Idling to Rule the Gods (ITRTG) – Early-Game Token Pet Guide

Early-Game Token Pet Guide (with Explanations)

What pet should I get first?

Newer players have different obstacles to climbing than those encountered by those who have progressed further into the game. Certain pets may be more or less valuable to a newer player than the pets that are most useful in the endgame. My goal is to provide a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the pets available for unlock exclusively with a Pet Token, as well as to provide a few recommendations for which pets may be best to unlock first.

Note: This is not a tier list for the entire game. It is a rating of how useful these pets are in the initial stages of the game.

S Tier – Unlock ASAP

(But probably only pick one).

Thunderball

Note: [Growth on Unlock / Growth for Evo]

• Thunderball (Tball, Raiju) [21,500/80,000]
  • Pros: Sizable campaign bonuses. High base growth. Solid GC pet.
  • Cons: Very late evolution. Negative interaction with Robot.

• Evolution: 4000 Bound Feathers. 1e12% Creating Multiplier from pets.

Without a doubt, Thunderball is one of the best pets to token at almost any stage of the game. Its enormous base growth of 21500 far outclasses any pet freely unlocked for the first few months of progression. This allows for incredibly efficient leveling of Pet Multipliers, greatly expediting DRCs.

Additionally, its +40% item campaign bonus ensures it remains a valuable addition for UPCs until it eventually settles in as a (likely) permanent member of a Growth Chamber. The +80% to Divinity Campaigns can also help provide a meaningful amount of divinity in longer challenges, such as AACs.

Thunderball’s strength does fall off somewhat after those first two challenge sets (DRCs and UPCs). During that time, you’ll begin to evolve many other pets and Class Level (CL) becomes very valuable. Thunderball, however, won’t be able to be evolved until much later. If you’ve completed those first two sets, consider Robot or another A-tier pet as an alternative choice. 

Alternative explanation: Here let me explain why people are recommending thunderball. It’s a very strong pet during early-game and is also a very strong pet during late-game:

• Early-game: Thunderball has a very high starting growth of 21500, way higher than most of your other choices. This affects both your power during a run and your ability to gainrebirth multiplier from your pets. You can get up to 999% rebirth multiplier by leveling your pets status up to a little over 40,000% in the current rebirth (hover over it). You also get the power from pet multiplier in the current rebirth, pushing you to kill another god which further boosts your rebirth multiplier and speeds things up. It has +80% to growth campaigns, which coupled with its high starting growth means it is a great growth campaign pet that contributes a lot of growth gain to the rest of your pets.
• Late-game: Thunderball is very difficult to evolve, but once you get there it has an above average evo bonus which combined with the starting +80% to growth campaigns makes it one of the top pets for growth campaign in late-game teams

Similar Alternatives: Otter, Hourglass, Bat, Bunny Girl, Vampire.

Vampire

• Vampire (Vamp) [35,000/125,000]
  • Pros: Sizable campaign bonuses. High base growth. Solid (temporary) GC pet.
  • Cons: Very late evolution. Unique passive requires time in dungeons.

• Evolution: 1250 Magic Fire Stones. Give her 1000 Monster Blood.

At long last, a pet to challenge Thunderball’s reign as first pick arrives. 

Vampire has enormous campaign bonuses; +69% to Growth, +1% to Divinity, +337% (?!) to Food, +42% to Multiplier, and +90.01% to GP. Summed together, she has the largest total campaign bonus of any pet that doesn’t have +x% to all campaigns. Better still, these bonuses are all located within useful camps! The food camp bonus in particular ensures that she can continue growing herself alongside Lizard & Carno once she falls out of your GC

Her higher starting base growth (35k vs 21.5k) and slightly smaller campaign bonus for Growth Camp (+69% vs +80%) mean that she provides comparable growth to an early-game GC as to Thunderball. Additionally, picking Vampire also means you can comfortably choose to unlock Robot without worrying about the Thunderball/Robot campaign interactions! However, she does lack an Item Camp bonus compared to Thunderball, meaning her usefulness during UPCs is significantly less.

The main downside to Vampire (at least, to an early-game player) is that you will not be evolving her anytime soon. She’s one of only a handful of pets that require more than 100k growth & T3 (rather than the more common T2) materials to evolve. 

I won’t talk too much about her late-game usage. Suffice it to say that she could either be one of the most efficient alchemists or one of the more useful D4 Volcano pets. By the time you’re able to consider which one you’d prefer, you’re at least 18 months beyond what this guide is meant to address.

Similar Alternatives: Otter, Hourglass, Bat, Bunny Girl, Thunderball

A Tier – Universally Recommended

(Pick one of these 2nd).

Otter

• Otter [9,999/30,000]
  • Pros: Solid GC pet. Free materials when fed. 
  • Cons: Evolution requires evolving many other pets..
    
• Evolution: 1500 Nevermelting Ice. Evolve at least 35 other pets.

Boasting a +75% to Growth campaigns, Otter slots in nicely as another permanent member of the Growth Chamber. Its base growth of 9999 isn’t quite as formidable as Thunderball, but still provides a decent boost to the efficiency of pet multipliers.

Speaking of multipliers, the enormous +125% to Multiplier Campaigns is helpful during several challenges, including the initial DPC. It can also bolster your stats to allow for one more god if you’ve expended all of your other easy ways to climb. This isn’t the main draw to Otter, but it is nice.

The real early-game appeal is with its passive ability to provide materials. Materials, or mats, are scarce in the first few months of ITRTG, meaning any source is a valuable asset. Otter gives random materials each time it’s fed (including the rare resource “Nothing”), ensuring a steady, if modest, supply.

Similar Alternatives: Hourglass, Bat, Bunny Girl, Thunderball

Hourglass

• Hourglass (HG) [16,296/50,000]
  • Pros: Large bonus to all campaigns. Valuable dungeon pet. High base growth.
  • Cons: Takes time to scale, both in campaigns and dungeons. 

• Evolution: 2500 Bound Feathers. Apply its unique dungeon slow to 200k enemies.

Hourglass is an unusual pet in that its bonus to all campaigns scales the longer you spend playing the game. It gains 1% bonus per day up to a cap of 75% at, you guessed it, 75 days. This may not sound ideal for a beginner except for the fact that the timer starts from the day you begin playing, not from when you unlock HG.

By the time a new player has the pet stones, event rewards, or Lucky Draws to get a few Pet Tokens, they likely have >75 days of gametime. Most players will token unlock Hourglass with its maximum potential realized: +75% to ALL campaigns. Hourglass also boasts a sizable 16k base growth! As mentioned before, this helps enormously with Pet Multipliers. 

If a player somehow has a multitude of tokens earlier than 75 days of playtime, HG may not be the optimal pick. It will, however, become an extremely powerful pet within 2.5 months; token it then!

HG also eventually becomes a valuable dungeon pet, but that exceeds the scope of this guide. However, a neat trick to help expedite its evolution (and also the evolution of Flying Eyeball & Lucky Coin) is to stick it in your Challenge Dungeon team. You can accumulate far more slows there then by adding HG to an actual Dungeon team and it can still run campaigns!

Similar Alternatives: Otter, Thunderball, Bat, Bunny Girl

Pumpkin

• Pumpkin [1,998/5,000]
  • Pros: Excellent source of chocolate.
  • Cons: Only good for chocolate.

• Evolution: 250 Fire Stone. 666 Chocolate

Situational Rating (B Tier): If a player already has another pet that gathers chocolate (Cocoa, Cherub), Pumpkin is less useful. You’ll always want more chocolate, so having a second chocolate-gatherer isn’t wasted, but it is likely less efficient than getting a pet to fill a different role. 

While some pets may have bonuses to a few campaigns, or can feature in dungeons despite their bonuses, Pumpkin does one thing: gathers chocolate. Chocolate is the best food in the game, and you’re gonna want a lot of it. Cupid, Cocoa, & Pumpkin need it for their evolutions, Chocobear wants it for its bonus, Gold Dragon wants it to share the love with its passive, and all of your other pets are dying for a taste.

Chocolate is excellent, and Pumpkin excels at collecting it. This is a straightforward pet that is relevant at every stage of the game. You’re gonna want this pet sooner and later, so get it sooner.

Token Improve Available: Pumpkin’s Token Improve adds an additional 2%/CL chance to find chocolate in Food camps. It also doubles the Mighty Food it gains.

This is an expensive use of a token early on, but it has a lot of value later as your Pumpking gains more CL and you gather more pets that crave chocolate. 

Similar Alternatives: Cocoa, Cherub

Chocobear

• Chocobear (Choco/Bear) [7,083/6,000]
  • Pros: Solid GC pet. Easy evolution. Good in most campaigns.
  • Cons: Requires constant feedings of chocolate. 

