Search for a Palworld mining pal tier list right now and you’ll find two completely different answers for the same Pal. Some guides show Astegon and Blazamut capped at Mining Level 4, calling them the best miners in the game. Others, updated since the 1.0 launch, show the exact same Pals sitting at Level 7 out of a new ceiling of 10. Neither guide is lying — they’re describing two different versions of the game, and most of the internet hasn’t caught up to which one is live.
This guide uses the current numbers: Palworld left Early Access on July 10, 2026 with update 1.100.427, and that patch rebuilt Work Suitability from a 5-level system into a 10-level one[10]. Below is what actually unlocks Ore, which Pals mine it fastest right now, where the densest node clusters are, and why your Work Speed math might not match what a six-month-old guide told you.
Quick Start: Farming Ore in 8 Steps
- Confirm you’re on patch 1.0 or later (v1.100.427+, July 10 2026) — Mining now scales to Level 10, not the old cap of 5[10].
- Don’t assign a Level 1 Pal (Cattiva, Rushoar, Fuddler, Depresso) to an ore run — Level 1 Mining only breaks Stone and Paldium Fragment nodes[1].
- Catch or assign any Pal with Mining Level 2+ before you touch an Ore deposit — that’s the actual unlock threshold[1][5].
- Build your ore station near a cluster of four or more nodes, not a single deposit — Fort Ruins and Small Settlement both qualify[5].
- Put your highest-Mining Pal directly on the ore node, not on Handiwork or Transporting duty.
- Pair a dedicated Transporting Pal with your miner, or use a dual Mining+Transporting Pal like Knocklem Ignis, so ore doesn’t pile up unassigned at the node.
- If node respawn feels slow, check your world’s Gatherable Objects Respawn Interval setting — default is a full in-game day, and it’s adjustable on private servers[5].
- Verify your Pal’s actual Mining number in your own base UI before trusting any guide’s figure, including this one — individual stats, passives, and condensation rank all shift the base number.
New to the game? Our Palworld beginner’s guide covers base setup and your first Tower Boss before you’ll have the roster to run a dedicated ore operation.
Mining Levels, Explained: What Actually Unlocks Ore
Work Suitability and the resource it unlocks are two different things, and conflating them is the most common mistake in ore farming. A Pal’s Mining level gates which node types it can even interact with — raw speed only matters once a Pal has cleared that gate.
| Mining Level | Unlocks |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Stone, Paldium Fragment |
| Level 2 | Ore, Sulfur |
| Level 3-4 | Coal, Pure Quartz |
That Level 2 threshold is the one that matters for this guide: Ore cannot be mined by anything below it, full stop[1][5]. A base full of Level 1 workers looks productive — Stone piles up, Paldium Fragments too — but your smelter will sit empty until you assign at least one Level 2+ Pal specifically to the ore node. This is the single most common reason new bases stall out on ingots.
Chromite, Soralite, and Paloxite are newer additions and behave differently: they’re zone-locked rather than clearly level-gated in available patch documentation. Soralite only spawns in the Sunreach region and Paloxite only in the World Tree region — both introduced in the 1.0 update alongside a new Ancient Material Synthesizer structure and the Plasma Multicutter gathering tool[10]. Treat their exact skill-level requirement as unconfirmed until Pocketpair publishes a breakdown; the in-base UI will show you the real number for your own Pal.
The Work-Speed Contradiction: Old Numbers vs. the Current 1.0 Scale
Here’s where guides diverge hardest. Under the pre-1.0 system, Mining topped out at Level 5, and Work Speed at each level was well documented: 70 at Level 1, 150 at Level 2, 300 at Level 3, 500 at Level 4, and 1,000 at a maxed Level 5[8]. Plug those into the game’s own formula — Time (seconds) = (Workload × 100) / (Work Speed × Buffs × Research) — and an 8-Workload Stone node takes 11.4 seconds at Level 1 and 0.8 seconds at a maxed Level 5[8]. That table is still circulating everywhere, including in still-live cheat sheets.
