Retainers

[Cynthis]

The battle class retainers can bring in all those ingredients (apart from rare boss drops) that you can get with killing things. They are absolutely golden because while you can go gather a pile of, say, lumber in no time, just go in gathering and you are quaranteed to get it, getting a decent amount of things like horns, night milk, leather requires you to go kill stuff and even then getting the ingredient is far from quaranteed drop. With retainer you can just tell them to go "get those antelope horns pls thx".

The items on their lists include leathers, fleeces, sinews, bloods, meats, eggs and milks, to name a few.

Don't forget the deepeye tears...groan...

[Sida]

For a list of what you can send your retainer to get:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Hunting_Exploration

Note, while the amount says 10 it tends to start on 5 when retainer just gets on the level and then grows to 10 as they level past it.

[MistakeNot]

For a list of what you can send your retainer to get:
http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Hunting_Exploration

Note, while the amount says 10 it tends to start on 5 when retainer just gets on the level and then grows to 10 as they level past it.

If you send your retainer out on a Quick Exploration I think it can bring back nearly anything. Including rare drops if you are really lucky.

[Sida]

If you send your retainer out on a Quick Exploration I think it can bring back nearly anything. Including rare drops if you are really lucky.

Yes, but that goes for quick ventures evenly on all roles so it shouldn't factor into which class to give to them. By some sources the outcome of quick ventures is tied to the retainer's iLvl though.