I want to look at what combination of Pals have the best combination of skills and are abundant / easy to catch so we can more easily find/breed the best passives, and send the failures into the condenser machine to level their base skills.
Introduction
Versus the other Crafting Pal Tier List thread focused on who has the best skills I am taking a different approach. While pals with great innate skills are great if you just want to catch-and-go and quickly setup a base I found that most of the Pals that start with really good skills (EX Mining 3 to mine Coal) are pretty hard to catch, are in hard-to-reach places, have low spawns, and generally consume a lot of food.
Likewise, most are only found in hard-to-reach places with poor teleporter access like the Sanctuary 1-3 nature reserves. I am specifically excluding any pal found in the nature reserves from my list though I may namedrop options from the low-level Sanctuary 1 near spawn.
As great as Quivern is they are hard to catch and while their food consumption isn’t too bad, their gigantic size sometimes leads to hitbox and pathing issues in tight/indoor bases which is why this list will be exclusively smaller pals over large dragons that could work in an indoor multi-story factory base. If I found good passives and had unlimited build area you could definitely do a workforce of mostly Quivern.
Instead, I want to look at what combination of Pals have the best combination of skills, are abundant, and are easy to catch so we can more easily find/breed the best passives, and send the failures into the condenser machine to level their base skills. They may not start with the skills our final base will need but we can get there eventually after enough condensing.
Pal Skill Overlap Chart
These are all the pals to be included in this guide.
Look out for their skill overlaps to better design your base team.
Best Mining Pals
- #2 Cattiva, Food 2, Mining 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1, Gathering 1
- #17 Depresso, Food 2, Mining 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1 (looks cute in base)
- #43 Dumud, Food 4, Mining 2, Transport 1, Watering 1
Note 1: Is it just me or does Depresso have a high propensity for negative traits? Dumud is the ideal base starter as they start with Mining 2 to mine Iron without condensing and are SUPER abundant on that desert island. A loop around their spawn easily had me catching 10+ of them.
Note 2: Digtoise (Spinning Turtle) would be on this list but he seems to be bugged) he is a great active miner for Ore/Sulfur but damage seems bad in the base compared to Dumud or Penking.
Honorable Mention: #68 Tombat, Food 5, Mining 2, Transport 2, Gathering 2. Didn’t make the list due to 5 food and being harder to find.
Best Kindling Pals
- #40 Incineram, Food 4, Kindling 1, Handcraft 1, Transport 1, Mining 1
- #31B Gobfin Ignis Food 3, Kindling 2, Handcraft 1, Transport 1
- #45B Leezzpunk Ignis, Food 3, Kindling 1, Handcraft 1, Transport 1, Gathering 1
- #77 Flambelle, Food 2, Kindling 1, Handcraft 1, Transport 1, Ranching 1
You will probably always start with Foxsparks but eventually, when you can make it to the volcano island you will have plenty of great options. All are generally found in the same volcano biome but some are available elsewhere, so use whomever you get who has +work passives.
Honorable Mention: #76 Wixen, Food 5, Kindling 2, Handcraft 3, Transport 2. A bit hard to find and uses more food than most. If I found one with good passives I would use em.
Best Watering Pals
- #6 Fuack, Food 2, Watering 1, Handcraft 1, Transporting 1
- #10 Pengullet, Food 2, Watering 1, Handcraft 1, Transporting 1, Ice 1
- #41 Gobfin, Food 3, Watering 2, Handcraft 1, Transport 1
- #43 Dumud, Food 4, Watering 1, Transport 1, Mining 2
My main labor force, when not watering my berries or running the mill these guys do handcrafts and transport stuff in their downtime which is why all the ones I recommend have handcraft and transport. Dumud in particular is great for a lean mining base if you don’t need Handcraft.
Honorable Mention: #11 Penking, Food 8, Watering 2, Handcraft 2, Mining 2, Ice 2, Transport 2. Takes a lot of food, is easier to find than most sanctuary Pals, found easily in Sanctuary 1 the low level pal reserve. Cons: jack of all trades easily distracted.
Best Planting+Gathering Pals
- #4 Lifmunk, Food 1, Planting 1, Gathering 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1, Lumbering 1,
- #28 Flopie, Food 3, Planting 1, Gathering 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1, Medicine 1
- #48 Robinquill, Food 3, Planting 1, Gathering 2, Transport 2, Handcraft 2, Lumbering 1,
- #50 Beegarde, Food 3, Planting 1, Gathering 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1, Lumbering 1, Medicine 1, Ranching 1
More general laborers, when not planting or gathering these pals do handcrafts and transport stuff in their downtime. Robinquill & Beegarde in particular is pretty good if you need just a little bit of wood. Be careful about using Beegarde in bases with a Ranch.
Best Electrical Generator Pals
- #7 Sparklit, Food 2, Electricity 1, Handcraft 1, Transport 1
Pretty niche until factory production, if not using Sparklit for breeding with good passives feel free to use Univolt, Dinossom Lux, Mossanda Lux, or Grizzbot if you visit the first Sanctuary. I just use whomever is available and don’t try optimizing electricity generation.
Honorable Mention: #103 Grizzbolt, Food 7, Electricity 3, Handcraft 2, Lumbering 2, Transport 3. Takes a lot of food but is found on the easy low-level Sanctuary and is relatively common there.
Best Lumberjack Pals
- #4 Lifmunk, Food 1, Planting 1, Gathering 1, Transport 1, Handcraft 1, Lumbering 1,
- #48 Robinquill, Food 3, Planting 1, Gathering 2, Transport 2, Handcraft 2, Lumbering 1,
To be honest I don’t need too much wood and I rarely assign lumber only Pals, I normally just go with Lifmunk, Robinquil, or someone else there for another skill that chops wood on the side.
Where to Find Specific Pals
Use the interactive map from here or your in-game Palpedia to search for spawn locations and startcatching.
Relevant Passive Skills
Positive Skills
- Conceited +10% Work Speed. -10% Defense.
- Work Slave +30% Work Speed. -30% Attack.
- Serious +20% Work Speed.
- Artisan +50% Work Speed.
- Positive Thinker -10% SAN drain.
- Workaholic -15% SAN drain.
- Lucky +15% Work Speed, +15% Attack
Negative Skills
- Clumsy -10% Work Speed.
- Slacker -30% Work Speed.
- Musclehead -50% Work Speed. 30% Attack
- Unstable +10% SAN drain.
- Destructive +15% SAN drain.
Also Consider: Swift and other movement speed related skills for anyone with transporting skills.
You don’t need to breed the perfect worker like you would a combat Pal, but if you got the cake its worth chasing at least some of these skills if you capture Pals of the relevant type with them.
Conclusion
Again, this list was mainly focused on the Pals easiest to catch so you could catch a lot to find/breed the best passives for a well-rounded factory workforce that does not use too much food. I was looking for well rounded pals that were easy to catch and breed so you can get the ideal high work stat workforce. I value work start over skill proficiency as proficiency can be raised via Condenser
I am generally against the gigantic end-game dragons with super high-level skills due to pathing issues and problems working in a multi-story compact indoor base. Also, I hate visiting Sanctuary 2 & 3 more than I need to due to lack of teleporter and only 20% bonus move speed on my flying mount, haven’t found any Swifty fliers yet.
