A pet you capture in Aion 2 is not a finished product. It is a raw stat block with a personality attached, and the gap between those two things is closed by aion 2 pet training: leveling, feeding, loyalty management, and role tuning. Players who treat their pet as a permanent companion rather than a disposable stat stick get noticeably stronger returns from the same spawn effort, because the loyalty system quietly multiplies everything else you do. This guide walks through the full loop — how growth works, what feeding actually does, how experience flows to pets, how to build a tank, DPS, or support pet, and where beginners waste their kinah.
Pet Training and Growth in Aion 2
Pet growth in Aion 2 is a layered system with three independent tracks. The first is the pet’s level, which gates its base stats and unlocks skill tiers. The second is loyalty, a hidden bond value that rises through feeding and decays through neglect. The third is skill proficiency, driven by which abilities you actually use in combat. You advance all three at once, but they do not share a single progress bar, so it is entirely possible to have a level-60 pet with zero loyalty behaving like a level-20 pet.
The practical takeaway is that pet training is not a grind you finish. It is a maintenance routine you run. A pet kept fed and deployed stays strong indefinitely; a pet abandoned at level 15 in a starter field will still be a level-15 pet no matter how many weeks pass.
If you have not yet built out a roster, start with our Aion 2 pets guide — it covers which species are worth capturing and which stat lines to look for before you invest feeding resources.
Feeding Pets and the Loyalty System
Loyalty is the signature mechanic of Aion pet progression. Every pet has a loyalty value that rises when you feed it and slowly falls when you do not. At higher loyalty tiers, pets gain meaningful bonuses to their core stats and their behavior in combat changes — loyal pets hold aggro longer, react faster, and use their abilities more decisively.
Food items come in tiers, and the tier matters more than the quantity. Feeding a pet cheap starter food repeatedly produces a fraction of the loyalty a single premium item would, and many players never notice because the loyalty bar still moves. Watch the actual bar, not the item count.
| Loyalty Tier | Feeding Input | Effect on Pet | Strategic Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distrustful | Neglected or rarely fed | Reduced base stats, inconsistent skill usage | Pet is effectively dead weight |
| Neutral | Occasional cheap food | Baseline stats, no bonus multipliers | Usable for leveling, nothing more |
| Familiar | Steady low-tier feeding | Small stat bonus, steadier ability rotation | Fine for leveling pets and alts |
| Loyal | Regular mid-tier feeding | Solid stat bonus, better aggro retention | Good default for solo play |
| Devoted | Consistent premium feeding | Strong stat bonuses, improved skill timing | Required for endgame roles |
| Undying | Premium feeding plus long-term consistency | Maximum stat and behavior bonuses | The only tier worth building around |
The decay rate is gentle but unforgiving. If you stop feeding for a few weeks, loyalty slides down a tier or more, and climbing back is far slower than the initial climb. Consistency beats intensity — a pet fed regularly on mid-tier food beats a pet crammed with premium food once and ignored for a month.
Pet Experience and Leveling
Pets gain experience by dealing and receiving damage in combat, which means the fastest leveling method is simply playing the content your character wants to play with the pet out. There is no separate pet training dungeon and no dedicated experience item you should be buying by the stack.
The key rule to understand is experience sharing. Your pet does not receive full experience simply because it is nearby — it earns experience from actions it participates in. A pet that sits at your side while you solo a mob takes a reduced share; a pet that is actively engaging, absorbing hits, or landing its own attacks earns a meaningful portion of the total. This is why pet performance in a fight directly determines pet growth speed.
Practical leveling rules:
- Fight with the pet out, even on low-risk content. A dormant pet gains almost nothing.
- Prioritize pets you enjoy using — role-specific pets level faster when their kit matches the content.
- Rotate pets during XP-heavy events so no single pet falls far behind your character’s level gap.
- Watch the pet level indicator, not a guess. A pet twelve levels behind you is already losing meaningful experience efficiency.
Training Your Pet for Specific Roles
Role training is where loyalty pays off most visibly. Tank, DPS, and support pets each need a different combination of feeding discipline, skill investment, and deployment.
Tank pets need loyalty more than anyone. Their job is to hold aggro through threatening hits, which requires the pet to reliably maintain threat and survive incoming damage. A tank pet with neglected loyalty loses the aggro bonus that makes tanking viable in the first place. Feed tank pets on a strict premium schedule and never rotate them out of a role they were trained for — retraining a pet is far more expensive than keeping it where it belongs.
