Good idea to have mining/botany retainers while working on my first 50?

[tocsin]

retainers shard amounts gathered vary depending on the gears?? ive just ben throwing rubbish equips to them so thier gathering is high enough to do the explorations lol guess i have to gear them better to gather shards more effectively XD

I believe once you equip them with basic gathering gear, they go from getting 20 shards an hour to getting 60 shards an hour. haven't tested minimum amount of equipment, but lvl 10 gathering gear gets 60.

Additionally, at a certain point the time needed for getting 60 shards goes from 50 mins to 40 mins. not sure when that baseline is.