The best Pals to keep at your base in Palworld

By James On Feb 1, 2024

Friends make the world go round Palworld, and you want a good team of them to keep things running at your base. Each friend has different ‘work suitability’ skills, meaning some can mine rocks, while others can water crops. You want a diverse group of friends to keep things going, but you don’t want that at different. To help you out, we’ve put together a list of the best friends for your base.

You’ll quickly find that if you have a friend who does a lot of different things, like Penking, who has a lot of basic skills, he gets distracted and doesn’t actually do the task you want. want to to do them. While you may want Penking to go mine, he can run off to water the crops. It’s best to have friends in your base who only do one or two things.

Below we list some friends who are good in the early game, mid-game, and late game for the tasks you need most. We also mention where to find them or what you need to breed to get them, if they are difficult to find. Most Pals have multiple locations to find them and dozens of breeding combinations, but we’ve tried to list the easiest locations and combos. (We have a guide to the fastest flying horse, if you’re looking for that sort of thing.)

Best friends for crafts

You need Friends with Crafts to craft items and create new structures. Some late game items and structures have a long time to craft and if you don’t want to stand around for three minutes holding down a single button then you’re going to need some guys to help you craft.

Best early friend for crafting: Sparkit

Image: Julia Lee/Polygon | Image source: Pocketpair

Skill Levels: Handicraft 1, Generating electricity 1, Transport 1

Of course, Cattiva and Lamball also have level one crafting, but they get caught up in other things (mining and ranching), so it’s best to just have a Sparkit around. It will help you craft and build, and transport your stuff to your chest when you’re not actively working on something.

You might be worried about the ‘Generate Electricity’ skill, but in the beginning you won’t have anything that needs electricity anyway, so it won’t be distracted.

Best mid- and end-game friend for crafting: Anubis

A Palworld map showing where to find Anubis.

Breeding combinations: Celaray/Relaxaurus, Penking/Bushi
Skill Levels: Craft 4, Mining 3, Transport 2

Although Anubis is an endgame boss, you can breed him very easily using a bunch of different combinations. Create one as soon as possible so you don’t have to worry about upgrading your Handiwork team later.

That being said, Anubis has the highest crafting stat in the game at level four. It can do a lot of things, but it does them all quite well, making Anubis one of the few multi-purpose Pals we actually recommend.

Best friends for kindling

Friends with Kindling help you smell blocks and cook food. They also power any heaters you have. Later in the game you will need higher melt rates because you need tons of blocks and you want a steady supply of them coming in.

Best early friend for Kindling: Foxsparks

A Palworld map showing where to find Foxsparks.

This thing is easy to find and it will light all your fires. That’s about it.

Best mid-game friend for Kindling: Kitsun

A Palworld map showing where Kitsun can be found.

Breeding combinations: Penking/Rushoar, Rooby/Grintale, Gumoss/Nitewing
Skill Levels: Kindling wood 2

Once you have access to the snowy area around Lily and Lyleen, pick one out at night and add it to your base. It has level two kindling, so it cooks and smells faster than Foxsparks.

Best endgame friend for Kindling: Jormuntide Ignis

A Palworld map showing where Jormuntide Ignis can be found.

Jormuntide Ignis is definitely the best Kindling Pal in the game, with a base Kindling level of four. It smells all your stuff very quickly, but with one compromise: it’s huge. Jormuntide Ignis does gigantic so if you have a mainly indoor base it will be buggy. We kept all our melting tools outside so they wouldn’t have a problem, but I did have to watch him try to get into position to melt four times.

Unfortunately, the only way to breed a Jormuntide Ignis is to breed two… other Jormuntide Ignis. However, the species is very commonly found in Wildlife Preserve #2, as shown above.

Best friends for mining

Mining friends will help you mine stone, ore, sulphur, coal and quartz. These Pals are especially important, as these resources will be your main ingredient for advanced Pal orbs and ammo.

