Frog

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The role Frogs occupy in the current meta is an odd one. At low levels, they're easily some of the least powerful builds in the entire game. Only about half a percent of Frogs actually reach the late-game and get to unlock the rest of the Frog skill tree.

Frogs offer a fun and unique playstyle, but with that said, the Frog has a lot of glaring weaknesses, holding it back from a higher spot in the meta. Still, there are some standout members that have their own unique perks and special abilities that make them more viable than your average Frog in the current meta.

## History

Amphibians are one of the oldest guilds in the game, having been added in the late Devonian expansion. The Marine meta at the time was very hostile, so it made sense that the Devs would let smaller Fish players spec into Legs and Lungs, so they could finally join the Arthropods on the terrestrial servers. The fact that Amphibians have remained at least moderately viable in the meta this entire time, and survived multiple rounds of balance patches, is impressive, to say the least. And while the Amphibian guild has several popular build styles, the most well-known is the Frog.

As flawed as they are, the Frog build has come a long way. The Amphibian guild as a whole has very humble beginnings, but the strategies that they pioneered, such as swapping their fins for legs and gills for lungs, are still very much relevant to today's meta.

## Abilities And Weaknesses

### Combat Disadvantages

The Frog player base has specced into skin that offers Stamina regeneration in the water since it can directly exchange oxygen with its surroundings when wet. This is a useful ability, especially given how costly the Frogs jump is in terms of Stamina. However, this skin offers nothing in terms of defense and is easily pierced by any attack. The Frog also lacks any form of damage boosting abilities, having no teeth to boost its bite damage, and no horns or spikes to power up its body slam damage, giving it one of the lowest Power stats in the game. It does somewhat make up for this with its strong grab, but seeing as this is useless against players in or above the Frog's weight class, this doesn't factor into its general power level since it's so matchup dependent. Their Intelligence isn't much to boast about either, having one of the simplest brain structures of any Vertebrate.

### Advantages

For some positives, the Frog's Stealth stat, in most cases, is above average. Cryptic coloration is already a good start, and when combined with the fact that their eyes protrude enough to let them remain almost completely submerged while keeping their vision above water, Frogs can be pretty stealthy. This plays nicely with the Frog's other decent stat, their Mobility. The Frog's basic movement speed is quite low, definitely not enough to let them escape an attack or chase down prey. However, the Frog build relies almost exclusively on unconventional movement options. Their Webbed Feet give them fairly high swim speed, which is pretty important for escaping attacks underwater. Some Frogs also have cling pads, which allow them to climb almost any surface with ease. They aren't speedy climbers, but the range of surfaces they can climb is impressive. However, the Frogs best and most important movement ability is their jump, which is by far the best of any Vertebrate, and second only to the Grasshopper in terms of relative distance. This jump ability constitutes the core gameplay of the Frog build. As an escape option, this ability is good in the right situation, specifically if there's good cover nearby. However, it's not that useful when caught out in the open. While over short distances it makes the user extremely difficult to catch, its high Stamina cost means that if safety is far away, it's likely the player will burn through all of their stamina before they can get there, giving the attacker time to catch up. It also does nothing to help when a player is already caught in a grab, though some Frogs have ways of dealing with this too. Where the Frog's jump ability really shines through is as an approach option. It allows the Frog to strike targets from a considerable distance, including ones in the air, which is important, given that many of the Frog's primary targets will have the Flying perk. Combined with its excellent tether grab tongue, the Frog is one of the best builds in the game, at landing grabs on builds that are normally near-impossible to hit. Now with that said, leaping at a target requires a huge commitment from the Frog player, as the move has a huge amount of end-lag and leaves the user in a potentially vulnerable position. If a player uses this attack by the time the Frog is able to act again, their target will likely either be long gone or counter-attacking.

### Environmental Disadvantages

Most of the Real Life playerbase considers Amphibians to be one of the weakest, if not the weakest guild in the entire game. Their abysmal environmental and disease resistance stats make them extremely vulnerable to shifts in the meta, including the Climate patch that's been recently added to the game. With all of this said, despite the harsh, rapidly changing meta of the Anthropocene expansion, there are plenty of Frog builds that have still had decent success in the meta.

