Fishing - A guide [V1.14]

Introduction

From armor, to trash - and fish, to glass - This feature offers a lot of unique items in such a small and rather passive part of the game. Whether you’re fishing for food, for some extra loot, or perhaps you’re hunting a new title or that prestigious sunken sword, all of us have one thing in common. We fish.

This guide serves as not only an introduction into fishing, but a concise and complete guide for even the tiniest tid-bit of the feature.
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Starters

Fishing rods are obtainable at level 1 through sailors chests and town fishmongers, alongside fishing bait. You can also get bait and a wooden rod from the Redwake Fishing Quest!

Type Luring Item Chance Strength Rarity Found at…
Wooden Rod 1 1 1 1 Anywhere
Bronze Rod 1.2 0.8 1 1 Palo Town
Collectors Rod 0.8 1.2 1 1 Shell Island
Stat What it does
Luring Dictates the amount of time it takes to hook something
Rarity Dictates the likelihood of hooking a rarer fish - does not apply to items
Strength Dictates the chance to catch large fish, and dictates the amount of time you have to hook a fish, and dictates reeling speed.
Item Chance Dictates the likelihood of hooking an item bag

Rods have many different statistics on them - ranging from fish rarity chances, to item chance, and of course, their luring aspect.
Enchantment scrolls exist for rods too! They are obtainable the same way regular scrolls are - from sealed chests, killing rivals, or scroll chests!

However, those with the 50% or higher rates are from the Dark Sea and are obtainable through fishing in the Dark Sea! It is recommended to have a Brig for this, as your ship will take passive damage.

Enchantment Function
Luring +25% lure speed
Lucky +25% Rare fish chance
Magnetic +25% Item chance
Sturdy +25% large fish chance, +25% reeling speed +25% time fish spend hooked
Ensnaring +50% lure speed
Toughened +50% strength
Graced +50% rare fish chance
Treasurer +50% Item chance
Official Trello Card Trello card where the dark sea exclusive enchants were added

The Fishing Index

The fishing index is a unique aspect of the game found in the larger menu - which you can open up by clicking the squares icon on the bottom left of the screen.
Ranging from freshwater, cold, warm, and saltwater fish - this all can be quite confusing! So lets clean this up.

Lake and pond fish - otherwise known as freshwater fish - are found in bodies of water that are not the ocean. This can range from the ponds in side of the Blackwater Grotto to the Cernunno swamp.
Each region has its own temperature rating, which you can often read by looking at the temperate part of your GUI.

Warm Freshwater Areas

Shell Island, Palo Town, Ravenna, Sandfall Isle, Forest of Cernunno, Mango Isle, windrow isle

Cold Freshwater Areas

Whitesummit

Certain items are also exclusive to fishing, or are at least much easier to obtain from fishing. The most popular example would be sunken treasure and sunken elements. However, there are currently 2 exotic gemstones which you are most likely to obtain by fishing! These are Lapis Lazuli and Larimar.

All Fishing Quests

🎣

Bronze Sea

Quest Where? Level Cap
Catch 5 Fish NorthWest Redwake 5
Catch 20 Fish Elm Island 15
Catch 5 Fish Frostmill 20
Catch 1 Anglerfish Sailors Lodge 82
Catch 5 Freshwater Fish Rubica - Ravenna 93
Catch a Large Fish Tiberia - Ravenna 93
Catch 2 treasures Tiberia - Ravenna 93
Disclaimer This list incomplete!

Nimbus Sea

Quest Where? Level cap

Dark Sea

The Dark Sea offers a lot of interesting additions to fishing and its mechanics. Its a great way to obtain Atlantean items, rare materials, and other knicknacks. The Dark Sea was added in update 1.14, and introduced a multitude of things such as dark sealed chests, high tier chests, exclusive items such as dark shards – and in our case, unique rod enchants and fish variants.

Fish in the dark sea have a low chance of being massive, but you must be within the section of the dark sea which inflicts a minimum of insanity 1 on the player! All other drops like gems, scrolls, and Atlantean clothing do not require you to be so far into the Dark Sea.

