Level 12 retainer of mine can now do ventures to obtain shards in 50 minutes instead of an hour for the 30 shards. Amount of shards seemed to change with gear, and guessing level affected the time it takes. Should be funky if at level 50 with proper mining gear if the venture length goes down to 10 minutes if the shard amount also increases as gathering/perception go up, could mean we'll be able to really use retainers for farming up shards for us.