## Frog Builds

### Tree Frog

At F tier, there is the Tree Frog. The Tree Frog build swaps out the Webbed Feet trait for the Cling Pads trait, meaning they don't have that great of swim speed but gain a near-unparalleled climbing ability, similar to the Gecko. The main issue with this build is that the Tree Frog play-style turns the awesome jumping ability of the Frog into more of a liability than an advantage. Jumping to escape a Predators attack means that the player is risking taking some serious fall damage. This also means that jumping to catch Bugs midair is a non-option, negating the main benefit of having the ability in the first place. Now, some do mitigate the drawback by also speccing into the Webbed Feet ability, which, while normally only useful for water mobility, can also have the niche effect of reducing fall damage. Still, picking up a costly extra ability for its secondary effect isn't exactly the mark of a top tier. However, there is one exception: The white's Tree Frog. It combines the mobility of a normal tree frog with the bulk of a bullfrog and is capable of attacking top-tier players such as the snake, putting this individual species at tier C.

### Basic Pond Frog

In D tier, there are all of the Pond Frogs that stick really close to the standard Frog Build. They have a great jump, Webbed Feet to boost aquatic movements be, and solid Camouflage. Although definitely not viable, they at least get the main benefits out of the abilities that they do have and are undoubtedly more successful than other Amphibians, like Salamanders.

### Common Toad

In C tier, there is the common Toad build. The reason Toads tend to fare better than the standard Pond Frog is that they're significantly more sturdy. While they aren't exactly armored, their thicker skin is quite good at reducing incoming damage. Regular Frogs are so fragile that even smaller insects can deal lethal damage. Toads, on the other hand, can tank at least a few hits, which is usually enough to let them overcome most Arthropod opponents. This thicker skin has the secondary effect of granting them more resistance to dehydration, giving them versatility and range that the standard Pond Frog can't match. This does come at a cost though, as Toads have a much less powerful jump. However, since they are less vulnerable to attacks quickly, jumping to safety isn't as crucial. Most Toads also incorporate mild chemical defenses to help discourage builds from higher weight classes from griefing them.

### Poison Dart Frog

When it comes to toxic defenses, few builds in the game can boast about poison damage, more so than the Poison Dart Frog. The Poison Dart Frog sports the lowest stats of any Frog build, even going so far as to drop its Stealth rating too. It does this all in the name of spending every possible evolution point on one of the most toxic defensive poisons in the game. Their poison is strong enough to drop any player's Health to zero relatively quickly after biting the Frog player. However, the player must be attacked and take damage in order to actually activate the poison effect. On top of this, there are very few abilities that would warrant such drastic sacrifices in order to attain. So the fact that the Poison Dart Frog cuts all of its stats in order to min-max for poison damage isn't that good of a strategy. There are diminishing returns on Toxicity, and having a poison deadly enough to one-shot an entire herd of elephants doesn't help a player that much more than a poison that would inflict pain and sickness debuffs on to a mid-sized carnivore. Both achieve the same purpose of discouraging attacks from predator players. If the Poison Dart Frog playerbase ever specs into fangs and uses the toxin for venom, maybe they'll break into the top tiers. Still, the fact that they can essentially one-shot anyone who attacks them is impressive and earns them B tier.

### Bullfrog

   In A tier, there is the Bullfrog, which is essentially a basic Frog build, but with greatly improved stats. The average Frog is vulnerable to attacks from fish, birds, insects, and snakes, but with their added bulk and power, Bullfrogs have solid matchups against all of these, and can even hold their own against powerful predator builds, like the house cat. Because of their favorable matchup spread, the Bullfrog playerbase has started to take over pond servers that they don't usually spawn in, which is the hallmark of a high-tier build. Bullfrogs don't have any special defensive abilities or poison, relying solely on their bulk to carry them.

### Cane Toad

The Cane Toad is essentially the stats of a Bullfrog, combined with the thick skin and poison defense of a Toad. The Cane Toad avoids making the same mistakes as the Poison Dart Frog. Investing only a moderate amount of evolution points into toxins grants the Cane Toad a poison that's dangerous enough to ward off most predatory builds without going overboard and wasting evolution points on an overly lethal Elephant-slaying toxic that it doesn't need. The efficiency of this build allowed it to easily take over and dominate the Australian meta. However, the meta is shifting. With some Intelligence builds learning the Cane Toad matchup, and using this knowledge to minimize the potential poison damage, by attacking only the Toad's weak point and avoiding the Toad's poison glands, the Cane Toad might drop down from S tier as Intelligence-based builds expose more of the Toad's flaws.