Should also point out that leveling a retainer with a class you have already leveled is not enough.

At least with the case of fishing. They cannot go on gathering ventures for Fish you have not yet caught yourself. I believe the same holds true for botanist/miner.

TBH their best use (miner/botanist) for me is to gather shards/crystals. As those are items I don't feel like gathering myself. And even a lvl 50 gathering retainer will only pick up 30~ of an item within a 40min-60min time frame. You can get the same amount gathering them yourself in 60 seconds if you use King's Yield II on a +1 attempt node.

But items like Red Coral or Rothlyt Oyster or Razor Clam, definitely is nice having a retainer steadily bringing some of those in for good profit craft selling. Not to mention ***** *****s, that's big profits if you sell them straight to market board

*secrets !_!