Fisher Skills Guide for FFXIV (2024)

Last updated on Jun 27, 2024 at 10:00by Shikhu6 comments

This guide explains all of the skills for Fishing and Spearfishing while coveringthe uses and value of each skill, so you can learn which skills are best to usewhile fishing!

Much like the other gathering classes in the game, Fisher uses a variety of skills tomanipulate conditions and yield. Many of the skillspertain to normal fishing, but there are a bunch of skills exclusively relatedto underwater Spearfishing as well.

For convenience, the skills have been grouped by their purposes to make iteasier to understand and have then been sorted in leveling order. You canalways refer to your 'Actions & Traits' tab to see what skill is unlocked next.

If you are looking for general tips about gathering with Fisher, pleasebe sure to check out our guide dedicated to the basics linked below.

Listed below are all the new Fishing related skills and adjustments with therelease of Dawntrail.

Skill Name	Type	Lv.	Changes
Rest	Skill	1	Abandons fishing but keeps your equipment at the ready.
Spareful Hand	Skill	91	Stores certain large-sized fish as swimbait for later use. Swimbait may be selected for use as bait so long as you remain at your present fishing spot. Swimbait may be used even after actions that cancel mooching opportunity. Cannot be executed while under the effect of Surface Slap or Identical Cast.
Big-game Fishing	Skill	95	Increases the chance the next large-sized fish caught will be an especially large specimen. Chance of landing an especially large specimen increases based on your perception rating. Angler's Art Cost: 2 Cancels current mooching opportunity.
Ambitious Lure	Skill	100	Attracts large-sized fish and increases your chances of landing one. Occasionally guarantees you will land a large-sized fish. Can be used up to 3 times while fishing, each use increasing the effectiveness and GP cost. May also attract rare species of fish. Can also be used with fish caught using Powerful Hookset. First Use: 10 GP Second Use: 20 GP Third Use: 30 GP
Modest Lure	Skill	100	Attracts small-sized fish and increases your chances of landing one. Occasionally guarantees you will land a small-sized fish. Can be used up to 3 times while fishing, each use increasing the effectiveness and GP cost. May also attract rare species of fish. Can also be used with fish caught using Precision Hookset. First Use: 10 GP Second Use: 20 GP Third Use: 30 GP
Fisher's Instinct	Trait	50	While under the effect of Fisher's Intuition or Spearfisher's Intuition, resets the effect duration when catching certain fish. Chance to trigger this effect differs between fish.

These are the skills that work for regular fishing in whatever water you canfind in the open world. These skills affect how you catch the fish and what fishyou can catch.

These skills are essentially the core kit for fishing.

• Bait opens the bait window and allows you to change bait whilefishing. This uses bait from your inventory and is useful becausecertain baits only work on certain fishing holes.
• Cast is used to cast your fishing rod into thefishing hole once you have chosen your bait.
• Hook is used to hook the fish once it has bitten. This isindicated by a tug on the rod, a special noise, exclamation marks on yourcharacter, and vibrations if using a controller.
• Cast Light adds a little light to the end of your rod, makingit easier to see when it has tugged in dark situations.
• Quit ends your fishing. You can also stop fishingby moving your character with the keyboard or gamepad.
• Sneak allows you to remain unseen by enemies up to four levelsabove your own.
• Thaliak's Favor restores 150GP at the cost of three Angler's Art.This is often a great use of Angler's Art stacks.
• Rest makes it much easier to end a cast instead ofhaving to wait for the animation on fish you do not want.

These skills all center around your ability to hook fish and manipulatethe fish by increasing your chance to get large fish, increased yield, or collectables.

