Why you need extra retainers

[Nalien]

Here's the thing though: a lot of players will NOT look up where you can purchase mats from NPCs. If it's not available within a town vendor or their class' guild, they automatically assume you can't buy it from an NPC.

I think Dark Matter is my favorite, I used to be able to sell the stuff for something absurd like 500G a piece... Costs 80G off an NPC... Right next to the Market Board...

Even today I can still get something like a 4~6k profit off just buying a stack and reselling it, not like it sells slowly either. It's... Amazing...

I can kinda understand not bothering with the beast tribe vendors, since they're generally out of their way. Dark Matter though... 5 seconds away from any given Market Board, tops. Heck the repair NPCs probably offer better value for money...

The items in question are HQ. You cant buy HQ items from a vendor anywhere.

The items in question are also of a tier where HQ shouldn't matter. Not in those quantities anyway. The only people who would need them in such quantities are serious crafters, and then the only one I can fathom is Horn Glue for Spruce Plywood. I'm guessing those sell the most with novice crafters who don't have a solid rotation trying for their Artisan's.

@OP. Honestly, I'd take extra Retainers solely on the Venture benefit. I have two Retainers farming shards/crystals for me the majority of the time. I am never wanting for either as a result. Don't think I've ever bought any off the blatant RMT bot Retainers, and I'm someone who'll occasionally decide it'd be fun to spend the day rotating Unspoiled Nodes and churning out stacks of NQ Darksteel Nuggets/Twinthread/Gold Nuggets/etc. to make money, it's not like I don't burn through crystals or anything.