18 hour ventures & lv 50 Retainers

I am not entirely sure the 18 hour ventures are worth it once you acquire level 50. (Rank XIII)

A friend of mine has her botanist retainer over 400 gathering (she gave it her BTN gear). She send it out on an 18 hour venture and it returns with Crawler Cocoons. Three days in a row now.

I could spend an hour on my BTN and come back with more than that... (also 400+ gathering). Specifically, 2-3mins to get a minimum of 15 Cocoons. Not to mention all the other places I can visit in an hour. The pet is nice and all. But once I get it, I have no reason to do 18 hour Venture ever again. (I know about taff. cloth and other items.) I'd rather spend my ventures on Quicks and take 18 stabs in the dark for an item I can sell for gil to 100% buy the item I am looking for.

Should I bother to get my BTN to 383 gathering or should I just keep sending her on Quick Ventures?

I also have a Combat retainer, so I could just send him on the 18 hour ventures... But I am wonder if will have similarly disappointing returns.

As far as I know the high value items from the lvl 50 18 ventures are the same no matter what class your retainer is. So far I've gotten the mindflayer minion, light steel plate, and tafeeta cloth from both my pugilist retainer, and my botanist one.

8 days of rank XIII explorations and only coerul meat and hippogryph skin. Such a waste for me, totally given up on them.

I only send them on 18 hour venutres when I log out for the night, so I'm not too torn up about it. I do agree the "rewards" are meh...except when you get lucky. I've only gotten truly awesome stuff once..
I mostly use my retainers to gather crafting mats for me while I'm logged in and running dungeons/fates/ dailies anyway. I agree the high level gathering requirements are crazy - why would I equip my BTN with better gear than myself? silly.

I figure the 18-hour ventures are primarily for leveling up. Once you have maxed your retainer, it's probably just as productive to send it on 1-hour Quick Explorations, or for specific materials.

Problem is that ventures XI - XIII can't be used (atm) for any leveling as you're unable to run those before actually reaching lvl 50 ...

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Originally Posted by Isus

I only send them on 18 hour venutres when I log out for the night, so I'm not too torn up about it. I do agree the "rewards" are meh...except when you get lucky. I've only gotten truly awesome stuff once..
I mostly use my retainers to gather crafting mats for me while I'm logged in and running dungeons/fates/ dailies anyway. I agree the high level gathering requirements are crazy - why would I equip my BTN with better gear than myself? silly.

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Same. My retainers go out and gather the stuff I never get around to gathering while I'm doing other stuff ingame.

It's actually making it pretty ridiculously easy to keep stuff on the market.

I always get crap from the 18 hour ventures, so I gave up on them for the most part.

Specially one of my retainers a paladin 80+ brings me in good stuff, like taffeta cloth, light steel plate, glazenut seeds I guess it could depend on their gear and how high average level they got and i plan on getting paladin and blm to 90 (work in progress)

I got 4 retainers now at 50 and it is like a lotto ticket every day so not a bad thing to add in game :)

I got crafted PLD ilvl 90 and my main is BLM building up with 100+ ilvl so it was relative easy to just give allagan gear to them as lucky I am.

Yeah, I have enough Couerl Meat to reconstruct an entire Couerl at this point. ;_; I wish he'd give me more Hippogryph Skin; at least that's useful. The HQ Trillium and HQ Gold Sand is fairly useless as well. I'd be happier if it'd give me Crawler Cocoons and Darksteel Ore.

I have gotten Tawny Latex, Taffeta Cloth, Minute Mindflayer, Mist for Zenith, Steel Plate, and Saurian Leather. I have two Level 50 Retainers and I have only been sending them on the 18-Hour for a week now. I would say that is well worth it.

I wonder how they made the tables of items they can get. For me they bring 99% of the time:

Miner - Goldsand or Coccoons
Botanist - Dzemael Tomatoe
Combat - Couerl skin
Fisher - Hippogryph skin

Besides this a light steel plate, tafetta and other crafting goodies here and there. But that's pretty much it. And receiving 3 HQ items of any of the above items in a period of 18 is more than meh lol. Where are the useful items from unspoiled nodes? Why are there never any Poly crystals available? Or other Level 50 items?

I like the idea of sending them out not knowing what I will get. But on the 18 hours ventures, I know exactly what I will get. It's really not more than what I have mentioned. Takes a bit of the Sunshine away from the system. I only send them on a 18 hour tour when I close the Game in the evening and know I will be at work the next day. Otherwise, I rather send them away for specific items or for a quick venture where it's really a lottery what they bring back.

I would like to hear some insights from SE about the mechanics of the 18 hour ventures. They told us NOTHING so far besides what you can see in the Game. Is it worth it to go beyond the cap needed? Will an ilevel 90 combat class bring back better stuff than an iLevel 70 one? Does perception count anything on DOL? Does it raise HQ chance at all? Many questions, zero answers.

