Whether you are looking to pursue powerful equipment, in need of healing items for low levels, or just want an idle distraction from furious combat, Fishing can be taken up by anyone. 

Before You Start 

There’s a lot to learn about fishing, but you will need two things at minimum to get started: a Fishing Rod, and your class’s appropriate Skill Book. The most straightforward method of obtaining a rod is via Crafting. The recipe for the Duron Fishing Rod can be found in the crafting interface, and requires 120 pieces of obsidian to create. 

If you’d rather not collect that much obsidian, or if you want to start with a higher-tier rod, there are fishing rods available in the DShop, but these are temporary and will disappear from your inventory after a limited time. Fishing rods must be equipped in your weapon equipment slot in order for you to fish, and you can’t activate skills or use auto-attack when you’re holding one. 

You’ll also need a skill book to learn the basics of fishing. Fishing skill books can be purchased for a very modest price from Bilardo or Rodbal, a pair of fishermen who hang out at the riverbank just outside Ardeca’s North wall. y

You must purchase the skill book that corresponds to your character class. Once the book is in your inventory, right-click on it and you will gain training in Fishing Mastery, allowing you to fish. You must still spend a skill point to learn Fishing Mastery.

Where to Fish 

You can’t just fish anywhere you find water. Only certain locations will yield fish. Thankfully, this includes the river the runs past Ardeca, so you can commence right away once you’ve collected a rod and read the skill book. To begin fishing, press the L key, and your mouse pointer will turn into a fishhook. You’ll know the area allows fishing if you can see the fishhook clearly, otherwise it will be covered by a red ‘X’ which means that you can’t fish from this location. 

Fishing areas are usually marked on the map, and have nearby signs. 

Casting Your Line 

Once you begin fishing, the Fishing Indicator will appear on your screen, in casting mode. It will display a green progress bar that gradually shrinks. Once the bar is depleted, you’ll receive a notification that you didn’t catch anything on that particular cast, in which case your only recourse is to try again. You can’t move or attack while casting, so if you want to cancel a cast early (because someone is attacking you, for example), you can click the ‘X’ on the fishing indicator to close it, or hit the Esc key. 

Reeling It In 

If you do manage to hook a fish before the progress bar empties, the fishing indicator will change to reeling mode. Two bars are now displayed – the strength of your line is the top half, and the length of your line on the bottom. Two icons will appear as well: the upper one for your reel, and the lower one for the fish. The fish icon will display an indicator of its relative difficulty to catch. When the line length bar is yellow, the fish isn’t fighting, and you should hold down the left mouse button to reel it in, shortening the line. When the line length bar is red, the fish is fighting you, release the left mouse button because this will only deplete the line strength bar. If the line strength bar empties, or the line length bar fills, the fish gets away. If the line length bar is depleted, however, the fish is caught, and placed into your inventory. 

Auto-Fishing 

If you have a fishing rod or other item that allows Auto-Fishing, you just need to enable fishing mode with L while in a fishable area. The casting and reeling process is automated and your character will catch and store fish as long as they have available inventory space. If there is no more inventory space available, fish will be discarded when caught, but your character will still receive experience points. 

Fishing Rewards 

Most fish are consumable items. They can be used like Potions to regain health or buffs, and can even be placed into your function key slots. 

Crafters who select the Alchemy specialization can use fish as materials to create HP or MP potions, or other useful consumables. 

Catching a fish rewards experience points, and Rodbal has quests that reward you for catching 100 or 500 fish in a single day. There are other rewards to be gained from fishing, too. Ask your fellow players, or try and discover them for yourself.