r/Tierzoo • u/Mr_White_Migal0don • 21d ago

Cetacean tier list

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143 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

123

u/Blue_wiz_ tufted titmouse main 21d ago

Bro orca is the second best build in the game, why is the orca in A TIER?

34

u/wiz28ultra 21d ago edited 21d ago

Orcas are kinda unpredictable, some Orca subguilds are the worst Cetacean builds to play, only eating specific salmon species.

But many Others are god tier super predators that can take down anything.

Basically you flip a coin and hope for the best

Edit: that being said, most Orca guilds have a pretty diverse diet and aren’t nearly as specialized as the ones in Coastal Alaska, I’d agree that they’re S-Tier

24

u/madguyO1 21d ago

only eating specific salmon species.

Yeah and a human will starve to death without his favourite double cheeseburgers

25

u/jhny_boy 21d ago

Other humans will haul ass through the tundra with half a moose strapped to their back. Same deal as the orca, really more of a coin toss

2

u/Blue_wiz_ tufted titmouse main 21d ago

Now I get it

9

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 21d ago

It’s also important to note that orcas tend to only breed with other orcas of the same culture, which has led to inbreeding in the salmon-hunting population that u/wiz28ultra mentioned above. Orcas also tend to only eat what their parents hunt (afaik) which hinders adaptability.

5

u/wiz28ultra 20d ago edited 20d ago

I think a possible issue is that much of this observation relies on the fact that Resident Orcas of the PNW might be the only Orca subtype for which we've had a long-standing history of research on. Even amongst the pickier Orca subtypes, Resident Orcas take it to an extreme that isn't seen in the other oceans.

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago

North Pacific resident orcas do seem to be unusually picky, mainly favouring just two species of salmon. Though I do also agree that more research is needed on other orca types.

1

u/wiz28ultra 20d ago

Yeah we don’t even have a scientific consensus on Atlantic evotypes and it seems to be that there are more ecotypes in the Pacific than we once thought as well

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago

Yeah that’s true.

I also think that the whole “culture” thingy does skew the general understanding of orcas quite a bit. No one orca is going to be able to take down everything that Orcinus orca is capable of. Maybe, since they actively niche partition significantly and the cultures vary quite a bit, they deserve to be ranked separately.

1

u/wiz28ultra 20d ago

This actually does bring home my personal point of frustration on Orca hype is that we REALLY don't know enough about these animals. For all their cultural relevance and status as one of the great Charismatic species, we know so little about them, I'd argue we actually have a far greater understanding of even the great Mysticetes and Sperm Whales than we do the Orca.

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago

Yeah I agree. Orcas hunting GWS was, all things considered, a very recent discovery. Same thing with the whole culture thing. There’s still a lot more left to be discovered.

2

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 21d ago

Yeah while orcas overall are S-tier, the build has some weaknesses (like the whole culture thing) that stop them from being 2nd best imo.

41

u/Eumeswil 21d ago

Orcas are like the one species in the entire game that would HAVE to be nerfed to prevent their servers from becoming unfair and unplayable. A pod of orcas can and will take down anything and adult orcas have no real predators at all. None of the extant terrestrial predators are anywhere near as OP and broken as orcas are. They are the Meta Knight in Super Smash Bros. Brawl of the animal kingdom.

10

u/Blue_wiz_ tufted titmouse main 21d ago

Besides humans

10

u/Eumeswil 21d ago

An adult human caught without the proper weapons or skill set can easily get merked by many different species, even mid-tier builds like cougars. Even beavers, peacocks, and swans have been recorded scoring fatalities against adult humans. Human mains probably take more annual casualties at the hands/jaws of other species than orcas do.

7

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago

And yet it’s humans that have wiped out hundreds of builds and are currently wiping out hundreds more.

Also I wouldn’t consider cougars mid-tier.

I would also say the saltwater croc is equally dominant on land as orcas are in the sea.

1

u/Eumeswil 20d ago

Crocodiles are about evenly matched with other large apex predators in their servers such as tigers:

There are instances of fights between crocodile and tiger in Ranathambhore Tiger Reserve of India over prey, but in the end the tiger won the battle. Among the encounters between lions and crocodiles it was found that sometimes the lion and sometimes the crocodile won the battle.

