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Guides/Combat

Palworld Type Chart Explained: One Cycle and One Chain

The nine elements only form two structures, so there is nothing to memorise. Plus how to use them when picking a team for a boss.

Updated 2026-08-10

Palworld has nine elements, which looks like an 81-cell table to learn. It is not. The matchups form two structures: a five-element cycle, and a chain hanging off Fire. Learn those and you can stop opening the chart.

What it is worth numerically

Matchups only change the damage multiplier:

  • Attacking with the element that beats theirs: ×2
  • Attacking with the element theirs beats: ×0.5
  • Everything else: ×1

Right element to wrong element is a factor of four. Against a high-level boss that gap does more for you than a better weapon.

The five-element cycle

These five link head to tail and close:

Water → Fire → Grass → Ground → Electric → Water

Each arrow points at what that element beats. Water beats Fire, Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Ground, Ground beats Electric, Electric beats Water, back to the start. Any link lets you derive the rest.

The chain off Fire

The remaining four hang behind Fire in a one-way line:

Fire → Ice → Dragon → Dark → Neutral

Fire beats Grass and also Ice, the only element that beats two. From there it is Ice over Dragon, Dragon over Dark, Dark over Neutral.

Neutral sits at the end of the chain. It beats nothing and is beaten by Dark, so a Neutral Pal never has a type advantage to lean on — you pick those for their stats and partner skill.

Using it

Against a tower boss or an Alpha, identify their element and walk one step back along whichever structure it sits in. Dragon, for example, means you want Ice.

For a team, any two adjacent elements in the cycle already cover a lot of ground; add an Ice Pal for Dragons and most situations are handled.

One thing that catches people out: a Pal's element and its skills' elements are separate. A Pal does not only learn moves of its own type, and the multiplier keys off the skill's element, so checking the move list beats checking the Pal's type.

The full 9×9 multiplier table is on the type chart, and every Pal's learnable skills are listed in the Paldex. Status effects add a second layer of damage modifiers — see status effects.