My botanist is only geared enough to do the XII ventures. I simply refuse to use expensive materia to get her to the gathering required for the XIII level. And at least doing the X or XI ventures, she sometimes brought me a grade 2 or 3 materia. Working on getting the forager hat and hatchet for her, if she still does not make the requirement, then so be it.
I have been brought the mindflayer minion and a light steel plate by my ILV 80 DOW. Other than that only HQ Coerl meat and Hippogryph skins. The poor returns just further solidifies my decision to not get the 2 additional retainers for 4 bucks a month.

Update by OP:

Based on relpies here, from other threads, and input from friends in game: I am not going to bother melding my BTN retainer. I may on occasion give her my fully melded gear (like when I am too busy to sit down and play on a weekend)...

Combat retainer: Love him to death. Hate the lottery of rank XIII exploration. He brings me back HQ items that would other wise take me more than hour to get thanks to RNG. I took the suggest of another post and I send him out on 18hour run before I go to bed. Nothing nice yet, mostly mossy items that don't sell even when upgraded and meat that just doesn't sell...

I would be interested in more of a lottery in the allagan coins associated with the rank XIII exploration.

Any ya get anything better than a HM Primal weapon from a quick exploration?

it seems really random, can get coerl skin off XIII 18 hours - or Garuda's beak off of a quick exploration around level 10 . . . . balance?

I don't bother with the 18 hour ventures, I just always do quick ventures. Had some good stuff brought back; 2 Darklight pieces, another iLvl.70 gear, a few minions and loads of furniture.

I have yet to get something great from the 18h ventures.
Taffeta, Light Steel, and the Mindflayer go for 500g-3000g.
Not really worth giving fully melded gear and Foragers items to my retainers.
My DoW retainer got ~ilvl75-80 and didn't bring me anything special either.

Can someone confirm that Glazenut (Seeds) can be aquired from XIII ventures?

I haven't gotten any Glazenut (or glazenut seeds) yet from my Lancer retainer. Best thing I got was the taffeta cloth. Light steel plates I've gotten, too, but those seem to be more common based on the number of them on the market board on my server. Haven't gotten the minion yet. Most days it's just couerl meat.

From my botanist retainer, I haven't sent her on the highest ventures yet because I'm not willing to invest that much in materia. It really bothers me how easy it is to get the DOW retainers up to ilvl70, but it's nearly impossible to get the DOL retainers up to the gathering level necessary to do the XIII ventures. Especially because they seem to bring you the same stuff.

I can confirm glazenut seeds from my BTN retainer, as well as a piece of Titan's heart...
I do the same as everyone, while playing, send her on quick explorations, then send her on an 18hr before logging off.

I heard from a PUG member that one of their FC mates got a mirror of the whorl on a lvl50 quick exploration... I took it with a grain of salt, of course, but one can always hope, right? :p

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Originally Posted by Bushido_Brown

I can confirm glazenut seeds from my BTN retainer, as well as a piece of Titan's heart...
I do the same as everyone, while playing, send her on quick explorations, then send her on an 18hr before logging off.

I heard from a PUG member that one of their FC mates got a mirror of the whorl on a lvl50 quick exploration... I took it with a grain of salt, of course, but one can always hope, right? :p

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ScreenShot from his FC mate or it didn't happen ;)

I am working on my 3 other retainers so far to reach lvl 50 as well. Then I'll equip them with my gear, when I am not gathering.

Combat: minute mindflayer, taffeta cloth, lots of stuff actually, but most of the time hippogryph skins HQ. (plan to make a carpet with it when the underground will be renovated with the airship and other craftable stuff will be done. Might feel warmer for our feet.)

and plenty of fish from all 4... come on, I have a FSH Retainer.. enuff said.

Its really hit or miss, you cant always expect good things from the ventures, maybe once to twice a week will you get anything worthwhile, otherwise its hippo skins hq from by mnk and arc, crawler cocoons hq from my bot and darksteel ore hq from my miner, (miner and bot are not at gathering cap, pug and arc are at max ilvl). I have gotten primal weapons, minions, taffeta cloth and plates though, and they made me a pretty piece of gil right after launch since I leveled my retainers up fast as I could. So they are worth it, I mean they don't cost you anything but a couple ventures, so why not use em.

The end tier items that were worth anything at one point aren't worth much anymore, so it's probably more worthwhile to do quick ventures now. 18 hr ones are good if you're on a somewhat normal schedule where you sleep then go to work the next day.

I do Rank XIII 18hrs mainly for the random myth mats nowadays. Got a Tawny Latex today, Scheelite yesterday, although they seem pretty rare overall. Used to send them out on the Rank XII's for mossy stuff, but the Giantsgall market has tanked since then so I stopped with that. I tried out the Rank XI to see what I could get and it seems to be mostly the cooking myth mats like Star Anise and Royal Kukurus. Haven't seen any zenith sands, yet, but that would certainty be sweet.

18 hr ventures usually net me a single NQ flounder...lol