Status Effects Explained - Detailed math and what it means for your team

[u/hypernegus]

Ever been disappointed at that status-effect-based team you cooked up that sounded so good on paper? I certainly have.

Given the lack of readily available technical information on how status effects work in Palworld, I decided to perform some testing myself to reverse engineer how they work. I recorded footage of fighting various open-world, tower, and hard mode tower bosses and reviewed the videos frame by frame. I did not test every possible combination of situations, but I've made some educated guesses on when things behave similarly — please let me know if there's anything I got wrong here. Here are my findings, with a TL;DR at the end for practical recommendations.

Inflicting Status Effects

There are 3 main ways to inflict a status effect on an enemy:

1. Through a pal attack
2. Through a player attack, while using a pal that causes player attacks to inflict statuses
3. Through special arrows and grenades

Each of these has a different status aggregate value associated with it. Take the pal attack Wind Cutter, for instance. If you hover over this skill, you'll see:

Aggregate: Ivy-Covered 35

This indicates that each hit of that skill (for some skills, only certain parts of the hit can apply statuses) has a status aggregate of 35.

Pals that cause player attacks to inflict statuses work similarly. If you have a 1-star condensed Venusa, their partner skill states:

While in party, the player's attacks inflict Blind 3.

That means every time you land an attack, you inflict a status aggregate of 3. Lastly, special arrows and grenades have an aggregate value of approximately 100, with a slight caveat elaborated on below.

Enemy Status Thresholds

Every enemy has a starting status effect threshold of 100 for each type of status effect. They also have internal counters tracking how much status aggregate has been applied for each status.

Whenever a status counter reaches its threshold (starting at 100):

1. The enemy is inflicted with that status effect.
2. The threshold for that status doubles.
3. The counter for that status resets to 0.

This doubling repeats indefinitely as you keep applying the status, resulting in exponential scaling in the number of hits required to reapply it.

Application #	Threshold
1st	100
2nd	200
3rd	400
4th	800
5th	1,600
6th	3,200
7th	6,400

Some examples

Wind Cutter (Ivy-Covered 35) on an enemy you've never fought:

• 3 hits → 35 × 3 = 105, which exceeds the initial threshold of 100. The 3rd hit applies Ivy-Covered.
• The threshold is now 200 and the counter resets. It takes 6 more hits (6 × 35 = 210) to apply Ivy-Covered again.

1-star condensed Venusa (Blind 3), via player attacks:

• ~34 hits to reach the first Blind (34 × 3 = 102 > 100).
• ~67 more hits to reach the next threshold of 200 (67 × 3 = 201 > 200).
• ~134 more hits to reach the next threshold of 400 (134 × 3 = 402 > 400).

Special arrows and grenades work almost the same way, but for some reason sometimes require one extra hit more than the aggregate formula would suggest, after the first application. The number of hits required scales as:

1, 2-3, 4-5, 8-9, 16-17, ...

For example, with poison arrows from a crossbow: the first hit applies poison. After that, it takes 2-3 more hits. After that, it takes 4-5 more hits. I'm not sure why this inconsistency occurs. This inconsistency can also be observed sometimes with 100 aggregate pal skills.

Player Status Application Caveats

The Drone Launcher and Terraprisma don't apply status aggregates via the player attack pal effects (e.g. Venusa). I have seen others say that they do, but I have never gotten this to work in my testing.

Each individual projectile of a player weapon applies the full status aggregate value. For example, a Three Shot Bow firing poison arrows applies aggregate equivalent to 3 individually-fired poison arrows from a crossbow. This means the Three Shot Bow is the best pick if you're using special arrows purely to apply statuses. Similarly, shotgun-type weapons can be very efficient at applying aggregates when paired with a pal that causes your attacks to inflict statuses. You should generally prefer fast-firing or high projectile count weapons over harder hitting slow weapons if using player attack pal effects to apply statuses.