• Evolution: 300 Special Wood. Stockpile at least 200 hours worth of its unique campaign bonus.

This cuddly guy isn’t quite as formidable upon unlock as some other S- or A-Tier pets, but don’t be fooled. It gains an additional +50% to all campaigns (VIA running it in food campaigns or feeding it chocolate), including Events! Chocobear can become a veritable powerhouse in any campaign, but it’s likely best utilized in the GC alongside Tball & HG. Additionally, it comes with a base growth in excess of what’s needed to evolve it. While stockpiling 300 Special Wood early isn’t the simplest task, Chocobear is otherwise one of the easiest token adventurers that players can evolve.

Chocobear’s value is dependent, at least in part, on its ability to maintain its campaign bonus. Maintaining a steady supply of chocolate to refresh & stack hours on its bonus is essential to its A Tier rating, and one of the reasons why Pumpkin is also rated in the same tier.

Token Improve Available: Chocobear can be further improved by using another pet token on it to increase its bonuses by a sizable portion. The bonus to all camps goes from 50% -> 75% & Growth/Item bonus goes from 33% -> 50%.

While strong, it’s likely better to token a separate pet in the top few tiers rather than doubling down on Chocobear prematurely. I’d personally rank Chocobear Improve as being roughly equivalent in value to unlocking a B-tier pet; use your best judgment as to whether improving a good pet or unlocking a new pet is a better choice here.

Similar Alternatives: Eagle, Hedgehog

Clam

• Clam [1,900/10,000]
  • Pros: Fairly easily evolved. Early Rogue. Strong passive. 
  • Cons: Low base growth. Undine is a much better Water Rogue.

• Evolution: 500 Nevermelting Ice. Give it 200 GP

Clam has the unique ability to double all GP gained from dungeon events. This passive ability functions even before evolving Clam, making it a worthwhile filler pet for Water Temple or Volcano to rake in some easy GP. Additionally, it has the only explicit bonus to event campaigns of all pets (Chocobear’s bonus from chocolate also applies to events, but isn’t stated in-game).

While 10k growth stretches the limits of what an early-game GC looks like, and 200 GP is a hefty investment required to evolve Clam, it’ll pay back the GP in spades given enough time. You can consider Clam to fall within the same realm as FSM: They both double GP from certain events & have a unique ability that benefits them in a specific area. The main reason Clam is rated higher than FSM is that players can and should be running dungeons with GP events far more often than GP Campaigns. Well, that and the fact that it requires a significantly smaller GC to evolve.

Similar Alternatives: FSM, Nightmare

This is where the list really becomes more muddled and debateable. Again, this is intended to be a brief explanation for why certain pets are more useful than others for early players. It is not an exhaustive exploration of every potential combination or a prescriptive list to follow religiously.

B Tier – Generally Recommended but Lower Priority

Nightmare

• Nightmare (NM) [9,999/40,000]
  • Pros: High base growth. Massive campaign bonus. Unique passive ability.
  • Cons: Reduces rewards from other pets. Late evolution. 

• Evolution: 2000 Fire Stone. Equip her with a SSS+20 Magic Stick.

Ah, everyone’s favorite anger pony. The enormous +200% to all campaigns is an eye-catching aspect of Nightmare. Although this ability comes at a price, (-20% rewards from every other pet in the same campaign) Nightmare is still a powerful pet. Because of how most campaigns work & because most newer players have relatively weak pets, Nightmare’s bonus almost always exceeds the penalty. It’s not until later in the game when your other pets are developed that Nightmare’s malus becomes an actual liability. You’ll eventually be able to reduce this penalty by evolving Nightmare, but that is beyond the scope of this guide. It is often better to instead send Nightmare on solo campaigns to avoid incurring the malus.

This also says nothing of her passive ability to uncap the rewards from GP Campaign! Even though the GP campaign is fairly weak without decently leveled pets, it can still be quite exciting to gain a handful of God Power from an overnight run. Pairing her alongside her favorite partner pet, FSM, can give decent chunks of GP for your next batch of 10k clones!

Similar Alternatives: FSM, Clam

Eagle

• Eagle [999/2,000]
  • Pros: High bonus to item camp. Early to evolve. Solid adventurer.
  • Cons: No significant downsides.

• Evolution: 100 Bound Feathers. Give it 50 Lucky Draws.

Situational Rating (A Tier): The +75% to item campaigns is highly effective while doing UPCs. Eagle may even be considered an A Tier pet if the player is still in their first few UPCs. It would speed up the time to complete them, hastening the 5% campaign bonus from finishing each UPC. 

Eagle finds a welcome home in Item Campaigns where it likely takes up permanent residence. Its simple evolution conditions may seem daunting at first, but Eagle will repay those Lucky Draws in spades once it’s evolved into an Adventurer. Eagle specializes in one thing, but it is excellent at farming items and stones. It is likely to be amongst your strongest Item Campaign pets for most of the game.

Similar Alternatives: Chocobear, Hedgehog

Pignata

• Pignata [1,176/10,000]
  • Pros: Easily evolved wildcard. Grants Rebirth Bacon daily.
  • Cons: No specialist bonus. Rebirth Bacon becomes less rare later. 

• Evolution: 500 Special Wood. Bash it open 30 times..

Pignata is a straightforward pet. Once per day, resetting upon claiming the daily draw, you may bash it open to receive Rebirth Bacon. The quantity scales with class level [(10 + 0.5*CL)/day], and Pignata is relatively easy to evolve. Requiring Special Wood is disappointing as early players will want those materials for Hammers, but it’s not an unreasonable amount to invest for some Rebirth Bacon. In fact, it’s a net positive (of Special Wood) after a few weeks of bashing since crafting Bacon requires 3 Special Wood each!

One of the biggest challenges for newer players is getting enough dungeon time to level their pets. Rebirth Bacon enables players to have some more flexibility with their rebirths. While 10/day isn’t the most impressive, it is sufficient for newbies who may only have one or two dungeon teams. Add in the flexibility granted by it being a wildcard, and Pignata’s worth shines. This oft-swatted swine lets newer players spend more time in dungeons, and dungeons are one of the most intricate ways of scaling a newer player’s power. 

Pignata & Donut are a very similar pair to Question & Cocoa: Cocoa is a slightly better, but slightly more difficult-to-evolve Neutral Alchemist. If you can evolve both, choose Cocoa. If you can’t, choose Question.

Pignata is a slightly better, but slightly more difficult-to-evolve Earth wildcard. If you can evolve both, choose Pignata. If you can’t (and only if you need a wildcard), choose Donut.

Similar Alternatives: Donut

Cocoa

• Cocoa [1,641/5,000]
  • Pros: Can make chocolate! (Can be) easy to evolve.
  • Cons: Requires chocolate to evolve. Can’t make chocolate until you evolve it.

• Evolution: 250 Iron Ore. Give it 200 Chocolate.

Cocoa is an interesting pet in that it, along with Pumpkin & Santa (and now Cherub), are the only pets capable of producing chocolate outside of events and purchases. Pumpkin is rated extremely highly for this ability, so it may be surprising to see Cocoa below it in B-tier. Unlike Pumpkin, however, Cocoa needs to be evolved before it can start producing any chocolate. This means that it requires 200 of your already limited stockpile before it can even start being helpful. It takes 8 hours (less with Alchemist levels & Equipment) per chocolate, meaning you’ll need hundreds of hours of crafting before Cocoa produces more chocolate than it took to evolve.

Additionally, it is easy to compare Cocoa to Question or Caterpillar as they are each early-game Alchemists. However, the main appeal of Cocoa over the other two is its ability to make chocolate. The fact that Cocoa also requires chocolate to evolve means that either Question or Caterpillar is much easier to utilize and benefit from early on. As this guide is for early players, that leaves one of these two as the “better” early-game choice. That said, feel free to grab Cocoa instead if you have the chocolate to spare for its evolve. There is no bad choice here.

Similar Alternatives: Question, Caterpillar

Cherub

• Cherub [21,977/200,000]
  • Pros: Higher base growth than Thunderball! Can find chocolate, Good camp bonuses
  • Cons: Very difficult evolve conditions. Camp bonuses aren’t useful if finding chocolate.

• Evolution: 10,000 Bound Feathers. Have at least +50% bonus to HP from Dojo

Situational Rating (D Tier): If you have Pumpkin or Cocoa already, or if you’ve already completed DRCs/UPCs, Cherub loses a lot of value. Most of her strength comes from being a high base growth pet with the ability to find chocolate. Once those strengths aren’t as necessary, neither is Cherub.

Cherub is an interesting pet with a lot of potential. In the extremely late-game scenario that you can evolve her, she is an absolute powerhouse. However, this guide is intended for newer players, so let’s discuss her strengths in the early-game!