• Patience grants a buff that increases the chance of catchinglarge fish by 50%. However, this also has the downside of granting a debuff that lowersthe effectiveness of Hook by 40%. This means that using Patience requiresthe use of two other skills to catch the fish: Powerful Hookset and Precision Hookset.
• Patience II works just like the first version of the skill, butthe chance to gain large fish is increased by 80%, and the debuff is -75%. Thetooltip also says that this skill increases your chances to gain larger fish, whichare fish that are larger for your Fishing Log (not rare, big fish).
• Powerful Hookset and Precision Hookset are the two skillsused to hook when using Patience. Powerful Hookset is used to catch largertugs that are indicated by !!, and Precision Hookset is used for smaller fish indicated bya single !. Most fish that have a !!! tug tend to use Powerful Hookset, but thatis not always the case. It is best to check on a fishing site beforehand.
• Release will automatically release specific fish that you have caught,which is useful for long periods of fishing. Itis slower than manually discarding them out of your inventory, so take that intoconsideration for fish with small time windows.
• Collect turns certain fish into collectables. This simplyturns the fish's size into a rating to exchange for scrips. Using Patiencehelps with fishing high rating collectables.
• Double Hook increases your yield on fish that are not big orlegendary. The amount of fish you can gain with double hook varies butgenerally will increase your yield to 2-4. This is based on your Gathering stat.
• Triple Hook works just like Double Hook but gives even more fishand can range from 3-7 fish based on your Gathering. Many fish have hardcaps before 7.

These are skills that adjust what fish you can get when it bites on yourfishing line. These skills can also remove fish from the pool, cast the same fish, or letyou catch otherwise unobtainable fish.

• Mooch is a highly used bite-based skill. If the last fish you caughtwas large, you can use it as bait to catch another fish. It does not work on anyfish - only specific fish can be mooched.
• Snagging is used to fish up maps and certain coral/mollusk typesof fish. Like the other skills, it is recommended tocheck out a fishing site for specific details.
• Makeshift Bait allows you to mooch average-sized fish insteadof just large fish. This costs five stacks of Angler's Art, which can be expensive butuseful when needed.
• Chum lowers the amount of time it takes for the next fish tobite.
• Fish Eyes lets you catch fish outside of their time window. However,make sure any weather requirements are still correct. You can not use FishEyes on legendary fish, fish caught while Ocean Fishing, or fishing holes for the most recentexpansion or the expansion prior to that.
• Mooch II works in similarly to Mooch but allows you to moochan NQ fish at the cost of 100GP and the skill going on cooldown. You are alsounable to hold the mooch and wait for GP to regenerate or a time/weatherwindow to appear like you can with regular mooch.
• Surface Slap can be used after catching a fish. By using this skill,you can remove the caught fish from the available pool of fish. This lasts until thenext fish is caught - not when it bites, meaning you can ignore fish that biteuntil the fish you want bites.
• Identical Cast lets you catch the fish you just caughtunless that fish was mooched.
• Prize Catch guarantees the next fish to be large at the costof 200GP. Just like Surface Slap, this lasts until you actuallycatch a fish, meaning you can ignore fish until the one you need appears.

These skills can only be used while Spearfishing, a type of fishingunlocked at level 61 when you obtain a gig as your off-hand tool.You can then fish underwater at special nodes, somewhat like Mining and Botany. Insteadof being able to select a specific fish, you have to time your catch with the bubblesthat appear at the node.

Like regular fishing, Spearfishing has a set of core skills requiredto fish.

• Fathom allows spearfishing nodes to appear in game and on yourminimap. This is required to be able to spearfish. Like the Mining and Botanyequivalent, the buff is automatically applied when you swap classes.
• Shark Eye allows you to easily locate the nearest spearfishingnode on your minimap.
• Gig is the action used at the spearfishing node whenthe fish lines up with the gig.
• Shark Eye II helps you locate the highest level node ina zone.
• Truth of Oceans helps you locate Swimming Shadows, which are nodesthat appear after catching a certain amount of fish. It is similar to Intuition forregular fishing, but you have to change locations.

These are the rest of the Spearfishing skills. Because the activity startsat level 61, there are fewer skills available to use.

• Veteran Trade removes a fish from the available pool of fish.Unlike Surface Slap, this lasts for the entire node.
• Salvage lets you fish maps while spearfishing.
• Nature's Bounty increases your chance of a largecatch.
• Vital Sight makes fish easier to target at your current spearfishingnode at the cost of two Angler's Art.
• Baited Breath reduces wariness of nearby fish for 300GP.
• Electric Current lets you catch all fish on the screen whenyour catch count hits 10. This costs no GP to use.