VS

PvP Duels strategy in Polandball Go

Duels reward CP, Population and Military, a real weapon, and a defense that lasts. The arena barely matters.

The short version

• CP first, then Population and Military. Diplomacy and Soft Power come last.
• Equip a real weapon and fire both charges.
• On offense you face the game's bot, and attackers win most duels.
• On defense, build to last to round 24.
• Don't build for the arena. It barely changes how duels go.

Stats to build

CP multiplies both your hit and your HP, so a CP edge counts twice. A 10% CP edge is about a 21% edge in the damage race.

Population sets HP and Military sets Attack. Each runs from 0.7× at 0 to 1.3× at 100, so a point of one is worth a point of the other.

Economy adds Protection, a one-time shield that soaks damage before HP. Without an item it's worth about a third as much as Population.

Diplomacy only decides who hits first. Going first adds no damage.

Soft Power only raises Weapon hits, so it does nothing on a ball without an item.

In Open League duels, Population lines up best with surviving and Military with winning. Diplomacy and Soft Power line up least.

Pick balls with high Population and Military first, then Economy. Treat Diplomacy as a tiebreaker.

Items and charges

A Weapon hit is your Attack times 1.35 up to about 1.9, depending on the item's attack and your Soft Power. It goes through a Block for half damage.

Each item gets 2 charges a duel, and they don't come back. Balls with stronger items win more.

• Fire both charges. A charge left at the end of a duel is wasted.
• Fire into a Block. The bot can't Block twice in a row, so never fire right after its Block. Fire after a round it Attacked.
• Fire for the KO. Weapon attacks land after Attacks, so they can finish a ball your Attack left low that round.
• Give your best item to your highest-Military ball. A Weapon hit is built on Attack.
• Pick an item whose resonance type the other side's common types are weak to. That makes the Weapon your biggest hit.
• Item effects like Poison don't do anything in duels right now.

Attacking

The defending side is played by the game's bot, so play aggressively.

Go for a fast KO race. Long duels are where attackers lose ground.

• Block once to take the first swing. Momentum from a Block makes your next Attack go first, the same as being faster.
• Speed only matters when both balls would land the KO in the same round. Then the faster one swings and the slower one never does.

Defending

Build your defense to last to round 24. After that, the side with the larger share of HP plus Protection left wins.

• Stack Population and Economy on defense. They drag fights long.
• Protection counts at the round limit, so Economy is worth more on defense than on offense.
• A ball that's nearly KO'd still counts at the round limit. Swap it out to keep it alive.

Squad and swaps

• You need 3 KOs to win, so you can lose two balls and still take the duel.
• Lead with your best Population and Military ball. It sees the most rounds.
• Swap out of a bad type matchup. At top defense orbs a resisted hit loses 25%, about the gap between Military 50 and Military 90.
• A Swap lands before anything else, so the ball you bring in takes that round's hit. It can't Swap out the next round.
• Stats and CP first, type matchups second. Don't give up 20 Population for a type edge.
• Pick five balls whose attack types don't share a weakness, so no single type resists all of you.

Arenas

The arena is random. It boosts hits of its own types a little and changes nothing else.

Build for the whole field, not for one arena. The arena guide has each arena's boosted types.

Where to look next

• The PvP Duels guide has the rules: the moves, the round order and what each stat does.
• Meta has Arenas and How duels end.
• Duel matchups shows who KOs whom.
• PvP Calculator is a Premium feature.
• The type matchups guide has the type chart and the orb numbers.