Hallowfall Fishing Derby: An hour of my life I won't get back

You don’t even need the Royal Ripple pool to find a Queen’s Lurefish. You do need one to catch the Regal Dottyback unless you’re very lucky and find a dottyback in open water via RNG.

To obtain a Queen’s Lurefish, you must throw a Regal Dottyback into the water (any water in Khaz Algar will do, but open water is best for this).

Throwing the dottyback into the water will give you a very short buff for increased chance of catching the Queen’s Lurefish. I generally wait until I have 3-4 dottybacks to increase the buff timer.

Catch the Queen’s Lurefish in open water.

The Specular Rainbowfish and Arathor Hammerfish are both rare drops from their respective schools (Glimmerpool for the rainbow and Blood in the Water for the hammer). You can get lures from the AH prior to a derby to assist in catching those.

I did, too, and I was almost there. Like others, the two I had trouble with were the Hammerfish and the Rainbowfish. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t require all of them within one hour. What a fun challenge. Honestly, I had fun trying to get them all within 60 minutes.

Seems odd to give a mount simply for catching all of the fish on a Saturday at random times over the course of the whole expansion. Catching all of them during a 60-minute period at least once during the expansion? That sounds like a fun achievement to work on.

Those of us who like fishing in this game and have been asking every single expansion since Legion for it to matter again…we don’t think of it as a “low key fun event.” I mean, it is. It’s fun. It’s not stressful because it’s repeatable every single Saturday. The rewards are not going away, and you get something even if you fail the derby challenge.

This is content–actual and meaningful content with actual and meaningful rewards–for people who prioritize fishing in this game.

If you have taken the time to have max skill, the best gear, multiple threads added to your buff, and use lures, your odds of winning the derby challenge are much higher. That’s as it should be. If you fail, you still get some currency, and you can get the currency between Saturdays via…fishing.

I didn’t win this week, either, but I got a cooking recipe I’ve been waiting to purchase that gives me a huge buff for next week’s attempt.

I’m sorry that the derby event is not everyone’s cup of tea and that some of us clearly didn’t find it fun. I did. I enjoyed it. I’m actually thrilled that they took fishing seriously this time because in BfA, Shadowlands, and Dragonflight, fishing was largely a giant nothingburger. The fish were not important or rare or good for economic gain, and the entire secondary skill was treated as an afterthought for three expansions in a row.

Here in TWW, the anglers are getting what we have been asking for, and I’m quite happy about it.

1 Like

Not a single royal ripple in site. And no my Royal Dottys didn’t work either. This quest is straight up dookie.

I feel your pain, I couldnt find the last fish either. I think the thing that irks me the most is that it allows you to accept the quest again. I wasnt any the wiser and after I failed I thought it would let me try again, and the timer was going so I sat here for 40 minutes not getting a single damn fish until I finally noticed the buff wasnt on.

Like come on Blizzard thats such a pathetic bug to have in the game, its not like something you happen on chance its literally right there…

Were you trying to fish from open water? That’s a no-go this expansion. You have to toss the Dottyback then fish from a Royal Ripple pool. That has never failed to get me at least one Queen’s Lurefish, and the first one will always count as the “trophy” fish if you have the quest.

I really don’t think that’s a thing. Maybe if you’re completely maxed out in skill and buffed with all kinds of crazy buffs you can get them in regular water, but I have never failed to get at least one Queen’s Lurefish from a Royal Ripple pool if I fished up then tossed in a Dottyback first.

I think that’s probably pretty important. I’ll likely try that next time for the rarer pools. I also realized midway through after not finding any Royal Ripples in Hallowfall that it was fine to fish in Azj Kahet too.

I told my son about the tournament, he had like 1 TWW fishing skill, and he got all of the fish within 15 minutes. It only took me 45 minutes because Beledar spawned in the middle of when I happened to be doing it.

Yeah, but your fishing skill needs to be pretty insanely high to catch anything but junk from the open water even with the dottyback. Finding a pool is more or less a guarantee of the fish that you need.

And now that there is a 30 min penalty reduction in time for the next weeks event if you accept the derby quest but fail to complete it. done with this.

All the nibbling minnows I caught didn’t register with the quest.

It is because I catch them daily in that way. You fish out all the dotties from a Royal Ripple and then toss the dotties back into the open water afteward to get the buff. That’s how I’ve been catching my Queen’s Lurefish from day one.

I do have 300 skill plus a hat, a blue pole, and 6 threads attached, but it’s not maxed out with threads, and up to now, I did not have the Ghoulfish Delight to eat for that buff.

I have been catching the Queen’s Lurefish in open water with just the dotty buff right after emptying a Royal Ripple from back at the start with my Bismuth Fisherfriend (the green pole) and no threads for buff. It does work. Maybe they throttle the RNG during derby, but I promise–promise, promise–this works.

Edited to add: Even with my current + to fishing skill (that’s with the blue pole and 6 skill threads), I still typically catch about 50% grey items in open water, but not when I have the dotty buff.

