Best Stats to Level Up First in Palworld (Stat Priority Guide)

Leveling up and upgrading stats in Palworld is almost as important as catching strong Pals. If you just started the game, I recommend going for Stamina first, then Health after. After building enough points in both stats, go for Attack and Weight to improve the effectiveness of your character inside and outside of combat. In this guide, I'll go over every stat, what it adds to your gameplay, and which stat to level up first.

Best stats to Upgrade First in Palworld

I always level up Stamina first because I use it for pretty much every attack, action, and dodge. It gets tedious when you're in the middle of a fight, and your character loses Stamina, and now you have to walk your way out of danger instead of dodging or rolling to avoid hits. You also need it to run, climb, and glide, which helps you move between biomes. Having low Stamina at the start of the game hurts your ability to navigate and explore freely. So, go for Stamina first until you give it around 10 upgrades. That should be enough stat upgrades to help you move around at the start.

After that, go for Health to increase the character's survivability. It's one of the best stats to upgrade early, and the only reason it comes after Stamina is that it serves you in combat and has many items and gear that can improve it. On the other hand, Stamina barely has anything that can increase it, other than upgrading. It's important to increase your Health stats right after Stamina because you'll encounter many strong Pals and boss fights that will give you a hard time. Getting hit is almost guaranteed in those encounters, so it's better to upgrade your HP stats to survive enemies' attacks.

If there's a Tier list for the best stats to upgrade in Palworld, I'd put Stamina and Health first in S-Tier. Attack and Weight come after in the A-Tier, as they offer different but necessary benefits to your character's stats. Attack increases your character's damage during combat, while Weight improves your carrying capacity. If you're a player who goes out and hunts Pals all the time, it's better to go for Attack to give your character an edge during combat. If you like to collect materials and make sure your base is always up and running, go for Weight.

Both Attack and Weight can be upgraded through gameplay instead of leveling up the stats themselves. For example, you can improve your damage by giving your character higher-rarity weapons. The same goes for Weight; I'd like to include Pals with utility passives, like Cattiva to increase carry capacity, and Fuddler to reduce Stone Weight when I'm mining.

Finally, Work Speed is not really that important since we'll have Pals all over our bases and adventure doing the job for us. If not Pals, it's tools that get the job done, regardless of the character's stats. It's better to avoid leveling up Work Speed.

How to Upgrade Defense in Palworld

Upgrading the Defense stats in Palworld is a little tricky, since you can't increase them when you level up. The only way to do so is by using items and gear, or including Pals that have Partner or Passive skills that increase the player's Defense.

For example, accessories like the Defense Pendant increase the character's Defense level by 3, which is enough to increase it by around 200. Armor is the main source of increasing your character's Defense. So, make sure to upgrade it whenever you unlock a new Armor tier.

Finally, several types of food increase Defense for your character and Pals, like the Herb Roasted Lamball dish that increases Defense by 10%. For that dish, you need to hunt Lamball Pals, farm Berries, and use a Cooking Pot.