Let's Talk Fishing!

Talacca is better, because you'll fatigue slower due to line breaks but still get skill ups from them. There's no reason you won't get the three levels from one day's fish in Talacca. The bite rate on Mercanabligi and Dil is also much better than Gavial Fish. Much much much better - 1/3, easily, sometimes better.

Before I switched to Lu Shangs, I'd get 2-3 levels a day in Talacca.

Ok, I'm 101 fishing, what should I target where with what?! I'm thinking Cave Cherax but then what?

Depends really. What rod? If Ebisu then yes. You can fish them up using Lu Shang's but they break the rod. If you have Lu Shang's and a minnow then go to Oldton Movapolos and fish Armored Pisces til 108. You can use a composite or mithra rod but you get line breaks so bring extra minnows.

Does anyone have any experience catching giant catfish/yayinbalgi ?

Wiki/Great Blue doesnt mention anything about a Halycon Rod being able to catch these, just wondering if i'm risking a rod break or a line snap and losing my frog lure trying to land one of these.

Currently skilling on fishing up turtles and hooking catfish occasionally (and aborting reeling them in since they are large catches) so just curious.

Will definitely break halcyon rod and your lure. Composite rod would work with disposable bait as you will still get line snaps with that

OK, so I got my Ebisu a bit over 24 hours ago. And so far my observations are thus -

1) The stamina depletion of the fish definitely seems/feels faster. And the fish stamina regen seems to be an improvement too. Almost non existant regen in fact on stuff I've tried so far.
Makes sense if the rod is fishing +46 I suppose.

2) Is it me... or do the fish (that I've fished so far) seem to wriggle/fight a helluva lot more with the Ebisu?
I'm only 82 fishing to be fair. But I swear that it was easier in Talacca Cove with my Lu Shang. After maintenance I'm going to send my Lu back from the mule and try a bit of a comparison. One rod after the other. To make sure it's not just an unlucky fishy fighty day. Which happens I know.

3) This is definitely not just me. But I'm going to time it with my Lu versus the Ebisu to make sure. But the Ebisu gives me less time to reel in a fish! WTF? Is that right?
I'm pretty certain of this one. It seems to be a decent % less as well. Not just 3 seconds or something.

So in summary... Did I get a dud Ebisu? Or is it actually *deep breath* not actually as good as the Lu Shang at my level?
Yeah it's never going to break. But neither was my Lu fishing in Talacca for skill ups..
Do I need something else fishing guild point item wise, to make it better?

Dude just use Ebisu soon you will may have to skill-ups on cave cherax and i dun really think Lu shang going to help there.

Haks are safe

For skill ups? <_<

After the update, they npc the same.

I would guess you're imagining these things. Ebisu is an improvement on Lu Shangs in every way. Perhaps the only criticism I would have of my (recently acquired) Ebisu is I can't dual wield two of them.

Now you have an Ebisu, you should move on from Talacca forever. Whether the fish bite less or fight more in Talacca should not be a concern!

Unrelated to the above: I've gotten 5... Yes, FIVE 0.3 skill ups from Liks in 72 hours. I am loving these guys.

You think they are going to nerf it? lol

I'll agree I was probably imagining the amount the fish was fighting back and forth, after a quick play with both rods one after the other.
Must just be a bad day as I said lol.
I am NOT imagining the less time on the line. It's at least 5 seconds less. Maybe a bit more.

All things considered it is a way better rod I now agree. I swapped back and forth between Ebisu and Lu for a while and it felt much easier with Ebisu. (still just Talacca tbh)

I see no sensible reason to move from Talacca until I hit 86 and the mercs stop being possible skill fish.
Probably back to Nashmau for the Pterygotus if I'm honest.

I've never been in fishing for the gil. And I do not see NPC-able Haks at 10k/piece or bazzar-ing Liks for 17-20k/piece as whatsoever a good use of my time.
Matsya if I even thought I could catch them at 1 an hour would be attractive. But I'm not confident at all that it's even vaguely possible without being much higher level and/or getting the very time consuming fishing rings. (I only have Seagull and Heron from MMM. And Pelican's galore of course)
Or using some sort of program to fish them up for me. Which seems to be the way far too many people think is an acceptable choice..

I just wanted the Ebisu because I hit fishing 78 the other week so could do the quest. And with the amount of gil I have on me it seemed churlish not to at least try trading fish for a while to see how I got on. I will admit if I had hit 0/1000 on either traded fish it might have tested my desire to continue. :p

13 line breaks in a row on Liks, *** my luck...