DPS pets scale on attack power and skill uptime. They level fastest in high-mobility content and benefit from feeding at a steady mid-to-premium cadence. Because their contribution is damage over time, a DPS pet with mediocre loyalty still performs acceptably — which is exactly why DPS pets are the ones beginners let slide. Push them to Devoted anyway if they will ever run endgame dungeons.
Support pets sit in the middle: they need enough loyalty to keep their buffs and heals cycling, but their stat requirements are lower. They are the best candidates for automated or background feeding routines because their value degrades gracefully.
Once you know which abilities matter, read our Aion 2 pet skills guide for the full breakdown of which skills to prioritize at each tier.
Feeding Routines That Are Worth the Cost
Feeding is where most players bleed kinah for very little return. The efficient approach is not about spending more — it is about spending the right amount, at the right time, on the right pets.
The efficient routine:
- Feed your primary combat pets first, every day, at consistent quality.
- Keep a small rotation of leveling pets on cheap food — they will be replaced before loyalty matters.
- Buy premium food in bulk during market dips rather than one piece at a time at full price.
The wasteful routine:
- Feeding four low-tier food items when one mid-tier item would have moved the bar further.
- Pouring premium food into a leveling pet you will abandon next zone.
- Feeding a pet you never deploy — loyalty on an unused pet is pure waste.
- Ignoring loyalty until a pet is several tiers down, then trying to rebuild from scratch.
The single highest-value habit is feeding one or two pets consistently rather than rotating food across a dozen pets inconsistently. Loyalty is a per-pet relationship, and spreading resources thin is the most common way players convince themselves they are training pets when they are actually just feeding them.
Pet Training Mistakes
Neglecting loyalty entirely. This is the defining mistake. Players assume a pet’s power comes purely from level and gear — it does not. An un-fed level-60 pet underperforms a well-fed level-45 pet in most fights.
Overfeeding throwaway pets. Premium food on a pet you are three zones away from replacing is kinah you set on fire. Match your feeding investment to your pet’s actual lifespan.
Ignoring experience mechanics. Deploying a pet into fights where it cannot act — or summoning it only for the visuals — stalls its growth. Your pet is a combat unit, so treat it like one.
Splitting attention too thin. Ten pets at Loyalty 1 is worse than two pets at Devoted. Depth beats breadth for companion training.
Forgetting the pet exists. Set a reminder. The decay is slow enough that you will not notice for weeks, then one day the pet is two tiers down and you are rebuilding from zero.
For broader companion strategy — mounts, hybrids, and how pets fit into your overall progression — our Aion 2 companion guide covers what to keep long-term.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you train pets in Aion 2?
You train a pet by leveling it in combat, feeding it to raise loyalty, and investing in the skills that match its intended role. There is no separate training menu or trainer NPC — training happens through normal play plus a daily feeding habit. Feed consistently, fight with the pet out, and spend skill points on one role rather than spreading them thin.
How do pets gain XP in Aion 2?
Pets gain experience from combat they participate in, based on damage they deal and take. A pet that is actively fighting alongside you earns a meaningful share of the encounter’s experience; a pet that is merely summoned or idle earns very little. Rotate pets during XP-heavy content and keep them within a reasonable level gap of your character for the best returns.
Do pets need food in Aion 2?
Yes. Food is what raises a pet’s loyalty, and loyalty is what unlocks the stat bonuses that make a pet worth keeping. A pet that is never fed will steadily lose loyalty, drop into lower tiers, and lose both its stat bonuses and its improved combat behavior. You do not need premium food on every pet, but every pet you intend to keep should be fed on some schedule.
How do you level a pet in Aion 2?
Level it by fighting with it out in the content you are already running. Keep the pet’s level reasonably close to yours, prioritize experience-heavy activities, and remember that a pet with high loyalty and good skills contributes more damage and therefore earns experience faster. The fastest route is a well-kept pet in content that matches the role you trained it for.
Conclusion
The difference between a strong Aion 2 pet and a wasted slot comes down to three things: consistent feeding, active deployment, and role-focused skill investment. Loyalty is the multiplier that rewards all three, and it decays quietly enough that players routinely underestimate it until the pet is already underperforming. Build your training habits around two or three pets you actually care about rather than a dozen you barely know, and the return on every capture you make improves. For more Aion 2 guides, bookmark Aion Kinah Hub.
