does increasing your retainers stats help them gather more mats?

[papichulo123]

like if i increase my miners gathering and perception would that increase the amount of mats my retainer can get?

[Roth_Trailfinder]

On the Ventures where you send them out for specific items, yes, more Gathering can improve the amount gathered, and I believe that factors into the time spent as well.

For the 18 hour non-specific Ventures, and the Quick Ventures, no, Gathering does not improve the number of items retrieved.

Perception has no bearing upon your Retainers.

For the combat Retainers (DoW and DoM classes) its based on ilevel, and not Gathering.

[cgbspender]

My retainer ilvl 3 is bringing back some Garuda Ex items, so I would say no. I never bothered to stuff them up ^^

[CodeCass]

I was always curious about this as well. I never really knew if gearing up the retainers served any other purpose than what areas they could explore.

[Flipside101]

Fistly, let's get one thing straight: Perception does not matter for retainers. No one has ever proven that perception increases HQ yields on anything of that sort.


Now that its been established, there are 2 different contexts that your question can be interpreted as:

1)Exploration ventures (18 hours): No, it doesn't yield a higher number, however increased gathering gives you access to higher-level ventures and therefore nodes and access to a different or larger "prize pool". There are definitely mats/items that are exclusive to that venture tier.

2) Actual Gathering ventures (lower level): Yes, the higher your gathering, the more mats you get, but only to a point; after that, higher stat only decrease the amount of time those gathering ventures take. As an example: Shards, you initially can only gather 10(20? can't remember) and it will take 1 hour. as your retainer level increases (and if you update their gear) eventually it'll be 30 and eventually hit max - 60. Having higher gathering would lower ventures down to 40mins, which is the lowest you can get, no matter how much gathering you stack. Currently both my BOT and MIN have 383 gathering and anything under lvl 30 is at max (30 for mats and crystals, 60 for shards) and will be done in 40mins. 30-40 items would be 50mins, and 40+ would still take 1hr.

[Kael_Raiju]

No one has mentioned yet that an ilvl above 80 (I think) is required to get the rare dyes. My THM retainer is ilvl 115 and I routinely get dyes. When she was ilvl 90 I got them frequently too on quick ventures. She still likes fish and maps too. My two miner retainers who are lvl 50s are geared with ilvl 12 gear and I've had two Blazing Infernos brought back along with a host of other good stuff so it's hard to argue. Although I have noticed with better gear comes more HQ items than NQ etc.

IMO it's not hard to get good gear for them by virtue of ilvl 90/100 dungeon drops. Skip turn ins for a couple items and gear your retainer; then, you won't have to worry.