The Essence Condenser might not be the most morally sound way to increase the power of your Pals in Palworld but hey—it’s a Pal-eat-Pal world out there. The Pal Essence Condenser is a must-have and must-use feature for anybody looking to help Pals reach their full potential in Palworld.
Because you need to use Ancient Technology points to even unlock the option to create an Essence Condenser, it’s reasonable to want to do some research to make sure the Tech is worth your precious resources. It absolutely is, and here is why.
What is a Pal Essence Condenser in Palworld?
The Pal Essence Condenser allows you to combine (ahem, sacrifice) multiple Pals of the same type to make one stronger. When using the Essence Condenser, you first will be prompted to select the Pal you want to upgrade. After you’ve done that, you will need to select four Pals of the same type that will be sacrificed during the upgrading operation.
This upgrade isn’t just a level-up. You’ve likely noticed that in addition to levels and Pal Soul upgrades, there are four empty star slots beneath your Pal’s name. These stars track Essence Condenser ranks, and they can only be earned using the Pal Essence Condenser. This means that you aren’t using the Essence Condenser as an alternative to grinding for levels or finding Pal Souls—rather it is a third upgrade that is tracked separately from the other two. As such, getting a Pal as strong as possible inevitably includes using the Pal Essence Condenser.
It may not be the most humane method of buffing up a Pal when you really think about it, but what it does do is give you a reason to keep catching Pals of a given type even when you already have one that you love and cherish.
How to get the Pal Essence Condenser in Palworld
The recipe for a Pal Essence Condenser becomes available when your character reaches level 14, but you cannot unlock it using regular Technology Points. Instead, you will need to ante up two Ancient Technology Points, which are earned by defeating bosses (Alpha Pals) for the first time.
The Pal Essence Condenser can be crafted quite early into Palworld so you can get started with your experimenting without too much grinding as a prerequisite. If you ask me, there is not a single better use of Ancient Technology Points, as the Pal Essence Condenser simply allows your Pals to reach power levels that they otherwise cannot.
Once you have unlocked the level 14 recipe using two Ancient Technology Points, you can build a Pal Essence Condenser using:
- 20 Paldium Fragments.
- 20 Ingots.
- Five Ancient Civilization Parts.
The ingredients certainly aren’t too demanding in the scheme of things, but if you’re a fresh level 14 it can potentially feel daunting. Check out this guide on getting Ingots in Palworld or this one on Ancient Civilization Parts if you need any assistance or guidance.
Bring up your Build menu after unlocking the recipe for a Pal Essence Condenser, and then you’ll see the option for it on the bottom left portion of the Pal wheel. Unlike some structures that can be built anywhere in the world, a Pal Essence Condenser can only be built near a Palbox, as it draws specifically from the Palbox to work its magic.
How to use the Pal Essence Condenser in Palworld
Once you’ve built a Pal Essence Condenser, operating it is actually pretty straightforward; however, there are definitely some caveats and quirks that you should be aware of before you start any condensing.
Before kicking things off, the Pal that you want to upgrade using the Essence Condenser should be in your Party, and the ones that you want to harvest should be in your Palbox. Activate the Pal Essence Condenser and you will be shown a menu with a prompt telling you to select a Pal to upgrade. After doing so, you will see a yellow essence tracker bar appear. You have to select Pals of the same kind as the one you want to upgrade to fill the bar.
Choose carefully, because all of the Pals selected for condensation will be permanently deleted in the upgrade process. To upgrade a Pal from zero stars to one, you need to offer up four Pals for condensation. going from one star to two requires 16, and two to three requires 32, and so on and so forth until reaching four stars.
Upon confirming your selections by selecting the blue Begin Condensation button, the upgrade will immediately finish and take effect. Afterwards, your Pal will still be at the same level and have the same skills, but its stats and combat effectiveness will also be significantly buffed.
- Leveling up a Pal using the Essence Condenser increases the level of its Partner Skill.
- Higher Partner Skills translate to faster mounts, more damage output, more damage shielded, etc.
- Base stats of HP, Attack, and Defense will also be increased.
- Active Skills and Passive Skills are not affected by the Essence Condenser.
- The levels and Passive Skills of the consumed Pals do not matter. Using four level three Pals for condensation is just as beneficial as using level 30 Pals.
Because Passive Skills are not affected by the Essence Condenser, it is a great idea to find a Pal with your favorite Passive Skills before using the Condenser. For example, I knew I wanted my Foxparks to have the Musclehead Passive Skill (bonus 30 percent Attack) because I knew I would primarily be using my Foxparks for offense. As such, I waited and waited and had well over 20 Foxparks sitting in the Palbox before I finally found the one I was ready to upgrade. Exercising patience before firing up the Essence Condenser is well worth it in the long run.
As far as I’ve personally observed, there isn’t a single Partner Skill that has to do with work prowess. This means you are much better off using the Pal Essence Condenser to upgrade the Pals that you want to keep in your Party. If a Pal is going to be put to work in your base, it won’t receive any benefit from having a higher Partner Skill.
