Fishing Guide

Fishing UI

This guide is intended to be an overview of the mechanics of fishing as well as basic advice on how to progress. A brief summary is included at the bottom of the page for those who don't want to read through all the mechanics involved.

A brief overview of fishing

Fishing is the most complex of the three gathering skills in the game; it was the first to receive the node system that has been adapted for mining and foraging and has five substats that influence the skill compared to mining and foraging which only account for skill level. On top of this, fishing is the only gathering skill in which you can fail to gather anything after completing an action, resulting in 0 XP gained.

While mining and foraging are pretty easy to level up and gather resources without using any gear, fishing is the one gathering skill where aiming for gear and buffs has the largest impact in the early game. 

But why fish? Apart from just wanting to max out all your skills, fishing provides:

• Fish - (obviously) for use in cooking
• Fibers - The raw materials used in cloth weaving for crafting and augmenting magic armor.
• Driftwood and Aquamarines - Components used in crafting and augmenting magic weapons.
• Fish Oil - Provided you have the oil spill enchantment that allows this, fishing actions can also give you Fish Oil which is used for crafting Pyre Logs for a lot of heat. Preparing caught fish will also give Fish Oil

What makes fishing different? In short, the node system and substats. In long:

The node system

The node system has been confusing for players ever since it was released. An easy way to think of it is that when you start fishing, your player gets on a boat and sails for a certain amount of time to find a school of fish (a node) and then takes a different amount of time to catch one of those fish (a resource). After your player has caught everything in the area, they have to sail onward to find another school of fish to catch (another node).

The node system consists of two components: searching for a node and fishing for that node. The icons at the bottom of each fishing location on the fishing screen will tell you the following information from left to right:

Level Required:

The fishing level required to unlock the fishing location. This does not include effective levels given to the player by fishing gear.

Searching Time and Gathering Time:

Searching time is how long it takes your player to find a fishing node.

Gathering time is the time it takes for your player to gather one resource from that node.

Base Find Chance and Base Gather Chance:

Base Find Chance is your chance to find a fishing node after completing a search.

Base Gather Chance is your chance to fish up a resource from a node.

Experience per action:

This is the amount of fishing experience you receive per catch.

As you level up your fishing and fishing stats, search and gather times will decrease and search and gather chances will increase, making it easier and faster to gather fishing resources. Because of this, a lot of early game fishing time is actually wasted failing to find nodes and failing to harvest them. Getting the fishing enchantment on a pair of gloves or boots is a top priority for those who want to level up quickly. Luckily, later in the skill, your stats will improve to the point where this isn't necessary. For players that want to spend money to speed things up further, there are also buffs you can acquire to help with this; more on that later.

Bait Power

Bait power is used to calculate the time it takes you to find nodes as well as the chance of succeeding in doing so. Bait power can be acquired in tiny amounts by leveling fishing. The main way to gain bait power is through fishing equipment and bait. This can also be supplemented with buffs and enchantments. As finding a node happens less often than gathering from a node, bait power can be considered the least important stat in fishing and will passively increase alongside your level and gear, but don't neglect it entirely.

Reel Power

Reel power is used to calculate the time it takes you to gather one item from a node as well as the chance of succeeding in doing so. Reel power can also be acquired in tiny amounts by leveling fishing. Again, the main way to gain reel power is through fishing equipment and bait. This can also be supplemented with buffs and enchantments. Reel power comes into play multiple times per node, as you have to gather everything before moving on. Having high reel power means gathering fish faster.

Bonus Rarity

Bonus rarity affects the quality of the nodes you find while fishing. This can lead to you finding rarer fish and other resources, as well as larger nodes to gather from in general. If you are aiming for specific drops from fishing, try to increase your rarity as much as possible, as meeting the minimum requirement for a node doesn't make it a common find. You should aim for around 50 rarity over the unlock minimum if possible to gather these drops in any meaningful amounts. Just like for bait and reel power, rarity can also be acquired in tiny amounts by leveling fishing, mostly from fishing equipment and bait, and can also be supplemented with buffs and enchantments.

The UI

Opening the fishing tab will show you three key sections:

An info panel on the left:

This shows you all of your current fishing related stats, such as your:

Effective fishing level:

This is what the game treats as your fishing level. Tackleboxes and fishing gear can increase this slightly, reducing the time needed to search and gather and increasing the success chance.

Bait Preservation Chance:

The chance that bait will not be removed from your tacklebox on a gathering action

Bait Power:

The strength of your bait, used to calculate the speed of searching for a fishing node. 

