All-Round Build

This build is the recommended build for almost all combat pals. The 20% or 30% elemental buffs are skipped because more often than not mixing skills of different elements is better than using three skills of the same element.

Example:
These two pals are used to fight Blazamut Ryu. Despite Water/Ground being super effective it is better to mix in Air Blade and Holy Burst over using 3 Water/Ground Skills.

Elemental Builds

There are two Elemental Passives that 30% buffs, Siren of the Void and Eternal Flame.
Siren boosts Ice and Dark. Eternal Flame boosts Fire and Electric.
These builds should be used on pals where you will be using 3 skills of the same element, or if they have 1 very strong exclusive skill.

Examples where you want the elemental buffs:
Shadowbeak, Faleris & Orserk all have very strong exclusive skills, but depending on the target it is still better to mix skills.

Unique Breeding Pattern Builds

Some pals can’t access Legend or Elemental buffs since they can only be bred from themselves, like Selyne or Bellanoir Libero.

Combat Mounts

Combat Mounts, the elemental swap mounts like Chillet and Ragnahawk.
Generally these mounts don’t attack, they are used to convert and boost the players attack. Speed is more important than defense for these mounts as they can out speed attacks instead of tanking.
Vanguard boosts the players attack. Stronghold Strategist is not used as the mount dies faster than the player.

These pals don’t need Attack souls, but do use Defense and Health.

Booster & Utility Pals

Booster Pals are pals that power up pals or the player while in the party. These pals don’t leave their spheres and are just there for the passive buffs they provide. You only need Vanguard and Stronghold Strategist, the remaining slots are free for either Fine Furs + Noble for sale price increase and buying discounts, or Motivational Leader for a work speed bonus.
Examples: Gobfin, Rooby, Hoocrates.

Utlility pals are pals like Gliders, Mimog or Croajiro. They are not used to attack in combat so they can also provide Vanguard + Stronghold Strategist.

These pals don’t attack or get attacked, so no souls are needed.

Work Speed Pals

Dark pals are naturally Nocturnal, they don’t need the passive skill. These builds provide the highest work speed bonus for pals.

What about Workaholic and Diet Lover?

Diet Lover makes pals eat less. Food gives buffs and sanity, so it is not a good passive.
Workaholic provides a minor increase in uptime for some workstations, but not enough to outclass work speed bonuses. Some workstations don’t cost sanity at all, like plantations and ranches.

Nocturnal vs Lucky

Nocturnal means pals work through the night. On default settings day is 27 minutes and night is 5 minutes.
Pals regenerate sanity while sleeping, so the gain from nocturnal is less than 5 minutes of work time per day since pals will take breaks instead of sleeping.

Another thing to keep in mind is the transporting priority, if every pal in the base has nocturnal the transporters will not empty stone, ore or logging sites but stick to the furnace, kitchen, crusher and plantations. When producing pals sleep it gives transporters time to finish transporting.

Pals where you want Nocturnal over Lucky: Electricity pals and Cooling pals (refrigerator).

Work speed souls are used.

Transporters

Work speed doesn’t affect transporters, only move speed.

Knocklem is the fastest lv 4 transporter, vanwyrm is the fastest transporter overall except for Faleris, which tends to have pathing issues.
Use Vanwyrm for bases that drop single items like ranches and natural mining nodes (Pure Quartz mostly with the mining pits). Otherwise use Knocklem.

Mounts

Legend, Runner, Swift and Nimble or Infinite Stamina.
Nimble vs Infinite Stamina comes down to preferences, nimble is overall faster but infinite stamina lets you sprint further and use more attacks & jumps.

Sell Team

You want 5 pals with these 5 passives somewhere in your collection. They stack, giving a 40% discount when buying and a 40% bonus when selling.