The Bird Tier List

[Music] [Applause] birds are one of the most popular playable classes in the game with a huge number of successful builds and tons of cool strategies however some of these strategies have clearly been more successful than others so today we'll be going over the bird tier list to see which bird ranks highest but before we get into looking at specific bird builds let's do an overview of the basic attributes and special abilities the bird faction has access to as well as a quick rundown of a history of the bird faction so birds are one of the newer factions in the game joining the game's roster during the latter part of the mesozoic expansion they began as an offshoot of the dinosaur faction that was specifically adapted to arboreal gameplay but when the devs dropped the cenozoic balance patch these small avians were the only dinosaurs not to be hit by the bandhammer fast forward to today's meta and birds are one of the most successful factions in the game owing this success to a handful of powerful unique abilities in addition to the obvious flying attribute first of which is their beak now beaks were not entirely new ability for the reptile player base but birds went far deeper into the big skill tree than most dinosaurs ever had with many bird players opting for extremely specialized beaks to give them an edge in specific scenarios however even the basic beak offers plenty of advantages while their lack of teeth does mean that they deal reduced damage with their bite attack birds can be far more accurate with their pecking attacks enabling them to hit weak points or secure grabs on smaller targets such as the thin hurt box of a snake beaks also offer moderate protection potentially reducing headshot damage and nullifying imprecise counter-attacks beaks also offer some of the best stab type damage in the game which when used accurately can deal massive damage on crit beaks are also excellent tools for dealing with parasites in fact they're so good that oftentimes other less dexterous players will party up with bird support players in order to have a better matchup against parasites feathers are also a unique and powerful trait exclusive to birds that provides excellent cold protection without causing the user to become too over encumbered to fly feathers also offer pretty substantial defense against crush type attacks which is especially important to birds because of their hollow bones trait hollow bones are another ability meant to synergize with the flying playstyle now a common misconception is that bird bones are hollow in order to reduce equipment load but actually they're hollow in order to let bird players fill them with air which grants them a massive boost to their maximum stamina without this it'd be extremely tough for a bird to fly for any significant period of time the trade-off of course is that a broken bone not only deals serious damage but also potentially reduces the player's maximum stamina by huge margin so a bird player will need all of the blunt damage defense it can get and speaking of blunt damage the bird's lower bone density means the first own blunt force strikes like wing attacks also deal reduced damage the top tier bird builds are the ones that can best capitalize on the strength of their class while mitigating potential weaknesses that about covers the basics so let's get into the tier list at the bottom of the tier list we have two flightless bird builds both with essentially the same glaring weakness these are the kiwi and kakapo kiwis are hilariously part of the same faction as ostriches emus and cassowaries for some reason they opted to give up the flight ability but didn't use the extra available skill points to spec into gigantism like the rest of their squad did the result is a build that can literally only exist on island servers where there is no active mammal player base aka new zealand the kakapo is a flightless version of the parrot and although parrots are undoubtedly excellent bird builds the flightless weakness is too glaring to ignore due to invasive species like rats and cats establishing a presence on island servers both of these flightless bird builds are seeing major declines in their player base and i would not be surprised if they all ended up switching mains flight is just too strong an ability to pass up which brings me to the next builds on my tier list so i see what these builds were going for being giant could potentially make up for the lack of flight but in practice this didn't quite pan out while these are technically the strongest birds in terms of base power and defensive stats for their weight class they are woefully underpowered they're one of the few megafauna builds that can be taken down by cheetahs when they should be able to completely annihilate cheetahs with their powerful clothes their huge weak point presents a lot of opportunity for counter-attack too so if they ever get too bold they're setting themselves up for a tough loss lastly the fact that they are forced to nest on the ground forces them into an even more vulnerable position than most birds as ratted eggs are extremely valuable as loot objective defense is not an easy task even for high tier builds so for ostriches emus and cassowaries this is a huge hurdle next on the tier list we have the hummingbird this builds spec purely into mobility and just about nothing else and as a result is the only bird build with full 360 degree movement similar to a dragonfly this combined with its extremely small size enables the hummingbird to very quickly change direction mid-flight allowing it to easily dodge attacks and fly around obstacles more importantly it allows the hummingbird to act as nectar which is an extremely valuable source of energy that's normally inaccessible to birds since birds are usually too heavy to land on flowers and not agile enough to access nectar mid-flight this all sounds great but the hummingbird also has two very serious weaknesses the first is pretty obvious they have no combat prowess at all and any attack they fail to dodge will send them right back to the character select screen but in addition to that the insane energy cost of their flight ability combined with their total lack of fat storage means