Cherub can find chocolate if she’s used in Food camps (and if she’s unevolved) at a rate of 50% per hour. When compared to the other early-game sources of chocolate (Lucky Draws, Pumpkin, Cocoa, events), Cherub is noticeably more consistent at gathering it. This makes it significantly easier to evolve the three pets that require chocolate (Pumpkin, Cocoa, Cupid), though it must be noted that this essentially means Cherub is funding its own obsolescence. Once Pumpkin is evolved, it quickly outclasses Cherub’s chocolate-finding abilities.

That said, the ability to find chocolate is not the entire appeal of Cherub. Another noteworthy benefit of unlocking Cherub comes from its formidable base growth. Much like Thunderball, this base growth can easily be converted into Pet Multipliers by training Cherub with clones. These Pet Multipliers significantly cut down on the time required for DRCs. Additionally, the ease of leveling combined with its +50% to Item Camps helps Cherub be quite strong during UPCs as well. 

All in all, she is a pet that is fairly powerful in the very early-game, quite powerful in the late-game (once evolved), and mediocre everywhere else. 

Similar Alternatives: Cocoa, Pumpkin

C Tier

(Pets that you probably will only get early if you spend money on them, otherwise you’ll have better options available by the time you have free tokens for them).

FSM

• FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster)  [13,001/35,000]
  • Pros: Two unique passive abilities. Excellent in GP Reset challenges.
  • Cons: No campaign bonuses. Hard to level at first.

• Evolution: 1750 Bound Feather. Equip it with T3 SSS Hurricane Bow, Hurricane Armor, and Hurricane Ring. This equipment is NOT consumed upon evolution.

Situational Rating (B Tier): If you already have Nightmare & are planning on pairing the two in longer GP Campaigns regularly (such as during GP Reset challenges), FSM is a more powerful addition to your team. 

This squiggly dude has 2 passive abilities that each provide unique rewards. Firstly, it doubles all God Power gained in a GP campaign. It also has a decent base growth, allowing for it to quickly level to certain Campaign Reward Tiers. I hope you can see why this might be an appealing combo with Nightmare. The duo is particularly potent in GP Reset Challenges. But wait, there’s more!

FSM also provides one of the few multipliers to your Divinity Generator production! This value ranges based on FSM’s current stats, but can fairly easily reach 20-25% bonus. Unfortunately, this doesn’t affect the divinity received from defeating Ultimate Beings, Divinity Camps, or GP Divinity Purchases. While it is still a noteworthy increase to the main source of divinity in the game, its value is diminished because of this (lack of) interaction.

Similar Alternatives: Nightmare, Clam

Hedgehog

• Hedgehog (HH) [2,405/7,500]
  • Pros: Relatively easy to evolve. Solid GC pet. 
  • Cons: No significant downsides.

• Evolution: 375 Fire Stone. Give it 1e19 Divinity.

Situational Rating (A Tier): This ranking is dependent on Hedgehog being Token improved. If HH receives the improve, it becomes a top 5 GC pet at the cost of two tokens. Keep in mind that two tokens for one pet is expensive and you might be better off choosing two separate pets instead. 

This cute little pincushion has a modest +25% bonus to both Divinity and Growth Campaigns. Much like Chocobear, you’ll probably get the most use out of Hedgehog in your GC. It has a slightly harder evolution than some of its predecessors, but should still be attainable prior to ending UPCs.

Evolving it into another adventurer lets you replace one of the filler pets in your Growth Chamber, freeing them to do something more productive. That’s basically what Hedgehog does; it replaces a filler pet in the GC until it becomes a filler pet in the GC to be replaced.

Token Improve Available: Hedgehog gains an additional +141% to Growth/Divinity camps, bringing its total bonus to +166% for each. 

This is absolutely massive! Token Improved HH exceeds the GC bonus for nearly all other pets except for a few lategame powerhouses (Aether, Seed, Nightmare).

That’s right: it beats Thunderball. This improve is very strong.

Similar Alternatives: Chocobear, Eagle

Rudolph

• Rudolph [5,500/5,000]
  • Pros: Rogue with conditionally easy evolution.
  • Cons: More difficult to evolve without real money

• Evolution: 250 Bound Feather. Give it 1000 Baal Power.

If you’re already forking over the cash to get this far down the list, buy the Growing Purchase to get the Baal Power necessary for its evolution. Of course, make sure you have the 250 Bound Feathers first! 

Rudolph is a fairly decent rogue with a monetarily subverted evolution condition. Otherwise, you’ll have to climb to Pbaal v35-v45 (depending on current Patreon Bonus) to get the necessary BP. That can be a difficult task early on. 

It has relatively small bonuses to food & item camps, ensuring it isn’t entirely useless until evolved, but you’ll still want to ensure you can evolve it soon after unlocking.

Similar Alternatives: Raven, Santa, Tanuki

Phoenix

• Phoenix [3,450/10,000]
  • Pros: Earliest Fire Alchemist with class bonus. 
  • Cons: Evolution gets more difficult with more pets. 

• Evolution: 500 Fire Stone. All pets >= Level 9000.

By the time UPCs are finished, GCs can reasonably be >10k, allowing Phoenix to get the growth needed for evolving. The harder part is getting all of your pets to level 9000+ in a reasonable time. AACs are probably your best challenge for attempting this. While having high growth amongst your pets can make this easier, having only a few pets (and a few PLCs completed) is the best way to speed this condition up. This makes Phoenix slightly better in the hands of a player without many pets.  

Regardless of how you evolve it, having another Alchemist is always beneficial. In particular, having a fire alchemist is useful when attempting to unlock Baby Carno; Phoenix is the more easily evolved specialist fire alchemist (Bottle being the other more challenging one).

Similar Alternatives: Bottle, Seal, Vaccina

Robot

• Robot [6,249/25,000]
  • Pros: Enormous Growth bonus
  • Cons: Significant penalty when sharing campaigns with Tball

• Evolution: 1250 Iron Bar. All pets >= 9000 Total Growth.

Situational Rating: If you already have Thunderball, Robot is a C-Tier pet. If you, for whatever reason, choose not to get Tball, Robot leaps up to an A-Tier pet. Its decent base growth & solid +100% to Growth Campaigns allow it to provide a meaningful amount of growth to an early-game GC. This growth, somewhat unlike other temporary GC members, remains immensely useful as you transition Robot into a dedicated T4 crafter, particularly with a token improve.

Robot is an excellent pet in a world where Thunderball doesn’t exist. Robot came first, so there was a period of time where Robot was the oft-recommended first pick! It’s an excellent pet when it can perform its role without Thunderball’s interference. Pre-evolution, however, the two overlap heavily in their usage; both desperately want to be in the Growth Camp.

Robot receives a substantial penalty when sharing campaigns with Tball, inverting its +100% Growth Camp bonus to a -100%.. This is a massive nerf to its value as a pet.The two fluctuate back and forth as to which is stronger in the GC, but you only want one of them in there at a time to avoid the penalty to Robot. 

Tokening Robot at this point frees Tball from the GC to go run Item & Divinity Campaigns. This can be particularly useful during UPCs to preserve as much of your GC as possible while also running the recommended 1-hour Item Camps. 

That said, Robot is one of the most difficult pets to evolve in this tier. It simply doesn’t provide quite enough value in its original state to justify a pet token if you already have Tball in your roster. It becomes an absolute powerhouse of a crafter later on in the game, particularly if you opt to get its Token Improve; this pushes Robot to become the strongest T4 crafter in the game. That point, however, far exceeds the scope of this guide.

Token Improve Available: Robot’s Token Improve gives it a scaling bonus to crafting T4 gear based on its Growth & CL (growth^0.121 * class level%).

As I mentioned before, it turns Robot into (one of) the strongest T4 crafters. This value is useless to newer players for more than a year of in-game progression.

Similar Alternatives: Otter, Thunderball, Bat, Bunny Girl

Vaccina

• Vaccina [5,700/15,000]
  • Pros: Hefty bonus to divinity campaigns. Can mean getting two pets.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 750 Special Wood. Unlock & Evolve Corona. Give Vaccina 100 Cure Potions.

You cannot initially see Vaccina (or her counterpart, Corona) without inputting a code into the Settings tab. The code is “Corona”, but please look into what the pair do before unlocking both pets. Corona can and will cripple the progress of an unprepared player.

The only reason Vaccina is a reasonable option is that you can also get Corona alongside it for “free”. However, Corona is an actively harmful pet to have until evolving, and evolving it requires a hefty GC and a period of lost growth from its sickness. Vaccina cannot be evolved until you’ve evolved Corona; the two are deeply intertwined. That said, you do not have to unlock Corona after tokening Vaccina. You can get Vaccina, prepare for Corona’s penalties, and then unlock it once you are ready. 

