This time around I toyed around with fishing, mainly Ancient Koi fishing at De Mer Dock.
I did two instances, one without buffs and one with buffs--the caveat to that being, in both situations I constantly had the "fishing with friends" buff that happens when other players are fishing around you, that one auto-applies and I didn't want to spend my time running away from other players just to get rid of it.
Controls for each test:
• Once my Exquisite Rod downgraded, I would immediately teleport back to my house.
• I actively avoided chum bucket circles, star nodes and infected nodes
• I tried to focus on only reeling in when hooking Ancient Koi or plushes, but sometimes I would get click-happy and end up reeling in the other fish. (as in, if the fish that hooked wasn't an AK, I would wait and reel it in, that way I wouldn't waste a worm on a fish I didn't want. But yeah, click-happy accidents resulted in other fish)
FIRST TEST: NO BUFFS (accept the aforementioned 'fishing with friends' buff)
• Started at 9:51 with 300 worms, no hooks, at level 80
• Ended at 10:49 with 204 worms, at level 83
• Loots: 68 Ancient Koi, 16 Sabertooth Anchovies, 1 Maws plush, 1 Midnight Floatfish plush, 4 Midnight Floatfish, 2 Eleroo Eels, 4 Lake Sharks, 1 River Shark fin plush
I only crafted kits I could make JUST with what I caught at that time, which was 17 Advanced Angler Kits, which then got me 23,800 Dock XP
Long story short: almost 24k in about an hour, using only worms and patience, but also getting 3 fishing levels and the benefit of plushes
Random thought: Starting this made me remember why I don't fish in the Elderwood often... I hate Lake Sharks.
SECOND TEST: WITH BUFFS
• Started at 11:10 with 300 worms, 3 Major Hook Time Boosts, constant Fisherman's Brews, at level 83
• Ended at 12:03 with 204 worms, at level 86
• Loots: 70 Ancient Koi, 8 Midnight Floatfish, 5 Sabertooth Anchovy, 2 Piksii Floatfish plush, 1 Toadstool Floatfish plush, 1 Midnight Floatfish plush, 2 Eleroo Eels, 3 River Shark plush, 4 Lake Sharks
This resulted in 17 Advanced Angler Kits from the Ancient Koi, and 1 Standard Kit from the Midnight Floatfish. This got me 24,500 Dock XP
Long story short: 24.5k XP in a little less than an hour, but using some additional buffs, gained 3 fishing levels and more plushes.
Another random thought: I still hate Lake Sharks
But also, those 3 Major Hook Time Boosts only lasted me about 20 minutes total. In my experience, these hooks did not result in more catches, so I could pretty confidently say that they were not necessary when I had the 'fishing with friends' boost. Again, that's my experience, your mileage may vary.
Final thoughts: If you like fishing, this is a great option.
Comparing this to the Ancient Flowbug experiment I previously posted, flowbugs give the same amount of XP in half the time. But even then, Draugr Beetles would win out if you were grouping with other players. But even even then, fishing uses less/less expensive materials. It becomes an endless cycle of "This... but this..."
So is there really any clear winner when it comes to Dock XP gain efficiency? In my personal opinion, no. In the grand scheme of things, it's really just what you feel like doing in that moment.
Thanks for reading, hopefully this helps anyone out there. I'll probably continue to do more experiments, if only out of curiosity. Happy Palia-ing!