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We've covered a lot of topics on this chanel
but pretty much all of it has been only related to the Anthropocene meta.
So today I'm kicking off a new mini series
which seeks to give an overview of how the meta has evolved across all the previous expansions.
Today's episode is about the Triassic period
an expansion sandwiched between two of the most controversial and metashifting balance patches
the game has ever seen.
Alright, so at the end of the Permian expansion came the balance patch 1.2.1
Known better by its community-given name, the Great Dying.
This update was heralded by one of the largest vulcanic eruptions in the history of the game
which led to a cascade of other world events that drastically increased the difficulty of the game on every single server.
Spawn rates for plants, water, and even essentials like oxygen were at record lows.
And as a result around 90% of the playerbase quit.
Just before the Great Dying, the allpowerful reptile faction had split into two seperate groups:
The Therapsids and the Archosaurus.
Each of these guilds had started to innovate in their own unique ways
in an attempt to claim the top spots in the meta.
And so when the balance patch hit, the Triassic arms-race began.
So let's take a look on how the two warring factions innovated, going into the Triassic.
Therapsid players had already been experimenting with new builds before the Great Dying.
They already had builds like the Dimetrodon and Gorgonopsid destroying the competition.
Mobility-based builds were still in their infancy and weren't well optimized at all.
But these two were the most mobile at the time.
While this allowed them to body their competition at the time,
it was the cooperative survivalist strategy of the Lystrosaurus [see * in video] build that carried the Therapsid faction through the balance patch.
Lystrosaurus was able to deal with the extreme difficulty of the Great Dying
because they could hide underground to avoid the atmospheric changes
and could use their tusks to access loot contained in the heavily armored plant roots.
But aside from them just about every other Therapsid build became obsolete during the Great Dying.
After the difficulty was lowered again,
The Therapsid faction put most of their evolution points into refining their most successful builds
into the best versions they could be.
They unlocked traits like fur, warm blood, milk, and whiskers during this time.
Laying the groundwork for some of the extremely important builds much later in the game's timeline.
However, during the Triassic expansion itself, the Therapsid faction didn't really for any of the riskier, more wild changes to their build.
Meanwhile, the Archosaurus chose a different route.
At the start of the expansion, they were heavily unfavored in the Therapsid matchup.
Their only option was to try some of the more drastic changes to their gameplan
in order to keep up with the competition.
A group of them elected to complete directly with the Therapsids
and speced into similar land tank abilities.
The only difference was these players also put a few points into aquatic abilities.
such as holding their breath and diving,
which gave them a place to retreat if things got tough.
While those players battled the Therapsids directly,
Archosaurs set two more strategies in motion.
The first strategy was to put hardly any points at all into HP,
and instead invest heavily into upgrades related to skin aerodynamics,
which allowed them to be the second faction in the history of the game to ever unlock flight.
This worked because they didn't really need HP, seeing as the only other areal builds were lower weight class insects like beetles and grasshoppers.
Their massive mobility advantage was all they needed.
Around the same time another group of archosaurs started to use an extremely off-meta technique
that had never been done effectively. They switched from quadrupedalism to bipedalism.
Obviously this control scheme is more difficult to master but it does allow for some very unique builds
and gives access to some extremely powerful advanced techniques.
Freeing up your front limbs allows them to become more specialized for other uses.
Diggin, Grabbing, tool use, the possibilities are endless.
In addition, the height advantage is really useful for countering stealth,
especially against builds that use tall grass, shrubs, or other foliage for cover or camouflage
This one change allowed the archosaurs to gain a massive advantage against the therapists.
Although at this point they collectively changed their gamertags from Archosaurs to Dinosaurs.
By the end of the Triassic expansion, Dinosaurs, combined with Terrasaurs and Proto- crocodilians
were absolutely dominating every server in the game.
The first dinosaur builds to make waves in the meta were Herosaurus and Eoraptor
However, the real breakout came with the Coelophysis build.
By trading a little of their power and HP, they gained traits that really put the nail in the coffin for the former champions of the Permian meta.
Therapsids at this point had all but abandoned their former mains, such as the [I don't know how to spell that]
And were now trying their best to play small survivalist classes that could avoid the dinosaurs.
However, this new strategy did not save them from the Coelophysis build.
Their high mobility allowed them to keep up with these smaller builds,
and their long necks and slender snouts allowed them to reach through barriers and into cover.
At this point, the Therapsid guild had dissolved, being completely elimiated from every niche they once held.
A few loyalists remained, though, hiding underground or in trees during the day,
and only daring to venture out at night.
They adopted a new guild name:
Mammals.
The dinosaurs were easily just as overpowered and abundant as the Therapsids that had come before them.
So by now you're probably wondering
"Why didn't the devs nerf them in the same way that they did at the end of the previous expansion?"
And the answer is "they tried".
At the end of the Triassic, another extinction patch was rolled out,
but I think the devs were afraid to use more of the harsh nerfing methods,
because of drasticaly the player-base had dropped after the great dying
So instead of shaking things up in a way that would let off meta builds steal niches away from the top tiers,
What really ended up happening was that the dominance of the dinosaurs, terasaurs, and crocodilians
was only further cemented.
So while the Permian extinction was controversial because of how badly it nerfed the top builds,
The Triassic extinction was controversial because of how little it hurt the top tiers.
Starting here and lasting for the longest continuous time period,
Dinosaurs would own every top tier niche in the game.
Branching out into pack hunters,
solo tanks
Team defense builds
and unstoppable DPS builds
We'll talk about those expansions as well as what came before and after in other videos.
But since we've just about covered everything about the progression of the Triassic metagame,
That's gonna wrap up this video.
Thanks for watching, and if you have a time period, biome or animal you would like analyzed in a video
leave a suggetion in the comments of this video,
Or better yet, become a patron on Patreon.
patrons work directly with me and offer suggestions and critiques during the video creation process itself.
And their support is why I've been able to consistantly put out content like this.
Thanks again! Goodbye.