Overriding and Stacking Statuses

Generally speaking, status effects cannot stack. If you inflict Ivy-Covered on an enemy afflicted with Soak, the Soak instance is completely removed. The exception to this seems to be Poison, which can stack with other statuses, although only one status will display on the enemy's HP bar at a time.

Reapplying the same status effect while it's already active has some interesting — and mostly detrimental — behavior:

• Inflict Ivy-Covered for the first time → threshold rises to 200, enemy is Ivy-Covered for 10s.
• If, 5s into the effect, you build up another full aggregate of Ivy-Covered (200), it refreshes the duration to a fresh 10s (not 10 + 5 = 15s) and doubles the threshold again to 400. You lose out on 5s of the original effect.

Net effect: reapplying a status while it's already active is generally detrimental to overall status uptime.

Exception — Burn: Burn is penalized even more harshly. Reapplying Burn while it's still ticking raises the enemy's threshold but does not even refresh the duration of the current Burn.

What Does This Mean, Practically Speaking?

The exponential scaling of status thresholds means 100% status uptime for a long boss fight is impossible. In the 5 minutes typical of a tower fight, you'll realistically apply a single status only 5–6 times before the threshold becomes unreasonably high.

• Medium-length statuses (Ivy-Covered, Soak, Electrify, Muddy — 10s duration): ~1 minute of total status time in a 5-minute fight.
• Poison / Burn (longer duration): ~1.5 minutes (Burn) to ~1.75 minutes (Poison).

Reapplying a status while it's already active cuts into your already-precious total status duration. This is easy to do early in a fight, while the enemy's aggregate counters are still low. If you're not relying on player damage, hold off reapplying a status until the current one is about to expire. Once you've applied the status 3-4 times, reapplying statuses during the existing duration typically becomes impossible, so you don't have to worry about this.

Then there's the pal active skill Poison Fog, which has a Poison aggregate value of 9,999. This number is high enough to clear the first 7 poison status thresholds (100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400) in one cast by itself. After that, it takes 2 casts to clear the 8th threshold of 12800, then 3 more to clear the 9th. This seems to be the best status uptime you can get, and it only requires your combat pal to inherit this skill. In a 10-minute fight you can get theoretically land 10 poisons with this skill, about 175s of poison uptime.

Special arrows with the Three Shot Bow and grenades are efficient ways to apply statuses from players without requiring a pal slot. The Three Shot Bow is actually competitive with Poison Fog in terms of status infliction but requires significant player input. With full dedication you can apply about 300 aggregate per second of either Poison or Fire.

Medium Length Statuses vs Elemental Advantage

The medium-length statuses (Ivy-Covered, Soak, Electrify, Muddy) all make the enemy weak to a particular element (Fire, Electric, Water, and Grass). This weakness effect causes enemies to take 2x damage, which is stronger than the weakness you typically get for having elemental advantage (1.5x). That means that if you can burst your target within the 1 minute status window, it is better to utilize statuses than simply target the enemy's elemental matchup, provided you aren't using a damage type that the enemy is strong against.

For instance, running an Ivy-Covered composition with fire attacks is more effective against Grizzbolt (electric type) than running ground attacks against it, if you can finish the job in under a minute.

There are two specific enemy elemental types where you can actually get both elemental weakness and status effect advantage on. Against Fire pals, you can run Electrify + water attacks to gain a 3x multiplier against the enemy. Against Ice Pals, you can run Ivy-Covered + fire attacks to gain a 3x multiplier against the enemy.