Edit: 19 hooks and only 5 catches. What is up with Liks today? lol

Fishing pre-Ebisu is not a source of income, it's a supplement for whatever other sources you might have. Now you have an Ebisu it could be your source of income if you wanted it to be. It took me about six hours to fish up 200 fish in Talacca, releasing Ahtapots due to inventory issues. So let's say you fish up an average of 33 fish per hour and let's assume they're Dil since they NPC for slightly more.

In an hour you're fishing up 33x 714g = 23,562 gil. You need to fish three Hakuryus to beat this and you'll definitely be able to do that within an hour. I won't dispute Talacca is better for skill ups - I'd even say it's better skill ups to 96 than Hakuryus in Beaucedine would be. However, the allure of the gil making potential should not be ignored, even if it's not your intention for fishing.

Heck, let's say you fish up 200 Black Sole or Dil. That's only 142,800 gil - And from your daily allowance of 200 fish. You'll beat this with 14 Hakuryus in a fraction of the time and still be able to fish up more. The only problem is at your level they might be rough. I don't honestly know.

I didn't get my Ebisu until I was 96 already so skill ups were a moot point. But let me tell you, one new Ebisu owner to another, that Hakuryus and Liks can make you some serious gil with a bit of patience.

Never tried Halycon since I didn't want to risk it as it was a big fish... but I've caught giant catfish with composite/minnow before and it seemed fine - never broke my line/rod. I never skilled on them so I only caught 10 for GP when it was the fish of the day, so I might've only gotten lucky.

I'm about to buy a lu shang, but I was wondering if it offers any significant improvement over Halcyon Rod in terms of wearing out small fish *getting them reeled in faster*. I was going to buy one this morning but the ones on the AH are price jacked so i'm considering just being patient due to my current situation:

I'm at 28 fishing and not having any real problems catching dark bass+kaplumpaga with my Halcyon rod. The turtles put up a bit of a fight so they take alittle longer to land but I get them in time being quick enough on the minigame when reeling them in.

I've been targeting this spot and have been planning to stay here a bit longer since those two fish are synth ingredients for an 83 and 90 cooking skill recipe which makes my next cooking skillup spree from 74->90 cooking pretty cheap.

So is a lu shang really going to help me skill or get my fish faster in this scenario? I wasn't planning on moving to a different fishing spot until I hit the 30s, and then look for a skillup fish that I can cook+skillup on since I have the sushi+noodle KIs for cooking.

Also any cook+fishers recommend any good spots from 30-50 fishing if you like cooking your catch into something relevant for sale instead of npc'ing? I'm thinking of going after calamary/tuna for sushi/carbonara type dishes as long as I can find a spot that wont break the lushang i will eventually buy.

I'll tell you a Lu Shang is a vastly bigger improvement over the previous rods than Ebisu will ever be over a Lu.

And yes the Lu will wear out small fish quicker than a Halcyon because it's a part wooden rod. Wood for stamina depletion, the Fiber rods for longer to land the fish before it gets away. The Lu Shang is a mix of both. So it's better than a Halcyon at moats for instance. But I still prefer a pure wooden rod for something as simple. A Hume Rod basically.

At 30 with a Lu you would pretty much be able to camp in Talacca already. Targeting the 3 skill fish there. Bonus being the Dil will be cookable into Sole Sushi.

As I just broke my Lu AGAIN can't wait for my GD Ebisu rod got the items just working on my GP ><;;....

Given your circumstances, I would suggest not worrying about Lu Shangs. It's only real use pre-Ebisu is to provide a means to more reliably obtain guild points and possibly fish your own Ebisu fish providing you have Woodworking high enough to fix it. Outside of that it's merely a slightly fancier version of every previous rod. The only guild point fish that will break a Lu Shangs, if I remember rightly, is a Sea Zombie and the rate isn't that high. It's chiefly for fishing guild points, really.

You can fish to 96 with a Halcyon, well beyond the level you can get an Ebisu. The trick is to always use bait because you will break lines on high level fish a lot. Crayfish Balls in Talacca will take you to 96 providing you release all Ahtapot (the !!! ones) as these will break Halcyon Rods with a near 100% rate. I don't know many alternative spots because I switched to using Lu Shangs at about level 70 onwards.

What I would personally recommend is to bridge your way to Talacca level in Buburimu. Use a Halcyon Rod and a Rogue Rig and fish Shall Shells. At 50ish, head to Talacca and use Crayfish Balls. You can use the Dil you fish up in Sole Sushi if you like, or you can just NPC them for a tidy daily profit (120-140k.) Meanwhile keep an eye on the Lu Shang prices and pick one up when you feel it's at a price you're happy to pay. There is not really any fish you can skill up off of at this level to use in Cooking that is worth the time it will take to fish a sizable number of them.