If you somehow have the resources to evolve both pets and still claim to be early-game, Vaccina (and Corona) can be a valuable addition to your lineup. This is unlikely to be the case. Unless you’re one of the few who is in this situation, Vaccina’s only real draw is the +150% to Divinity Campaigns. This bonus is substantial and can accumulate large quantities of divinity. For players who spend GP on the divinity purchases, Vaccina can save you from a few of those investments. 

However, if you are somehow able to evolve these two quickly, the pairing becomes a B-Tier duo. 2 decent pets are always welcome additions to any lineup. The pair can be further improved by using a token on Corona to improve her campaign bonuses, but that requires two tokens for two pets; this route is a significantly lower value.

Similar Alternatives: Phoenix, Seal, Bottle, Void

Tanuki

• Tanuki [5,800/18,000]
  • Pros: Bonus to all campaigns. Solid dungeon pet.
  • Cons: Moderately difficult evolution.

• Evolution: 900 Iron Bar. Give it 100 Health Potion S

While +22% to all campaigns is relatively small, it’s comparable to Hedgehog’s bonus before evolution. Tanuki makes for an adequate temporary GC pet until you can evolve it into a Supporter, at which point it should head into Dungeons. The 900 Iron Bars can be expensive in the early stages of the game, due in large part to how difficult farming Scrapyard can be. 

In short: Tanuki is a decent pet for any campaign until it eventually goes on to become a decent pet in any dungeon team. It’s not a high priority, but it’s nice.

Similar Alternatives: Santa, Raven, Tanuki, Rudolph

Seal

• Seal [5,250/13,500]
  • Pros: Another Water Alchemist
  • Cons: Another Water Alchemist

• Evolution: 675 Nevermelting Ice. You must complete your most recent DPC with Seal having the highest stats. It doesn’t work otherwise.

Unless you’re investing real money into the game for pet tokens, you’ll likely grab Seal around your second or third attempt at the DPC. With a +40% to GP Campaigns and +55% to Multiplier Campaigns, Seal isn’t the most exciting pet in campaigns. It doesn’t require too much growth for evolving, but its other conditions are stricter.

For example, Seal demands a sizable 675 Nevermelting Ice for its evolve. In the early stages of the game, you’re likely stockpiling NMI for Fridge, other pet evolves, and your first few Training Swords. NMI will be in short supply until you begin farming Depth 2 Water Temple. It’ll take a few months of clearing dungeons before you have a team that can reliably do that, so Seal is a low priority pet unless you somehow gain an enormous amount of NMI very early (some premium purchases offer large quantities of materials)..

Seal is a Water Alchemist, but Snake shares those same traits and can be acquired (without using a token) by beating Pbaal v30 albeit with a slightly lower specialist bonus (0.6%/CL vs 0.64% for Seal). 

Similar Alternatives: Phoenix, Bottle

Vesuvius

• Vesuvius (Volcano) [3,500/28,000]
  • Pros: Additive Growth for your weakest pet.
  • Cons: Another Fire Mage. Moderately difficult evolution requirements.

• Evolution: 1400 Fire Stone. Gain 7500 Growth from Dungeons. 

Vesuvius is similar to Bag in that it provides growth to whichever pet currently has the least. Unlike Bag, however, Vesuvius provides additional additive growth from dungeon events rather than siphoning 10% away from your GC. Thankfully, two D1 dungeons have events (Mountain’s “Wind Shrine” and Forest’s “Wild Animals”) that provide growth to your pets, allowing Vesuvius to do what it does best from the moment it’s unlocked. 

That said, it’s not an immense amount of growth, starting at 50% additional from what Vesuvius itself received. Further complicating matters is Dragon; the freely accessible & more easily evolved Fire Mage. If you’re tokening Vesuvius, you’re doing it for the growth. There are better uses of a token early-game, but this big rock isn’t the worst choice.

Similar Alternatives: Bag

Sloth

• Sloth [3/75,000]
  • Pros: Conditionally strong campaign bonuses, double growth from food
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions.
    
• Evolution: 3750 Special Wood. Accumulate 120,000% campaign bonus from Sloth’s unique passive.

Sloth has a passive ability that is vaguely similar to Turtle’s. Sloth receives a campaign bonus of 10% * the number of hours of the campaign, capping at 120% for a 12-hour run. While Food and Multiplier campaigns aren’t super exciting, this is enormously helpful for Item campaigns since they reward longer campaigns more heavily anyways. Additionally, +120% is MASSIVE; consider how Goat or Flying Cloud are often suggested to become adventurers with their puny 100% Item Camp bonus. Add in the fact that Sloth is a specialist Adventurer, and you’re looking at a late-game Item Camp powerhouse. 

Helping Sloth reach this point is its other passive. Sloth receives double the growth from feeds, making it a candidate to receive some of your (likely) limited Chocolate stockpile. While feeding isn’t the most efficient way to stack growth on a single pet, it is a steady source of small gains. Despite being a difficult to evolve pet, Sloth is moderately useful immediately and will continue to become more valuable the longer you have it. 

Similar Alternatives: None

Lizard

• Lizard [9,115/40,000]
  • Pros: Conditionally strong Growth campaign bonus.Unique interaction with food camps.
  • Cons: Evolution requires many, preferably evolved, pets.
    
• Evolution: 2000 Nevermelting Ice. Reach +100% Growth Campaign Bonus

Upon unlock, Lizard has a bonus to Growth Campaigns that scales based on how many pets you currently have unlocked and evolved. The exact formula is this:

• (Unlocked pets + evolved pets) ^0.5 * 10.

Newer players don’t tend to have many of either, but can still expect a reasonable bonus of +40% or greater with only 15-20 pets. This bonus can increase to a max of +100%, making Lizard a pretty good temporary GC pet.

After evolve, Lizard changes in a number of ways. First, its bonus changes from Growth Campaigns to Food. Don’t worry; this is a good thing! Any food that Lizard finds during a Food campaign is then “cooked” by it. This cooked food is shared with any other pets that are also in the Food campaign. These pets receive growth based on how much food was cooked. That said, these aren’t “true” feeds; pet hunger will not be filled by eating the food Lizard cooked, nor will the food benefit from DPC, Fishing bonus, or SpaceDim. 

It seems like a complicated pet, so let’s summarize. Once unlocked, it’s a decent GC pet. Once evolved, it turns Food camps into a “mini” GC of sorts. Both of these abilities are powerful, but scale based on how many pets you have available. Lizard wants more friends; be kind and give her some!

Similar Alternatives: None.

Bat

• Bat [23,331/50,000]
  • Pros: High base growth & strong bonus to growth camps. Bonus to exp after evo
  • Cons: Expensive & difficult evolution condition
    
• Evolution: 2500 Iron Bar. Give it an SSS Legendary (T4) Hammer

Situational Rating (F Tier):  Bunny Girl and Bat fill very similar niches. Both offer high base growth (~23k for Bat, 16k for Bunny Girl), native bonuses to growth camps (+66% vs +77%), and evolve into being neutral crafters in the late-game. You don’t need both in the early-game, and you almost certainly don’t need either. 

Bat comes in with a higher base growth than Thunderball (S-tier) or Hourglass (A-tier) and a similar camp bonus. Its lower ranking is largely due to the fact that this isn’t enough. Both of those pets also have a bonus to item camps, helping enormously with UPCs; Bat instead has +125% for Food camps and +66% to Level Camps.

Additionally, a Legendary Hammer is ridiculously expensive for a newer player, requiring T4 mats in abundance. There is a premium purchase available during some events that offers a maxed T4 hammer, but that obviously requires real money and isn’t viable for F2P players.

Bat gains 40% additional Class experience after evolving and can quickly become a very powerful pet. However, the obstacles to evolving are more substantial than a newer F2P player can surmount for a long time. Until being evolved, Bat is simply a decent GC pet that will quickly be outclassed by even somewhat weak adventurers. 

Similar Alternatives: Bunny Girl, Elf, Robot

Bunny Girl

• Bunny Girl [16,027/67,500]
  • Pros: High Base growth. Good camp bonuses. Unique crafting ability.
  • Cons: Expensive and difficult evo conditions.

• Evolution: 3375 Iron Bars. Give it 777 Lucky Talismans

Situational Rating (F Tier): Bunny Girl and Bat fill very similar niches. Both offer high base growth (~23k for Bat, 16k for Bunny Girl), native bonuses to growth camps (+66% vs +77%), and evolve into being neutral crafters in the late-game. You don’t need both in the early-game, and you almost certainly don’t need either. 

