Retainers as Companions

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

The thing is, retainers are retainers in the first place precisely because they are not cut out to be actual adventurers (this was stated outright when you hired one back in 1.0), but that they do excel in odd jobs that adventurers are meant to dislike

Old thread, but could you kindly explain why my retainers can consistently bring back level 70+ dungeon gear on a regular basis, as well as some raid gear? Pretty sure, even unsynced, you'd actually need to be able to hold you're own weight to accomplish clearing them. Disciple of War/Magic retainers can even hunt overworld mobs, how are they killing them if they're as weak as you claim them to be? No common servant can consistently kill overworld creatures over and over again and survive to tell the tale.

And if you're Rogue retainer can clear, or even unsync clear, a level 77 dungeon and bring back pieces of gear from it, it kind of proves they're far stronger than your own character and can easily hold their own in battle.

Being able to equip a Job to a retainer doesn't actually make them that Job at all though, it's merely a concession to allow them to wear AF/Job-specific gear, they're still just the same class as they started as (this is why they don't even equip an actual Soul Crystal but a mere scroll with the Job icon on it, it's basically a licence to allow them to wear that gear as just a costume basically). Equipping a Job to a retainer does absolutely nothing on it's own to improving the chances of them bringing back rarer items from Ventures, it's merely the gear you equip that decides that. (After all, the GC Squadron members do not have Jobs but just ordinary classes, and they're actual adventurers and career soldiers to boot!).

Hence, once again retainers are not adventurers, they're just hired servants who you send out to find things for you. Equipping a 'Job' just allows them to wear Job gear as a uniform, they're not actually using that Job at all (so your 'WHM' retainer for instance is not actually a WHM at all in any way).

Disciple of War/Magic retainers can hunt and kill overworld creatures. You can turn them into Red Mages, Samurais, Dark Knights, Astrologians, Machinists and now Gunbreakers and Dancers (all of which have no classes and completely alter the weapon your retainer uses). They would need to still be able to attack to accomplish their task of hunting overworld creatures.

What you're implying means that 2 of my Red Mage retainers (which were both a Conjurer/White Mage) aren't actually Red Mages and cannot cast Jolt but instead cast Stone 2 over and over again to hunt creatures. And my 3rd retainer, which is also a Red Mage (but was an Archer/Bard), isn't actually a Red Mage and cannot cast Jolt but instead, and somehow with a rapier, uses Heavy Shot and Straight Shot to hunt things. Makes sense /s.

[Canadane]

All they did was read a book "How to RDM for Dummies" and tried picking up the weapon.
Lack of serious combat experience like yourself would leave them left to pick at the overworld mobs since that's the best they could muster.

[Gula]

I have 8 retainers and would like to show off my army of husbandos/waifus a lot more than the limited outdoor housing slots.

Even if they were just human skinned chocobo.

[Enkidoh]

Old thread, but could you kindly explain why my retainers can consistently bring back level 70+ dungeon gear on a regular basis, as well as some raid gear? Pretty sure, even unsynced, you'd actually need to be able to hold you're own weight to accomplish clearing them. Disciple of War/Magic retainers can even hunt overworld mobs, how are they killing them if they're as weak as you claim them to be? No common servant can consistently kill overworld creatures over and over again and survive to tell the tale.

And if you're Rogue retainer can clear, or even unsync clear, a level 77 dungeon and bring back pieces of gear from it, it kind of proves they're far stronger than your own character and can easily hold their own in battle.

Ironically enough, Yoshi himself was asked ages ago about this and he basically just said along the lines of "Use your imagination", meaning there is no official lore explanation, they just do somehow. So really, I guess we're just overthinking this.

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

Ironically enough, Yoshi himself was asked ages ago about this and he basically just said along the lines of "Use your imagination", meaning there is no official lore explanation, they just do somehow. So really, I guess we're just overthinking this.

Thank you very much for the explanation. But that does open up the possibility that retainers may not even be real and could just be some form of a very elaborate dream. We can completely customize them, even down to their speech patterns, after all. The retainer vocates could just be hypnotizing us while we "customize", or dream up, our retainers. Which, if that were the case, they could easily join us in battle in the same vein as Dark Knight's Living Shadow.

Spoiler warning for Shadowbringers.

That would have solved the lore implications of retainers being able to appear on a different world, the First, they would be imaginary after all. But they cemented the fact that retainers cannot appear on the First and you need assistance to interact with them, which makes retainers real. That does make you wonder how they're able to sell things on the Chrystarium markets if they can't physically go there though. Or how you're able to withdraw gil and items from them if they aren't actually there.

[Jojoya]

Ironically enough, Yoshi himself was asked ages ago about this and he basically just said along the lines of "Use your imagination", meaning there is no official lore explanation, they just do somehow. So really, I guess we're just overthinking this.

Oh it's not the retainers doing the dungeon. They're looting the corpses of the adventurers who made it through the dungeon but ended up mortally wounded and died in the wilderness.

Our retainers are acavengers, if not outright thieves.