The big advantage to Lu Shangs in Talacca is you can fish Ahtapot and you'll fish every single fish you hook. Basically, it means you'll make more money from your fishing. With Halcyon and Crayfish Balls you will lose catches to line breaks and lack of skill, meaning it's better skill ups for your daily allowance but less of a money maker.


An Ebisu is the biggest improvement any fisher could ever strive for. An unbreakable rod is the most incredible thing fishing anything high level. You probably haven't done a lot of Lik, Gugrusuarus or Hakuryu fishing yet - but when you've done a load and suffered an indignant amount of line breaks, consider having done that with a Lu Shangs and had to suffer rod breaks every other catch, too.

A Lu Shangs is a fancy version of every other rod that still breaks on any fish that really matters - the big money fish, Ebisu fish. An Ebisu, on the other hand, transforms fishing from a hobby and a supplementary source of income to the source of income.


I will endorse this part of your post. Using the specific rod will probably yield better results. Not because you'll reel them in better or anything but because it will limit the bites you'll receive. A Lu Shangs has the drawback of being able to hook everything. A lot of fish in lower level spots will bite the same bait or lure, making Lu Shangs for lower spots a hindrance more than a help. For example fishing Shall Shells with a Halcyon will guarantee nothing but Shall Shell bites. Use a Lu Shangs instead, however, and you'll start hooking three to four different types of fish.


I really would not recommend this. You will lose about 90% of your catches due to lack of skill and struggle to reel anything in in the first place without a bot. That is way too big a level gap. I went to Talacca @ 40 and struggled like ***so went back to Buburimu. Some of those fish are in the 90s and Ahtapots will break Halcyon Rods anyway.

Okay. This is driving me nuts, I have to ask. Is anyone else suffering an unusual line break rate on Liks recently? Over the past 48 hours I've hooked 144 Liks and had 77 line breaks. To say it's getting a little irritating would be an understatement. Considering before this timeframe my average line break rate was about 20%, it's kind of pissing me off. Fishing for an hour just to lose a load of minnows really sucks.

Anyone else having a torrid time with them lately?

For example, so far this morning I've hooked 10 and had 9 line breaks.

I was a bit anxious about finally targeting large fish and using a single hook rod and minnow/sinking minnow, but Veydal Wrasse for 5k guildpoints was worth braving the boatride yesterday.
Gugru tuna also seem to be not that hard to get, I ended up making like 20 stacks of tuna sushi today from all the ones I caught while going after the gp fish... got from 28 to almost 31 skill in a couple hours!

In general my skillup rate seems to have picked up after level 20, i'm seeing alot of .2 skillups still, is this normal? I would guess you only get .1's after level 60 like other crafts?

IMO It's just a matter of time. Unfortunately they're only worth the gil/hour investment for bots that are fishing 24 hours/day. If the bite/break rate wasn't so horrid then they'd actually be a nice reward for ebisu owners. Rather than ban the botters and make adjustments to improve these fish for legit players, I'm sure SE will just change their NPC value and f*** up another gil making method.

My wife actually likes to fish for haks since she can just mong out on netflix all day. That said, the most she's ever caught in one day was 30-something. You can't tell me that making 300k for 8+ hours of work is a good investment.

This happen, there are some days where breaks are not as bad and there are some you want to beat a baby taru because they are so often. I know last night a ls memeber was having the same thing happen on Liks.

Yeah that just happens sometimes. My worst was going out with 50 lures and coming back with 17 fish.

If anything, I believe skill ups get better the higher you get. I've seen more 0.2s and 0.3s in general on Legendary fish then I ever saw on other targets. Per fish, I think you get better skills. The problem is hooking the fish that give you skill ups at high levels is a lot less common than lower levels. Hakuryus and Liks have a 10% or so bite rate, for example, so you're inevitably going to get slower skill ups than fish you hook every other cast.

And about Liks, indeed I know that luck works this way sometimes. It's just it's kept happening a few days in a row and I'm starting to consider other factors out of impatience more than anything. =(

Unless something has changed since I leveled (which admittedly was ages ago), the fish you are able to hook are completely and totally dependent on the bait you are using. I leveled under the old system (no minigame) and did the 90-100 stretch by breaking willow and yew rods on titanictus and ryugu titans since I didn't have a lu until after hitting 100. And I've never experienced not being able to fish up a guild fish on any of my mules before they got a lushang/ebisu.

As far as skillups go, my most recent fishing mule leveled up about 3 months ago and got 2ish levels a day until 100 then about .3 levels a day from 101-110. May be bad luck, but just another testimonial.

Lizard lure. wtf is it for?

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