Fishing vs Begging - Which skill is more useless?
 

As a wretched, homeless, one-eyed dwarf that lives in the sewers and under the floorboards of Freeport I need something to do other than scaring the local children.

Fishing vs Begging.

Which one should I level up?

Begging sounds awesome. I remember thinking it was a legitimate skill, only to be one-shot by guards back in '99.

Can you make any money with it?

Help me roleplay as an unwashed vagabond. I suppose I should start on my Alcohol Tolerance as well.

I've got 200 fishing and haven't caught anything remarkable. I was talking to a rogue the other night that said occasionally they'd get a plat or two from begging. Been thinking about working it now since I should be able to atone off the agro from a crit fail.

-Mcoy

There was a thread somewhat recently in here where people were listing all the things that fishing can actually be useful for. There were a surprising number of quests, iirc, that require fishing.

I remember reading, once upon a time (but on p99 I think, not all the way back to live) that begging can help a tank with aggro? NO idea if that's true or not though.

Yes, I definitely remember a time back in the day when tanks were advised to make taunt macros for: 1) taunt, 2) auto-attack off, 3) beg, 4) auto-attack on. Even then people didn't think it gave much agro, but it's what "the people in the know" did (even if those people might not have actually known anything).

Begging gives you a flat 1% chance to get some money from the targets loot/pick pocket pool, never any items

Fishing is at least used in some tradeskills, either just making fish, oils or what have you.

Part of the evil of EQ: start a newbie off with no coins, but give them a begging skill.

My wizard on live had a pretty good fishing skill, but quit begging after getting 1hit'd the 5th time, lol.

Fishing --> Othmir Prexus Totem

One of my fondest memories and most exhilarating experiences from live days was the first time I hauled in that rusty dagger from the pond in Halas - fishing > begging.

This, except my RL friend had given me a hundred plat, which I'd promptly spent on buying armor and weapons from the vendors in Halas (I had no idea what a waste that was at the time). As a result I was a bit less impressed (though still pretty thrilled) when I fished up my first rusty dagger from the Halas "moat".