If you’ve spent hours trekking through Palworld’s volcanic biomes chasing wild Knocklem spawns only to end up with one that has terrible attack stats or useless traits, you know how frustrating that grind can be. That’s why learning how to breed Knocklem in Palworld is so much more efficient than hunting for wild variants, especially if you want a pal that can hold its own in boss fights or base defense raids. I’ve tested this breeding process dozens of times across both single player and public servers, so the steps below skip all the trial and error I went through when I first started breeding combat pals. We’ll cover everything you need to get started, from the right prerequisites to the best trait combinations for meta Knocklem builds.
Prerequisites You Need Before Breeding Knocklem in Palworld
You don’t need to be late into the game to start breeding high quality Knocklem, but there are a few non-negotiable items you’ll need to have first. First, you’ll need to unlock the breeding farm at level 19, which costs 100 wood, 20 fiber, and 50 stone to build. Make sure you place it on a completely flat spot in your base, because uneven terrain can glitch the breeding farm and stop it from producing eggs entirely.
You’ll also need a steady supply of cake, since every breeding pairing consumes one cake to produce an egg. If you don’t have a lot of cake stored, you can farm the ingredients easily: cake requires 5 flour, 8 red berries, 7 milk, 2 eggs, and 2 honey. I usually keep a small farm with 5 Moozarell and 10 Chikipi just to produce cake ingredients, so I never run out when I’m breeding multiple batches of pals. You don’t need to catch a wild Knocklem first to breed one, that’s a common myth new players fall for. You can cross breed other common pals to get a Knocklem egg, which is perfect if you haven’t unlocked the volcanic biome yet.
Last, you’ll need at least one incubator to hatch the Knocklem egg. Normal incubators work fine for Knocklem eggs, but electric ones cut hatching time down by 70%, so they’re worth building if you plan to breed multiple variants. Just make sure your base has enough power generation if you go the electric route, I made the mistake of trying to run 3 electric incubators on my starting base with only 2 generators, and I kept losing power mid-hatch.
How to Select Parent Pals for the Best Knocklem Traits
Breeding isn’t just slapping two random pals together and hoping for the best. The stats and traits of your parent pals directly pass down to the offspring, so picking the right parents cuts your grind time in half. Knocklem are primarily used for frontline combat and base defense, so you’ll want to prioritize combat-focused traits and high attack/defense IVs when choosing parents.
These are the top meta traits for Knocklem, sorted by how much they boost performance:
If you don’t have these rare traits yet, don’t worry. Start with parents that have at least 2-3 positive combat traits, and you can breed better traits in over time. Offspring inherit 70% of their IVs from their parents, so if you have two parents with 90+ attack IV, your Knocklem baby will almost always have a higher attack IV than any wild spawn you can catch. If you don’t know how to check IVs, you can unlock the IV checker in the tech tree at level 30, or use a pal stat viewer mod if you’re playing on PC with mods enabled. If you’re playing on a server with friends, you can also ask to borrow a high stat Knocklem from a friend to use as a parent, that’s a great way to jumpstart your breeding line without having to grind for rare traits yourself.
Step-by-Step Process to Breed Knocklem Successfully
Now that you have your prerequisites sorted and your parent pals picked, it’s time to start the breeding process. First, double check that your breeding farm is placed correctly and has no obstruction from nearby structures or trees. Even a single rock sticking through the floor of the farm can stop it from working, so I usually clear a 4x4 area around the farm just to be safe.
Next, put one male and one female parent pal into the breeding farm. If you don’t have any existing Knocklem to breed together, the most reliable cross pairs for getting a Knocklem egg are Rushoar + Anubis, or Mammorest + Digtoise. Both pairs have a 90% chance of producing a Knocklem egg if both parents are at least level 20. If you already have two Knocklems, breeding them together will give you a 100% chance of a Knocklem egg, so that’s the better option if you have existing high stat Knocklem to work with.
Then, put one cake into the breeding farm’s inventory. You only need one cake per breeding pair, no matter how long it takes for them to produce an egg. I once forgot to put cake in and left a pair in the farm for 3 in-game hours, and nothing happened, so don’t skip this step. Now you just have to wait for the egg to spawn, it usually takes 10 to 20 in-game minutes, depending on the level of your parent pals. Higher level parents produce eggs faster.
Once the egg spawns, pick it up and put it into your incubator. Knocklem eggs are earth type, so they hatch faster in warm areas, like near a furnace or in a base built in the volcanic biome. Don’t leave your Knocklem egg in a cold biome, that will double the hatching time, and there’s a small chance the egg will get destroyed if the temperature drops too low. Once the egg hatches, check the stats and traits of your new Knocklem. If it’s got the traits you want, great! If not, you can use it as a parent for your next breeding round to pass down any good stats it has. Once you have your first high quality Knocklem, you can use it as a parent to breed even better Knocklem variants down the line.
Common Knocklem Breeding Mistakes to Avoid
Even if you follow all the steps, it’s easy to make small mistakes that waste your time and resources. First, don’t breed low level parents. If your parent pals are below level 15, their offspring will have much lower base stats, even if their IVs are good. I tried breeding two level 10 Knocklems once, and the baby had 30 less base attack than a level 30 wild Knocklem, so it wasn’t worth keeping at all. Wait until your parents are at least level 25 to breed, you’ll get way better results.
Second, don’t ignore trait inheritance rules. If both parents have the same positive trait, that trait has a 90% chance of passing down to the baby, so it’s way easier to get the traits you want if both parents have them, instead of trying to breed a trait from only one parent. If you’re breeding Knocklem for PvP, you’ll want to prioritize speed and attack traits over defense, since fast knockout potential is more important in player vs player fights.
Third, don’t waste rare traits on bad IV parents. If you have a pal with the Legendary trait but only 20 attack IV, don’t use it as a parent for Knocklem. You’re better off breeding that Legendary trait onto a high IV pal first, then using that pal for your Knocklem breeding line. It might take an extra day of grinding, but the end result will be way stronger.
Last, don’t forget to assign a pal with the farming work trait to tend to your breeding farm if you’re breeding multiple batches. They’ll automatically collect eggs and restock cake for you, so you don’t have to check back every 10 minutes. That saves me hours of grind every time I’m breeding a new line of combat pals.
Breeding high stat Knocklem doesn’t have to be a confusing, resource-heavy grind if you follow the right steps. Once you get your first perfect Knocklem, you’ll wonder why you ever wasted time chasing wild spawns in the volcanic biome. Remember that learning how to breed Knocklem in Palworld is just the first step, you can also level up your new Knocklem and equip it with the right saddles and accessories to make it even stronger for boss fights and PvP battles. If you’re still having trouble getting the traits you want, try swapping out one of your parent pals for a higher stat variant you catch from a raid or alpha spawn, that usually fixes the issue pretty quickly.