For crafters, gatherers, and anyone who wants to store items rather than throw them away in Final Fantasy 14, retainers are very important. These helpful, handy servants can store your items, go out on ventures to collect useful loot, and have distinct personalities of their own.
They also have classes of their own, much like yours, and can level up with you to reach higher heights and take on tougher challenges for better rewards. With limited retainer spaces, however, you may have to think hard about exactly which types of retainers you want to hire.
Which Jobs Should You Pick For Retainers?
While retainers can choose from almost all of the same classes and jobs that you can pick from, you should be aware that there are four distinct 'types' of retainer:
- Combat retainers. It doesn't matter which role the job has (DPS, Tank, or Healer), combat retainers are functionally identical apart from the equipment they wear.
- Miner retainers.
- Botanist retainers.
- Fisher retainers.
These types will dictate what Ventures the retainer can undertake. Combat retainers will acquire monster parts, Miners and Botanists will acquire items that you can gather from nodes, and Fishers can acquire fish, naturally.
A retainer's maximum level is limited by your levels — a Miner retainer, for example, cannot be a higher level than your current Miner level. This means you will have to actively level up your gathering classes if you want effective gathering retainers.
No matter how many retainers you have, we recommend making at least one of them a combat retainer. Monster parts are tedious to farm as they rely largely on luck.
You should consider the following when deciding on your retainers' classes:
- Combat retainers rely on Item Level to unlock higher-level Ventures, so they require a full set of armour, accessories, and weapons to unlock the best items.
- Fieldcraft retainers rely on Gathering to unlock higher-level Ventures, so they require only tools and certain pieces of Gathering-increasing armour. Perception, on the other hand, isn't required at all.
- All retainers can acquire Minions, but some are exclusive to Miners, Botanists, and Fishers.
In an ideal world, you would be able to have retainers of each type at the same time, though this is only possible through paying extra per month.
If you're sticking with the default two retainer maximum, though, we recommend picking a combat retainer and a gathering retainer that isn't Fisher, preferring those you are likely to level up yourself. This will allow you to acquire the widest range of items that are useful for crafting. While Fisher can be useful for getting rare items and exclusive Minions, it is less generally useful for crafters.
If you decide to pay for the Retainer Service for more retainers, we recommend first spreading your class selections out based on the number of retainers you hire:
|
# of Retainers |
Class Selection |
|---|---|
|
3 |
1 Combat, 1 Miner OR Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
4 |
1 Combat, 1 Miner, 1 Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
5 |
2 Combat, 1 Miner, 1 Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
6 |
3 Combat, 1 Miner, 1 Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
7 |
3 Combat, 1 Miner, 1 Botanist, 1 Miner OR Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
8 |
3 Combat, 2 Miner, 2 Botanist, 1 Fisher |
|
9 |
4 Combat, 2 Miner, 2 Botanist, 1 Fisher 3 Combat, 2 Miner, 2 Botanist, 2 Fisher |
|
10 |
4 Combat, 2 Miner, 2 Botanist, 2 Fisher |
You can only acquire the maximum of ten retainers by paying for the maximum number of extra retainers using the Retainer Service in addition to also paying for the pricey Companion App upgrade .
