PVZ 3 - Balancing regarding Bonk Choy

Bonk Choy is, currently, the most overpowered plant in the game, and for only costing 6 sun. He is able to take on Conehead Zombies entirely by himself within a span of 1.5 tiles without any extra support, and becomes unstoppable when paired with Wallnut or Lychee. Before the Choose Your Seeds update, this was not largely a problem. However, it’s become a glaring issue with you now being able to bring Bonk Choy into almost every level.

With a single column of Bonk Choy behind a column of Wallnuts, almost every single level in the game can be beaten with just Bonk Choy. This heavily takes away from any strategy or challenge that a CYS level would bring, since Bonk Choy is a universal solution for every zombie, with his only real counter being Bowling Zombie before you set your Wallnuts up. He is effectively the second best Pigeon Feeder counter, right behind Lightning Reed, and decimates Imps and Basic Zombies with his ability to upper-cut low health zombies. Most people I’ve seen playing the game really only use Bonk Choy since there’s no reason to use anything else with him or other than him, and though other solutions do work, he is the easiest and most effective by far.

Now with that all out the way, it sure does sound like he’s broken, but I think there is a way to balance him to make him better at what he’s already good at, but weaken him so he isn’t a Buckethead-destroying machine. I actually do like the fact that he is good against Imps and Basic Zombies, due to his upper-cut ability. This makes him a unique option to bring in a level with several types of Imps in it, as he can KO them in only a few punches. However, I do not like how he is still about just as strong against higher health zombies. His damage, currently, is about 90% of a Pea’s worth, while punching about five times as fast. I think in order to emphasize his role as a cleanup plant for weaker zombies, his overall damage should be greatly decreased, but his upper-cut ability’s threshold should be increased. This means he would no longer be able to take on a Conehead Zombie without support, but Basic Zombies would still go down in only a few punches and take the same amount of time currently- while Imps would now go down in a single upper-cut punch thanks to the threshold increase. This would encourage the use of other support plants alongside Bonk Choy, while also giving a completely new role to him without completely running him into the ground.

tldr;

My ideal balance changes for Bonk Choy are:

• Much less damage for punches, so he is a weaker pick against stronger zombies
• However, a much higher “upper-cut” threshold, so that he is much stronger against already weakened zombies, giving him more of a support/cleanup role or a good option for Imp-centric levels

That is all, I really hope some balancing is done for Bonk Choy, since currently he is way too overpowered and that takes a lot away from CYS for me. Thank you for reading.