The overworld is full of unique biomes each with their own individual meta with contenders constantly vying for the top spot
Today, we'll look at one of the most well known biomes: the African watering hole
Just about every African player must traverse or interact with this biome even if their preferred server is the Savanna or even the desert.
Making this a hot zone for PVP
And while there are some strong contenders from high-level builds like lions, elephants and monkeys
Today we'll compare the two aquatic front runners: the crocodile and the hippopotamus.
To determine which is truly top tier.
One thing that immediately jumps out at anyone who runs into these builds
Is their extremely high Vitality.
Both builds maximize the damage they can take in different extremely effective ways
The Hippo simply has extremely high base stats for hit points
Thick skin and high body fat allow the hippo to simply shrug off most hits
on the opposite side of the spectrum We have the crocodile with only a moderate amount of base hit points
however the Crocodile's thick scaly hide offers even more protection than the hippos blubber
as an added bonus, crocodiles opted to spec for high HP regeneration
As long as a crocodile survives a fight and can still bite and swim, it will invariably recover
Let's move on to their offensive stats
The Crocodile build invests a huge amount of Ep into the bite attack
this might seem foolish since typically most builds opt to have at least a few other attack moves at their disposal
However in this case it appears that over investment into bite pushed its DPS so far beyond
What the armor of a normal build can defend against the lack of other options in the neutral doesn't matter
The utility of the bite move doesn't end there however
Because it does so much damage it also has high hit stun
Allowing it to true combo into one of the most powerful attacks found in the entirety of the animal Kingdom:
the death roll
Unparalleled in DPS, This simple combo can end up one-hit killing all but the tankiest of builds
Shifting over to the hippo. We do have to keep in mind that this is a tank build, not a DPS build
This means that its abilities lie much more in area-denial than scoring kills
And you'd be hard-pressed to find a build more successful at area-denial than the hippopotamus
The hippo's primary offensive move is charge which doesn't even need to connect in order to accomplish its goal
Since simply casting the ability reduces its target's resolve astronomically
This effect is strong enough to send even top tiers running for the hills and conceding the match without even taking a hit
However, let's not pretend that the hippo charge is only for show
when this move connects it is absolutely Catastrophic
its damage is Rivaled only by the rhinoceros and elephant
But hippos can use charge just as effectively in the water
Both the crocodile and hippo are hard countered by the elephant due to its sheer size and generally just try to avoid the match up
It's no surprise that the most powerful kill combo in the world is held by one of the oldest builds in the meta
There are hardly any builds from the time of the first crocs that are still relevant in the meta today
but the croc has seen no trouble being relevant in the meta across several expansions
The hippo is much newer on the block
which means it could be that the meta hasn't adapted and will eventually bounce back to counter the hippo
or it could mean that the hippo hasn't even been fully optimized
and could have an even higher rating once its player base gets closer to the skill ceiling
I'm not going to definitively say which one ranks higher on the tier list since the meta is still evolving
both are obviously top-tier in the watering hole biome
I would say that the croc is higher in the water while the hippo can hold its own against bigger challengers on land
Thank you for watching and if you have a build that you'd like me to analyze