Net-Winged Insect

An adult antlion, with far lower stats than a low-level Antlion

Net-Winged Insects, or the **Neuroptera**, are a Faction of insects that include the Lacewing, Antlion, and Mantidfly builds. These builds often get overlooked by the broader Outside community but are builds that insect mains tend to complain about frequently.
The final form of Net-Wings have some of the lowest stats of any insect built with no specialized weaponry, an extremely flimsy exoskeleton, terrible aerial maneuverability, and no special camouflage. This build doesn't seem to have much going for it. However, even though typically the final form of a build tends to be its most powerful form, this isn't always the case. There are two main strategies this build tends to adopt.
It's quite apparent that both support crazy high power ratings for their size this is due to their comically large jaws, which aside from their fearsome appearance also have the important special ability of being hollow. This allows the Net-Wing's other main offensive ability to come into play. Their venom, which is injected through the needle-like jaws, liquefies the targeted players insides, allowing them to be leached out later via the same hollow jaws. The two variants of this build are the Antlion and the Lacewing. Both have the same powerful jaws but each of them also focus on another secondary snap to boost: for the lacewing, its defense and for the antlion, its stealth.

## Build Variations

### Lacewing

The Lacewing is pretty unimpressive as adults, but their larvae are every Aphid main's worst enemy. In addition to their powerful jaws, this build sports one of the most unique abilities in the game. They have the ability to create armor out of the remains of the players that they've killed. Lacewings have one of the lowest defense levels in the game, being both extremely small and lacking a hard exoskeleton. Normally, this will put the Lacewing on about the same level as a caterpillar in terms of how hard they are to defeat and they certainly are vulnerable as most players are right at the start of their playthrough, but by stacking the shells of their victims and other objects on their back, they gain an absolutely sky-high Defense stat that is extremely hard to push through. It's so effective that the lacewing can survive an attack from an entire battalion of ants, something even players in higher weight classes can't always say. Once they've collected enough shells, they actually use them to form their pupae, which is required to level up all the way and reach their final form. This form lacks all the powerful attributes of the larval stage, and has pitifully low base stats outside of Mobility, but it does give them the range of mobility required to complete the main questline.
The Lacewings' best matchup by far is against Aphids, which are generally some of the weakest insect builds in the game, and are mostly played by players looking to boost their XP gains while AFK. However due to their defensive shield, they also have a good matchup against many of the common high tier predators of that weight class, like the ladybird beetle and the ant. However, they have some glaring weaknesses, like their low mobility as a larvae being a burden against faster builds, and without their Defensive ability, they are pitifully frail and can’t take a hit as well as it’d like. Not to mention, it is completely blanked by players who can fly.

### Antlion

The ant lion adopts a similar play style but instead of its second ability maximizing its defense, the antlion focuses on stealth. Their burrowing ability lets them become almost completely undetectable in a matter of seconds but it also has the secondary function of letting them grow backwards continuously to create a pit trap. These pit traps are the main reason the insect player base hates on antlion mains so much since their entire strategy basically boils down to camping. The traps are tough enough to escape by themselves but as if to make their opponents even more salty, Antlions have the special ability to hurl sand at other players to stun them, reducing the likelihood of them escaping even further.
The antlion has an extremely good matchup against Ants, in fact probably second only to the Anteater. Their main weakness is flying builds because insects with this ability have no problem escaping the traps that they set. Another weakness they posess is that they have low mobility outside of their pit trap, so they can’t really get to their prey when they escape if they can’t use their Sand Hurl ability.

### Mantidfly

The only Net-Wing to have an adult form worth discussing is the Mantidfly. It has lightning-quick claw slashes, which makes for a fantastic PvP build. They impersonate wasps and mantises as they have aposematic colors and raptorial front limbs. The aposematism isn't a warning that it is poisonous, but it grants the mantidfly a huge intimidation boost as they look like a hornet, wasp or bee player which have stingers, as well as having wings that sound similar to them, and if the target is small enough, they could potentially KO another player. Their raptorial front limbs is good for doing high damage with no start-up lag. They don't have the best aerial movement ability, but it usually doesn't need to as it's high power means that fleeing is often not needed. Their weakness is that their stats are slightly below average for its class, so any build with high durability can survive hits well from them. Another weakness is that their low mobility is not ideal when facing faster builds such as Flies.

## Tier Placement

Having a winning matchup against ants, a definitive top tier, says a lot about the Net-Wings. There are very few insect builds that can boast about that matchup. However, the Neuroptera player base has a ways to go before being considered top tier. The massive discrepancy between the sheer might of their larval form and their flimsy adult form doesn't need to be the case. Dragonfly have fierce nymph forms with raptorial jaw parts that can spear other players but their final form is also one of the most dominant air-to-air combatants in the game, rather than just being a vessel to complete the main questline with extremely mediocre stats. If the Neuropteran playerbase improves upon their adult build with a few tweaks, it could definitely become top tier.

## Referrences

1. ↑ https://www.antlionpit.com/where.html/
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5AUdZT-bpQ/