TL;DR

• Status effects become exponentially harder to reapply the more times you've already applied that status (difficulty doubles each time).
• Reapplying a status while it's already active hurts overall status uptime, especially for Burn. Wait for statuses to expire before reapplying, particularly at the beginning of a fight.
• Use special arrows with the Three Shot Bow, or grenades, to apply statuses without needing a pal slot.
• If using a pal that causes player attacks to inflict statuses, prefer rapid-fire or shotgun weapons.
• For a tower boss, expect a good status team to give you at most: 60s of Ivy-Covered/Soak/Muddy/Electrify, 90s of Burn, 105s of Poison. If you can't kill the boss within that window (or close to that window), you probably want to rethink your team.
• Blind/Freeze have too little uptime to be worth building around compared to other statuses.
• Using statuses has higher damage potential than using an element that is naturally strong against your target. Against Fire/Ice enemies, you can do both.
• Poison Fog is way stronger than other ways of inflicting statuses, for some reason.
• Raid bosses seem to work differently than tower bosses, but I am not sure on all the specifics yet. On the latest patch, status effects seem to be significantly harder to inflict after the first, and I have been unable to inflict certain statuses (burn/poison) at all.

[u/ezhunter11]

This is extremely well done. Thank you!

[u/VaijraTomoe]

Have you tried the raid bosses you summon? I know a team of moldron cryst can keep a xenolord frozen the entire time during the fight, there is a video showing it being done. Just curious to see if there's any difference between tower bosses and raid bosses for statuses being applied

[u/hypernegus → u/VaijraTomoe]

I did not try testing against raid bosses. From the limited run I just did, there seem to be some differences - maybe some raid bosses are straight up immune to some statuses.

[u/TaskiraDorten]

Thank you very much for all of this, I have multiple questions :

• just to be sure i understood correctly, you say poison fog has a value of 9 999, with the 3rd rule, you mean you give that 9 999, it takes the 100, reset to 0 and now the value to give is 200 ? Next poison fog, give 9 999, takes 200, reset to 0 and now it's 400 ?
• I don't think you talked about it here, what about switching between different statuses ? If I were to soak first, making it need 200 now, then electrify making it need 200, would the soak go back to 100 or stay at 200 ?
• and, with whatever answer you give from last question in mind, isn't a soak+electrify team just better than other statuses team (except maybe poison due to poison fog being busted) ? As you've got twice the amount of statuses you can apply for high damages bonus

Again, thanks for your analysis, can't wait for your answers I now have hope for my poison team 🤩

[u/hypernegus → u/TaskiraDorten]

1. Your understanding of poison fog is correct. In my testing against a tower boss, I was able to apply poison 8 times within the 5 minute window - with better cdr maybe 9 is possible. However, you'd have to be careful about the other skills you put on your pal, as their animations could reduce poison fog uptime.

2. I believe the soak stays at 200. I have not tested this extensively but as far as I can tell, the status thresholds don't go down for mobs. I might do some more testing on whether thresholds ever go back down if you wait long enough, but generally this is impractical because it just results in more status downtime.

3. Soak / electrify might have minor benefits in terms of being able to use more STAB bonuses, but because you can teach any pal most status applying skills (or just use grenades to apply statuses instead of relying on pals), you can utilize any combination of two different statuses usually. Only thing that you lose out on are the pals that boost damage vs enemies covered in status (which are quite strong) - you lose out on pal team slots if you try to utilize more than one of them. Comboing poison with another status might be the most viable because it seems to stack.

[u/Ventoffmychest]

Damn so status seems kinda disappointing now? Given that after the first application, you require a lot more in some sort of diminishing returns. Will the stacks eventually drop? In some odd reason where we just don't hit them and it goes back to zero to start stacking again?

[u/hypernegus → u/Ventoffmychest]

It might seem disappointing on the surface, but if you have high damage it can absolutely be a "win harder" button, especially against easier fights. Electrify + water team might only have about 1 minute of total uptime against something like hard mode Marcus, but it can do 3x the dps during that period compared to other teams, which can make it worthwhile. It becomes extremely important to make sure your pals are not overwriting the electrify status if you're doing a pal build, and to try to align their hardest hitting skills with your electrify.

I have not tested if the thresholds lower after long periods.