Best early friend to mining: Rushoar

A Palworld map showing where Rushoar can be found.

This guy hits rocks! That’s really all there is to it! Note that Rushoar is extremely early in the game. The low level of mining means that it cannot even mine ore.

Best mid-game friend for mining: Digtoise

A Palworld map showing where to find Digtoise.

Breeding combinations: Penking/Woolipop, Gumoss/Kingpaca, Rushoar/Surfent
Skill Levels: Mining 3

A bunch of Digtoise goes a long way. There’s a reason why every YouTuber, TikToker, and guide maker recommends setting up an ore farm with these things. You’ll encounter them quite early, so you can grab some. All they know is mine! They’re going to mine all that ore for you.

Best endgame friend for mining: Blazamut

A Palworld map showing where to find Blazamut.

Breeding combinations: Blazamut/Suzuku Aqua
Skill Levels: Kindling 3, Mining 4

Unfortunately, there are no easy ways to get Blazamut eggs, but you’re guaranteed to catch an Alpha Blazamut at the location above. (Note that it is located in a mineshaft, the entrance to which you can find at the location we marked with the star.) You can also rarely find them in Wildlife Preserve #3, which is above the great desert to the northeast . Once you have one Blazamut, you can cross it with a Suzaku Aqua to get more.

Our endgame mining setups are a few in a good mining camp (be it ore or coal, which is what you need most of in the endgame), with an appropriate number of beds, a manger, and a bath. They destroy every stone in sight and when they’re done I just put them back in the Palbox and take them out as soon as the stones respawn and I need more resources. These things are so efficient, it’s scary.

Best friends for watering

While you don’t need an expert Pal to water your crops, you do need one to grind rock into Paldium fragments. These Pals also grind any wheat you have into flour, which is also always useful to have when cooking.

Best early friend for watering: Teafant

A Palworld map showing where to find Teafant.

This thing waters your crops and everything without any other distractions. Hurrah!

Best mid-game friend for watering: Azurobe

A Palworld map showing where to find Azurobe.

Breeding combinations: Incineram/Sweepa, Elizabee/Univolt
Skill Levels: Watering 3

So you can grow Azurobe, but you just have to catch the Alpha Azurobe — it’s only level 17. You can also choose to grab more Azurobes from the Wildlife Preserve #1 to the south, if you don’t like having a huge To have Pal-junk on your base.

Either way, this is a great, non-obstructive friend (see below) that waters and only waters. Whether you’re making Paldium with a crusher or watering your crops, you’ll get everything done quickly.

Best endgame friend for watering: Jormuntide

A Palworld map showing where Jormuntide can be found.

Breeding combinations: Sweepa/Beakon, Elizabee/Relaxaurus
Skill Levels: Watering 4

Like Jormuntide Ignis, regular Water-type Jormuntide is absolutely the best Watering Pal in the game, with a base Watering skill of four. And just as it is fire-like brethren, it is gigantic. If you catch either of the two Alpha Jormuntides and put them to work, they are tied taller, so we don’t recommend that if you want a base that won’t fall out. Grab the Alpha Jormuntides and breed them to create a normal sized specimen or cross an Elizabee with a Relaxaurus to get one.

(Personally, since I use Jormuntide Ignis to smell things, I decided to use Azurobe to keep my crushers and mills running since it’s not huge. I think the huge Pals are quite an eyesore, but It’s ultimately a personal preference.)

For more Palworld guides, we are here for you. If you’re just starting out, we have a beginner’s guide, a list of all Pals, and a typing chart. We also have an explanation of breeding, eggs and an overview of how multiplayer works.

Hunting for resources? Check out our guides on how to get Ore, Coal, Polymer, Leather, Sulfur, Wheat Seeds, Pure Quartz, Ancient Technology Points, and Ancient Civilization Parts. For advanced players, you can check out our lists of all tower boss locations, all passive skills, all flying mounts, and the best base locations.