FFXIV Ocean Fishing Bonus Titles Guide

by odinsomen

This is a guide to obtain the special bonuses for Ocean Fishing from catching a ton of a particular type of fish. Each bonus comes with an achievement and a title. These range from decently challenging to Damn You RNGesus levels of hard. In order of least to most difficult, they are:

You will need, at minimum:

• The ability to resist hooking everything. If you are a compulsive hooker, this challenge is not for you.
• Level 80 Fisher (level 65 is sufficient for Jellyfish only)
• Decent lv 80 gear
• 6x Hi-Cordials
  • These cost 20 yellow scrip each from the Scrip Exchange NPC (Lv. 50 items). A terrible Ocean Fishing run still rewards around 100 yellow scrip. It is practically impossible to run out of yellow scrip so DON’T SKIMP ON CORDIALS.
• Seven like-minded cohorts; this is non-negotiable
• A line cast timer like this one. Feel free to adjust to whatever is comfortable for you as long as you make sure the timings are accurate.
• Lots of persistence and patience (not the fisher skill)

Recommended items:

• GP food; Peppered Popotoes gives the most GP but it’s not make or break
• 2000 Gathering (exact number not confirmed) to hit one particular shark Double Hook breakpoint

Here are some general tips and techniques.

• Identical Cast + Double Hook (IC+DH for short) on the next cast will be your bread and butter for most of these runs, as discussed below.
• Identical Cast lasts forever as long as you use it within 15 seconds of landing a fish. If you have enough GP to IC but not enough to DH, you can just sit there and wait for it to regenerate (or wait for Hi-Cordial to come off cooldown) and it’s still more efficient than wasting a successful cast.
  • IC will not work if you try to recatch a fish and a spectral pops in between your IC and sending out your rod again. It will fail every time. If you need to catch spectral current fish, then you will have to quit all the way out of your fishing animation (moving works to do this) to cancel the IC buff.
  • On the other hand, if spectral is BAD for your desired title/fish, then you can just sit there and twiddle your thumbs/regenerate GP during the spectral current and recast after it’s over. This is very beneficial for Jellyfish and Seadragons.
• You can do a “blind” Double Hook if you know that your desired fish is the only one at a particular line timer and/or bite type. I will point out opportunities for this below.
• Surface Slap lasts through multiple casts as long as you don’t land any fish. You will use this to your advantage to isolate particular line timers and/or bite types to maximize your chances for blind Double Hook or just a particular fish. Just let the non-desired fish get away and you’ll keep your Surface Slap buff.
• I will reiterate that everyone must be on the same page or you will fail. These bonuses will practically never happen by accident. You need all eight people using the same strategy to achieve the target numbers. I also recommend that you only try for one title at a time. It’s too GP intensive to feasibly do multiple at once.

Jelled Together – 150 jellyfish as a party

• Recommended route and time: any
• Optimal weather: Wind/Gales at Southern Strait of Merlthor
• Optimal bait: ragworm
• Double Hook amount: 4

For this title, the only relevant zone is Southern Strait of Merlthor. Using ragworm, cast your line and only (blind double) hook on ! that appear at less than 5 seconds for a total of 4 jellies per catch. La Noscean Jelly is the only ! that appears at less than 5 seconds so it’s a guaranteed Jelly so Double Hook it. If nothing hooks by 5 seconds on your macro line timer, recast your line. Do NOT hook any other !! or !!! and do NOT hook anything after 5 seconds. Use GP only on Double Hook. Everyone in the party will need to get at least 5 Double Hooks on average to clear the goal (18.75 fish per person). If you didn’t manage to get Wind/Gales, then you will be contending with Ghoul Barracuda (!!) at 4-14 seconds of line timer. If you have full GP, it is safe to Surface Slap one Ghoul Barracuda and continue with the above strategy.

Spectral weather is bad for this title. Do not let anyone in your party try to catch !!! to proc spectral in Southern Strait. Consider queuing late to get an instance to yourselves if this is a problem.

OMEGABRAIN STRATS: If you happened to ride the route that ends with Rhotano at Night time and you’re short by a few jellies, you can attempt to proc the spectral weather in Rhotano (plump worm > Spectral Bass) and use krill to catch (and Identical Cast > Double Hook) Floating Saucer (!). Don’t rely on this as this route only appears 1/6 of the time and requires spectral.Maritime Dragonslayers – 100 seadragons as a party

• Recommended route and time: any
• Optimal weather: Wind/Gales at Southern Strait of Merlthor
• Optimal bait: ragworm
• Double Hook amount: 4

The relevant zone is Southern Strait of Merlthor again. Using ragworm, cast your line and only hook on ! that appear between 12-15 seconds on your macro line timer. If you have full GP, you can use Surface Slap on Marine Bomb, which is the only fish that you might conceivably land accidentally with this timer. Once you land a Shaggy Seadragon, use Identical Cast, then Double Hook for 5 total seadragons. Ignore all bites that appear at less than 10 seconds. Ignore all non-! bites. If your line timer hits 18 seconds, recast your line. Each person will need to IC+DH three times on average to clear the goal (12.5 fish per person). As with jellies, non-wind/gales is annoying and you may consider Surface Slapping the Ghoul Barracuda in these weather patterns.

