The best mounts in Palworld 1.0 are the legendaries — Jetragon for raw flight speed, Eidrolon as the new flyer that hovers and lets you shoot while airborne, Necromus and Hartalis as the fastest ground mounts, and Neptilius as the best swimmer — but the "best flyer" is genuinely contested for the first time since launch, and the mount you should actually ride depends on your level and which saddle you've unlocked. The July 10, 2026 full release relocated Jetragon, added new legendary rides like Hartalis, Neptilius and the Eidrolon line, and reworked over 200 Partner Skills, so every mount tier list written before then is out of date. This guide is the current version: the flying, ground and water tiers, where to catch each one, the exact speed-passive stack top players breed for, and the mid-game rides that carry you until you can get a legendary.
Everything here is checked against the live build, 1.0.4 (console tag 1.102.642, early September 2026), and Pocketpair's official patch notes.
Quick answer: For flight, Jetragon still has the highest fixed base speed, but a fully-condensed Eidrolon running a Dragon/Dark party can now exceed it — and Eidrolon also hovers and lets you fire your own weapons mid-air, which Jetragon can't. On the ground, Necromus and the new Hartalis are effectively tied for fastest, with Direhowl as the best early mount (saddle at Level 9). In the water, Neptilius is the consensus best swimmer, with Jormuntide the best realistically-obtainable one. Whatever you ride, breed for the Swift + Runner + Nimble + Legend passive stack (+75% move speed) — it's worth more than the Pal itself.
If the climb to 80 is the part you want to skip, our Palworld leveling service handles it on PC, Xbox and PlayStation, on your own world or a dedicated server.
Palworld - Pals Leveling
Get any Pal to level 80
Key takeaways
- The 1.0 release staled every old mount list. Jetragon moved, the fastest new rides (Hartalis, Neptilius, Eidrolon, Eidrolon Ignis) didn't exist in Early Access, and 200+ Partner Skills were reworked.
- The best flyer is now a real debate. Jetragon has the highest base flight speed, but a maxed Eidrolon with a stacked Dragon/Dark party can out-run it — and Eidrolon fixes Jetragon's two biggest annoyances (no true hover, can't use your own weapons in flight).
- Passives matter more than the Pal. A four-passive speed stack — Swift +30%, Runner +20%, Nimble +10%, Legend +15% — is +75% move speed and is the single biggest upgrade to any mount.
- You don't need a legendary to get moving. Nitewing (first real flyer, saddle Tech ~15) and Direhowl (best early ground mount, saddle Level 9) carry the early-to-mid game.
- Saddles are the real gate. Every mount needs a saddle unlocked in the Technology tree at a set level — the Pal is useless until you build it, which is why leveling and mounts are the same problem.
- Mounts and leveling feed each other: a fast mount cuts travel time between bosses and farm spots, and clearing bosses faster is exactly how you rush the Level 80 cap — the loop our Palworld leveling guide is built around.
What makes a mount good in Palworld 1.0?
Four things decide how good a ride is, and only one of them is the Pal.
Movement type. Palworld mounts split into three lanes — flying, ground and swimming — and a Pal is only rideable in the lane it's built for. A flyer trivialises the map; a fast ground mount is for dungeon and base runs; a swimmer is for the ocean-heavy north. You want at least one of each by the endgame.
Base speed. Every mount has a fixed base movement speed. The catch: the exact ride-speed numbers you'll see quoted around the community come from secondary trackers and don't agree on units, so treat them as relative rankings, not spec sheets. What's reliable is the order — and at the top, that order is now contested.
Partner Skill. This is the Pal's unique ability while you ride it. It's the reason the flyer debate exists: as Pocketpair put it in the 1.0 notes, "We've added new Partner Skills and reworked the Partner Skills of over 200 Pals." Eidrolon's Liberated Pterosaur boosts your speed for every Dragon/Dark Pal in your party — a mount whose ceiling depends on your whole team, not just itself.
Passives. A Pal holds up to four passive skills, and speed passives stack. The right four turn a mid-tier mount into an endgame one (full stack below).
Best flying mounts in Palworld 1.0
Flight is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade in the game, and 1.0 turned the "best flyer" question into a real argument. Here's the honest version.