Reel Power:

Your fishing strength, the time taken to pull a resource out of the water.

Bonus rarity:

This is used to calculate your chance of finding rarer fishing nodes.

A tacklebox section in the top middle:

This is where you store your bait for use in fishing, You should always be using bait to fish, as it's the main way to boost all fishing stats before you unlock fishing gear.

Fishing locations:

This is where you can select a zone to fish in. Clicking the i icons in the top right will show what you can receive from nodes and what rarities they unlock at. Again, this is the minimum rarity, and you should aim for at least 50 rarity over if you want to gather these in any meaningful amounts.

Bait

You will always want to use bait while fishing. This is because bait is relatively cheap to acquire and gives a significant stat bump to fishing, especially in the early game. Use bait by clicking on it in your inventory and selecting the box that says "move to tacklebox".

The "best bait" to use is a hard question to answer, as it will depend on what you are aiming for. As a rough guide, if you are struggling to find nodes, go for bait power. If you want to get XP and fish faster, go for reel. If you want to try and get rarer drops from a zone, go for bonus rarity.

Nightcrawler, Glowbug, and Shrimp Tail are the early options. I think it's not worth spending the money on Earthworm. My recommendation would be glowbug due to the higher reel having the largest impact on fishing speed. And if you can afford it, Smelly Meat. Do not use Tentacle Bait until you are in late-game fishing, as before then the 1.3 multiplier does not outscale the -30 bait and reel.

There are 10 types of bait available for fishing, these are:

Bait	Source	Fishing Level	Bait Power	Reel Power	Bonus Rarity
Earthworm Bait	Game Shop	N/A	N/A	5	5
Fat Nightcrawler Bait	Mining	1	15	10	5
Glowbug Bait	Foraging	1	10	15	5
Shrimp Tail Bait	Crafting (Raw Shrimp)	1	20	5	5
Fish Guts Bait	Crafting (Anchovy, Trout, or Salmon)	2	25	5	10
Smelly Meat Bait	Combat	2	10	20	10
Hardened Hook Bait	Crafting (Adamantite Bar)	3	N/A	35	20
Alluring Lure Bait	Crafting (Adamantite, Gold Bar)	3	30	N/A	20
Writhing Tentacle Bait	Crafting (Writhing Tentacle Bait)	5	(-30) * 1.3	(-30) * 1.3	(60) * 1.3
Mysterious Bait	Bird's Nest, Mysterious Seed	?	?	?	?

Chests

While fishing there is a low chance for one of two treasure's to be gathered at the same time as any item. These are the sunken treasure and ancient treasure. By wearing gear with the naturalist enchant you can increase the rate in which you get these slightly. While there is a chance at gems I don't find opening the sunken treasure to be worthwhile. However, the ancient treasure is an always open to me. There is a 3% chance for each legendary tool piece to drop, if you are lucky and get one you have saved yourself around 75 hours of fishing due to the base cost of these being 900 fishing shards.

Specializing

This doesn't change the core skill loop at all but does change the output of what you receive by fishing.

Fish: The default option, focusing on enchants that only buff stats to increase your speed while fishing results in the same drop distribution as normal.

Oil: Equipping Oil Spill enchant gives a 8% chance to try and extract fish oil from a fish based on the fish's size. On an Ocean's Embrace this equals a 60% chance. This chance is not guaranteed and is less likely the smaller the fish is. More information can be found on the Oil Spill page.

Fiber: Equipping Fiber Finder enchant increases chance to find fibers by 25% per level, On an Ocean's Embrace this equals an increased 200% chance. Doing this does not replace all fish.

XP: Starting after level 99 you can equip jewelry with a scholar enchantment, this gives +20% XP per level at the cost of the gathered item being destroyed. The only items received from fishing when using scholar are chests and mob drops in stormy seas.

Fishing Gear

There are two types of fishing gear. The Fisherman's skilling set and Tackleboxes.

Fisherman's set

The Fisherman's Set recipe is locked behind the quest "Fishing Set Quest". You will need to be level 60 before you can unlock this quest and upon completion you will receive enough shards to craft 2/3 of the fishing set. By level 60 you should have plenty of shards to craft the 3rd piece. However, it is only the recipe that is level locked, if you have the cash, you can purchase a set from the market and wear it at level 1.

