the AH during the course of lvling your craft job, and it might give a wrong perspective on the craft jobs lvled this way with only relying on fishing as a means of getting materials. Despite that, I'd like to share my love of the Art of Fishing with all those who welcome it.

I'm playing on Ragnarok and don't intend to have multiple characters on other servers just to get an average of how accurate this guide envelopes all possibilities. Therefore, all comments on what might be worthy to sell or buy on AH is subject to change or simply might be different on your server.

Feel free to add comments on the Discussion page, or write it on my Talk page. Just try and be nice about it, even when there's something horribly wrong I have done concerning FFXIclopedia editing or the contents of the Guide. It's not like I get paid for writing this (although I do accept donations to my delivery box :D).

--Elvaron 01:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

No progress so far, I won't be able to work on it til the 5th of august or something due to exams. --Elvaron 11:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Guide Progress

The Information is being gathered, about 1/4th done.

Follow Up Steps:

• Verifying assumptions
• Ordering Recipe Caps for different Craft Jobs to get multiple lists of what to do in which order
• Synch those lists with other Fishing Guides' take on when to level where, plus my own thoughts on the subject
• Writing it all down

I'll update this section while the background work is being done, you'll notice the bigger changes in the guide anyways :) --Elvaron 19:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Getting started...

So, these are the basics: Get your trusty Fisherman Gear (Body, Hands, Legs and Feet), since it provides you with a nice +4 Fishing Skill, and stock up on some Wind Crystals, you'll need those. Don't bother with getting a Moghancement for Fishing, the only one that should be within reach to you only adds to the amount of non-fish items you'll fish up, which is a bad thing. At least since the times of Rabao Cap Fishing are over :)

Fishing is one of those things having an increased - or ideally maxed out - Mog Locker, Storage, Mog Safe and Inventory really pays off. Put as much unneeded gear as you can into your Mog House, freeing up much needed inventory space. If needed, send some stuff to secondary characters, a.k.a. mules. This is increasingly important with the amount of time you want to spend on your next fishing sessions.

Since I haven't said it yet: Think in fishing sessions, not in fishing in general. Fishing is fun to do while waiting for an airship or stuff like that, but the most progress you'll get from some time dedicated to get down and fish as long as you want. Plan those sessions ahead, asking you 5 simple questions:

• What do I want to achieve?
• What will I need for that?
• Where do I go for that?
• How much time do I want to spend?
• What do I want to do with the stuff I fish up? (Note that this may already be answered by the 2nd question)

For the sake of simplicity, I'll first give some comments on the last two questions, then make sections for the different possible answers to the first question, with each section having multiple answers for the second question, and those recursively have answers added to the third question. You'll get the picture.

One more thing about your gear: You don't have to run around half-naked all of the time. Assuming you have maxed inventory space, you got your fishing gear and one rod, leaving at least two empty slots to get the results from fishing (one for the current stack of fish and a second to get new ones you can autosort onto the stack) that leaves roughly 63 slots for bait. That's 756 baits, or almost 4 days worth of fishing fatigue. Get serious, you don't want to end up with a mental disorder.

Also, there'll be times you just don't find a party, so you decide to go fishing until you get an invite. Don't plan on going back to Mog House to get your gear, especially since you might end up not having enough space to get it back into your inventory. Be reasonable about your bait buying, and since often enough you'll be using lures instead of bait, you don't need to have an empty inventory. In most cases, roughly 20 slots of free inventory are more than enough even for the longest fishing session (16 stacks of bait will probably get you fatigued anyways). Long story short, all I'm saying is don't spend your entire game time on fishing, you'll get burned out. Keep lvling, doing events and other stuff whenever you get the chance to and come back to the joy of fishing when you want to and have some free time...

And keep your essential gear for your current job in your inventory. You'll hardly level 10 jobs at the same time, so one set will give you the opportunity to change your plans, aswell as enough "stored inventory space" to switch with another set for a different job, if you feel like it.

Enough on the basics, let's get rumbling.

What to do with the loot?

Bear with me, I'll update soon.

How much time to spend?

See above :) This is the first version of the guide, rome wasn't built in a day.

What to achieve?

I'll just do some layouting here: