STAB Explained: Same Type Attack Bonus and Best Moves

STAB — same type attack bonus — is the quiet damage rule that decides which two of your Pal's skills are actually worth slotting, and most players never notice it firing. This guide covers what the bonus is worth, how it stacks with super effective hits, the level-70 skill that looks strongest but isn't, the best same-element skill for all nine elements, and when you should deliberately give it up.

What STAB Is and What It Does

When a Pal uses an active skill whose element matches its own element, the hit lands harder — roughly 20% harder. That's the whole rule, and it's checked on the skill's element against the Pal's element, never against the target. A Fire Pal firing a Fire skill gets the bonus whether the thing it's shooting is weak to Fire, resistant to it, or completely neutral. Pocketpair has never published the exact figure, so treat 1.2× as a very close estimate rather than a datamined constant.

That last row is the one that matters most for team building: 87 of the game's 288 Pals carry two elements, so they have two separate pools of skills that all earn the bonus. It also means STAB and type coverage are two different problems — a Pal's element decides where the bonus lands, while the Palworld type chart decides where the big damage lands.

How Much Damage STAB Adds

The cleanest way to see the bonus is a Pal that learns two skills with identical power, one matching its element and one not. Same power, same Pal, same target — the only difference in the damage number is STAB, and it lands consistently around a fifth higher. These pairs exist all over the roster, and 101 Pals have at least one of them, which means in a hundred-plus cases the choice between two skills is a free win.

Pal	Element	Off-element skill	Same-element skill	Shared power	Effective power with STAB
Silvance	Grass	Holy Burst (Neutral)	Giant Spore (Grass)	700	840
Frostallion	Ice	Holy Burst (Neutral)	Crystal Wing (Ice)	700	840
Panthalus	Water	Holy Burst (Neutral)	Grand Breach (Water)	700	840
Blazehowl	Fire	Thunderstorm (Electric)	Fire Ball (Fire)	600	720
Kingpaca	Neutral	Solar Blast (Grass)	Pal Blast (Neutral)	450	540
Eikthyrdeer	Neutral	Stone Cannon (Ground)	Power Bomb (Neutral)	120	144
Surfent	Water	Dragon Cannon (Dragon)	Hydro Jet (Water)	40	48

Surfent is the tidiest example in the game — Hydro Jet and Dragon Cannon are both 40 power on a 2-second cooldown, so the two skills are the same button with a different colour, and the Water one simply hits harder on a Water Pal. Scale that up and Silvance shows the same thing at the top end: Giant Spore and Holy Burst are both 700 power, and only one of them is Grass.

STAB Stacks With Super Effective Damage

The two bonuses are separate checks and they multiply. A super effective hit is worth about half again as much damage on its own, so a skill that both matches its user's element *and* counters the target is landing close to double. This is why elemental specialists — an Ice Pal throwing Ice at a Dragon, a Dragon Pal throwing Dragon at a Dark boss — melt things that a generalist grinds at. Every multiplier below is approximate, since none of them are printed in-game.

The bottom row is the trap most players fall into: throwing Fire at a Fire Pal because your Fire Pal is your strongest. STAB is still quietly applying there, and the hit is still terrible, because a 20% bonus on a resisted number loses to a clean 1.5× every time. Frostallion against a Dragon target is the other end of the same maths — Ice on an Ice Pal into the element Ice counters.

The Holy Burst Trap: When the Biggest Number Loses

Holy Burst is the most widely taught top-end skill in the game — 44 Pals learn it, usually at level 70 — and at 700 power on a 30-second cooldown it looks like an automatic slot. It's Neutral, though. For the 34 Neutral Pals that learn it, that's perfect. For the ten that aren't Neutral, it arrives with no bonus attached, and nine of them already know something better once STAB is counted.

Pal	Element	Best same-element skill	Power	With STAB	vs Holy Burst (700)
Silvance	Grass	Spore Burst	800	960	+260
Panthalus	Water	Aqua Tornado	800	960	+260
Frostallion	Ice	Crystal Wing	700	840	+140
Faleris	Fire	Raging Flame Wave	650	780	+80
Wixen	Fire	Fire Ball	600	720	+20
Kitsun	Fire	Fire Ball	600	720	+20
Suzaku	Fire	Fire Ball	600	720	+20
Lullu	Grass	Wind Burst	600	720	+20
Gildane	Ground	Rocky Impact	600	720	+20

The top three are not close — Silvance and Panthalus both keep an 800-power exclusive that lands like 960, so Holy Burst is a straight downgrade on either. The four 600-power rows are the interesting ones, because a 20-point edge is inside the noise once damage rolls and Pal stats get involved; on those Pals the real argument for keeping Fire Ball or Rocky Impact is that it can *also* go super effective, which Holy Burst never can. Note one wrinkle on Panthalus: Aqua Tornado runs a 40-second cooldown against Grand Breach's 30, so for sustained damage its 700-power exclusive is the steadier pick.

Best STAB Skill for Every Element

Every element has a ceiling on what a same-element skill can hit for, and the ceilings are not level. Grass, Dark, Water and Neutral all top out at 800 power, which becomes 960 with the bonus, while Electric can't do better than 600 on any Pal — its best same-element skill is worth 720 with STAB, still less than an unboosted Fire or Ice top-ender. Electric makes that back with reach rather than raw power, so build Electric squads around hitting Water rather than out-damaging anyone.

Element	Strongest same-element skill	Power	Cooldown	With STAB	Who learns it	Pals of this element
Grass	Spore Burst	800	30s	960	Silvance	46
Dark	Toxic Dance	800	30s	960	Dandilord	70
Water	Aqua Tornado	800	40s	960	Panthalus	47
Neutral	Royal Step	800	30s	960	Starryon Primo	36
Fire	Magma Laser	700	30s	840	Moldron	43
Ground	Missile Burst	700	30s	840	Aegidron	44
Ice	Absolute Frost	700	30s	840	Univolt Cryst and 4 others	38
Dragon	Magna Crush	700	30s	840	Blazamut Ryu	25
Electric	Thunderstorm	600	30s	720	12 Pals incl. Penking Lux	25

Most of these are exclusive skills that only their owner ever gets, so the table doubles as a shortlist of who to actually raise. The exceptions are the useful ones for everyone else: Absolute Frost is shared by five Ice Pals, and Thunderstorm by twelve Electric ones, so those two are realistic targets on a Pal you already like. One outlier sits above the whole table — Tocotoco's Megaton Implode is 1,200 power, Neutral, and worth 1,440 on a Neutral Pal, but it sacrifices the Pal to fire and runs a 60-second cooldown, so it's a party trick rather than a damage plan. For the full ranking across every element, see the strongest attack skills in Palworld.

How to Force a STAB Skill With Skill Fruits

If a Pal's natural skill list is short on its own element, you don't have to accept it — skill fruits teach any Pal a skill outright, and 86 of them exist across eight elements. Pick the fruit that matches your Pal's element and you've bought the bonus permanently. The one gap worth knowing: there are no Neutral skill fruits at all, so Neutral Pals are stuck with whatever their level-up list gives them, which is exactly why Holy Burst and Pal Blast show up on so many of them.

Element	Best fruit skill	Power	Cooldown	With STAB	Fruit	Fruits in this element
Ice	Absolute Frost	700	30s	840	Ice Skill Fruit: Absolute Frost	10
Dark	Dark Whisp	600	30s	720	Dark Skill Fruit: Dark Whisp	13
Electric	Thunderstorm	600	30s	720	Electric Skill Fruit: Thunderstorm	14
Fire	Fire Ball	600	30s	720	Fire Skill Fruit: Fire Ball	10
Water	Geyser Gush	600	30s	720	Water Skill Fruit: Geyser Gush	12
Ground	Rocky Impact	600	30s	720	Ground Skill Fruit: Rocky Impact	8
Dragon	Dragon Meteor	600	30s	720	Dragon Skill Fruit: Dragon Meteor	8
Grass	Crosswind	500	24s	600	Grass Skill Fruit: Crosswind	11

Ice is the standout buy: Absolute Frost is the only 700-power skill anyone can hand to a Pal from a fruit, and on any of the 38 Ice Pals it's an 840-power slot for the price of a walk. Grass is the weakest shelf — its best fruit stops at 500 power, so Grass Pals mostly have to level into Wind Burst or better instead of buying it. Skill fruit trees respawn on a timer, and there are 35 of them across the main map plus 12 more in the Tree region: open the Palworld interactive map with the skill fruit layer and run the nearest cluster, or check the full Palworld skill fruit list for what each one teaches.

Dual-Element Pals Get STAB on Two Elements

87 Pals carry two elements, and the bonus applies to skills of either one, which makes them the most flexible damage slots in the game — one Pal covering two matchups at full strength instead of one. 55 of those 87 can hold a 450-power-or-better skill in both of their elements, so this isn't a niche of a few legendaries. The catch is that two elements also means two weaknesses, which the best type combinations guide breaks down in full.

Pal	Elements	Skill for element 1	Skill for element 2	Power each	With STAB	Why it works
Shaolong	Dragon / Water	Meteorain	Celestial Vortex	700	840	The only pair at 700 in both halves — Dark and Fire covered at full power
Penking Lux	Water / Electric	Geyser Gush	Thunderstorm	600	720	Answers Fire and Water without swapping Pals
Azurobe	Water / Dragon	Geyser Gush	Dragon Meteor	600	720	Both skills are buyable as fruits, so it's easy to set up
Vanwyrm	Fire / Dark	Fire Ball	Dark Whisp	600	720	Grass, Ice and Neutral targets all covered by one flyer
Chillet	Ice / Dragon	Diamond Rain	Dragon Meteor	600	720	Two elements that both punish Dragon-heavy fights
Turtacle Terra	Water / Ground	Geyser Gush	Rocky Impact	600	720	Fire and Electric answered off one bulky body

Shaolong is the clearest case for the whole mechanic: two exclusive 700-power skills, both boosted, aimed at two different halves of the type chart. Below it, the pattern is that dual-element Pals rarely give up anything for their flexibility — the 600-power tier is where most top skills live anyway, so carrying one from each element costs you nothing but a slot.

When Coverage Beats STAB

STAB is worth about 20%. A super effective hit is worth about 50%. So when you know what you're fighting, an off-element skill that counters the target beats a same-element skill that doesn't, by a comfortable margin — roughly 25% more damage at equal power. That's the entire decision, and it's why the Pals below are worth their slot even though their best-known skill earns no bonus at all.

BlazehowlArsoxElphidranNitemaryQuivernWistella

Blazehowl is Fire but learns Thunderstorm, so it walks into Water fights its element hates. Arsox carries Rocky Impact for Electric targets, Elphidran holds Wind Burst to punish Ground and Water, Nitemary answers Grass and Ice with Fire Ball, Quivern keeps Diamond Rain for other Dragons, and Wistella uses Dragon Meteor against the 70 Dark Pals it can't otherwise hurt. All six of those skills are 600 power, and all six ignore the bonus on purpose. The ideal loadout is one of each: a same-element skill as the default, and one coverage skill for the matchup your element loses.

The Short Answer

STAB gives a Pal about 20% extra damage whenever the active skill's element matches its own, it applies no matter what you're shooting, and it stacks on top of super effective damage for close to double. Use it as the tiebreak between skills of similar power, ignore it when a coverage skill would land super effective instead, and spend skill fruits on your Pal's own element wherever its level-up list falls short. The one habit worth changing today: stop auto-slotting the 700-power Neutral skill on a Pal that isn't Neutral.

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