Destiny 2’s Season of the Deep may borrow some terrifying overtones from Subnautica, but the waters (or methane oceans) of Sol aren’t just filled with sea monsters and Taken. With the release of the season on May 23, players can fish in specific areas—and the Focused Fishing buff increases the chance to reap better rewards when they do.
Fishing can grant players some Reckoning or seasonal weapons, world drops, reputation with Sloane, and, if you’re lucky, the crown prize: Exotic armor (with high stats, in our experience), which drops when you capture an Exotic fish.
Related: How to fish in Destiny 2, explained
Whether you want to make the most out of your fishing or just found yourself in a fishing spot full of other guardians, though, odds are you’ve noticed the Focused Fishing buff indicator. Here’s what it means and how you can raise it to the max.
What does Focused Fishing do in Destiny 2?
Focused Fishing increases your chances of getting more valuable fish in that spot. It’s indicated by the meter on the buff section of your HUD, on the left side of the screen. The higher the meter, the bigger your odds of catching higher-rarity fish. There’s still some RNG involved, however, and you can find yourself swimming in green or blue fish even when the bar is almost at the top.
The Fishing Focus meter is also tied to each individual instance of a fishing spot. If you’re booted out of the game and relog, for example, there’s no guarantee you’ll land on the same instance as you were before unless you’re following a friend.
Based on our experience, it takes around 10 to 15 minutes for a fishing spot to reset (tested in the Outskirts fishing zone in the EDZ).
Related: All fishing locations in Destiny 2 Season of the Deep
Another way to tell the quality of a fishing pond is the effects on the water. Higher Focused Fishing meters show a colorful effect on the waters based on how full the bar is. You don’t need the full meter to catch Exotic Fish, though: during the Fishing Rally quests, we caught Exotic Fish on both the Throne World and Nessus without the meter actually being full. Increasing that gauge does help your odds, however.
How to increase the Focused Fishing meter
The Focused Fishing meter increases whenever a player catches a Legendary or Exotic fish (purple or gold) in a fishing pond—and its effects apply to that whole fishing pond. This means there is a degree of RNG involved with increasing the Focused Fishing meter, though having more guardians in the same spot increases the number of fish and boosts the chances of raising the gauge.
Whenever the bar raises a full level, you’ll see messages such as “nearby fish have begun to take notice” and “more fish are beginning to gather,” which indicate you’ve officially crossed a threshold.
In our experience, catching Legendary fish will progress that bar by a quarter, with Exotic fish granting a slightly bigger bump. Bringing enough Bait also helps with your chances, since it increases your odds of getting better fish. You don’t need to have Focused Fishing at max to obtain Exotic fish, though.
Even if you’re fully geared, though, raising the Focused Fishing bar can be potentially troublesome since you’ll need the help of extra guardians, and a public event seems to reset the fishing pond just as that area is starting to gain traction.
There are some ways to “save” your Focused Fishing meter for another round through some clever solutions.
If you’re already in a pond with max Focused Fishing or if a public event is just on the horizon (and threatening to undo your progress), you can stop picking fish up off the ground. They won’t despawn for some time, and after the public event is over and a new fishing pond has spawned, you can pick them up off the ground like normal. Since the Focused Fishing meter counts per zone, any dropped fish will start progressing the meter once you pick it up. In our experience, our fish remained on the ground for a little over eight minutes, which is when we picked them up.
If you can’t find enough guardians, you can also consider using the official Find Fireteam function to look for players with similar goals. We promise you won’t be the first to do so, and odds are you may even find an LFG post there.