hummingbirds will run out of stamina very quickly if they can't constantly find food to me this is a high risk high reward strategy where the risk far outweighs the reward so i have to place them in f tier at the bottom of deed here we have the pigeon the pigeon build doesn't really have any critical flaws but they're held back by mediocre stats in particular the pigeon is sorely lacking in any combat focused stat like power or defense they do best in cities where their excellent navigation ability grants them an extra bit of safety by nesting among high rises in loot rich locations but even in cities pigeon players tend to be the main source of xp for higher tier predators plus if you're just looking to play a bird build that's good at looting cities there are better options available anyway the peacock build is another generally understated build with high hp but little else to rely on it does however have one of the highest intimidation proficiency bonuses in the game gaining a massive buff to all intimidation checks when its eye spot feather ability is activated as impressive as this ability is the peacock's actual attacks do very little damage so any player able to resist being frightened will have a pretty easy win the peacock's diomatic display also blocks vision behind itself making a stealth approach by a third party attacker extremely easy and while they can escape by flying the feathers of a peacock are so heavy that getting airborne takes a bit longer than most birds which can be the difference between dodging or dying when under attack the flamingo is a bit of an afk class very minimal skill is actually required to pilot this build they opted to spec into the filter feeding ability meaning all they really need to do to gain experience and progress their character is pick a random spot in the lake bed and start digging around with their beak scoring free wins against things like snails and shrimp however when faced with a challenge from any player anywhere near its size this build totally falls apart they rely on water to impede the approach of predators in order to give them time to escape when attacked however this doesn't always work their pathetic defensive stats mean they go down in one or two hits and their slow flight startup means that oftentimes players will have time to rush them down even when they're in the water this is an easy build to rack up a bunch of experience with but also a very easy build to defeat if you know their weaknesses ah the humble chicken often compared to the t-rex to exemplify how far the dinosaur faction has fallen while i disagree with the implication i don't disagree that chickens are indeed a low tier build while they aren't anywhere near as totally helpless as the kiwi or cockapoo they're still a barely average stated bird that lacks the ability to fly for any extended distance they can certainly hold their own against most similarly sized opponents but with poor escape options and no unique abilities this build faces an uphill battle against most opponents well ok i shouldn't say no unique abilities but to be honest their fast respawn rate kinda backfired on them due to humans using the factory farming strategy next in seeds here we have the vulture build the tankiest variant of the raptor subclass a good tank build needs to be able to accomplish two things the first is area denial which vultures do quite well a few of them can easily lock down a carcass one of the most contested points of interest you'll ever see on the map they can do this because of their large size and acidic projectile attack the other thing a tank must be good at is shrugging off hits and this is where vultures fall short their thick feathers easily shield them completely from smaller attacks but because of their hollow bones blunt fours can easily crush their defenses and take them down in only a hit or two so while they can defend a carcass from hordes of smaller scavengers they don't have much counterplay towards bigger more aggressive brawlers [Music] the woodpecker builds spent the bulk of their evolution points optimizing and perfecting the peck attack both in power and efficiency with one goal in mind to be able to hit insect players through cover burrowing is one of the safest most effective ways insect players can avoid combat but the woodpecker absolutely demolishes this strategy one of the main advantages of this strategy is that having a powerful beak that's highly effective at drilling through wood also just means you've got a super sharp beak that's highly effective as a general purpose weapon one of the main disadvantages of this strategy is that pecking at wood gives the woodpeckers location away alerting more powerful predators to its presence while it's in the middle of pecking and is distracted one particular woodpecker build the toucan opted to spec into more bulk and an even more powerful beak which while less useful for attacking insects through the wood is still extremely powerful for pvp all in all interesting strategy by no means flawless but definitely has some solid strengths so i know i've been pretty hard on flightless birds up until now so you might be surprised to see me rate penguins as upper mid tier rather than low tier the difference is penguins actually swapped out their wings for an arguably equally viable alternative flippers which essentially allow them to fly through the water with incredible agility this gives them a downright broken matchup against fish however this strategy is pretty much only viable on servers where there are no land-based predators that penguins would still need to worry about so if for whatever reason a few polar bears ever spawn in the antarctic server it's kind of game over for that entire build the predators they have to contend with in the water are even more dangerous and while their agility does help them dodge attacks ultimately it's still a totally one-sided matchup their strategy is pretty cool and actually fairly dominant due to limited competition but i wouldn't be surprised to see the entire penguin playerbase collapse if the devs ever add new dlc in the form of an antarctic land predator or even if they just buff the land mobility of the leopard seal still top of sea tier is