Fishing Gear	Enchantment
Fisherman's Bucket Hat	Bait Preservation 3
Fisherman's Smock	Reinforced Line 3
Fisherman's Waders	Pungent Bait 3

The fisherman's set is a must have for fishing, the earlier you can get it, the faster you will be able to level fishing. The set bonus from wearing all 3 pieces increases all of your fishing stats (not including bait) by 15%, as well as reducing damage taken and increasing damage done in dangerous gathering locations (stormy seas) if you have that zone unlocked. There is a fourth piece to the Fisherman's Set. The legendary tacklebox Ocean's Embrace. We will cover this below in...

Tackleboxes

Tackleboxes are a skill specific tool for fishing. Like pickaxes and hatchets, tackleboxes can be equipped and will give the player stat boosts towards fishing. By doing the gathering tutorial quest, you can get the first tier of tacklebox for free. Due to how integral the substats of fishing are to the time taken and XP gained, you should be upgrading your tacklebox as soon as possible every time you reach the level requirements to equip the next tier. If you want to save money at the lower levels, you can avoid enchantments. However, they are powerful bonuses to have on a tacklebox. The first four tiers of tackleboxes are relatively cheap to craft.

The highest tier of tacklebox you can craft is the legendary Ocean's Embrace. This is locked behind the Master difficulty quest "Legendary Tacklebox" and requires you to clear the Abandoned Academy Base Dungeon as well as spending 9,000 Fishing Shards for your first one. Like all legendary tools, this is intended for end game skilling. As such, you will probably be close to, if not at, the maximum fishing level by the time you reach this. However, Ocean's Embrace gives the highest bump to base fishing stats as well as a stronger version of the Fisherman's Set bonus. Giving the player a 30% buff to all fishing stats (not including bait) and reducing damage taken and increasing damage done in stormy seas by 50%

Tacklebox	Fishing Level	Bait Power	Reel Power	Bonus Rarity
Novice Tacklebox	3	15	5	N/A
Basic Tacklebox	6	20	10	3
Advanced Tacklebox	9	25	15	6
Pro Tacklebox	12	30	20	10
Supreme Tacklebox	15	35	25	15
Ocean's Embrace	60	60	60	60

Other Gear

In addition to the above here are other pieces of gear that are useful when fishing:

• Bag of Holding: depending on the level this gives up to a 100% chance to force the max quantity of a resource when gathering, resulting in more fish
• Newbie / Dwarven Adventurer's Backpack: (for Adventurers boon) Extra shards are very useful, using this in place of the bag of holding will allows you to gain more shards for augmenting fishing gear for more stats or getting an Ocean's Embrace sooner for the improved set bonus
• Cloak of Many Pockets / the Void: 1-2 extra levels of haste depending on the cloak. Faster fishing = faster XP, no downsides to using these if you can afford them.
• Camo Cloak: Applicable to Stormy Seas, decreases the chance of a encounter by 50% and reduces delay by 20% works out as a better time save than haste plus the augs give you fishing stats.
• Flamboyant Cape: The opposite of the Camo Cloak, increases encounter chance by 50% and reduces delay by 10%. Not recommended for fishing, will result in more bait from fights in stormy seas but not worth the time cost
• Prismatic Ring: (offers +1 fishing level, bait, reel, and rarity per aug) This can have Haste or gathering (or even scholar past 99 If you want additional exp for gathered materials).

Enchants

Listed below are all the relevant enchantments for fishing that can go on your fishing set, tacklebox, or jewelry. Enchants, of course, do not stack, but you can replace the default enchants on fishing gear with ones you deem more relevant. My recommendations are:

• Ring / Necklace: Haste and Gathering.
• Gloves / Boots: Fishing and Naturalist.
• Tacklebox: XP and gather time - Reinforced Line. Fish Oil - Oil Spill. Fibers - Fiber Finder
• Fishing Set: The default options are solid all rounders, if you choose to add one of the default enchantments to your tacklebox make sure to replace the fishing set piece equivalent with something relevant as enchants do not stack:
• Non Fishing Tool: Putting Archaeology on any tool that isn't the tacklebox still gives access to the drop table, doing this for a skill you don't care about allows you to make some extra gold on the side whilst fishing.

List of useful Enchantments.