Yet another neutral alchemist that is difficult for a newer player to evolve. Once evolved, she gains a +20% bonus to crafting speed for Talismans & T3 bars, both of which are resources that become prized in the mid-to-late portions of the game. 

Until she’s evolved, all Bunny Girl offers is a high base growth and a robust bonus to both Item Camps & Growth camps. There are better pets that do this (e.g. Hourglass, Otter, Thunderball); pick one of those instead.

Similar Alternatives: Bat

Caterpillar

• Caterpillar [1,367/5,000]
  • Pros: Easily evolved alchemist. Unique bonus to upgrading materials..
  • Cons: No significant downsides.

• Evolution: Give it 250 Bound Feathers and 250 Special Wood

Situational Rating (D Tier): Of the six alchemists in C-tier, Question is the easiest to evolve. Caterpillar has a slightly higher specialist bonus (+0.51%/CL vs +0.55%/CL) but possesses an additional bonus to material upgrade speed.

Pick one from these two to supplement your early crafters, and return for the other later. The remaining alchemists (Vaccina, Seal, Phoenix, Bunny Girl) should be considered individually. 

Question & Caterpillar were demoted from B-tier due to Baby Carno’s unlock conditions requiring a fire alchemist. Most newer players will use either Bug or Camel as a wildcard alchemist to fulfill this condition, making a token alchemist a lower priority.

Caterpillar competes with Cocoa and Question in this same tier as easily evolved early alchemists. The main reason to choose Caterpillar over those other two is because of its +20% crafting speed when upgrading materials (e.g. Iron Ore -> Iron Bars, Bound Feathers -> Magic Feathers, etc). This makes it the most compelling choice for a newer player of the three, but the upside is relatively small in the early-game. There’s no clear downsides though; picking Caterpillar is a safe choice for a newbie seeking an easily-evolved alchemist.

The secondary evolution (Caterpillar -> Cocoon -> Butterfly) is well beyond what an early-game player can achieve. It does not influence the rating of Caterpillar.

Similar Alternatives: Question, Cocoa

Question

• Question (Answer) [126/999]
  • Pros: Easy to evolve. Early alchemist. Decent campaign bonuses.
  • Cons: No significant downsides.

• 49.95 Iron Ore (consumes 50). 1 Universe.

Situational Rating (D Tier): Of the six alchemists in C-tier, Question is the easiest to evolve. Caterpillar has a slightly higher specialist bonus (+0.51%/CL vs +0.55%/CL) but possesses an additional bonus to material upgrade speed.

Pick one from these two to supplement your early crafters, and return for the other later. The remaining alchemists (Vaccina, Seal, Phoenix, Bunny Girl) should be considered individually. 

Question & Caterpillar were demoted from B-tier due to Baby Carno’s unlock conditions requiring a fire alchemist. Most newer players will use either Bug or Camel as a wildcard alchemist to fulfill this condition, making a token alchemist a lower priority.

Why would you ever want a measly 126 base growth pet with such an odd assortment of +42% campaign bonuses? Excellent Question!

These bonuses help Question be a relevant pet while it is gaining the necessary growth to evolve, though that won’t take too long even for a new player. You can stick it in a food campaign to scrounge a bit more Mighty Food for faster growth, but even free food will get Question to 999+ growth fairly quickly. By the time you can produce a Universe, Question will likely have reached its growth threshold. Question is even easier to evolve than Chocobear; most newbies should be able to evolve it by the end of their DRCs or first UPCs.

Just as materials are scarce in the early-game, so too is the ability to produce Tier 2 Materials and various dungeon items. You’ll always want more Alchemists crafting constantly, even well into the late-game, so gaining another one to supplement your Bee is well worth the token. A second alchemist is also invaluable when attempting to unlock Undine. 

However, because Question is the easiest to evolve, it’s also the weakest specialist alchemist. It’s very likely that you’ll be able to evolve a different, (slightly) stronger alchemist than Question, like Cocoa or Caterpillar. In that case, pick one of those instead.

Similar Alternatives: Cocoa, Caterpillar

Doughnut

• Doughnut (Donut) [510/5,000]
  • Pros: Flexible wildcard. Easy to evolve. Unique passive
  • Cons: No specific class bonus

• Evolution: 250 Special Wood. Give it 100 Mighty Food.

If you’re tokening Doughnut, you need a wildcard for your dungeon team. It’s perfectly adequate in that role. It is worth noting that despite what its description says, evolved Doughnut gathers the additional Mighty Food from all campaigns, not simply Food.

All in all, nothing fancy here; Doughnut is an easily evolved wildcard. It should be noted, however, that you could simply token a pet that has a bonus for the class you want rather than choosing a wildcard to fill a slot. If another pet fills the role better and you are able to evolve it, choose that pet instead. Doughnut is only worth tokening as a wildcard to fill a gap when you can’t get a specialist or better wildcard to fill that role.

It’s worth emphasizing: If you need a specific class and another token pet is better in that role, Doughnut is far lower value. If you can evolve Pignata, Doughnut is far lower value. Even then, it’s only in C-tier because it’s feasible for newer players to easily evolve and benefit from another wildcard. 

Token Improve Available: Doughnut’s Token Improve decreases the BP (and GP?) cost of purchasing Food by 10%.

I would not use a token to improve it unless I somehow needed mighty food more than additional pets, and even then Panda, Witch, or Tödlicher Löffel or would probably bring in more food than token-improving Doughnut while also giving you another pet.

Similar Alternatives: Pignata

D Tier – Situationally Good

(But more useful mid-game pets).

Note: If you’ve somehow acquired all the previous tiers of pets and still have remaining tokens, you’re likely further than this guide is meant to address. These pets will have a more brief description due to their lack of early-game utility. If you’re spending enough money to token all these pets early, you don’t need a guide to tell you which one is best; get them all. 

Santa

• Santa [5,997/20,000]
  • Pros: Source of Chocolate. 
  • Cons: Moderately high growth requirements.

• Evolution: 1000 Fire Stone. Give her 100 Nothing.

Santa allows you to trade the unique resource called “Nothing” for Chocolate. Besides Lucky Draws and Pumpkin, this is the only remaining “consistent” source of Chocolate for your pets. However, the exchange rate isn’t worthwhile (1 Nothing = 1 Chocolate) until you can increase it by evolving her. 20000 Growth and 1000 Fire Stones aren’t easily gathered, nor is 100 Nothings; focus your tokens on better pets.

Once evolved, Santa can become your primary source of chocolate and also serves as an adequate fire supporter until Salamander surpasses her.

Similar Alternatives: Tanuki, Panda, Raven, Rudolph

Rose

• Rose [5,877/25,000]
  • Pros: Earth Alchemist. Decent campaign bonuses.
  • Cons: High growth evolution requirement. Expensive in T2 mats.

• Evolution: 1250 Special Wood. Give it 100 Magic Herbs.

It has some mildly interesting campaign bonuses (+37% Level, +22% Multiplier, +58% GP), but it’s ultimately a mid-game alchemist. Requiring 25000 growth to evolve while only having 5877 means you’ll have it in your GC for at least a few weeks. Additionally, it requires good luck with dungeon drops or an alchemist to produce 100 Magic Herbs which can be expensive and time-consuming. The 1250 Special Wood is also a significant barrier to its utility. You’ll likely be able to make use of Rose once you have a dedicated D2 Forest team.

Once evolved, Rose offers a +20% bonus to enchanting speeds, which becomes quite valuable when preparing equipment for D3 dungeon lineups.

Similar Alternatives: Bottle, Void

Elephant

• Elephant [8,300/30,000]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon passive. One of the strongest defenders.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions.

• Evolution: 1500 Fire Stones. Have its Dungeon Defense >= 300

Elephant offers no campaign bonuses, instead being a pet dedicated entirely to dungeons. A fire Defender, Elephant occupies the same space that Ghost does; it has a unique dungeon passive (reflects damage back on dungeon enemies at 3% max hp per action) that makes it extremely valuable on D2 & D3 teams. Early-game does not involve much D2 or any D3 Dungeons. You’ll be more than capable of making it through dungeons with your current lineups until later when Elephant becomes a powerhouse.

Similar Alternatives: No easily comparable alternatives.

Panda

• Panda [4,050/17,500]
  • Pros: Massive campaign bonus to food
  • Cons: One dimensional until evolution. Moderately high growth requirements.

• Evolution: 875 Special Wood. Give it 1000 Herbs.

Panda does two things: It gathers tons of food in Food camp (+300%!), and then it evolves into a Supporter. If you don’t desperately need food and you can’t easily evolve it, you’re better off using your token on a different pet.