| Mount | Type | Why you ride it | How to get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jetragon | Dragon | Highest fixed base flight speed in the game. The default "king" and the one to breed a speed stack onto. | Lv.70 Field Alpha in NW Sunreach, ~(-553, -1332) near the Azure Tapestry fast-travel point. Saddle Tech unlocks at Lv.70. |
| Eidrolon | Dragon/Dark | The new challenger: true hovering (won't drop you over the ocean when stamina empties), lets you use your own weapons while flying, and with a Dragon/Dark party can out-run Jetragon. | Catch in Sunreach, ~Lv.68–69. Saddle Tech ~Lv.68. |
| Eidrolon Ignis | Dragon/Fire | Fire-typed Eidrolon variant with the same party-speed Partner Skill family; a strong flyer if you're building around Fire. | Breed Eidrolon + Suzaku (~Lv.76), or catch wild in the World Tree north of Dusty Ravine. |
| Frostallion / Frostallion Noct | Ice / Dark | The best combat flyers — they hit hard and convert mounted attacks to their element — but they're not the fastest. (How to get Frostallion.) | Frostallion: Lv.50 field boss in Frostallion's Domain. Noct: Lv.65 Alpha in the No.3 Wildlife Sanctuary, ~(689, 648). |
| Ragnahawk | Fire | Mid-game workhorse. Not fast by endgame standards, but plenty of players keep riding it well into the late game on style alone. | Saddle Tech ~33–37. |
| Nitewing | Neutral | Your first real flyer — the moment the map opens up. Slow, but you'll ride it for a long time before a legendary. | Saddle Tech ~15. |
Getting the top flyer is its own project — our how to get Jetragon guide covers the Level 70 Sunreach fight in detail.
So who's actually the best flyer? It depends on who you ask, and that's the accurate answer. PC Gamer's verdict is that "Jetragon is still king." Mobalytics argues 1.0 "dethroned Jetragon" and that Eidrolon is now the best flyer. Game8 splits the difference: Jetragon and Xenolord are its top picks, but it flags that a fully-condensed (4-star) Eidrolon with a Dragon/Dark party is the fastest flyer in the game. The reconciling truth: Jetragon wins on base speed out of the box; a maxed Eidrolon with the right party composition wins the ceiling — and Eidrolon is simply more pleasant to fly because it hovers and lets you shoot. If you want one flyer and don't want to min-max a party, get Jetragon. If you're building an endgame Dragon/Dark team anyway, Eidrolon is the pick.
Best ground mounts in Palworld 1.0
Ground mounts are for the places you can't or shouldn't fly — dungeons, tight terrain, and fast base-to-base sprints. The top tier is all endgame legendaries, but the early options matter far more than people admit.
| Mount | Type | Why you ride it | How to get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Necromus | Dark | Fastest ground mount alongside Hartalis; dash skill, high jumps, brief dash-invincibility. Also a top-tier combat Pal. | Saddle Tech ~49; endgame legendary. |
| Hartalis | — | New 1.0 legendary, effectively tied with Necromus for fastest ground. Sources split on which is #1, so treat them as co-best. | Saddle Tech ~61; endgame legendary. |
| Paladius | Dragon | Just behind the top two, with the same dash-and-jump traversal kit. | Endgame legendary. |
| Direhowl | Dark | Best early ground mount, full stop — saddle at Level 9, common to catch, and its Partner Skill boosts ride speed. Only drawback is low stamina. | Saddle Tech Lv.9. |
| Fenglope | Neutral | Mid-game standout for its double-jump, which turns terrain into shortcuts. | Saddle Tech ~26. |
The takeaway most guides miss: Direhowl is one of the best value mounts in the game because you get it so early. It's not going to keep up with Necromus, but it's rideable at Level 9 and it makes the entire early game faster.
Best water mounts in Palworld 1.0
The northern half of Palpagos is water, so a swimmer earns its party slot the moment you push north.
| Mount | Why you ride it | How to get |
|---|---|---|
| Neptilius | New legendary; consensus best/fastest swimmer, leaps out of the water, and doubles as a strong fighter. | Lv.60 Alpha on a far-north small island. |
| Jormuntide | The best realistically-obtainable mid-to-late swimmer, and a strong combat Pal in its own right. | Saddle Tech ~39. |
| Azurobe | Best early-game swimmer before you can reach the better options. | Saddle Tech ~24. |
| Surfent / Surfent Terra | The earliest water mounts — get you across water while you work toward the rest. | Saddle Tech ~10. |
One correction worth stating plainly, because it circulates in old comment threads: there is no Pal named "Azurmane." The swimmer people mean is Azurobe. And Suzaku Aqua is not a swimmer at all — it's a flyer that hovers low over water, so you can fish while hovering, but it doesn't dive.
Palworld - Character Leveling
Get leveled to 80 without the grind
The mount passive stack (the real upgrade)
The fastest thing you can do to any mount is breed it with the right passives. Speed passives stack additively:
- Swift — +30% move speed
- Runner — +20% move speed
- Nimble — +10% move speed
- Legend — +15% move speed (plus +20 Attack / +20 Defense; legendaries only)
Run all four and you're at +75% move speed — the classic breed target for any serious mount, and a bigger jump than swapping to the next Pal up the tier list. There's also a World-Tree-exclusive Dimensional Leap passive that adds even more, though the community can't agree on the exact magnitude, so treat it as a bonus rather than a plan.
