Equipping Companions and Battle Items

If you're having trouble figuring out how to equip or unequip companions, armor, and weapons, this is the spot for you!

Select "Hero" on the side tab, and make sure you're in the "Inventory" view. You'll see your equipment array right there.

As you can see I've emptied mine, so we're ready to go.

## Attack, Defense, and Luck

First off are the three battle stats: Attack, Defense, and Luck. In your array, these are right beneath your name, and are designated with the following symbols:

**Attack****Defense****Luck**
You can find more detail at Battle Stats, but the very short answer is that raising your attack lets you write fewer words to defeat a monster, raising your defense gives you more health (grace period) when fighting an endurance monster, and luck increases your loot drop rate when you defeat a monster or open a chest. The first two have pretty straightforward calculations, and luck is shrouded in mystery.

Some players fight a lot of endurance monsters, and might prefer a build with more defense. Some players want to defeat more monsters while writing less, and might choose an attack-focused build. Some players want to maximize their drops, and might choose to boost their luck stat. And some players want a little of each, and pick a build that moderately raises more than one stat.

It is also possible to switch your build around at pretty much any time by returning to this screen, so you can change between builds when switching between regular and endurance monsters, or boost your luck before opening a chest. The possibilities are endless!

## Companions

Companions are NPCs/Monsters that you will meet along your journey. They can be 'equipped' into the companion slot just like a battle item, giving you a boost to their stats.

The first one you'll meet is Suwö, and you have to complete several quests with him to unlock him as a companion. (If you are still in Luciola Forest or Mama Tree you have not unlocked him yet.) Once you've unlocked a companion, just click on the "Companion" square in the array. If you haven't actually unlocked any companions yet (or you need to refresh), you'll get this screen:

But once you have companions unlocked, pressing their square will take you to a selection screen:

If you have no companion equipped, you will note that there will be a thin ring around the first thumbnail (1) — Suwö in my case. If you select a different thumbnail, the blue outline will move. You'll also note that beneath the companion (2) it says "Unequip Companion", but this is grayed out because you don't have one equipped. So, jump down to the bottom (3), and push the "Set as Companion" button!

Now you'll note that the thumbnail (1) of your companion has "Equipped" on it in green. Also, (2) that "Unequip" option has turned red and clickable, because you can now use it. Finally, (3) has been grayed out, because you're looking at your equipped companion.

Let's say you have more than one companion and want to change between them.

As you can see in (1), Suwö now has a green outline, and the blue outline of selection has moved down to the new one I've chosen, Attack Kaiszar. Attack Kaiszar's image, name, and stats have also populated in the larger space. However, (2) is misleading. It is red, but it is still giving you the option to unequip Suwö, NOT Kaiszar. We know this, because (3) is no longer grayed out, and waiting for us to equip that Kaiszar.

One thing that is kind of cool is that when you look at the stats below each companion, they'll change. Suwö has points in all three stats, so they're all colored in. Attack Kaiszar, on the other hand, is pure attack, so only the attack icon is colored in, with the other two grayed out.

Congrats! You have a companion. Close out the screen and double check that your companion does appear in their slot in your equipment array. If it still shows "No Companion", even after a refresh, go ahead and try equipping them again.

## Battle Items

### Buying, Finding, Crafting

Battle Items are items that can be equipped that will have an effect on a Dust Warrior's Battle Stats. Just like companions, each battle item will have a number for attack, defense, and luck. Sometimes, the number is 0, e.g.

>  +1 /  +0 /  +0
>
>

A battle item with this designation has +1 attack and no boost to defense or luck.

Battle items are designed for one of six categories: Head, Chest, Feet, Weapon 1, Weapon 2, and Accessory. No item will be designated with more than one category, just as a wardrobe item cannot apply to your hair and your feet at the same time.

You can equip one battle item in each of the six categories, for a total of six items equipped. (You will not find items in the head or chest categories until Mama Tree, so if you're still in Luciola forest you can only fill four categories.) There is no set bonus for equipping multiple items from the same region such as Leaf Boots and Leaf Breastplate. Indeed, not all "matched" items have a full set; e.g. there are no Reinforced Steel Boots to go with the Helmet and Breastplate, and no armor clothing pieces to match the Glass weapons and accessories.

Don't be confused by wardrobe (and sometimes house) items that contain the word armor, sword, etc: these are not battle items.

Wardrobe items will always have the little gray figure and be labeled in the shop as "Wardrobe Item". House Items will always have the labels "House Item", a size in squares, and a category (nature, building, furniture, or trinkets). Battle Items will have labels for "Craft" and a category (head, chest, feet, weapon 1, weapon 2, or accessory). You can see those market labels here:

Battle items are, at their core, crafting items, just as steel bars and Lorsa nests are. They can be crafted or found multiple times (unlike wardrobe items), and are in fact often required ingredients for quests and to craft stronger armor. A good strategy is to never sell extra battle items unless you're really strapped for coins, because you'll always need to craft higher and higher level battle items out of the smaller ones.

The exceptions to this rule are the late game battle items from City of Light and Dusted Castle. The former are crafted from local supplies rather than weaker armor, and the latter are all quest rewards. However, several quests and monsters in the later game require battle items as a sacrifice, so you'll still want to hang onto spares.

### Equipping

Once you have some battle items, you can find them in your inventory. They're easier to find if you use the "Battle" filter seen here:

You'll also note that if you've already got some items equipped, they'll have that green outline/label we saw with the companions. And in addition to having the quantity you own displayed in the top corner, the bottom corner shows the icon for what category the item is in. This matches the icon in the empty slot so you can see at a glance where each item goes. The icons for the head, chest, and feet show a helmet, chestplate, and boot respectively. Weapon 1 is a sword, Weapon 2 is a bow, and Accessory is a sigil.

At the moment, it is impossible to refine the battle filter to a specific category, so the icons are your best bet to narrow things down — especially for the weapons and accessories, which aren't always obvious at a glance. Users have reported on the forums that the icons are harder to see on the Elder Library, Pearl, and Stone City themes, so keep that in mind.

Now, while the words and numbers are the same, battle items use slightly different icons than the companions and main array.

**Attack****Defense****Luck**
The concept is the same, down to the way they gray out if your item doesn't have any points in that stat. Just a slightly different set of icons to remember. So, once you select a battle item, a more detailed screen will pop up.

You'll note that (4) shows the icons, and you can see that for the Leaf Helmet, attack is grayed out while the other two remain. Right above those icons are the tags, if you need confirmation that this is a battle item and is the category you want. If you do not have anything equipped in this slot, you'll notice (5) that there is nothing above or below the image of the battle item. Since you don't have anything equipped, hit that (6) blue equip button!

For this item, you can see that the stat line (4) shows it has points in attack and defense, but no luck. And (5) down below the image of this item you'll see a small floating box with a different item, but our familiar green "Equipped" label. This shows the item that is already equipped in that category slot, and shows the difference in stats. The existing item is part of an attack heavy build, so it has a much higher attack, but no defense. But if you wanted to change up the build and switch it out, just hit that (6) blue equip button!

Now this item has the usual stat line at (4), and you can see that it has points in all three stats. (5) Shows that the comparison box is missing, but the green "Equipped" tag is hovering above the item, because it's what is currently equipped. Because of that, the (6) button has changed to a red "Unequip" one.

Congrats! You have equipped your battle items. Double check that your items do appear in their slots in your equipment array. If it still shows "No Item", even after a refresh, go ahead and try equipping them again.

With that done, you should be ready to go fight some monsters. Good luck!