Pegasus

• Pegasus [4,500/20,000]
  • Pros: Strong blacksmith after evolving. 
  • Cons: Moderately high growth requirements. Expensive in T2 mats. Outclassed by Elf.

• Evolution: 1000 Bound Feather. 50000 Pet Stones

If you have the GC to get Pegasus to 20000 growth, it is a fine blacksmith. The other evolution requirements are relatively easy to acquire if you can run D2 dungeons, but then you’d probably be further than the players this guide is intended for. 

The +40% to Level Camps is negligible and rarely offers any significant benefit. 

Similar Alternatives: Elf

Raven

• Raven [5,490/17,500]
  • Pros: Decent item campaign bonus. Strong rogue.
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 875 Bound Feather. Equip it with T3 SSS+20 Bursting Knives. They are not consumed upon evolution.

Its main benefit early is being a rogue, but its evolution requires a T3 SSS+20 Bursting Knives. The amount of time and materials this would consume far exceeds a normal early-game player’s capabilities. If, somehow, a player was willing and able to acquire the materials & growth needed to evolve Raven, it would be an excellent rogue for a Dungeon Team.

Before its evolution, Raven offers a modest +60% to Item Camps. It’s not as significant as other pets and will easily be surpassed by most adventurers, but it’s something!

Similar Alternatives: Rudolph, Cardboard Box

Swan

• Swan [3,821/7,500]
  • Pros: Dedicated Fishing pet. Unique evolution bonus.
  • Cons: Time-consuming evolution requirements. 

• Evolution: 375 Nevermelting Ice. Give it 1 million Fishing Power.

With the recent release of the Fishing mini-game, Water pets have jumped in value. Swan offers itself as your Auto-Fishing specialist with the only (at time of writing) [7Apr23 update: Koi now joins Swan!] evolution bonus that additionally boosts Pet Village features, boasting an additional 0.2%/CL boost to Fishing Speed. 

In order to reach this unique bonus VIA evolution, you’ll have to provide it with 1 million Fishing Power (FP). While I have not run the numbers on it, that sum of FP will take weeks or months to accumulate. Until then, Swan offers no additional boost to Fishing beyond simply being a body to fill the spot. Use your token elsewhere unless you are desperately seeking a Water pet for the role and have no other options. 

Similar Alternatives: Koi

Koi

• Koi [5,143/12,500]
  • Pros: Dedicated Fishing pet. Unique evolution bonus. Decent camp bonuses
  • Cons: Time-consuming evolution requirements. 

• Evolution: 625 Nevermelting Ice. Reach Midlife Pond (Level 15 in Fishing).

Koi joins Swan as another dedicated Fishing pet. While Swan occupies the Fishing role, Koi takes up the mantle of Seller.

Unlike Swan, Koi actually has camp bonuses, and they aren’t too bad! +45% to Growth and Item camps will likely be in your top 10 highest during the early-game, meaning Koi will have a slot in one of those two campaigns until you evolve it. Unfortunately, Koi also requires an additional 5,000 growth to evolve compared to Swan, making it that much harder to reach for a newer player.

Koi doesn’t solve any problems a newer player will face, but it’s a decent enough wildcard that is evolvable at a reasonably early stage of the game. If you’re going to pick up either Swan or Koi, Koi will bring more value to you until they are both evolved, at which point they accomplish roughly the same thing. 

Similar Alternatives: Swan

Decorator Crab

• Decorator Crab [29,997/125,000]
  • Pros: High base growth. Scaling Item Camp bonus after evolve.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions

• Evolution: 1,250 Nevermelting Ice. Give it 2,000 Shiny Stones

The best thing about Decorator Crab for a new player is its massive base growth. It also has a modest bonus (+35%) to Item Camps, which will help it contribute during UPCs. 

Beyond those two aspects, the vast majority of Decorator Crab’s value comes after it is evolved. Suffice it to say that 125,000 growth is effectively impossible for anyone unwilling to invest dozens of pet tokens into growing a single pet. Besides, if you are willing/able to do that, you shouldn’t be reading this guide because you’ll have every pet anyways. 

Similar Alternatives: Unicorn, Earth Eater, Beachball

Ghost

• Ghost [3,750/15,000]
  • Pros: Powerful dungeon ability. 
  • Cons: Evolve includes clearing all D2 dungeons. 

• Evolution: 750 Iron Bar. Defeat D2 boss of each dungeon (doesn’t require Ghost on the team, just that it’s been done).

Ghost does not offer high base growth, good (or even any) campaign bonuses, or any unique ability that helps newer players.

It is undoubtedly very powerful in dungeons, oftentimes helping players push multiple difficulties higher than they otherwise would be able to. However, in D1 dungeons (which is what this guide is aiming towards), Ghost is a largely unnecessary investment. Any smattering of gear and a handful of DL/CL on your 6 dungeon pets is sufficient to clear most D1 dungeons without much issue.

Ghosts is a neutral specialist rogue that screams at dungeon enemies to reduce their attack and defense. It deals no damage, only minimizing your damage taken and maximizing the damage taken by enemies. This ability is very strong but completely overkill for D1 dungeons. Grab it when you’re climbing through D2 difficulties or preparing for D3; ignore it until then.

Similar Alternatives: No easily comparable alternatives.

Tenko

• Tenko  [13,500/60,000]
  • Pros: Unique GP/Growth-granting ability, strong camp bonuses 
  • Cons: Penalty to divcamp reward, difficult evolution conditions 

• Evolution: 3000 Iron Bar. Send her to divinity camps for at least 1000 hours.

Tenko is an interesting pet in a few ways, none of which are particularly useful for newer players. The most beneficial aspects of her kit pre-evo are her relatively high base growth & fairly strong native camp bonuses for Divinity, God Power, and Growth campaigns. 

Once evolved, however, her value spikes immensely. Every 24 hours she spends in Divinity Camps lets her “read your fortune”, giving you 1 of 4 results.

1. Very Good Fortune: Lots of growth & GP. Increase rewards for future fortunes.
2. Good Fortune: Lots of growth.
3. Average Fortune: GP or LD
4. Bad Fortune: Your stats are halved until Rebirth (and 5 pet stones)

Read the wiki page for more specifics. Tenko is a very powerful pet once evolved; newer players cannot reasonably evolve her. Unlock her once you have a 60k+ GC.

Similar Alternatives: (Pre-Evo) Bat, Bunny Girl. (Post-Evo) No easily comparable alternatives

F Tier

(Pets that would be squandered on newer players).

Note: These pets are largely useless to newbies or their strengths aren’t significant enough for newer players to benefit from. They are frequently quite powerful and complex pets (eventually); it’s merely that newer players cannot access those abilities easily. Their descriptions will be briefer and I will not be offering too many similar alternatives for these pets here. 

Cardboard Box

• Cardboard Box [13,000/40,000]
  • Pros: No significant pros for new players
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions.
    
• Evolution: 2000 Bound Feather. Defeat every D3 Boss at least once with it on the team.

This pet is a somewhat more powerful Wind Rogue than Raven, but has steeper evolution conditions. Other Rogues are easier to evolve and provide more for your teams than Cardboard Box can; get those first.

Once evolved, Cardboard Box is arguably worse until it surpasses CL 29 when its unique dungeon ability to multiply loot from events is a net positive.

Unicorn

• Unicorn [14,443/70,000]
  • Pros: Scaling bonuses to valuable campaigns. Unique and powerful passive.
  • Cons: Expensive and difficult evolution conditions.
    
• Evolution: 3500 Iron Bar. Have >= 10000 Challenge Points.

After evolution, Unicorn is amongst the most powerful pets. It boasts a massive potential boost of +100% to Growth, GP, and Divinity campaigns. Additionally, it provides a scaling boost to your effective Crystal Power (CP). However, the CP boost does not come into play until after evolution. Evolution requires 10000 Ch, and its bonus needs 40000 to cap. An extremely powerful pet for a late-game player; effectively useless beyond its modestly high base growth for a newbie.

Portal

• Portal [6,666/50,000]
  • Pros: Powerful and unique passive bonuses. 
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions.
    
• Evolution: 2500 Bound Feather. Give it 500 GP & 1e25 Divinity.

Portal allows the player the ability to customize the ratio of the divinity generator’s levels, but the real incentive to unlock Portal comes from its boost to Divinity purchased with GP. However, this bonus does not activate until after evolution. Like its peers added in this update, Portal requires a massive GC to evolve, rendering it out of reach for newer players.

Earth Eater

• Earth Eater [13,800/82,000]
  • Pros: Highest Adventurer Class bonus of all token pets. Higher bonus to GC than even Tball.
  • Cons: Extremely difficult evolution conditions. Laborious process to activate its bonus.

• Evolution: 4100 Special Wood. Allow it to consume 1.5 million Earthlike Planets.