Two more mechanics people misread:
Infinite Stamina is misleadingly named — it gives +50% Max Stamina on rideable Pals, not literally unlimited flight. It's still excellent on a flyer, but you will eventually come down. A separate Effigy-based bonus reduces stamina drain while riding.
The Wing Pack is the 1.0 endgame outlier: a player glider that frees a party slot entirely. It's a Technology-tree unlock costing 9 Ancient Technology Points at the Level 80 tier — the most expensive ancient unlock in the game — and runs on Wing Cells crafted at the Ancient Workbench. It works as a basic glider with no fuel and gets an aerial dash with fuel. It's not a replacement for a fast flyer, but it means you don't have to carry one just to cross a gap.
How to unlock and ride any mount
Catching the Pal is only half of it — every mount needs its saddle, and saddles are gated behind Technology-tree levels.
The flow is the same for every ride:
- Hit the required level and spend a Technology point on that Pal's saddle in the Technology menu.
- Craft the saddle at a Pal Gear Workbench.
- Equip it on the Pal, then press the ride prompt to mount.
Saddle level gates, roughly: Direhowl 9 · Surfent 10 · Nitewing 15 · Fenglope 26 · Jormuntide 39 · Necromus / Paladius ~49 · Eidrolon ~68 · Jetragon 70. That progression is why mounts and leveling are the same problem — you can catch a Jetragon early, but you can't ride it until Level 70. If the grind to those tiers is the wall you're hitting, our Palworld leveling guide covers the fastest XP methods in 1.0, and the level zones map shows where to farm at each tier.
Early, mid and late-game mount progression
If you just want a plan, ride the best thing you can build at your level:
| Stage | Flying | Ground | Water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early (Lv.1–20) | Nitewing (~Tech 15) | Direhowl (Lv.9) | Surfent (~10) |
| Mid (Lv.20–45) | Ragnahawk / Beakon | Fenglope (~26) | Jormuntide (~39) |
| Late (Lv.45–70+) | Jetragon (70) / Eidrolon (~68) | Necromus (~49) / Hartalis / Paladius | Neptilius (Lv.60 Alpha) |
Get one flyer as your priority — it's the biggest single upgrade — then fill in ground and water as their saddles come online. Breed the speed stack onto whichever flyer you settle on before you bother chasing the next Pal up the list.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best flying mount in Palworld 1.0? It's genuinely contested. Jetragon has the highest fixed base flight speed and is the safest single pick. A fully-condensed Eidrolon running a Dragon/Dark party can out-run it and is nicer to fly — it hovers and lets you use your own weapons in the air. Pick Jetragon if you want one flyer with no setup; pick Eidrolon if you're building a Dragon/Dark team.
What is the fastest mount overall? In the air, Jetragon (base) or a maxed Eidrolon (ceiling). On the ground, Necromus and Hartalis are effectively tied. Note that community ride-speed numbers disagree on their units, so rank by the tiers above rather than any single quoted figure.
How do I get Jetragon in 1.0, and did it move? Yes — Jetragon relocated in the full release. It's now a Level 70 Field Alpha in northwest Sunreach, around (-553, -1332) near the Azure Tapestry fast-travel point, and its saddle unlocks at Level 70 (patched down from 79). It is no longer where Early Access guides put it on Mount Obsidian.
What's the best early-game mount? For ground travel, Direhowl — you can build its saddle at Level 9. For flight, Nitewing is your first real flyer at Technology level ~15. Both carry you until you reach the legendaries.
Do I need a saddle to ride a Pal? Yes. Catching the Pal isn't enough — you have to unlock and craft its saddle in the Technology tree, then equip it. Each saddle has its own level requirement, which is the real reason a mount is "locked" behind a level.
What passives should I breed onto a mount? Stack Swift (+30%), Runner (+20%), Nimble (+10%) and Legend (+15%) for a total +75% move speed. That four-passive stack is the biggest upgrade you can make to any ride, and it matters more than jumping one Pal up the tier list.
Ride faster, level faster
A fast mount and a fast leveling curve are the same loop: the quicker you cross the map and clear bosses, the quicker you hit the saddle tiers that unlock the next mount. If you'd rather skip the grind to Level 70 and just ride the endgame legendaries, that's what our leveling service is for.
Want the endgame mounts without the grind?
- Palworld Leveling Boost — we push your level to the tier where Jetragon, Necromus and Neptilius saddles unlock.
- All Palworld services — bosses, currency, catching and progression help.
Mount data checked against Palworld 1.0.4 (console tag 1.102.642) and Pocketpair's official 1.0 patch notes. Community ride-speed figures are reported inconsistently across trackers, so mounts here are ranked relatively rather than by raw speed numbers.