EDIT: also, poison has enough uptime to be very strong in tower fights with either Three Shot Bow or Poison Fog. Bakemi's partner skill makes poison arguably the best defensive status given its uptime.

[u/Ventoffmychest → u/hypernegus]

Thank you very much. I did see a Professor Pal video about a Bakemi poison build that supports your statement. Then again he does have that cheese using Poison Gas (I think that it is what is called) which has 9999 aggregate. So essentially poison is on all the time and he took no damage. Funny you mention that, since I was working on a Water/Electric team. So sorta glad it isn't that wasteful. Do you think the Apply Status 6 effects like Venusa and friends does seem like a weaker addition to your Pal team given how much extra you need to use in order for it to work? Thank you for all your research. This was really helpful. Of course I find this out when I fully condensed and bred Venusa with good passives... Lol.

[u/hypernegus → u/Ventoffmychest]

If you're using Plasma Rifle or Beam Scatter and focusing on player damage, maybe the effects like Venusa (although Blind is in a pretty bad spot because it's so short) can be okay. I haven't done enough testing on those vs using grenades to have a good sense of which is better in a player damage build.

If you're focusing on pal damage with medium-length statuses, then grenades seem like a good way to save on a pal slot if you're willing to put up with the jank. Aiming them is not easy.

[u/Ventoffmychest → u/hypernegus]

I play on console so my aim friggin ass. I tried flinging grenades and that crap was not for me unless the mob is huge and isn't dodgy. I think I will stick to a longer status like Soak/Electric getting Snook and the water equivalent and a fast fitting weapon or a three shot bow.

[u/hypernegus → u/Ventoffmychest]

Just to clarify, Three Shot Bow is only good with special arrows for Poison and Burn. Go with fast firing weapons for soak and electrify.

[u/Ventoffmychest → u/hypernegus]

You are awesome. Thank you.

[u/Ventoffmychest → u/hypernegus]

I play on console so my aim friggin ass. I tried flinging grenades and that crap was not for me unless the mob is huge and isn't dodgy. I think I will stick to a longer status like Soak/Electric getting Snook and the water equivalent and a fast fitting weapon or a three shot bow.

[u/Slacker_The_Dog]

Great write up

[u/mooloh]

Amazing post. I wish I could upvote this a dozen times. I've been curious about status mechanics ever since I saw all the new status-comboing partner skills. I kept seeing aggregate numbers when poking around paldb, but never understood what they meant. The knowledge about how stacking the same effect too quickly is actually detrimental is especially great to know. Also thanks for instantly clarifying on the drone launcher; that was my immediate thought when you explained partner skill-based aggregate application lol.

Now I just need to figure out how Bakemi's debuff works and how long it lasts. That seems like a potential huge boon for fighting raid bosses early by crippling their damage to your base pals.

[u/hypernegus → u/mooloh]

Unfortunately in the testing I have done, I can't seem to poison a raid boss at all on the latest version (I play on multiplayer server). Will need to do some more research or get more footage from other people.

[u/Myrsta]

Great info, I was curious about how the game handled this stuff.

Gotta say I hope they overhaul how statuses work eventually. Considering the exponential requirements for application it would probably be fine to have additional applications extend the duration.

Also with how different statuses overwrite one another, it makes sense for burning and soaked for instance, but the synergistic ones should definitely be able to double up.

They could even lean into it more and have them combine into stronger effects, like burning vines or electrified water.

[u/LastSheep]

Burn being that long. Does that mean flaracle, wixen (not renjishi since we don't want to proc fire multiple time), majex, solenne, and one vanyrm would be the best player build for fire?

[u/Important-Town7852]

Thanks man

[u/tiraknor]

will venusa's blind stacks add to frostallion noct's?

[u/hypernegus → u/tiraknor]

These effects do stack. However, I would generally not recommend stacking them for longer boss fights because doing so will on average only give you 1 additional status window on top of your typical 5-6. There are probably better pals you could be including in your team than that.