The only two anchor points officially confirmed for the new system are Level 5 at an internal work value of 190, and Level 10 at 1,000[2]. Read against the old table, that’s a plausible explanation for the mismatch: rather than just tacking five more rungs onto the top of the old scale, the whole curve appears to have been re-stretched, since the old ceiling (1,000) now lines up with where the new Level 10 lands instead of the old Level 5. That’s my inference from comparing the two tables, not a confirmed patch-note mechanic — but it’s consistent with why a guide quoting “Level 5 = 1,000” and one quoting “Level 5 = 190” can both be citing real numbers from different patches of the same game.
| System | Level 1 | Level 5 | Level 10 / Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-1.0 (5-level cap) | 70 | 1,000 (max) | — |
| Post-1.0 (10-level cap) | 70 | 190 | 1,000 |
In practice: if a guide’s Mining table stops at Level 5 and calls it “maxed,” you’re reading pre-patch data. If it goes to Level 10, it’s current. That said, dating a guide correctly is harder than it sounds — while researching this piece I checked four separate “best mining pal” pages, and three of them (including one explicitly labeled for “1.0 Rankings”) still capped Astegon and Blazamut at Level 4. Only one source, dated July 15, 2026, showed them at Level 7[3][7]. I’m using that figure below because it’s the most recently dated and it lines up with Nodecraft’s explanation of how the new scale works, but this is a live contradiction the community hasn’t settled — check your own Pal’s number in-base rather than taking any single guide’s word for it, including this one.
Best Mining Pals Ranked for the Current Patch
This table uses each Pal’s natural base Mining level under the post-1.0 system, cross-checked against independent 1.0-era sources[3][4][11]. Condensing can push any of these higher — each condensation rank guarantees one existing suitability improves, with a full ☆4 rank guaranteeing every suitability rises, so treat these as your floor, not your ceiling.
| Pal | Mining Lv | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Aegidron | 8 | Highest natural Mining in the game; no secondary work suitability, so it’s a pure mining specialist |
| Astegon | 7 | Dragon/Dark type, found in Astral Mountains; can also assist Handiwork |
| Blazamut / Blazamut Ryu | 7 | Fire type, found at Mount Obsidian; passively kindles nearby crafting stations while working |
| Knocklem / Knocklem Ignis | 7 | Ignis variant adds Transporting 7 + Kindling 5 — mines, hauls its own ore, and can smelt |
| Anubis | 6 | Ground type; doubles as a Handiwork worker between mining shifts |
| Menasting Terra / Dualith / Dualith Noct | 6 | Solid mid-tier options if the Level 7-8 Pals aren’t accessible yet |
The tier lists still ranking Astegon and Blazamut at “Level 4, S-tier” aren’t necessarily wrong about the ranking order — these are still the strongest miners relative to their peers — but they’re either describing the old 5-level scale or an uncondensed base spawn that most guides haven’t reconciled with the newer figure yet[7]. Aegidron is the one Pal in this table with no contradiction across sources: both PalMods and Game8 independently confirm its Level 8 base, and its total lack of a secondary work suitability makes it the cleanest single-purpose miner on this list; everything else earns a second job when it’s not on ore duty.
Where the Ore Actually Is: Node Density by Zone
Raw node counts across the whole map, from an interactive community-maintained tracker: roughly 1,481 generic ore nodes, 537 coal, 261 sulfur, 257 chromite, 611 hexolite quartz, 185 crude oil, and 158 pure quartz[6]. That spread tells you pure quartz and sulfur are the scarcest resources worth planning a dedicated base around, while generic ore is common enough that placement matters more than scarcity.
| Location | Approx. Node Count | Why It’s Worth Using |
|---|---|---|
| Small Settlement | ~8 ore nodes | Cliff-based; enemies can only approach from one direction, so raids rarely reach the base[5] |
| Desolate Church | ~5 ore nodes | Surrounded by trees — combine ore and wood farming in one base[5] |
| Fort Ruins | ~4 ore nodes | Enemies tend to path-glitch around this spot, making it one of the calmer early bases[5] |
| Farcry Marsh (Sunreach) | 6 Soralite nodes | The tightest confirmed Soralite cluster — Soralite exists nowhere outside Sunreach[9] |
| Feybreak Island | 3 Hexolite Quartz clusters | Clusters sit directly next to each other, minimizing walk time between nodes[9] |
Resource nodes respawn after a full in-game day by default, so a base sitting on 4-5 nodes is still viable long-term — it just won’t out-produce a 6+ node cluster in raw throughput[5]. If you’re running a private or dedicated server, the Gatherable Objects Respawn Interval setting controls this directly; setting it to 0.5 roughly doubles your respawn rate world-wide, not just for ore.
