74 of 85 variant Pals in Palworld outstat the original, and 82 swap element

You spot the B after a Paldex number and file it under palette swap. Line up the stats and that filing turns out to be wrong.

We ran all 85 variant Pals against their base form using our Paldex data. 74 come out stronger. 10 land close to even, and only 1 loses ground.

Nearly every variant outperforms the original

Compared to the base Pal	Count
Variant is stronger	74
About even	10
Variant is weaker	1

Most gains sit in the +5 to +10 Attack range and +5 to +20 Defense. Nothing here turns a Pal into a different animal. It stacks in your favor often enough that grabbing the variant costs you nothing when the slot isn’t already filled.

A few pairs gain more than the average.

Base	Variant	Difference
Turtacle (Water)	Turtacle Terra (Water/Ground)	Atk +10, HP +10, Def +10
Surfent (Water)	Surfent Terra (Ground)	Def +20
Mossanda (Grass)	Mossanda Lux (Electric)	Atk +10, Def +10
Croajiro (Water)	Croajiro Noct (Water/Dark)	Atk +10, HP +5, Def +5
Frostallion (Ice)	Frostallion Noct (Dark)	Def +15

The only pair where total stats drop is Elgrove (Grass) to Elgrove Cryst (Ice): Attack falls by 5, HP climbs by 10. Run your Pal up front as a tank and that trade favors Elgrove Cryst anyway.

The real difference is element

Stat gains matter less than this: 82 of the 85 variants change element.

Foxparks (Fire) becomes Foxparks Cryst (Ice), and that pattern repeats across most of the roster.

Base	Variant	Element change
Foxparks	Foxparks Cryst	Fire → Ice
Tanzee	Tanzee Ignis	Grass → Fire
Mau	Mau Cryst	Dark → Ice
Kingpaca	Kingpaca Cryst	Neutral → Ice
Jolthog	Jolthog Cryst	Electric → Ice

Change the element and you change both sides of the matchup, who beats the Pal and who the Pal beats. That shift outweighs a +5 stat line once you’re mid-fight. If your roster leans hard into one or two elements, a variant can fill the gap without you catching a new species.

Only three pairs keep the same element: Dumud and Dumud Gild (Ground/Water), the two Gumoss entries, and Bellanoir with Bellanoir Libero (Dark).

Where to catch them

80 of the 85 spawn in the wild. A variant isn’t flagged as anything special; it turns up in its usual region same as the base Pal. Some run nocturnal, so if one won’t show at a known spot, check the clock before you check the map (only one nocturnal Pal in Palworld spawns exclusively at night).

The other five skip the wild entirely: Penking Lux, Finsider Ignis, Ghangler Ignis, Blazamut Ryu and Bellanoir Libero. Breed them or beat them in a raid (13 Pals with no wild spawn).

Before you swap

A stat bump this size isn’t worth abandoning a Pal you’ve already leveled. Attack +5 sits inside the margin you’d barely notice in a fight.

Our own rule of thumb: pick the variant for any slot that’s still unfilled, and leave a leveled Pal alone once it’s already doing the job. Condensing does more for raw stats than any variant swap.

You can compare a variant against its base form stat by stat on the individual Paldex pages. The B after the Paldex number is what to look for.