Scroll	Slot	Level	Silver Amount	Rune Amount	Runes	Effect per scroll
Scroll of the Soul Wisdom	Ring, Necklace, Weapon, Shield, Helm, Body, Legs, Gloves, Boots, Cape, Arrows, Pickaxe, Hatchet, Hoe, Tacklebox, Tongs, Tome, Ladle, Combat-Amulet, Chisel	48	600	60	Chaos, Mind, Cosmic	ONLY APPLIES TO THE ITEM THIS ENCHANTMENT IS ON. Increases soulbound item XP gain by 6%.
Scroll of Naturalist	Gloves, Boots	49	600	60	Air, Water, Nature, Cosmic	Increase your chance to gain chests as well as convert standard chests to their greater variants while gathering by 20%.
Scroll of Fishing	Gloves, Boots	55	700	60	Earth, Water, Mind	Increases fish catch chance by 2.5%.
Scroll of Prolonging	Gloves, Boots	58	700	60	Nature, Mind	Gain a 20% chance to not consume a buff stack (resulting in 25% more uses from a buff on average).
Scroll of Enlightenment	Gloves, Boots	73	900	70	Air, Water, Chaos, Mind	Gain 1 more essence per action where essence is acquired.
Scroll of Gathering	Ring, Necklace	64	800	70	Earth, Fire, Water, Mind, Cosmic	Gain a 10% chance to find an extra resource while gathering. There is a 15% chance that a nature rune is consumed when it procs. Attempts to pull the rune from your stockpile then ammo pouch if none found.
Scroll of Wealth	Ring, Necklace	37	500	50	Nature, Mind, Cosmic	Automatically sells gathering and production items for 20% of their vendor price. Does not affect Crafting or stack with Scholar.
Scroll of the Scholar	Ring, Necklace	88	1300	110	Chaos, Mind, Cosmic	Increases experience gained from gathering and production by 20% but destroys the item in process. Does not affect Crafting or stack with Wealth. Only active for mastery experience, when a skill is at level 99.
Scroll of Haste	Ring, Necklace	94	2000	200	Air, Chaos, Mind, Cosmic	Increases non-combat action speed by 4%. Caps at halving action time. Stacks with Empowered Haste.
Scroll of Archaeology	Tacklebox, Fishing Set, Pickaxe, Hatchet, Mining Set, Foraging Set	41	500	50	Earth, Water, Nature	Gives access to a secondary drop table while gathering with rewards and chances heavily scaling on enchantment strength. The best finds are only found in the hardest to reach zones!
Scroll of Pungent Bait	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	14	200	30	Water, Nature	Increases bait power by 3.
Scroll of Reinforced Line	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	23	300	40	Earth, Water	Increases reel power by 3.
Scroll of Fishing Magnetism	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	33	400	40	Earth, Water, Cosmic	Increases bonus rarity by 2 and decreases both bait and reel power by the same amount. Increases chance to find known rare nodes.
Scroll of Bait Preservation	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	47	600	60	Earth, Water, Chaos	Increases chance to preserve bait by 4%.
Scroll of the Fiber Finder	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	50	600	60	Earth, Water, Mind	Increases chance to find aquatic fibers by 25%.
Scroll of Oil Spill	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	69	800	70	Earth, Water, Death	Gives a 8% chance to try and extract fish oil from a fish based on the fish's size. There is a chance that fish oil may not be created if the fish is too small.
Scroll of Deadliest Catch	Tacklebox, Fishing Set	71	900	70	Earth, Water, Blood	Increases bonuses from using bait by 5% but decreases bait preservation chance by 5%. Increases chance to find known rare resources.

Buffs

The following are buffs you can receive from food or potions. While not required to max fishing they will speed up the process, especially in the early game where stats are at their weakest. Recommended buffs are: Fishing, Reinforced Line.

Name	Skill Affected	Description	Buff Gained From
Fishing (Enchantment)	Fishing	Increases fishing catch rate by 10%.	Honey
Fishing Magnetism	Fishing	Increases bonus rarity by 4 and decreases bait and reel power by the same amount. Increases chance to find known rare nodes.	Raw Magnetic Minnow
Reinforced Line	Fishing	Increases reel power by 6.	Raw Tigerfish
Pungent Bait	Fishing	Increases bait power by 6.	Seaweed
Oil Spill	Fishing	Adds 7.5% chance to try and extract fish oil from a fish based on the fish's size. There is a chance that fish oil may not be created if the fish is too small.	Raw Slippery Eel
Deadliest Catch	Fishing	Increases bonuses from bait by 10%, but decreases chance of bait preservation by 5%. Increases chance to find known rare resources.	Raw Great White Shark
Gathering	Mining, Foraging, and Fishing	Gain a 20% chance to find an extra resource while gathering.	Banana
Intuition	Most activities	Increases experience gained by 10% while doing most things.	Sageberry

Affixes

Be aware that affixes are permanent and cannot be changed once applied to an item. Look through the menus yourself or even hold off applying them to hard to acquire items until you understand what you want from them.

