Adventuring Fellow Equipment Guide

Adventuring Fellow Equipment Theories and Easter Eggs

 * Whichever country is currently controlling the Region will control the NPC's armor path (i.e fighting in Xarcabard while under Windurst control will progress the NPC's armor along Windurst path).
 * Each armor piece operates independently. Thus, by satisfying the above requirements, any unlocked piece of armor can change.
 * Once your armor hits level 10, even if you level in a correctly controlled region, your armor will reset to level 1 if left unlocked.
 * There is a chance that rather than increase one level, the armor piece designated for change will be reset to level 1. In all likelihood, the higher the level you advance, the higher the chance that your armor will reset.
 * Your NPC's equipment may change after entering a new area with your NPC already called. This usually happens after killing monsters in the previous area (i.e. zoning into the Crawlers' Nest from Rolanberry Fields after killing a few Quadav).
 * If you call your NPC while wearing a Dream Robe +1, Dream Boots +1, and a Dream Hat +1 your NPC will also be wearing a Dream Robe, Dream Boots and Dream Hat. This requires the HQ versions of the robe, the boots, and the hat, it will not work if any piece is NQ. Similarly, if you call your NPC while wearing an Egg Helm, your NPC will also be wearing an Egg Helm.  The same goes if you are wearing a HQ goldfish scooping yukata (Lady's Yukata or Lord's Yukata) or the HQ fireworks yukata (Onnagimi Yukata or Otokogimi Yukata).
 * Your armor will not change in Promyvion, regardless of whether it is locked.
 * With the June 9th update, you can now pay 8000 AF points to glamorize (upgrade to the next level armor) or 1000 AF to unglamorize (assumed to degrade to the lower level armor).

Advanced Armor Info - Fashionable Equipment - The Lock Method
It will be nearly impossible to have complete control of your armor at lower NPC affinity. As you progress, you will obtain the option to "lock" one single armor piece. This will allow you to unlock your armor when you are in the correct region to ensure your armor levels correctly, and "lock" your armor for the times you wish to summon your NPC outside of it's armor's region. This will become even handier later on because you will get more and more lock options. Once you obtain your third armor lock, you can then lock all pieces but the one you wish to change.

With that in mind, the best way to change your NPC's armor is...


 * Lock the 3 pieces you do not want changed so only 1 piece changes.
 * Grab a Tactics pearl and your charged Signal Pearl.
 * Go to the starter region (Sarutabaruta, Gustaberg or Ronfaure) that is controlled/dominant power you want the armor of.
 * Summon your NPC 5 times in a row killing max kills on lvl 1 mobs.
 * Unlocked piece of armor should have now changed from lvl 1 to lvl 6 in one sitting.
 * Now lock the lvl 6 armor piece so it will no longer change.

It seems like if you follow that formula exactly, you should get your NPC's desired armor in a couple weeks max (unless you want all 4 pieces to be lvl 10). However, every once in a while, even when doing everything correct, your armor will reset to lvl 1 for no reason. If you do not have the lock, you could theoretically just never lvl your NPC outside the region of control/dominant power, but it seems like when the upgrades jump from hand, to body, to leg, to foot, they have a tendancy to reset and not be as reliable. This being the case, the progression of armor levels is as follows...


 * Assume you want a piece of lvl 6 windy armor..
 * Start at lvl 1
 * Successfull/correct summon #1 - Windy L2
 * Successfull/correct summon #2 - Windy L3
 * Successfull/correct summon #3 - Windy L4
 * Successfull/correct summon #4 - armor resets to LV1
 * Successfull/correct summon #1 - Windy L2
 * Successfull/correct summon #2 - Windy L3
 * Successfull/correct summon #3 - Windy L4
 * Successfull/correct summon #4 - Windy L5
 * Successfull/correct summon #5 - armor resets to LV1
 * Successfull/correct summon #1 - Windy L2
 * Successfull/correct summon #2 - Windy L3
 * Successfull/correct summon #3 - Windy L4
 * Successfull/correct summon #4 - Windy L5
 * Successfull/correct summon #5 - Windy L6
 * Successfull/correct summon #6 - armor resets to LV1

Simply put, the pattern is 1234, 12345, 123456, 1234567, etc.

This does not always happen, but it can. In all likelihood, the higher the level you advance, there is a progressive % chance that your armor will reset. This is very likely why some people can get to lvl 10 in a couple tries, where as other people who do not level with the correct steps might have to follow the formula above.

Adv Armor info - Armor Progression Variables

 * Other Variables that can effect NPC armor change are fighting certain beastmen as well as mobs that drop certain crystal types. This may heighten the probability of your armor progressing on the proper path.