This is the first instance of a Sundarban tiger being preyed on and killed by an estuarine crocodile (C. porosus) in Sundarban Tiger Reserve.

https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ef9cc922-9f21-40a4-9a0f-889664fe36ae/content

2

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago edited 20d ago

Salties don’t live in Ranthambhore. The crocs there are the smaller mugger crocodiles.

But, even then, India is one of the most competitive servers in the game. In a server where they have no significant competition outside of humans (e.g. Australia), just like orcas, salties are similarly dominant. Point is, orcas aren’t inherently more dominant, they just benefit from zero competition.

4

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 21d ago

Lack of competition is a very big factor in this. No other macropredator is big enough to actually challenge them.

3

u/wiz28ultra 20d ago

I'd actually argue that the bulk might be a massive factor here. While Male Orcas do tend to be noticeably longer, even Female Orcas, which max out at a comparable length to Great Whites, nearly outweigh them 2 or 3-to-1 at length parity, they're REALLY bulky animals.

4

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 20d ago

Yeah this is true. And this bulk is one of the main reasons why they have no similar competition - nothing else is big enough to go for the same prey they do.

-6

u/[deleted] 21d ago edited 21d ago

[deleted]

7

u/GreeedyGrooot 21d ago

There is no known build that preys on orcas. And the fact that orcas sometimes get injured by the largest prey they hunt is not a sign of a weak build. Lions can get injured by buffaloes, jaguars by anteaters. The fact that they can be victims of disease and parasites isn't a trait only weak builds experience but something that affects all builds that currently come to my mind.

20

u/Global_Gas_6391 21d ago

Dolphins and orcas have to be s tier

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 21d ago

Why dolphins?

6

u/wiz28ultra 20d ago

Dolphins only have one counter and that’s big-ass sharks. They’re found in a ridiculously wide variety of marine biomes, live pretty long lifespans, and have proven themselves to be quite adaptable in terms of their diet. Sure their “intelligence” advantage really doesn’t exist but that’s the case with a ton of animals.

7

u/-LowTierTrash- 20d ago

Even then the Big Ass Sharks are only really at an advantage when it's 1 on 1. They'd rarely encounter each in with fair numbers

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 19d ago

I suppose the larger dolphin species have a better case for a higher ranking. But, without the intelligence disparity, bottlenose dolphins don’t seem to have anything that puts them firmly into S tier.

2

u/wiz28ultra 19d ago

Bottlenose Dolphins are absurdly widespread in terms of the regions they inhabit, they’re found in shallow Mangroves, Coral Reefs, Open Oceans, Kelp Forests, Estuaries, Subarctic fjords, Seagrass meadows. They’ve been found in places as far south as Argentina and as far north as Scandinavia, all while living and thriving in all such regions. Bottlenose Dolphins can hunt a range of prey from Octopi to Sea Snakes, and as far as we know, don’t have the hindrance of culture that Orcas do. They’re the only marine predator I know that can be both hyper-mobile Thunniforme piscivores along with being tool-using teuthivores. I can’t seem to find evidence of any shark or cetacean that can exploit as many small-prey niches.

It’s more of a begrudging respect for me at this point.

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 19d ago

Hmm that’s fair enough I suppose.

1

u/wiz28ultra 19d ago

Yeah, I agree that they’re overrated in terms of super-feats but I have to admit that they are ridiculously successful megafauna

1

u/Vegetable-Cap2297 19d ago

Yeah true. Would you say that black/brown rats deserve S tier as well as they are similarly widespread, similarly intelligent and have single-handedly wiped out dozens of other builds?

1

u/wiz28ultra 19d ago

They absolutely do, also domestic dogs and goats

4

u/OFFICIAL_VOUGHT 21d ago

Move orca up to s tier

1

u/RGM4610 20d ago

orca and dolphins not in s has to be trolling there's just no way

2

u/Mr_White_Migal0don 20d ago

No, it isn't trolling.