This guide covers the fastest ways to level both your player and your Pals in Palworld, split by progression stage. Early-game runs on Pal capture spam, mid-game leans on dungeons and Alpha Pal hunts, and late-game revolves around Tower Boss farming with a stacked XP buff loop.
Every method below assumes standard 1x XP world settings. If you are playing on a reduced-XP server, the same methods work; they just take a few extra runs.
Quick Reference
Best XP method by stage: Early game (1-20) = spam Pal captures for the 5-of-each species bonus. Mid game (20-40) = dungeons + Alpha Pals. Late game (40-70) = Moon Flower Tower AoE farm. Endgame (70-80) = repeat the final World Tree Tower Boss with a full XP buff stack.
The Universal XP Buff Stack
Before diving into any specific farm, you want the same core buff stack active. These four sources multiply everything you gain from combat, capture, and boss kills, and none of them cost momentum once you have them set up.
Omascul is the anchor of the stack. Its Masquerade Dance partner skill starts at 40% party Pal XP and scales up to 80% at four stars. The skill does not stack with a second Omascul in the party, but it does stack cleanly with the Growth Acceleration Bell and any XP food.
The Growth Acceleration Bell recipe is inside a hack tower on the western side of Mount Flopie Summit, around coordinates -26, -92. It sits in the accessory slot and grants Pal EXP Up Level 3.
Relaxaurus Effigies are player-side and boost your character XP by 50% once collected. Combine them with Yakumo Effigies for Rainbow Fortune bonuses (higher passive skill rolls on wild Pals), since both are scattered around the map.
If your feed bag contains a different buff food, it will override the Seafood Salad XP buff on your Pals mid-fight. Keep the feed bag empty or only stocked with Seafood Salad while farming.
Early Game Leveling (Level 1-20)
Early game is all about volume. You do not have access to Omascul yet, the bell is out of reach, and Alpha Pals will one-shot you. The single most efficient XP source in this range is Pal captures, especially the 5-of-each species bonus.
Fund the Sphere Spam
Slide down the starting hill and grab the first fast travel point plus the chest across from it. Head to the Worried Farmer NPC who gives a delivery quest to a nearby settlement. Take the beach route to loot multiple chests on the way, hand in the quest, and use the gold to buy a stack of basic Pal Spheres from the settlement vendor.
By level 3, craft a Primitive Workbench, Stone Axe, Stone Pickaxe, Old Bow, and 100+ arrows. Arrows are cheap at 2 wood and 2 stone per 10, and toggling the crafting setting from Hold to Tap in options makes bulk production painless.
The 5-of-Each Species Bonus
Palworld 1.0 dropped the species capture bonus requirement from 12 to 5. On the fifth capture of any given species, you get a large XP burst plus a Pal Effigy. Every species has its own separate counter, so rotating through Lamball, Cattiva, Chikipi, and Foxparks is far faster than farming a single species repeatedly.
When you aim a Pal Sphere at a wild Pal, the HUD shows how many captures remain toward the bonus. Prioritize weakening low-HP targets and lobbing spheres over kills. A KO on a level 12 Katress is worth around 850 XP, but capturing it plus finishing the species bonus can be worth several times that.
Sea Breeze Archipelago Push
Around level 9, catch a Direhowl, craft the Direhowl Saddle, and ride to the Sea Breeze Archipelago. Higher-level Pals here give noticeably more XP per catch (a level 10 Kelpsea catch is worth around 389 XP, a level 13 Kelpsea around 440 XP).
From the Archipelago, work down the coast to Small Cove, use the jump pad over the wall, and unlock the Fisherman’s Point fast travel. The vendor here sells the Makeshift Handgun, which drastically increases how quickly you can weaken pals for spheres.
Direhowl also has a Skill Fruit tree in the Archipelago. Swap out Bog Blast, which has an awkward arc, for a quick-cooldown basic shot ability so you can chip Pals down without over-killing them.
Once you can afford 30 Ingots, the Ring of Mercy prevents you from ever KO-ing a wild Pal. Wearing it means every shot from your handgun or mounted attack ends at 1 HP, guaranteeing captures. It applies while mounted, so a Direhowl with the Ring becomes an instant-capture machine.
