First off, Mana Shield is a great skill, and you should definitely look to getting it as soon as you can. Second off, it isn't 100k per week, it's 50k. Third off, you don't /have/ to spend the 50k. Sure it's faster, but you can get by without paying a fortune, and gifting them random slices of meat/cheese and raise their affection. Yes, it takes a lot of time, but it's time well spent. It saves you even further time you would've spent gathering herbs, ores, dyes, and what have you. And having partners also lets you learn how to manage your partners. It's a welcome change and a welcome adjustment to make, because you no longer can just summon them and starve them around for however long you feel like it as if you were your "pets" and call it a day. There's actually a point to keeping them healthy, whereas with nimbus/dragons/scooters/trucks/gray wolves/what-have-yous there really was no point to upkeeping them. I must have saved several hundreds of hours double-gathering with these partners. That's several hundreds of hours I would've spent gathering materials and only getting single amounts (no lucky bonuses or probability upgrade counts included). Homestead Entry is also a major selling point. I don't feel like going all the way to Bangor to pick someone up to take them to Scathach Camp/Avon/Metus/Some far away place. Why do that when I can just pick them up at my/their homestead and teleport them to my area? Saves me extra time, and saves them time for having to come here too if I can't go anywhere. Besides spamming HM missions for a probability of a drop, partners are your other, more reliable source of Elite Passes. And with materials flying everywhere for Celtics, those are a hot topic. (Can't believe I didn't mention this earlier) AoE effect is a bonus. Portable shop is a bonus. Weapons are a bonus. If that isn't worth the investment in buying partners, I really don't know what is.