a respectable position for a flightless bird [Music] at the bottom of b tier we have the goose i've got an entire video dedicated to the goose build but in short the goose has solid base stats including above average hit points however its abysmal power stat leads it to rely heavily on intimidation to secure territory this can be unbelievably effective at times and it's not uncommon to see top tier predators flee an encounter that they easily could have won still the obvious flaw in this strategy is that if the goose's opponent resists being frightened the goose will be wide open to a punishing counter-attack in addition the goose's weak spot is easily exploitable by intelligent players so careless aggression tends to be the goose's biggest strength and biggest weakness at the same time all in all still a surprisingly effective strategy the heron build put a huge amount of evolution points into maxing out the puncture damage it can deal with its beak and it did so to great success herons have one of the highest damage packs of any bird and frequently one hit their targets even those with scale armor like large fish and juvenile crocodiles the effectiveness of their piercing attack is amplified by their long neck which gives their attacks a deceptively long range giving their strikes an almost cobra-like flash to them they have downright oppressive matchups against fish amphibians and all other small aquatic builds one vulnerability they do have is that their flight ability has a lot of startup making it a bit less reliable as an escape option if they do happen to get ambushed still it's certainly not terrible another weakness is that their long neck presents a bit of a weak point making lunging forward with repeated pecking attacks a bit risky if you get too predictable about it good players will be able to punish careless lunges quite hard in high beat here we have the falcon a raptor build that opts to defeat its opponents using speed and superior maneuvering rather than actual power falcons actually have a below average power stat for a raptor and don't deal particularly high damage in close combat their talons are pretty small compared to hawks owls and eagles and so instead of slashing and stabbing with their claws falcons actually punch with their feet to disorient or concuss their target and then finish the fight with their more powerful beak in the right situation this can deal absolutely massive damage enough to one shot a midsize target at full hp the drawback of this strategy is that falcons can only dish out high damage when they have the time to build up speed first this makes the falcon a pretty poor defender for objective gamers and means the falcon can struggle to win fights if its first attack doesn't connect as follow-up attacks will likely not have the same force built up as the first still the burst damage potential of this build cannot be ignored so it earns its spot in high b tier this might seem like an odd inclusion to cap off b-tier but songbirds are a highly efficient build for their size and do deserve recognition on this tier list this is a huge group including finches starlings sparrows wrens and birds of paradise and while some are flashier than others they all have relatively similar stats with extremely high agility being their core stat unlike many of the builds lower on the tier list that have difficulty getting themselves airborne quickly songbirds have extremely low startup on their flight move allowing them to reposition themselves easily and quickly this makes their approach very difficult to punish making songbirds excellent at chipping away at defensive players and makes them great at stealing loot from slower builds their safety and numbers strategy can actually be somewhat intimidating and disorienting too making it rather difficult to attack a party of songbirds mid-flight while they certainly aren't invincible having one of the lower hp stats among birds they're an often overlooked but undoubtedly successful bird build at the bottom of a tier we have the swan the swan is essentially a goose that has the power stat to actually back up its attempts to intimidate the wing attacks that most bird players use do very little damage and aren't very useful aside from pushing other players around the swan's wing attack can break bones and concuss foes because of this swans are one of the best builds at controlling important points of interest as their hyper-aggressive playstyle can result in huge territory gains of course they do have the same weaknesses as geese so targeting the swan's neck with an attack can defuse the threat but this is a bit riskier of a play against a swan than against a goose all around sturdy defender definitely a tier next in a tier we have the owl the avian faction's premier stealth assassin build it owes this reputation to its special ability which allows it to fly completely silently this makes the owl's strikes very difficult to defend against as players just about never see them coming while not as stacked in the power department as their daytime counterparts owls do have quite solid base stats while they aren't likely to one shot high hp targets they do have enough force behind their attacks to be able to defend themselves and their territory even from powerful enemies in addition to granting the owl the silent flight perk the owl's thick bushy feathers offer additional defense against attacks enabling it to stand its ground in important objective defense scenarios interestingly the silent flight perk did come at the cost of the waterproof ability that most bird feathers have meaning that falling into the water or getting caught in a rainstorm can actually disable the owl's flight ability a pretty unique weakness and certainly something that can be played around but interesting nonetheless [Music] in the middle of eightier we have the eagles and hawks hawks and eagles follow the same basic strategy both having tailored their builds to focus on dealing maximum damage with their talons hawks are the smaller variants of this group and because of this they are far more agile while not as powerful as eagles their agility enables them to weave through cover better than most birds of prey this makes them well suited