Earth Eater eats Earthlike planets to gain a stacking bonus to all campaigns. It requires 30 Earthlike Planets for every 1% bonus, and it can consume 1 per second, meaning you’ll need 4860 Earthlike Planets to achieve its maximum bonus. This resets on rebirth. It should perhaps go without saying that this is not an early-game pet with these conditions.

It also has a token improve that makes this scaling bonus permanent. For every 200k Earthlike Planets consumed over EE’s lifetime, +1% camp bonus is given at the start of a RB (up to the cap of +82% after 32.4m earthlikes consumed). That is over a year at minimum; this is not an early-game improve either.

Token Improve Available: Its -82% Camp malus is permanently reduced by 1% for every 200k Earthlike Planets fed to it.

After a mere 375 days (at minimum), you too can feed Earth Eater the 32 million creations needed to cap its bonus!

The unlock isn’t worth it for a newer player; the improve is even less useful.

Firefox

• Firefox (FF) [8,150/25,000]
  • Pros: Powerful Fire blacksmith after evolving.
  • Cons: High growth evolution requirement. Expensive in T2 mats. Also requires T3 mats.

• Evolution: 1250 Fire Stone. Give it 33 Magic Fire Stones.

An excellent mid-game blacksmith that will likely replace Bug or Camel as your Fire crafter. Its evolution requires 25000 Growth and 33 Tier 3 Fire Mats; neither of these are readily attainable early-game.

Bag

• Bag [6,111/50,000]
  • Pros: Solid GC pet. Unique passive for Growth Campaigns. 
  • Cons: Growth bonus scales off weakest pet. Extremely difficult evolution . 

• Evolution: 2500 Iron Bar. All Pets >= 20k Growth.

This is a controversial pet because it “steals” Growth and gives it to your lowest-Growth pet if Bag is a member of the GC. Some people like it because it keeps their weaker pets relatively equal (also known as the “Growth Floor”). Others dislike it because it slows down the overall growth of your GC. Either way, it’s not a useful early-game pet. This is doubly true due to its Growth campaign bonus scaling based off of your weakest pet’s growth. Early on, your pets are likely too weak for Bag to maintain any significant bonus, and each newly unlocked pet will likely again reduce it.

Archer

• Archer [14,700/70,000]
  • Pros: Decent item & divinity campaign bonuses. High base growth. 
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions.

• Evolution: 3500 Iron Bar. Equip him with one T3 SSS+20 (+20E) Hurricane Bow and give it a second. 

While it boasts a relatively high base growth and decent item (+50%) and divinity (+75%) bonuses, Archer is ultimately a dungeon pet that has steep evolution requirements. It’s not worth the token early. 

It is highly useful in the final challenge of PGCs, a mid/late-game challenge set that far exceeds the scope of this guide. Archer also has the unique ability to fire two attacks if equipped with a Bow after evolve. Neither of these aspects are enough to warrant higher placement.

Elf

• Elf [10,500/40,000]
  • Pros: Excellent blacksmith after evolving.
  • Cons: evolution requires 100+ T3 gear; difficult and expensive. 

• Evolution: 2000 Bound Feather. Have at least 100 T3 Equips.

Elf is a specialist blacksmith that scales with the total quantity of T3 and T4 gear a player possesses. Elf, similarly to Firefox, eventually becomes a formidable blacksmith. This guide is not meant to address “eventually”. 

+150% to Food Camps and +75% to Item Camps, alongside its relatively decent 10k growth, make it so that Elf isn’t entirely useless for a newbie who tokens her. She’s simply not very good either. 

Dwarf

• Dwarf [12,500/40,000]
  • Pros: Excellent blacksmith after evolving.
  • Cons: Evolution requires 100+ Level 13 gems; difficult and expensive. 

• Evolution: 2000 Fire Stone. Have at least 100 Level 13 Gems.

Dwarf has good bonuses to Food (+151%) and GP (+75%) camps. It scales based off Level 13 Gems given to it (+0.1% crafting speed & quality per gem) up to a maximum of whatever Elf’s current bonus is.

If Elf isn’t worth getting early, a pet that cannot outscale Elf and that is significantly more difficult to evolve is also not worth getting early.

Beachball

• Beachball [4,701/17,500]
  • Pros: Massive scaling campaign bonus.
  • Cons: Bonus based on pet stones

• Evolution: 875 Nevermelting Ice. Have 1 million Pet Stones available (these are not consumed upon evolution)

Beachball may be a worthwhile pet if the player is willing to invest real money into pet stones that they then do not spend, i.e. a whale willing to invest a lot of money into the game. Otherwise, it is a relatively weak pet with insignificant bonuses.

Bottle

• Bottle [5,000/40,000]
  • Pros: Powerful Fire alchemist after evolve.
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 2000 Fire Stone. Give it 100 Elixirs. 

Bottle is arguably the strongest alchemist, but it’s also the most difficult to evolve. It has a 0.5% * CL chance to not consume any materials when crafting. This gets quite good later on.

Bottle is a mid-game alchemist with steep evolution requirements. 40000 required growth is inarguably beyond the scope of this guide.

Mysterious Egg

• Mysterious Egg (MEgg) [3/100,000]
  • Pros: No significant benefit.
  • Cons: Immensely difficult evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 5000 Fire Stone. Have 2 million total Pet levels.

MEgg is possibly the worst token pet a newbie could unlock. It has a laughably small 3 base growth, no valuable camp bonuses (+100% to Level camp is effectively useless in most cases), and no unique abilities to warrant consideration. It also needs a massive 100k growth to evolve along with a formidable 5000 Fire Stones.

Once evolved, MEgg bolsters your pets ability to level by clone training at a rate of 2% extra exp per CL. This is the deathblow for Level camp’s limited usefulness and the main reason why anyone gets MEgg to begin with. Until you can evolve it, avoid it.

UFO

• UFO [4,499/20,000]
  • Pros: Strong Multiplier campaign bonus.
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 1000 Iron Bar. Total Pet Physical Multiplier >= 1e8%

Modest base growth, expensive material evolution requirement, and a strong (+75%) bonus for a mediocre campaign (Multiplier). Evolution is also difficult as securing the 1e8% Pet Physical Multiplier for evolution is well beyond the scale of early-game.

Succubus

• Succubus [6,329/50,000]
  • Pros: Extremely powerful late-game assassin
  • Cons: Immensely difficult evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 2500 Fire Stone. Give her 5 Inferno Bars.

Succubus has 2 unique abilities. The first is a vampiric attack that leeches health away from dungeon enemies. The second is the ability to be grown above what your Growth Chamber is at, up to twice as high!

However, if you have nothing better to do with your GC than to grow Succubus, you’re not early-game. Her relatively low base growth and lack of camp bonuses consign her here to F-tier until late-game.

Witch

• Witch [19,998/75,000]
  • Pros: Powerful Water Mage
  • Cons: Difficult & expensive evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 3750 Nevermelting Ice. Give her 25 Ocean Stones.

Witch is pretty neat, but she doesn’t solve any problems that face a new player. She reduces the Water element of dungeon enemies and boosts that of her own team (0.5% * CL for each). She also pairs very nicely with Lizard in Food camp before she’s evolved (+666% to Food camps?!).

However, she’s very hard to evolve and only useful in Food camp until then. Choose a different pet.

Stale Tortilla

• Stale Tortilla (Taco) [2,466/30,000]
  • Pros: Unique Alchemist (only dungeon-delver)
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions. 

• Evolution: 1500 Iron Bar. Give it one of each T3 Material (except Magic Ore)

See dungeon guide for a breakdown of what this pet does. Suffice it to say that it’s not an early-game pet.

Void

• Void  [4,011/35,000]
  • Pros: Another Specialist Neutral Alchemist. Bonus to Nothing crafting.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions. Unhelpful for early/mid-game players

• Evolution: 1750 Iron Bar. Give it 333 Nothings

Void gains an additional bonus to crafting Nothing (+2%/CL) after evolution. This is extremely powerful when Mimic farming, which is a task well beyond anyone in the early or mid-game.

Alien

• Alien [6,789/35,000]
  • Pros: Unique bonus that gives more events
  • Cons: No strong incentives for newer players.

• Evolution: 1750 Nevermelting Icer. “Kill” your pets 10000 times.

Alien has no native camp bonus, a low starting growth, and a class/element combo that is represented by two other pets. 

It does, however, have a unique bonus. From the wiki: Multiplies the chance an event happens in dungeons by 100% + (0.5% * class level). Maxed at class level 50 with 25%. This bonus is quite powerful, but newer players can’t easily evolve it nor maximize the CL quickly. 

