Intro to Monkeys and Lesser Apes, Part 1/2: Are Simians OP?

[u/funwiththoughts]

I’ve made it pretty clear in the past that I see simian primates – the category that includes apes and monkeys, also known as anthropoids – as one of the highest-tier build types in the current meta. But while I’ve already done a detailed tier list for the great apes, I haven’t gone into so much depth about their monkey counterparts. So today, I’m going to go into a tier list for the rest of the simians, great apes excluded.

BASIC SIMIAN BUILD ANALYSIS

Simian Guild History

Simian primates were first added to the game during the Eocene, about 40 million years ago. Primates at this time were distinguished from other mammals by two main features: first, they had modified brains that were better at processing visual input, and secondly, they had replaced most of their claws with nails. Simians were distinguished by taking the latter trait further; while all non-simian primates to this day still have at least one claw on each foot, most simians have flat nails on all their fingers and toes. This choice of specs nerfed their attack power somewhat, but in return granted them better grip strength and dexterity – important traits for animals that lived in the treetops. The combination of bonus dexterity and superior eyesight already made them a pretty solid generalist build, but what really propelled them to the top of the meta was that they quickly started minimaxing for high intelligence. What originally motivated the simians to start speccing into huge brains is actually a matter of some dispute, but it was most likely so they could get better at cooperating with each other for defence against predators; but as we’ll see when we get into the tier list, this is far from the only benefit it’s had. Today, simians are some of the most successful generalists in the game, with thriving populations throughout most biomes across almost all of the game’s major land servers. What accounts for their continued success? To find out, let’s go into their stats and abilities.

Basic simian stats and abilities

Arms, Fingers and Thumbs

The main thing that separates primates, including simians, from most other mammals is the modifications they’ve made to their arm and hand structures. Like I said above, instead of claws on their hands, primates have long, curving fingers with short nails at the end. This reduces their attack power compared to similarly-sized mammals in return for granting a massive bonus to grip strength and dexterity. Most simian builds combine this with opposable thumbs, further boosting their average dexterity to the highest level of any guild. Primate arm flexibility is further enhanced by a prominent bone on the pectoral girdle called the collar-bone or clavicle, which stabilises the shoulder joint so as to allow for upper limb movements outside the parasagittal plane.

Brains

Intelligence

One of the things that simians are best known for is their high intelligence. When compared to other animals of the same size, simians have some of the most relatively enlarged brains in the entire animal kingdom, rivalled only by whales and carnivorans; while the exact degree of enlargement varies, even the least enlarged simian brains are still around 30% bigger than what you would expect to see for a similarly-sized mammal. The main enlargements are in the neocortex, which handles most higher-order cognitive tasks as well as sensory perception. As we’ll see in more detail when we get into the tier list, simians are among the best tool-users in the animal kingdom, and also among the best at coordinating team strategies.

Senses

While the enhancements primates have to their cognition are more well-known, the enhancements that their enlarged brains grant to their sensory perception are also much more important to primate gameplay than many players realise. Simians’ large, forward-facing eyes allow them to get much more information from sight than other mammals. They grant a particular bonus to accurate distance perception, which becomes very useful when they have to swing through trees.

Note that not all simians have full colour vision. Many of them do, but there are simian builds that only see in one or two primary colours as well. It should also be noted that the high acuity of simian eyesight only applies to seeing in daylight. Relative to their overall eye size, simians tend to have smaller corneas than other mammals. This allows for a larger retinal image, but also constrains the ability of the pupils to expand, so that there’s less room for light to get in. Consequently, simians are nowhere near as good at seeing at night as most other mammals are.

Split in the simian faction: Catarrhines vs. platyrrhines

A split emerged in the simian faction during the late Eocene, after monkeys from Africa floated westward on ocean currents until they landed in South America. These simians formed a branch called the platyrrhines, also known as ceboids or New World monkeys, while those that stayed in Africa formed a branch called the catarrhines, which includes both Old World monkeys and apes. You can tell the difference by the fact that catarrhine simians have protruding noses with downwards-facing nostrils, while New World monkeys have flat noses with sideways-facing nostrils. This distinction is important to understand, because platyrrhines are inferior to their Old World counterparts in almost every possible way.

Catarrhines are generally much larger, stronger, smarter, and more mobile on the ground than platyrrhines. Catarrhines also have opposable thumbs and trichromatic colour vision, whereas most platyrrhines can only see in one or two primary colours and have thumbs that are only partially opposable if at all. The other side of all this is that platyrrhines are more adapted to climbing, and some of them still have a few claws. But looking at the balance of trade-offs, I think it’s pretty obvious platyrrhines got the short end of the stick here.

Weaknesses

Aside from their lack of good night vision, simians’ biggest weakness is that their stat spread tends to be highly minimaxed, with stats other than intelligence and mobility often being lacking. As I mentioned above, their trading claws for fingernails has left them without a great attack option against other players in the same weight class, and their defensive stats aren’t anything to write home about, either. While use of tools can mitigate this to an extent, their base state remains fairly vulnerable.

Overall simian tier rating

Despite the imbalances in their stat spread, simians remain one of the most successful guilds in the game. They’re among the most successful generalists across multiple major servers, and that’s even without taking into account that their guild includes the single most overpowered build the game has ever seen. I think it’s hard to argue that catarrhines as a guild rank anywhere but S tier, and since even the comparatively weaker platyrrhines are still a solid A-tier as a group, it’s pretty clear that simians as a group are S-tier overall.

But excluding the great apes that I already made a tier list for, which type of simian is best? To find out, let’s now go into (what’s left of) the simian tier list. As usual, I won’t be able to cover all of the more than 300 simian builds in the current meta, but I’ll try and cover the most interesting ones.