Every pet pays you twice
Each pet carries a passive stat and an active skill. The passive raises your troop attack and defense by the same percentage, applies to all three troop classes, and never turns off. It also stacks: every pet you own contributes its full passive at once, so fourteen half-leveled pets outperform one maxed one. The active skill is separate. Its level is your pet's level divided by ten, so it only improves when you cross an advancement, and the strongest ones (Giant Rhino's +10% attack, Alpha Black Panther's +10% lethality) run for two hours per activation.
That structure decides the whole strategy. Food buys passive stat on a curve that gets worse every ten levels, while advancements buy skill levels at fixed material costs. Read the curve first.
The food efficiency curve
All Gen 4 and later pets share one 100-level table. Here it is in bands, with the food cost of +1% attack and defense in the last column:
| Levels | Stat gained | Food cost | Food per +1% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–10 | +1.68% | 6.3K | 3,765 |
| 11–30 | +5.70% | 36.0K | 6,307 |
| 31–50 | +6.29% | 89.9K | 14,285 |
| 51–70 | +6.88% | 182.8K | 26,570 |
| 71–90 | +7.17% | 307.6K | 42,901 |
| 91–100 | +3.74% | 212.1K | 56,711 |
Unlike gear, there's no single cliff. Each band just costs more per stat point than the one before it, until the final decade runs 15× the price of the first. Maxing one Gen 4+ pet takes 834.6K food for +31.46%. Spent on early bands across your roster, the same food buys several times that.
The advancement jump
The level table hides its best purchases. The stat gain lands unevenly: nine ordinary levels of roughly +0.17% each, then one oversized jump on the level right after each advancement. Crossing level 10 to 11 costs 1,000 food and pays +1.34%, eight times the ordinary rate for that decade. The jumps keep beating their surroundings all the way up:
| Crossing | Food | Stat jump |
|---|---|---|
| 10 → 11 | 1,000 | +1.34% |
| 30 → 31 | 2,900 | +1.64% |
| 50 → 51 | 6,600 | +1.94% |
| 70 → 71 | 12,200 | +1.94% |
| 90 → 91 | 19,400 | +2.23% |
The rule that falls out: never park a pet at a multiple of ten. If you've paid for the advancement materials, the next single level is the cheapest stat you can buy anywhere in the system, and it's also the level that raises the active skill.
Breadth beats depth
Because passives stack across your whole roster, the early bands of fourteen pets are available before the late bands of any one pet. Taking every pet to level 11 costs 79.6K food plus 410 advancement manuals and pays +34.37% attack and defense, at about 2,316 food per stat point. That single move outbuys maxing a pet from 91 to 100 by a factor of 24. Pushing the whole roster to level 31 costs 489.4K food and lands +102.76%. Depth in one pet only wins once the skill it carries is the thing you're buying.
Which pet gets the food first
Passives are identical within a generation, so the skill is the tiebreaker. The two-hour combat buffs are the ones worth timing before a Bear Trap, Castle Battle, or All Out window:
| Pet | Gen | Skill at max | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mighty Bison | 4 | +15,000 squad capacity, 2h | Everyone. Capacity is damage. |
| Alpha Black Panther | 5 | +10% lethality, 2h | Attackers |
| Giant Rhino | 4 | +10% attack, 2h | Attackers |
| Ironclad War Elephant | 6 | +10% health, 2h | Defenders and garrisons |
| Regal White Lion | 6 | +10% defense, 2h | Defenders and garrisons |
| Great Moose | 5 | +150,000 rally capacity, 2h | Rally captains only |
| Ironclad War Bear | 7 | −10% enemy defense, 2h | Attackers, late game |
The utility pets earn their early levels differently. Cheetah's Scent Mastery finds 200 to 500 pet food per use, so it partially funds the rest of the roster. Bison instantly completes your next wilderness gather, Lynx restores up to 60 chief stamina, and Gray Wolf's 15% construction speed boost covers five minutes, enough to time a big upgrade start. None of these justify deep food investment. Their passives do the same work at level 11 as everyone else's.
The priority order, assembled
- Every pet you own to level 11 (79.6K food for the full roster, the best trade in the system).
- Mighty Bison and your role's buff pet (Panther or Rhino for attackers, Elephant or White Lion for defenders) one advancement ahead of the rest.
- The whole roster to 31, always ending on the post-advancement level, never on the multiple of ten.
- Your two combat pets to 51 and beyond as materials allow. Skill level 5 at level 50 is where the two-hour buffs reach their mid values.
- Levels 71+ are endgame stat-topping for your main combat pets only. The last decade costs 212.1K food for +3.74%, so it comes after everything above.
Your Pet Tracker computes exactly this: it ranks every pet you own by what the next level costs and pays.
FAQ
Do pet passives really stack?
Yes. Each pet's cumulative stat applies permanently and the game sums all of them, which is why the tracker's total adds every pet you've leveled.
What do advancements cost in total?
A Gen 4+ pet needs 2,990 manuals, 600 potions, and 310 medallions across all ten advancements. The first star costs 35 manuals and the tenth costs 730, which is another reason the whole-roster-first plan works: first stars on all fourteen pets cost 410 manuals combined.
Is it worth leveling mid-decade, between advancements?
Only for the passive. Skill levels change at every tenth level and nowhere else, so a pet at 45 fights exactly like one at 41 except for about 0.7% of passive stat.
Where does pet food come from?
Events and daily activities supply most of it, and Cheetah's skill adds a steady trickle. The Event Calendar shows when the pet-heavy events land in your kingdom's cycle.