Flying Eyeball

• Flying Eyeball (Eye/Eyeball) [15,001/35,000]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon effect
  • Cons: No strong incentives for newer players.

• Evolution: 1750 Bound Feathers. Kill 4000 marked enemies

Flying Eyeball has a unique dungeon ability to “mark” enemies for death. All of your other pets will target this marked enemy, dealing increased damage to it (based on Flying Eyeball’s CL) until it is defeated. This ability is quite powerful for D3 dungeons and Infinity Tower, but neither of these are problems newbies need to solve (yet). Eye also gains double Dungeon Level experience when not equipped with an Exp-stealing Sword (Training/Leeching/Ego/Soul).

Unlike Hourglass (and Lucky Coin), you cannot farm credit for its special evolve condition by adding Flying Eyeball to your Challenge Dungeon team. 

Goblin

• Goblin [300/100]
  • Pros: Scaling camp bonuses. Good base camp bonus for divinity camp.
  • Cons: Scaling based on mid/lategame challenges.

• Evolution: 5 Wood. Complete 25 Overflow Challenges

Goblin is deceptive. It is tied with Frog & Mouse for lowest required growth to evolve, but you will not be able to evolve it until you’ve completed 25 OCs. OCs are not unlocked until you defeat your first V4, and V4 fights themselves are not unlocked until you do your first 1KBHC, which itself isn’t unlocked until after your first 1KC and when you have >100K% Build Speed!

It scales massively for players who can do those challenges. New players simply cannot. Don’t get Goblin until you have OCs unlocked.

Tödlicher Löffel

• Tödlicher Löffel (Deadly Spoon, Spoon Mage) [1,998/69,420]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon effect, +420% Food Camp bonus
  • Cons: No strong incentives for newer players.

• Evolution: 3,471 Iron Bars. Give it 666 Shiny Stones and 1 of each T4 material.

It has the ability to shred enemy defenses & elements in dungeons. It additionally counts as all elements except for its own (Neutral). 

In spite of this, the most appealing aspect of Herr Löffel (for newer players, at least) is its enormous +420% bonus to Food camps. This helps it both grow Carno and supply Mighty Food for players who don’t have access to large quantities of BP. 

This pet becomes quite useful in the mid/late-game. This guide is not tailored for mid/late-game.

Mist Sphere

• Mist Sphere (Misty, Jellyfish) [12,210/40,000]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon effect
  • Cons: No camp bonuses. Difficult evolution conditions.

• Evolution: 2,000 Nevermelting Ice. It needs to have at least 500 Water Element

Once evolved into a supporter, Mist Sphere forsakes its ability to attack and the flat HP heal that Supporters normally have (it still retains the %HP heal) for a temporary shield that scales off of its attack and CL. 

This is an extremely powerful ability that is completely useless for a newer player unable to evolve it. Once a player can evolve it, it’s overkill for dungeons until high difficulty D3 and beyond. Pick something else and come back for Misty when you’re reliably farming mimics. 

Sniper

• Sniper [22,500/200,000]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon effect
  • Cons: Mediocre camp bonuses. Very difficult evolution conditions.

• Evolution: 2,000 Magic Feather. Have at least 50% Attack in Dojo.

Sniper has similar evo conditions to Cherub, but it lacks any of her relevant strengths for newer players. The only incentive for a newer player to token Sniper is for their high base growth.

Sniper has one action in dungeons and cannot get any more. It will also always attack last with tripled damage. Pairing Sniper with Flying Eyeball will increase this damage by an additional 25%.

This pet is impossible for newer players to make use of beyond the base growth. Get something more useful.

Shadow Clone

• Shadow Clone [2,941/35,000]
  • Pros: Unique onus to creating clones once evolved
  • Cons: Low base growth. No specialist bonus once evolved. Weak unique ability. No useful camp bonus.

• Evolution: 1750 Fire Stones. Create 1 Billion (1e9) Shadow Clones in your current Rebirth.

Shadow Clone has a unique ability to create more of itself, i.e. more Shadow Clones, once evolved into an adventurer. This ability currently scales based off of DL & CL (0.5*DL*(1+CL*0.01)).

The pet was recently buffed, increasing the power of its ability by about 4x. The growth required to evo it was also reduced down from 50k. These two factors in combination with one another make Shadow Clone substantially better; they don’t do enough to make it strong. 

This pet has a very limited niche that ultimately makes it function as a small QoL buff for players who opt to use its bonus, or (more likely) as a wildcard crafter for lategamers who have no need of the bonus CC.

If this pet is interesting to you, feel free to get it. It has a very unique premise even in spite of its limited utility. Just don’t expect it to meaningfully contribute to your overall progression. 

Mermaid

• Mermaid [33,333/333,333]
  • Pros: Unique dungeon effect
  • Cons: Diminishing camp bonuses. Very difficult evolution conditions.

• Evolution: 3,333 Magic Ice. Give her 1000 Scales (found by fishing with her as one of the three pets)

Mermaid’s only redeeming quality for a newer player is her high base growth. Very few pets start with a higher growth than Mermaid; nearly every pet is more useful for a newer player than Mermaid.

Her unique dungeon abilities are complex and difficult to summarize. She steals the souls of enemies and grants bonuses to her allies based on these interactions. Check the wiki for more specifics. 

The main penalty for picking Mermaid as a newer player is the fact that her campaign bonuses start at -50% and only go down from there (Growth/1000% = Camp Bonus). As you grow stronger, she grows weaker until you can evolve her. 

That’ll take years. Pick a different pet.

Special Tier – Free Pets

(That might be worth tokening).

Pandora’s Box

• Pandora’s Box (Box) [10,666/40,000]
  • Pros: Unique Campaign multiplier. Scaling rewards.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions. Can be unlocked without a token. 

• Evolution: 2000 Iron Bar. Beat Pbaal v66 or higher in a DBC.

This is an exception to point #3 in the “Disclaimers, Framework, & Assumptions” section. You can receive Pandora’s Box for free by climbing to Pbaal v66. However, check out its description.

It increases all campaign rewards for the campaigns it participates in by 3% for every 5000 growth. This caps at 100k growth. Reaching the cap will increase it to 4% every 5k. This increases by 0.1% for every feeding, up to 2% additional (resets to 0% after rebirthing or hunger reaches 0).

What does this mean, exactly? It means that Pandora’s Box acts as a multiplier to campaign rewards for all pets that participate alongside her. This multiplier gets larger as she gains more growth, and larger still as she is fed. Because of this, Pandora’s Box is the only pet that can help grow itself in the GC. This unique ability makes her a highly valuable pet.

In spite of the fact that she can be obtained freely, many people have suggested that she is worth a pet token due to how strong she can be. There are some arguments about exactly where she would belong on a tier list, but she definitely belongs no lower than B-Tier. At a minimum, Pandora’s Box is an extremely powerful pet that only grows more influential the longer you have her, so getting her early (despite her free unlock conditions) may be worth it for you.

I personally did not use a token to unlock her. However, the community frequently recommends it. Her strengths warrant consideration if nothing else. 

Gold Dragon

• Gold Dragon (GD) [3,000/15,000]
  • Pros: Shares growth from feeds with all unlocked pets. Strong alchemist.
  • Cons: Difficult evolution conditions. Can be unlocked without a token. 

• Evolution: 750 Iron Bar. Equip it with Titanium Ring/Armor/Sword (these are not consumed upon evolution)

The main appeal of Gold Dragon is its ability to share 25% of the growth it receives from feeds with all unlocked pets. This is massive, often causing GD to be the pet that contributes the largest total quantity of growth by itself. You absolutely need to prioritize giving Gold Dragon a steady and consistent diet of chocolate to maximize these gains ASAP. 

Beyond that, Gold Dragon evolves into a fairly good neutral alchemist. It has no unique bonuses to help it there, but the growth from feeds is enough to make GD one of the best long-term investments you can get. 

Unlike Pandora’s Box, Gold Dragon is unlocked through a Special task. If you play a different Shugasu game, Idle Cooking Emperor (aka ICE) & reach area 30, Hell, you can receive Gold Dragon for free by connecting your games. 

What is interesting about this is that you can receive a refunded pet token if you token unlocked Gold Dragon before reaching Hell and later reach that area. In other words, you can invest a token into unlocking it early and then receive that token back upon completing that task. 

It is important to note that I personally do not recommend using a token on Gold Dragon without playing ICE. Reaching Hell is easily accomplished within 2 weeks of low-effort gameplay. While ICE is undoubtedly a more shallow experience than ITRTG, it’s hardly as painful as some of the other unlock conditions for certain pets (e.g. Fool). 

With that in mind, the only reason Gold Dragon shares this tier with Pandora’s Box is based on the assumption that the player is not actually spending a token permanently on it.