Mid Game Leveling (Level 20-40)
Mid game is where dungeons and Alpha Pals become your main XP engine. Each dungeon combines three separate XP sources into a single run: mob clears, species bonus progress, and a guaranteed Alpha Pal boss at the end.
Dungeon Runs
Do not rush the boss. Clear every room, capture unfamiliar species toward the 5-of-each bonus, and only trigger the Alpha fight once the map is picked clean. If you finish a dungeon and want another run, leave the entrance and return to reroll the interior Pal spawns.
Dungeon chests also drop Ancient Technology Manuals and Remedies, which speeds up your gear progression alongside the XP. Small Lotuses can sell for 2,000 gold each, so a Pal with the Noble Fine Furs passive multiplies your gold return.
Once you out-level a dungeon by more than a few levels, move on. Palworld applies diminishing XP returns when you keep spamming lower-level content past your level.
Alpha Pal Sweep
Alpha Pals are the biggest single XP payouts in this range. Capturing an Alpha grants roughly double the XP of killing it, so bring Hyper Spheres or Giga Spheres and prioritize captures over kills.
Each Alpha respawns on a 1-hour timer, which makes a full-map sweep the ideal loop. Between waves, cycle back to species you have not finished capturing 5 of, and stack Pal Fluid drops from water-type Pals. Pal Fluid is required for Cement past level 30, and Cement gates Hyper Sphere production.
First-Clear Tower Bosses
Every Tower Boss grants a massive one-time XP reward on first defeat. These fights are progression milestones, not repeatable farms yet, but the initial clear is worth a level or two on its own.
Bring updated equipment, ammunition, healing supplies, and a party that exploits the boss’s elemental weakness. If the fight feels too tight, back off, gain 3-5 levels via dungeons, and come back. Overleveling a Tower Boss by a bit is far more efficient than banging your head against an equal-level one.
Late Game Leveling (Level 40-70)
Late game is where the Moon Flower Tower mob farm on Sakurajima becomes the best XP-per-hour in the game outside the World Tree. The full XP buff stack is finally online, and a single high-level flying Pal with an AoE attack does all the work.
Moon Flower Tower AoE Farm
Fast travel to Moon Flower Tower on Sakurajima. Bring a flying mount that knows Meteor Rain (Jetragon learns it naturally at level 60), your fully condensed Omascul for the 80% party XP buff, and up to three low-level Pals you want to level.
Fly in, aggro the mob group, drop a Meteor Rain on the pack, then fly out to a nearby patch of soil to break aggro. Fly back, and the entire pack has respawned. Repeat.
Fly In
Fast travel to Moon Flower Tower, aggro the mob group with your flying Pal.
Drop Meteor Rain
Land the AoE on the packed mob group, one-shotting everything on impact.
Fly Out to Reset
Fly to the nearby soil patch to break aggro and trigger a respawn.
Return and Repeat
Fly back to the pack, which has already respawned. Loot piles up on the ground for a sweep every few resets.
Yield scales with your leveling Pals’ current level. A first pass on level 18 Pals returns roughly 1.5 million XP per reset. As the Pals climb through level 40-60, per-reset gains rise to 2.5, 3.7, and eventually 4.9 million XP. A single farming session takes a party of low-level Pals from 18 to 60 in a few minutes.
Your flying mount needs to be level 55 or higher (60-70 preferred) to reliably one-shot the mobs with Meteor Rain. Attack-focused passives on the mount speed clears, but even a freshly caught Jetragon works.
Moon Flower Tower is the best farm you have access to before unlocking the World Tree. If you have not opened Feybreak or completed the World Tree gate, this is where you push Pals from mid-40s into the 70s.
Endgame Leveling (Level 70-80)
The final XP loop is Tower Boss farming. Tower Bosses have no cooldown between attempts, so once you have a Pal that can clear a boss in under two minutes, you can chain kills back-to-back. On 1x XP, a single Tower Boss kill takes a level 1 Pal to level 66. Three to four kills of the final Tower Boss take a fresh Pal to level 80.
The Omascul Carry Build
Catch a high-star Omascul in Feybreak and fully condense him to four stars. Breed for these passives: God of Destruction, Twin Edged Holy Blade, Serenity, and Immortality.