To navigate the Dark Sea when fishing, be sure to find a Dark Sea compass! A good way about this is to do treasure charts, as compasses have a low chance of appearing in chests.

Scrolls can be found from fishing at random, whether you reel in a fish, junk, or treasure, a scroll can randomly come alongside your items! However, gemstones and Atlantean clothing from fishing only come from treasure bags!

Sunken Items

Sunken items are rarely obtained during fishing - having a rarity of 1/2000 or 0.05%!
These items are extremely rare, but do have a pity rate. Having a pity rate of 3,000.
Each item were able to be caught at any level – but are now only obtainable at a minimum of level 50 and may be brought up to level 120+ so far.
Sunkens are upgradable up to the max level - no matter what its brought up to in future updates!

What is a pity rate?
Pity rates ensure a person gets something after long dedication to something - which is why it’s called a ‘pity’ rate. After fishing up 2,999 fish without finding a sunken, you are guaranteed to get one sunken item on the 3,000th catch!
This does not count fish caught in previous games [such as AA, or WoM]

What is the best rod for sunken items?
You can read the statistics about this question here.
Generally it is accepted that the Luring bronze rod was the best in until V1.14, which introduced a better variant of luring called “Ensnaring”, making an Ensnaring bronze rod the current best option. A good second would be a magnetic or treasurer bronze rod, as item chance DOES effect sunken chance.

The best set up if you are going for a sunken is either an ensnaring bronze rod, or treasurer bronze rod, with a Tier 3+ luck pot.
image

The reason why magnetic collectors, or collectors in general are bad choices, is because they take far too long to hook something, and its oddly only on occasion that they hook an item bag - defeating the purpose of its entire existence. It is worth noting that whilst you can put a luring on a collectors rod to make it better, it just makes the rod the same as a magnetic wooden rod

[The following statistics are based on their level 120+ variants]

Type Defense Attack Size
Iron Helmet # #
Iron Chestpiece # #
Iron Boots # #
[Ill add them soon, I swear]
Base Damage Attack size Attack Speed
Sword 25 1 0.3
11 Likes

luring collectors is good too

2 Likes

I’m inclined to agree - but needing to enchant a rod to make it good for its single reason of existence is kind of mid in comparison to just using the same enchant on a bronze rod to get infinitely better results O_O

Yeah, but just saying if you happen to stumble upon one and don’t have one of the better versions, it’s a decent substitute.

psure its always been the same

also i think fishing rods will be revamped soon so look out for that

2 Likes

Sturdy bronze my beloved

It’s a feature that was added during AO’s development

2 Likes

The “catch 20 fish” quest is available at lvl 15. Frostmill fishing is available at lvl 20 I think.

I know this because I’ve developed a route for the early game.

2 Likes

Forest of Cernunno is a warm freshwater area, not a cold one.

2 Likes

Wind-Row Island and Mango Isle are also Warm Freshwater lakes.

Also, do we know exactly the difference between Sturdy and Lucky? Does sturdy increase your chance at larger base fish, like Colossal Squid, or fish with the Giant prefix? Similarly, does Lucky increase your chance at fish with the “Rare” rarity (like Colossal Squid), or does it increase the chance for modifiers like Giant and Golden? It’s ambiguous

lucky = rarer fish

sturdy = bigger fish

I have updated this page for version 1.14! I may give this page a bit of a clean up and glow up, as its very blocky and boring in terms of flavoring.

Be sure to let me know of any mistakes or new information!

4 Likes

Can you cover gem grinding?
2 kinds of gems can only be found this way

i did! if you’re curious, they can be fished up anywhere to my knowledge, and come in item bagss ^^

hi guys, fishing update for version 1.14.8!

Strength, luring, and item chances were buffed by 8%! It doesnt say if its for enchants, and I assume it is, and to make sure, Im going to be testing it today!

also
image

2 Likes