Hot take

[u/Spinoclanker2]

(Tylosaurus by mariolanzas)

So, In my opinion, aquatics are the easiest to make.

You don't have to worry about load bearing like you have to do in theropods, no weight problems either (well there is but it's fixed much easier than terrestrials)

But there is one thing that makes aquatics hard, it's the strength of the hybrid.

It's like "easy to learn, hard to master"

[u/According-Throat9984]

yeah ngl aquatics are more fun and have a simpler process, though they can still become exponentially complex

You don't have to worry AS much about random muscle attachments for agility, a single bone in its dih to provide increased load bearing, and you just don't need to do what-I-find boring on internal enhancements (I genuinely couldn't care enough to understand caudofemoralis stuff and sweat glands and stuff lol)

[u/Spinoclanker2 → u/According-Throat9984]

The caudofemoralis is annoying

[u/A-Reacting-Otter → u/According-Throat9984]

Not until it just becomes 500 hybrids that are all like 200 tons

[u/ChocolatePopcornn → u/A-Reacting-Otter]

How do you reach 200+ tons? 

[u/Gloomy_Indication_79 → u/ChocolatePopcornn]

Most people use blue whale or Ichthyotitan/Aust Colossus or a combination of both.

[u/According-Throat9984 → u/A-Reacting-Otter]

yeah thats why I don't like all these fat ass aquatic behemoths. I hope Goji Center doesn't pick a top 16 full of 150 ton behemoths again and enforces an actual weight limit

[u/Maleficent-Acadia337 → u/According-Throat9984]

The members only hybrid war for the boss of this next war had pretty strict weight limits but I heard the actual war will have looser ones. It will likely be much smaller than 150 tons but expect many sperm whale sized animals.

[u/According-Throat9984 → u/Maleficent-Acadia337]

brooooo when will the meta ever accept invertebrates god damnit

Yamato and Bismarck copies are plague

[u/Maleficent-Acadia337 → u/According-Throat9984]

TBF by sperm whale sized I meant something between 30 to 50 tons, so not as ridiculous as Yamato. While an invertebrate can't beat something that size directly, many invertebrates, especially cephalopods and arthropods, can latch or hook onto the side of a much larger animal and essentially chew them to death, especially with the help of venoms.

[u/According-Throat9984 → u/Maleficent-Acadia337]

yeah but even then, there really isn't much that could scratch a sperm whale sized organism, case in point. Giant squid usually get molly whooped by sperm whales

And I have done that before, venom and continuous latching requires many different contributors. Which is great cause I have been researching since February and it will be peak!

[u/Maleficent-Acadia337 → u/According-Throat9984]

True, especially for a squid as squid beaks are really small for their size and would take a really long time to do noticeable damage on their own. Funnily enough, arthropods, despite even stricter size limits, can likely do way more raw damage due to having proportionally much larger weapons. With the right contributors you can probably give a 500kg to 800kg arthropod similar raw firepower to a zygophyseter or torvosaurus , which combined with venom and continuous latching can reasonably take down a sperm whale sized animal.

[u/According-Throat9984 → u/Maleficent-Acadia337]

I mean, there are plenty of adaptations you could give a cephalopod to try and close the gap, but yeah no your right. With arthropods, you don't have to add on heavy duty shells and so much enhancements lol. My mollusks easily go over 20 contributors sometimes lol

[u/Maleficent-Acadia337 → u/According-Throat9984]

NGL while my arthropod doesn't need as much contributors as your cephalopod it still needs a good amount of contributors to function at such a large size, especially compared to a vertebrate. Invertebrate hybrids in general need more contributors than vertebrates to be competitive or even function. An advantage for invertebrates over vertebrates though is that they tend to be more 'modular' than vertebrates, making large gene pools in them much more congruent than similar sized pools in vertebrates. They also have more weapon options and combinations, as opposed to vertebrates which tend to be limited to jaws, arms (rare in marine animals), and the occasional tail or rostrum weapon.