FFXIV - Gearing My Retainers In Patch 7.3

With patch 7.35 in Final Fantasy XIV's Dawntrail expansion just a few days away, I've worked to maximize the gear and stats on my army of retainers. I only have to craft a couple of rings tonight to finish the process so I thought I'd type up a quick post to list out the costs of doing so.

The guide I used was the Teamcraft Retainer Leveling & Gearing Guide. I have 9 retainers in total: 3 botanists, 2 miners, 2 fishers, and 2 white mages. For the gathering classes I equipped them in the orange scrip Innovator's gear. All the time I spend in cosmic exploration to get my Stellar tools paid off because acquiring the orange gathering scrips went really fast. As in I think I was getting roughly over 2000 scrips an hour just hitting the collectable gathering nodes. Here's the breakdown of the gear:

Botanist/Miner

My stats wound up at 4571 gathering and 5198 perception. With the perception melds pushing up the perception, I receive 40 items on level 96 ventures and 30 on items between 97 and 100.

The Innovator's gear and tools cost a total of 3100 orange gathering scrips per character. The materia I melded to the set was:

• 8 Gatherer's Guile Materia XII
• 3 Gatherer's Guile Materia X
• 1 Gatherer's Guile Materia IX

I'd recommend buying the Materia XII from the vendor in cosmic exploration instead of paying an additional 4000 orange gathering scrips.

For the 5 accessory slots, any item with an iLvl of 560 or above will do as each one just needs to hold 2 Gatherer's Guile Materia X. Just a warning that the second materia on each item is an overmeld so expect to need more than 10 materia.

Fisher

My stats wound up at 3418 gathering and 3374 perception. The difference in stats is due to the fisher's secondary tool limited to what one could earn in Stormblood. The cost is lower as a result, with the Innovator's gear only costing 2600 orange scrips. The materia needed for the Innovator's gear is:

• 7 Gatherer's Guile Materia XII
• 3 Gatherer's Guile Materia X
• 1 Gatherer's Guile Materia IX

And like the other gathering classes all that's needed in the accessory slots are iLvl 560 items that can hold 2 Gatherer's Guile Materia X.

Combat

Gearing up a combat retainer is much easier. No melding is required. Currently, as long as the retainers average item level is 715 that retainer will bring back the maximum number of items when sent out on hunting exploration ventures. One of my white mages was already at item level 720 so no work there. But the other was equipped with a hodgepodge of items. I tried to run The Meso Terminal but only completed the first two boss encounters. Still, I picked up two iLvL 735 pieces of armor for white mages. Combined with the two iLvL rings I plan on making tonight my other combat retainer will exceed the level 715 breakpoint.

Min/maxxing the stats on my retainer army might seem a little crazy but since I had some time, why not? If I use something every day I should take care of it, right?