Guide to evolving a pet

Animal companions have the ability to "evolve" as they gain levels. This evolution modifies some of the pet's statistics, namely, their maximum health and their damage. Most players prefer a "fully-evolved" pet, i.e. either a "hearty" or "dire" animal, in order to receive the largest health or damage bonus.

Death-leveling at the Menagerie
The easiest and quickest way to obtain a fully evolved level 20 pet is through death leveling at the Zaishen Menagerie Grounds. The method described below can accomplish this in 15–20 minutes and will result in a hearty pet, which will unlock all evolutions at the Menagerie.

The quickest method requires two heroes, a mesmer and a necromancer. The following builds should be used:

Your build
Your primary profession doesn't matter, as long as you have both ranger and necromancer. If you don't have a suitable character that of either profession that knows Blood is Power, you can replace it with other sacrifice skills.

Equipment:
 * 5 superior runes to bring your health down to 105.
 * Optional: The -50 HP Grim Cesta to bring your health down to 55. Not absolutely necessary, but it makes the process quicker.
 * Any vampiric one-handed weapon (sword, axe, spear).
 * Optional: Any +Health weapon to help keep you alive after you've accrued some death penalty.

Mesmer hero
Equipment doesn't really matter, but Radiant insignia, Runes of Attunement, and weapons with +Energy are recommended.

Necromancer hero
Disable Succor and Mending so that he will maintain them. Have him cast Succor on the mesmer hero and Mending on himself.

Again, equipment doesn't really matter, but a weapon of Enchanting is recommended.

Walkthrough
Make sure both heores are set to "Avoid Combat" to prevent them from killing the animal you are trying to death-level.

Travel to the Zaishen Menagerie Grounds and find the animal you want to death level. Aggro the animal either by attacking or by activating Charm Animal and then canceling it. Any animals of the same species will also aggro when you do this; you should kill off all but one of the animals, otherwise they will share the experience from your deaths, reducing the rate at which they gain levels. The animal will not attack, but will continue wandering around randomly, meaning it may wander out of your aggro bubble and thus out of range to gain experience from your deaths. Unless you are watching the process and can move your character to follow the animal, this can lengthen the time required substantially, depending on how far the animal wanders.

Switch to the vampiric weapon, then kill yourself by casting Blood is Power on either hero. If you had 55 health, the -15% Death Penalty will reduce your maximum health to 1. If you did not have 55 health, let yourself be resurrected by RChant or Vengeance by immediately switching off of the vampiric weapon, wait a few seconds for the non-Death Penalty delay to expire, then kill yourself again; repeat until you have a maximum health of 1.

Your mesmer's Restore Life and Resurrect skills will now bring you to life with less than 50% health, i.e. 0, meaning you die instantly. Resurrection Chant and Vengeance will leave you at 1 health, but the vampiric weapon will drain that in less than a second. On average, you will die 20 times per minute. With 338 deaths required to level a pet from 5 to 20, it will take a little over 15 minutes to obtain a hearty level 20 pet.

When the animal has reached level 20, have the mesmer hero use Resurrection Chant, then immediately switch off of the vampiric weapon. Charm the animal, then return to Emryd the Tamer to register it. Wynn will now be able to summon all possible level/evolution combinations for that animal.

Other evolution methods
While the method described above is the simplest, some players may wish to evolve their pets in other ways.

Death-leveling in the wild
Animals encountered in the wild can also be death-leveled using the method above. In fact, this may be easier for certain animals, as all wild animals will attack when aggroed, eliminating the need to follow the animal's wanderings during the death-leveling.

Many animals can be death-leveled without the need for special builds on yourself or your heroes. If the animal can be found close enough to a resurrection shrine, simply pull the animal to the shrine, let the animal kill you, and let the shrine resurrect you instead of a hero. It is still recommended to use superior runes to lower your health, and a vampiric weapon or sacrifice skills to kill yourself, until you have enough death penalty that the animal can kill you in a single attack; low-level armor will also help with this. You should bring at least one hero or henchman to keep the animal occupied while you are dead, otherwise it may wander away before you get resurrected.

In both of these cases, because the animal is dealing damage, it will evolve as dire instead of hearty, but this will still unlock all evolutions at the Menagerie.

No gimmicks
Pets that are tamed without being death-leveled will still evolve, but the exact evolution gained is harder to control. To progress along the playful/hearty evolutionary path, a pet must receive more damage than it deals, while dealing more damage than it receives will move it along the aggressive/dire path.

Obtaining a hearty pet is relatively easy &mdash; don't bring any skills to enhance your pet's damage or to reduce the damage it receives.

Obtaining a dire pet is more difficult, but not by much &mdash; bring skills that will enhance your pet's damage and reduce the damage it receives. Pet attack skills that deal high bonus damage are recommended. Other suggested ranger skills are:

Pet damage Pet protection

This method is best carried out solo, and against enemies that primarily deal direct damage. Suitable enemies include the Minotaurs in the Elona Reach mission, the insects outside Yohlon Haven, and the Snow Wurms outside Boreal Station. Many more locations/enemies can be used, though, so feel free to experiment and find the ones that work best for you.