Immortality is the standout. It grants life steal proportional to damage dealt, which means you never actually need to prioritize defense stats. The more damage the build outputs, the more damage it heals.
Active skills: Sand Twister, Circle Vine, and Apocalypse. All three are large AoE spells that shred World Tree bosses, especially against ground, grass, and dark-weak targets. Bring Ground Batons, Grass Batons, and Dark Batons for the corresponding damage bonuses.
Farming Dandilord and Final Tower Boss
Bring your leveling Pals in the party alongside Omascul. Eat Seafood Salad on all of them (make sure feed bags are empty of other buffs). Enter the boss arena, unleash Omascul, and let the AoE moves do the work.
A repeat farm run on Dandilord takes a level 26 party member to level 76 in one clear. The boss has no cooldown, so you can queue right back in as soon as the cutscene skips.
Every capture attempt on the boss also yields Toxic Filtering Membrane, Explosion-Resistant Fiber, Radiant Gems, Glowing Ancient Relics, and World Tree Water. The loot loop self-sustains the crafting side of endgame.
Passive and AFK XP Methods
Active farming is always fastest, but Palworld has a few passive systems that generate XP while you sleep or work. None of these should be your main method, but they compound in the background if set up correctly.
Base Worker XP
Every Pal assigned a job at your base generates passive XP for both itself and your player. To keep the base running while you are AFK, craft the Feed Pouch so your character eats automatically, stock feed boxes with high-nutrition food, provide beds, and build a hot spring for sanity recovery.
Base Pals should be level 20-30 minimum so they can survive a Pal raid without your intervention. The XP trickle is modest, but it runs 24 hours a day for zero effort.
Cryogenic Crusher Sphere Loop
Once you have thousands of basic Pal Spheres and Paladium stockpiled, set up an infinite AFK loop. Feed basic Pal Spheres into the Cryogenic Crusher to break them back into Paladium. Route the Paladium to your production belt and craft it right back into basic Pal Spheres.
Every craft ticks XP onto your active party Pals. Queueing 500+ spheres at once turns a coffee break into free levels. The gains per craft are small, but they compound quietly while you deal with other things.
Training Manuals and Crystals
Save Training Manuals and Training Crystals for Pals you specifically want to bring into your rotation. Manuals grant flat XP up to 100,000 per use depending on size, and Training Crystals raise a Pal’s level by exactly one instantly. Do not waste them on Pals sitting in your box.
Method Comparison
Different methods excel at different level bands. Match your leveling method to your current stage rather than forcing a single approach across the whole game.
| Level Range | XP Rate | Setup Cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Species Capture Bonus | 1-25 | High | Low |
| Dungeon Farming | 20-40 | High | Low |
| Alpha Pal Sweep | 25-45 | High | Medium |
| Moon Flower Tower AoE | 45-70 | Very High | Medium |
| World Tree Boss Repeat | 60-80 | Highest | High |
| Base Worker Passive | Any | Low | Medium |
| Sphere Craft Loop | Any | Medium | High |
Multiplayer Sakurajima Sphere Trick
Multiplayer sessions unlock alternate respawn points that single-player runs do not. This means you can respawn deep in Sakurajima at the very start of the game, loot chests containing Ultra Spheres and Legendary Spheres, and use those to catch high-level Alphas for enormous XP bursts.
This works because multiplayer respawn zones were not gated for single-player balance. Change your save from single-player to multiplayer (offline multiplayer is fine) to enable it. There is every chance a future patch closes this loophole, so treat it as an unofficial start rather than a reliable strategy.
Swim from the Isle of Murmurs to Sakurajima, avoid aggro from high-level Pals, and loot the Sakurajima junkyard for Ultra Spheres. Legendary Spheres show up as rare drops from those same chests. The nearest fast travel point sits next to a junkyard cluster, so once you unlock it, sphere runs become far safer.
Catching a level 38 Mammorest with a stolen Legendary Sphere can net around 11,000 XP in a single throw, jumping a low-level character straight to level 15. King Pacca (level 23), Chillet (great water speed saddle), and Penking (mining and watering base worker) are all viable secondary targets in the same region.