Spectral weather is bad for this title. Do not let anyone in your party try to catch !!! to proc spectral in Southern Strait. Consider queuing late to get an instance to yourselves if this is a problem. If spectral does proc, you can try to salvage the run by switching to plump worm and mooching Hi-Aetherlouse into Aetheric Seadragon. If you had an Identical Cast buff for Seadragon and spectral pops, don’t cancel it to start casting in the spectral. Just sit there with your hands under your butt until spectral is over and then recast > Double Hook. Trust me, it’s more efficient.

OMEGABRAIN STRATS: If you happened to ride the route that ends with Northern Strait at Sunset time and you’re short by a few seadragons, you can attempt to proc the spectral weather in Northern Strait (ragworm > Spectral Sea Bo) and use ragworm to catch (and Identical Cast > Double Hook) Coral Seadragon (!). Don’t rely on this as this route only appears 1/6 of the time and requires spectral. Note that Spectral Sea Bo does not count for the title.Octopus Travelers – 150 octopodes as a party

• Recommended route and time: any
  • Optimal: Route ending with Northern Strait at Night
• Optimal weather: absolute ideal is Showers at Galadion; Rain, Fog, or Clouds are doable as well
• Optimal bait: krill
• Double Hook amount: 4

This is where it starts getting really finicky. At Galadion, use krill to hook !! at around 21 seconds for Cyan Octopus, then Identical Cast and Double Hook it for 5 total octopodes. If you have full GP, you can use Surface Slap on Jasperhead if the weather is rain or Leopard Eel if the weather is Fog/Clouds. Ignore all other bites except the late !! around 21 seconds. If you have Surface Slap up, it’s safe to do a blind Double Hook on late !!. If not, normal hook and then IC+DH.

Reaching the target for this title (18.75 fish per person) is challenging without a spectral proc in Galadion. If the other parties in your instance proc spectral, look for krill > instant !! > Merman’s Mane, which you can IC+DH. The later !! is ghost shark/fishmonger. Do not spend any time trying to proc spectral yourself.

If you are on the optimal route, you can try to proc spectral in Northern Strait (ragworm > Spectral Sea Bo). Once popped, use krill > 5 second !! > Mopbeard > IC+DH to try to inch over the finish line. Earlier !! is Coccosteus which you can Surface Slap away to prep a blind DH.Certifiable Shark Hunters – 200 sharks as a party

• Required route and time: Route ending with Rhotano at Day time aka “Shark Route”
• Optimal weather: Rain or Fog/Clouds at Galadion, anything but Fair at Rhotano
• Optimal bait: plump worm
• Double Hook amount: varies, see chart

This is it. The big one. You have to average 25 sharks per person across two zones, Galadion Bay (1st area) and Rhotano Sea (3rd area). The particular route and time configuration is chosen because it allows sharks to show up in the spectral weather as well. As before, you will only be hooking from one type of bite (!!!) using plump worm for all zones and weathers, but your GP usage will change depending on the phase. Here’s a chart to visualize it.

It looks a little complicated but there are some patterns to help you remember.

• Before the spectral current, avoid blind Double Hooks because you might get the spectral fish.
• After the spectral current, it’s safe to blind Double Hook all !!!s as you try to spend all your GP before the end of the area.
• During the spectral current, notice that some of the sharks only Double Hook 2 sharks, which is inefficient. Don’t Identical Cast or Double Hook them. Only use IC+DH on the ones that give 4 (Ghost Shark and Funnel Shark at Galadion, Executioner at Rhotano).
• For both spectrals, it’s safe to blind Double Hook on any !!!.

At Galadion, if you have full GP, you can use Surface Slap on Jasperhead if the weather is rain or Leopard Eel if the weather is Fog/Clouds. Also notice that you should NOT Double Hook Tarnished Sharks at Galadion before the spectral current because it only gives 2. Save GP for the spectral by only using Identical Cast. After the current, you should blind Double Hook all !!!s and IC+DH Tarnished Sharks to spend whatever GP you have left.

At Southern Strait, you can do whatever you want as long as you leave enough time to recover to full GP and have your Hi-Cordial off cooldown by the time the 3rd area starts.

At Rhotano, you can’t really do anything about the weather. Some fish including Ogre Eel are locked out in poorer weather like rain/fog, which is to your advantage. If you have full GP, you can use Surface Slap on Ogre Eel. Use IC+DH Chrome Hammerhead as normal.

This strategy basically requires both Galadion and Rhotano spectral currents to pop in order to succeed, so you’ll just have to get lucky and hope your alliance mates help you out and pop it for you. Don’t worry if you have less than 100 sharks after the first area since it has a lower overall yield.Concluding thoughts

Achieving these runs is far from guaranteed so keep at it! A big shout-out to S’yahn (MrTia) who has been tirelessly maintaining the Ocean Fishing Spreadsheet for the Fisherman’s Horizon Discord this whole week. Without this resource, I would not have been able to make this guide. Also thanks to the Primal Ocean Fishing CWLS for putting up with me and my testing/marching orders. /sweat