 * Elements
 * Fire: San d'Oria
 * Earth: Bastok
 * Water: Windurst
 * Dark: Beastmen
 * Beastmen
 * Orc: San d'Oria
 * Quadav: Bastok
 * Yagudo: Windurst
 * Goblin: Beastmen


 * You should note that using these variables significantly increases your chance at progressing your fellows armor without resetting. It is strongly recommended you fight Quadav only in Bastok controlled areas, Yagudo only in Windurst controlled areas, and so forth. However, with the exception of Palborough Mines and few other areas, your NPC cannot be called in Beastmen Strongholds.


 * Please note that killing Tonberries (Light crystal drop) with your AF does NOT count towards your Beastmen Armor. After leveling fellow on them from 50~56, the only result was Windurst type Armor level 1 the whole time.

Urat's Elemental Point Theory
This is merely a theory, and has about a 70% chance of being either entirely false, or semi true, though requiring great work on. I am not posting it here to say it is true. instead I am posting this here asking your help in working on all the various theory's parts, since doing this alone would take an extremely long time to do.

First off, I'll post my concept of the armor path. I came unto this conclusion reading various posts and testimonies on people's armor paths. Here's my conclusion.

The Elemental Points
Every level of armor requires a certain amount of elemental points to have been accumulated. How many it takes? I have no idea. Let's just say to get the level 2 body piece from the tank armor series from the level 1.

When you summon your NPC in a region controlled by sandy, she automatically gets a few points to her fire element. Thus she will be wearing San d'Orian armor. Probably scale gear if it hasn't been leveled before. Now you need to accumulate about 7 more points of fire. How?

Easy. Kill monsters that drop fire crystals. Orcs are an excellent example. So what's an area commonly controlled by San d'Oria that has tonnes of orcs,where you can also summon your NPC, but still kill the monsters efficiently?

Yughott Grotto! After calling your NPC in the grotto, chances are she's wearing scale gear. After killing enough to merit your NPC disbanding, you should have easily enough built up enough fire element for her armor to upgrade.

The game then selects whatever piece it can,and increases its tier by 1. If all but your body is locked, then it will upgrade. After an armor piece upgrades, that element will be reset to 0. Then you repeat and get your level 3 armor.

Sometimes when I summon my AF, her armor doesn't upgrade, even after killing 25 orcs! What's wrong?

This is simple. Once you start hitting the higher tier armor pieces, they require much more element than one summon can get you. Thus, when you summon her a second time, all the element you got before, you still have, which is added onto via the second summoning. You will almost always get an armor upgrade after a second summon if you follow this method.

I summoned my NPC, and instead of the tier 5 piece of armor I was expecting, she's wearing tier 1 armor from a different nation!

Whenever you zone, the game will check how much element you've built up. If it's enough for an armor upgrade, it will probably increase it's tier and reset that element. Problem is, you've probably got some leftover element points from some other time when you were leveling your AF. So now you've got, say, 0 fire, but a couple points, say 6, of earth.

Next time you summon her, the game will calculate how much points you have. You won't have enough to get another fire upgrade, but wait! you have enough to get the level 1 attacker body piece!

Thus, instead of the next piece of armor you want, you get ripped off and have to start from scratch.

Things to be Tested
Here I will keep an updated listing of various things I am testing or would like to test. Feel free to go ahead and try them out yourself, though try and go about it scientifically and keep as many variables you can under control.


 * Does AF's battle style effect rate of armor tier increases?

I am currently testing this, via setting my NPC's style to healer, and working from tier 1 shield gear to tier 8, then I will reset and try again as shield style, seeing if it takes less summons.


 * Does zoning into an area your AF can't enter, thus auto-disbanding her, merit a element check? Or will it pick up from what you had on the next summon?


 * Is the element checked after disbanding/dying/zoning/popping, or do they get checked every time your NPC appears/is called at a rendezvous point? (I'm leaning towards when summoned, due to her armor changing AFTER being called at a point, but I have yet to come up with a way to actually test this.


 * is their merely a chance on the armor upgrading based on how much element you accumulated, or is there an actual set amount of element you need to acquire, and the armor will upgrade at that exact level? (going to need paper and pencil to do this one)


 * Does summoning on an elemental day increase my elemental count? IE will a summon on Firesday give me a fire point boost?

Please feel free to add in your own questions and concepts/theories to be tested on this list, so I and other's upon reading them can try and test it for you.

Tested and Answered

 * Does Zoning while having my NPC out make the game check my elemental points?


 * Answer:
 * Yes. People will occasionally have the misfortune of disconnecting while their AF is summoned, then when they log back on, they are surprised to find them wearing a new piece of armor. At first it seems a blessing, but if you are almost done that charge, the next time you summon her, you will be lacking in element, which means chances are she may reset to another style of armor due to leftover element points from other categories.

More to come.