Palworld type chart strengths and weaknesses explained

How does the Palworld type chart work? As a mixture of open world, survival, crafting, farming, and pocket monster RPG games, Palworld is attempting to stand out from these popular genres by using your pets to help you out, either as allies in battle with guns, to help you build your base, or even become part of the food chain.

To get started in Palworld, you’ll need to choose your first friend, so our best Palworld starter guide can help you narrow down the choices. We also speculate on how Palworld breeding works so you can raise the next generation of super-powerful friends to aid you in battle. So now that the Palworld release date is here, here’s everything we know about the Palworld type chart.

Palworld type chart

Currently, there are nine Palworld types, known as elements in-game. A Pal can have up to two elements, and you can read up on all of the known ones in our Palworld Paldeck guide. Note, however, that there are also variations of these Pals that can be created through Palworld breeding and can have different elements.

Elements are far simpler than the Pokémon type chart, with Pals only weak to one element. Fire types are the only Pals that are strong against two elements: Ice and Grass, and this is where the branching path in the elements starts. Neutral is the only element that has no elements it’s strong against.

Here is the full Palworld type chart:

Palworld UI

To better understand how Palworld fighting and combat work, we need to look at official screenshots showing the user interface, as they give us important context clues.

Your avatar has a health bar in the bottom right corner. Below that is a hunger meter, indicating that food is vital for keeping your stamina up, and to the right is a temperature gauge, showing if the area you’re in is too hot, too cold, or just about right. There’s also a time of day indicator and a button to open the build menu.

Above that are three slots; each one can contain a Pal. You can only take five Pals with you on your adventures at once, but you can use all of them at once if needed, such as to help take down a boss enemy.

To the right of the screen, there’s a  menu where you can quickly select items to use, such as a Pal Sphere for catching new Pals. There’s a single slot for your gun, displaying ammo in the chamber and how many rounds for that gun are left in your inventory. You also have command of your Pals via Pal instruction.

Your Pal’s health bar, level, types, and “SAN” meter are all shown near the Pal itself. While most of these are self-explanatory, there’s no indication of what “SAN” is. Our best guess is that it’s some kind of stress meter, where if it reaches zero, they begin to panic and flee from combat.

How to catch Pals in Palworld

As you shoot Pals with guns or they take damage from your allies, the base chance to capture a Pal in a Pal Sphere increases. After throwing the ball-like device at the enemy, it’ll begin shaking. Each shake adds to the overall capture chance, meaning that after each shake, the game checks to see how likely the beast is to escape. Once it reaches 100% capture chance, the creature is yours.

Palworld guns

Of course, if your Pal has some glaring weaknesses, we’ve also seen plenty of them packing heat. Some Pals need you to equip them with weapons, while others require items to use their pre-baked signature weapons as Partner Skills. There’s also the potential for element types and perhaps even weapon weights to consider. While we’re all familiar with the spectacle of Grizzbolt stomping into the fray and winding up its minigun, it may be that a Pal has limitations on the types of weapons they can use.

You can also use guns to open fire upon an unsuspecting Pal, alongside your own companions to riddle them with rounds. There’s no indication that you will have loadouts, so you might have to equip guns inside a menu manually. It is known that certain Pals have weapons of choice and will perform better when equipped with those weapons.

Raising Pals

Once you catch them, you’ll need to raise their level. If your Pal defeats an enemy, they’ll earn experience, allowing them to level up. Pals, such as Anubis at level 6, will learn new moves. They can gain up to three active and at least one passive skill. They also have partner skills that are unique to each creature.

You can also teach your Pals new moves with Skill Fruits found on trees around the world. They’re essentially the same as TMs in Pokémon games but found as fruit rather than as items for defeating gym leaders/constructing out of materials.

Finally, you can refine spare Pals into a machine to buff the main creature of that species that you’re raising. This can help you increase your Pal’s base stats.

Palworld mounts

Some of the many Pals you can befriend will allow you to ride them. This is vital for getting around at speed, such as galloping across the land, riding the waves in rivers or the sea, or soaring into the sky. While you’re riding a land-based creature, you can still do base-building activities, but we’ve not seen any actions in battle outside of using that Pal’s unique abilities.

Palworld faction leaders

The last thing to note before release is the faction leaders. The TGS 2023 trailer showed off a few of their designs while showing brief footage of one unleashing a Pal into battle. This scene is reminiscent of when gym leaders in Pokémon bring out their first creature to start a battle. There may be a restriction on how these fights work, such as being Pal-only bouts.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Palworld fighting mechanics, but rest assured, we’ll get to the bottom of them when the early access build is released. Until then, we have a Palworld system requirements guide so you can prep your PC before installing the game, details on whether Palworld is on Game Pass, and a list of the best PC games like Pokémon if this one is too weird.