Best Base Locations for an Ore Farm
The right call depends on what you’re actually mining for. If you need Ore purely to keep an early smelter fed, any Level 2+ Pal next to a modest 4-5 node cluster like Fort Ruins or Desolate Church is enough — you don’t need to chase an Aegidron this early. If you’re building a dedicated late-game operation for Pal Metal Ore, Soralite, or Paloxite, the calculation changes: you need a Level 7+ miner and you have to physically relocate, since Soralite and Paloxite don’t spawn outside Sunreach and the World Tree region respectively.
| Player Type | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| New player | Catch any Level 2 miner you find early (Tombat, Penking, Dumud) and park it at a small local cluster. Don’t detour toward a specific high-tier Pal yet — base fundamentals matter more than optimization at this stage. |
| Casual player | Knocklem Ignis or Blazamut cut out a step — both mine and either transport or kindle without a second Pal, so you’re not micromanaging three separate job assignments for one output. |
| Hardcore / optimizer | Aegidron is the highest floor available with zero secondary suitability diluting its schedule — run the Work Speed math per hour against your specific node cluster before committing condensation fodder to it. |
| Completionist | Build satellite bases specifically in Sunreach and the World Tree region — Soralite and Paloxite are the two 1.0-exclusive ores you can’t get anywhere else on the map, and no amount of base optimization elsewhere substitutes for physical location. |
Our base building guide covers full layout planning if you’re setting up a dedicated mining base rather than bolting an ore station onto an existing one, and our best worker Pals list covers job assignments beyond mining for the rest of your roster.
FAQ
Do I need a Level 7-8 Pal to farm Ore at all?
No — Level 2 is the actual unlock threshold for Ore. A Level 7-8 Pal mines the same node faster, but a Level 2 Tombat or Penking will keep an early smelter fed just fine. Save the high-tier Pals for when raw throughput, not access, becomes your bottleneck.
Why do some guides still say Astegon caps at Mining Level 4?
Because that guide hasn’t been updated since patch 1.0 restructured Work Suitability from a 5-level to a 10-level system on July 10, 2026. The relative ranking (Astegon among the best miners) is still accurate — the absolute number just belongs to the old scale.
Is condensing worth it for a mining Pal specifically?
Only past a certain point. Each condensation rank before the final star raises one existing suitability at random, not necessarily Mining — only the last rank guarantees every suitability improves. If you’re condensing purely to boost Mining, you’re gambling on the intermediate ranks unless you go all the way to max.
Should I automate ore with the Ancient Material Synthesizer instead of mining nodes?
Patch notes confirm this new structure expands automation options, but Pocketpair hasn’t published exact ore-output specifics for it yet[10]. Until a rank-by-rank breakdown exists, treat manual node mining with a Level 2+ Pal as the reliable baseline and check the structure’s in-game description before planning a base around it.
Sources
Mining mechanics and level unlocks — The Palworld Wiki | Work Suitability Level 10 breakdown — Nodecraft Knowledgebase | Best Mining Pals in Palworld 1.0 (Top 10 Ranked) — PalMods.gg | Best Mining Pals Tier List — Game8 | How to Farm Ore and Best Locations — Game8 | Interactive ore node map — PinDrop.gg | Best Mining Pals ranked S-C — PinDrop.gg | Work Suitability Cheat Sheet — The Pal Professor | Palworld 1.0 resource locations — TheBigLead | Palworld 1.0 Patch Notes — xGamingServer | Mining Base Setup Guide — Palworld Breedr
Verified against Palworld v1.100.427 (July 10, 2026). Work Suitability values and mining unlocks may shift with future patches — always confirm your Pal’s exact numbers in your own base UI.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.