Fishing Gear: As of v0.20 the only affixes available for the fishing gear are combat related, not worth wasting the dust on especially when this may change in a future update.

Cape: Gathering shard chance - more shards = more augs = more stats

Necklace: Gathering Haste - 1-5% additive speed

Ring: All apart from Eagle are good options, up to the players priorities. I'd recommend the Tool multiplier and XP multiplier

Pendant: Gathering Doubling - 1-3% chance to double gathered item

Boots and Gloves: combat affixes only, not relevant for fishing

Tacklebox: No bad choices, recommend Speedster Fishing, Prepared, Fishing Node Size

Talents

There are currently 6 talents available for fishing, these are only usable after maxing fishing and beyond. Not a lot to say about these other than if you want fishing to be your main skill then you should get at least everything other than Fantastic Fiber Finder to boost your stats.

Gathering Master - Your mastery of gathering gives you a chance to gather more resources!

Gathering Grandmaster - Your mastery of gathering gives you a chance to gather more resources!

Fishing Prodigy - You're a natural at fishing! Increases your fishing effective level by 10.

Shrimp Student - Deep study of the true rulers of the sea has given you an insight to the fickle nature of the waters. Increases your effective fishing level by 30 but decreases your mining and foraging levels by 10.

Fishing Grandmaster - You're the uncontested master of fishing. Increases your fishing effective level by 5%.

Fantastic Fiber Finder - Increases your Fiber Finder by 3.

Basic Guide

Here is a very basic outline on fishing to 99. Don't treat this as the best path. I maxed fishing so long ago but hopefully some of the below will be useful or changed by someone more knowledgeable.

Levels 1-9

Start off by doing the gathering tutorial quest if you haven't already. This gets you to level 3/4 as well as acquiring the most basic version of a tacklebox. If you want to save money, I'd say you can avoid buffs and enchants at this stage as long as you just have the tacklebox equipped. A good investment if you can equip them are the obsidian boots with the fishing enchant on them for a +12.5% chance of gathering fish.

Levels 10-29

At level 10, you can now equip the basic tacklebox, which is not an expensive craft, and the materials can be gathered fairly quickly if you want to do that yourself. 2 enchant slots mean you can get an additional +6 reel power, but bear in mind that this will soon be replaced by the next tier of tacklebox.

Levels 30-39

Advanced Tacklebox is available, starting to get expensive, but not excessively so. 3 Enchant slots start to be more worthwhile, but again, this will be replaced relatively quickly if you don't want to spend the money.

Levels 40-49

Pro tacklebox is available. This is where leveling starts to slow down. Costing mid-game materials, this is a little harder to craft. At this point, 4 enchant slots are available, and you will have the tacklebox long enough that I believe the enchants are worthwhile. Feel free to pick what you believe works best for your goals. My opinion is reeling if you care about XP and speed. 

Levels 50-59

The Supreme Tacklebox is available. expensive, 5 slots, good stats, etc. This one is potentially worth skipping if you have 9000 shards by this point, as the legendary tacklebox unlock is coming up.

Level 60

The quest for fishing gear is now unlocked. Activate this as soon as possible because 10,000 fishing actions are required to complete it. Afterwards, you should be able to complete the fishing set and even potentially aug it for +1 to all substats per aug. If you are close to 9000 shards after crafting the gear, I would save up until then so you can unlock the legendary tacklebox. This can be unlocked as soon as you complete the fishing gear quest by clearing the gathering dungeon made from the key fragments that drop when cloth weaving 

Post Fisherman's set and Ocean's Embrace 

After this, it's basically up to you. Again, choose reeling if you want XP and speed or specialize in fibers or oil; the choice is yours. Around here, with the full set bonus, you may start benefiting from tentacle bait. Equip it and see what happens to your stats. 

Miscellaneous Tips

Fishing in stormy seas and constantly crafting tentacle bait is a great source of crafting XP

TL:DR give me the summary for maxing fast

Prioritize getting towards 100% fishing chance through gear, buffs, or enchantments. 

Use haste jewelry and cape (camo cloak in stormy seas).

Always use bait (except tentacle until late game).

Keep using the best tacklebox you can with reeling.

Fish in the highest zone you can, as long as failed attempts do not outweigh the XP gained.

Use the Dwarven backpack and get the full fishing set as soon as possible for the set bonus.