Do you always get a Queen’s Lurefish that way, with each cast? Even with low fishing skill? Because I tried that early on with the Bloody Perch and still got nothing but junk from open water. On the other hand I get 100% Queen’s Lurefish with a Royal Ripple after I toss a Dottyback as long as the pool lasts.

1 Like

I did this quest for a combined 4 hours just trying to get a Trophy Queen’s Lurefish. Fished in a ton of Royal Ripple pools with the dotty buff, caught a ton of Queen’s Lurefish but never got that part of the quest completed. Gave up.

By far my least fun experience of the expansion thus far.

No, not every single cast, but I have never had a dotty buff go by without getting at least one (per 30sec buff) and usually 2-3.

Honestly, it just never occurred to me that I should seek another Royal Ripple before trying for the Lurefish, and that’s very good advice, so thank you. I just always immediately tossed them in.

For regular Lurefish farming, your way is much better, and I’m glad you mentioned it. For whatever reason, it just never clicked to me that I should do that. For the derby time crunch, however, I think people might have more success doing it my way with multiple dotties from a single Ripple instead of trying to hunt down a second Ripple school if that makes sense. Just from a derby time-saving perspective.

My thought is more that people doing the derby probably won’t have very high fishing skill yet, much less boosts. I’ve been fishing relatively a lot and I think I’m still only at 150 or so, and I haven’t even looked into how to get and apply line buffs yet.

Now that part is weird. Are you sure you still had the event buff on? Weren’t in a raid group or anything? I’ve never had it not count the first fish of the type that I caught as a “trophy” fish.

Do people not read…?

The queen fish is a one cast catch you just throw in the bait fish first.

A bloody perch thrown into a bloody pool removes all common catches making the hammer head a 1-5 pool catch.

I was wondering why a ton of people where fishing and fighting over pools. None of them baited.

I am curious where you read this because it isn’t in game. And unless you have the lure fish in your bag already the fishing panel doesn’t tell you.

You don’t have any way of knowing which fish you need to catch that day when you pick up the quest either to do research if you do it early morning.

Or do you mean do people not pick up the quest and go research on wowhead before you do it?

First week I caught these fish without any problem with under 200 fishing skill and not using buffs. Why would I think blizzard changed things ? And now with max skill I would have a problem?

I started fishing out of pools, and caught stuff that I looked at the tooltips on that told me if it was a reagent or bait. It also told me what to do with the bait. I tried to fish in the open water and didn’t catch a single thing even though my fishing was at about 75, with or without bait.

I did look up which types of pools to get the fish for the quest out of on WowHead specifically, though. I couldn’t remember which ones the fish I got previously came out of aside from the Queen’s Lurefish.

yes I know all this is on wowhead later in the day and can be read there - but that poster implied that people can’t read and that to me indicates it should be in game

Type /played in game
Now that is the time you will never get back as well.

While I can understand anglers liking this event. This event should bring more people into your fold. It should bring about an “excitement” about saturday and “Going fishing” to more players. Which, in turn, would bring about potentially more fishing things for those hard core anglers.

This, however… Will most likely lead to its downfall. As more and more players attempt it, realize it just… Isn’t what it should be. More and more “complaints” will roll in. Blizzard may leave this event just how it is, but chances are… It’ll probably end up being a relic just like the Stranglethorne event is. And Anglers may never see another event of its like in the future.

However, if they were to enact my suggestion of

If they enacted that change,Then I believe this event could have merit. It could bring in more anglers. Meaning, more content could be developed for anglers. Making fishing more of a thing. I know I, and possibly many others, view fishing as a leisurly thing to do. Something Ic an do when I’m waiting for a queue to pop or just want to enjoy the WoW surroundings for a bit and just relax by fishing. This quest, does not elicit any of that. The fact that you have to do so much just to make it better is astounding. Especially sicne the quest giver herself sells the profession to players. Meaning its entry should be fishing level 1, with no additions and not requiring you to go look up entire guides on WoWhead. Sadly, we also know this is not true.

In its current state, with the way it is… Players who do not enjoy fishing but want the rewards tied to it will not enjoy this. It’ll end up being a chore for them. Something they wish to grind out. Meaning, some players will even do it to detriment and start using alt armies.

“Forcing” players to do this for the rewards tied to it in its current state, will not end well. But, time will tell.

that is why it is called a “fishing derby”

this is why it is called a “fishing derby”

this is why it is called a “fishing derby”

you would of hated the stranglethorn fishing extravaganza then. where there was only 1 winner.

maybe “fishing derbys” are not your thing.

2 Likes

What’s worse is it’s only available on Saturday. Why? There’s no winner (everyone can be a “winner”). There’s no competition anymore, so why do we only have Saturday to do it?

You can also do it any time of day you choose so that negates the issue of competition for pools. Finally, you don’t even need pools to catch the fish. This isn’t like the STV event where you had to fish in special pools, you can catch these required fish in any water.

For previous (actual) fishing derbies it all this sort of thing made sense, it had to be at a specific time and date because it was a real competition with other people. But the Hallowfall event is really just a regular solo weekly quest that you can only do on Saturday for some reason.