for rushing down players both in open terrain and in dense difficult to navigate terrain like forests eagles in contrast are much more powerful but their larger size and wider wingspan prevents them from entering dense forests still in open prairies and mountains eagles can be incredibly effective dealing absolutely brutal damage with their enormous dagger-like talents enough to take down players in higher weight classes without even requiring team strategies these are without a doubt some of the strongest bird builds in the game for pvp and have been for quite some time at the top of a tier we have the grappler tank hybrid the pelican the pelicans main strength is its throat pouch grappling enemy players can be a highly effective takedown strategy but birds struggle with this since they can't use their wings to grab and since their beaks aren't always the most reliable grappling weapons sometimes leading to targets escaping the pelicans grapple is in contrast almost totally inescapable and works on targets much larger than you might think while this attack style is most effective against fish it's quite powerful against other bird rodent and amphibian players although it does have its limitations this combined with the pelicans overall bulk makes it one of the most difficult birds to take down in single combat and enables it to stand its ground against even top tiers like canines so those of you who follow the channel for a while can probably guess what the top tier birds are gonna be if you can't that's probably a good indication that you should be subscribed those of you wishing the devs could unban the velociraptor build look no further than the secretary bird as it has basically all the same awesome abilities and more hunting on foot and in pairs they prove time and time again that striking from the sky is overrated they can easily defeat other high tier builds such as the cobra and mongoose with their high damage kicks their stomp move has extremely high accuracy allowing secretary bird players to score game ending head shots with ease and they do all this without completely sacrificing their flight ability if they ever find themselves outmatched which only ever happens against builds in higher weight classes they can still retreat to the sky or treetops the fact that this strategy works in africa one of the most unforgiving servers of all time is proof enough to me that this is the optimal raptor these last two builds are about equally matched both opting for the same specialization intelligence [Music] parrots are an extremely unique build with several powerful abilities not the least of which is their sonic shriek which can drive away just about any player who invaded their territory especially when employed by a coordinated team in addition due to their pre-hindsight beak parrots have the highest dexterity of any bird putting them among the best users of the tool use ability and with an extremely high lifespan if there was any build that could replace humans if humans ever get their intelligence nerfed i'd bet on the parrot i made an entire video on parrots if you're interested but when it comes to intelligence there's one avian build that arguably outclasses them corvids such as magpies crows and ravens also opt for a high intelligence playstyle but with a far more expansive social aspect to it while plenty of bird builds use cooperative team strats the best corvids operate using a network effect where knowledge is shared with a huge amount of players over vast distances this knowledge can include useful points of interest or even blacklists of dangerous areas or players to avoid but even individually corvettes have a lot going for them with significantly higher stealth than parrots corvettes are much better at staying out of conflict their pointy beaks while not as useful for tool use are a much better combat tool for dealing quick damage it's also more useful for pressuring and poking opponents or for provoking larger players into battle so they can reap the benefits of the aftermath corvids are one of the best builds at making use of human-made items and quickly figure out ways of abusing the system to score quick loot all in all corbids are basically what you'd get if you gave monkeys wings easily a top-tier build so there you have it the complete bird tier list or rather as complete as i thought possible for youtube if i didn't do a segment on your favorite bird please let me know in the comments despite being the longest video i've ever made there were still a few birds that i cut from the video for time's sake or because i felt i couldn't discuss the bird properly without getting into territory that was potentially too violent for youtube if you're interested in watching the full director's cut version of this video it's available to watch on nebula a subscription streaming service built by and for creators nebula comes bundled for free with curiositystream another awesome streaming service and longtime sponsor of the channel curiositystream is home to the highest quality nonfiction content around with several thousand documentaries available for streaming on all devices normally i'm always plugging their incredible dinosaur content which they have in spades but this time i'd like to draw attention to this great little documentary called these birds were made for walking which does a great job explaining the process by which birds evolve flightlessness it's super interesting so please head to the link in the description pick up that sweet 26 off deal a year's worth of curiosity stream for less than 15 and enjoy both the extended edition of the bird tier list as well as the walking birds documentary thank you so much for watching thanks especially to my patrons on patreon and i'll see you all in the next video [Music]

Channel: TierZoo

Views: 3,543,749

Rating: 4.9648829 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: ZuVcOwXLnyQ

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/--AndrE---]

came here to post exactly this dude! +1

[u/blackcap13]

I want her to go through this whole channel and laugh her ass off! Also does anyone know if she's done anything with the The Urban Rescue Ranch? I would love a Collab since they're both in Texas.