State of the Meta: Welcome to Immune City

Explorers!

Normally when we see a new patch come out, it takes a long while for the meta in arena to catch up. We can see a shift is coming and we know what dinos are punching above their weight class, but it takes everyone a while to learn that, to level those dinos, and to learn to play them optimally.

Boosts exasperate that issue. Now not only do you have to overcome a grind (if you're not a hardcore geolocation hunter) but you also need to overcome the level differential in boosts. 

Needless to say, the shift is slooow. Unless things are already in a prime position to be brought up to the same level.

And this is where the immune rebalancing comes in.

Lot's of people were already running immunes like Erlidominus, Magnapyritor, Ardentismaxima, Procerathomimus, Ardontosaurus and those who have been fortunate with fuses and committed to getting diplodocus might even have Gemenititan.

If you were? You had some extra awesome RNG for this patch!

But three names stand above the rest in this meta so far, even if we haven't quite seen it yet. 

Much like Monostego which we predicted would be a tyrant in 1.8 based our battle simulator results and what we were seeing in 1v1 matchups, we now have a new trio of terror -- and they're all sauropods.

Some recent analysis (without any of the new hybrids in the pool) shows us that three of the top four 1v1 battlers are now sauropods.

• Gemenititan: First in the battle sim results of all Apex/Tyrant dinosaurs vs all Apex/Tyrant dinosaurs (lacking new hybrids), Gemenititan wins matches like 1.8 Monostego did. It just crushes the opposition. With the addition of immunity, it can now turn 1 rampage and slow, and leave anything else that isn't immune unable to retake priority. Beastly.
   
• Ardentismaxima: The biggest complaint about max prior to this patch was the low damage. Now it got a boost, and that tipped the scales significantly. It becomes a high health monster with a high crit rate that just repeatedly slows and bashes opponents beneath its enormous feet. Max rose to 2nd on the sim results, head and shoulders and thighs above the competition.
   
• Ardontosaurus: Just call Ardont "Max Lite" because that's pretty much what you get. Coming in at fourth overall in 1v1 matchups, Ardont has the health and the damage to get it done in most 1v1 matchups, and because it too can't be slowed, it gets annoying fast. The addition of the invincibility shield for max and max lite just makes them even more annoying when facing glass cannons like Erlidominus.

Moments after 1.9 released, we already started to see more of these three pop up, in addition to Procerathomimus and Erlidominus in greater numbers. And we've got no doubts this will likely continue. 

We're excited for the mixup in the meta, and at the same time we're a little nervous. The overall rebalance to immunes feels a lot more like a massive buff that pushes immunes as a class head and shoulders above the rest. And balance is what we want more than anything. Even as a massive sauropod fan (who is thrilled to see some long necks actually having relevance), I would prefer they were just retooled to include a specific skillset unique to them over giving them some skills and abilities that make them nightmarish monsters in the arena. 

Don't get me wrong, I'll enjoy that too. But balance is preferable to favoritism. Of course, we did see chompers like Thor, Tryko, Tenonto, etc as the lead dogs for a really long time in the arena. So anything to mix that up will be nice for a little while.

Stay tuned Explorers! We've got more great content on the way!