A Guide for Beginners Citron Players. Analysis, Gameplay, Tips and Attitude.

Hi guys, im a regular Citron player. Recently i've heard many people arguing about the fact of Citron being a bad character.
This, is totally untrue.

You have to know there is a placebo effect that happens to players whenever they are going to play a character that has got nerfed (and this one got nerfed post-beta) that makes them think that character is not even more worth picking. This is one of the most problem that makes you play the character wrong. Sometimes nerfs could be unfair and maybe excessive, but sometimes they are not, and this is the case for this class.

First, i'll do a little brief about this character.
Citron is currently  a Tank/Support Plant Character with the highest quantity of Health Points between Plants, a powerful Area of Effect Stun, an additional shield that makes him much more tankier, a powerful beam with splash damage and a unique ability that makes him transform himself into a ball with other  two special abilities.
This means that Citron can really benefit 4 skills. But let's go deeper.

Empeach.
This special skill is Citron bread and butter. Is a really useful Area of Effect stun with a variety usage.
This skill has much more impact against a Mech and is really useful nowdays to stop S.Brainz TurboTwisting. But generally speaking you can also use this skill to protect yourself or your allies from Scientists.

Peel Shield.
There's really nothing to say about this skill. Makes you tankier and die less. Take note that whenever your shield is up you can't get critical hits.

Citron Ball
This is what make Citron a very versatile class. This ability makes you transform into a ball and increase your movespeed.

Hyper Ball
This is really good to rushing objectives and gives Citron a thing called "Map Pressure"

Spin Dash
Despite the fact this one does not deal tons of damage is very useful skill that also knock up zombies.

Attitude.
First, when you want to play this character you need to have a Citron attitude. You have to know both Citron flaws but also Citron qualities.
As i already said Citron is Support/Tank character. His kit has two crowd controls, a good quantity of Hp, a further shield and Map Pressure.

Why is Citron considered a Support Character?

Because he has no damaging spells but brings a lots of utility at his own team. You're probably not going to take a lots of kill with him. But that's totally fine. He's not a pure damage dealer like a PeaShooter or a Kernel Corn. Let your damage dealers carries do their job.

What is Map Pressure?
Map pressure is a special expression that is translated in the quality of a character to be quickly in any point of the Map thanks to: movespeed buffs, dashes, blinks, teleports, high jumps and so on.  Map Pressure is also translated in zoning power.

What is Zoning Power?

Zoning is when your character represent a huge threat for the enemy team, so they're forced to retreat or simply can't move forward because you suddenly changed the deploy of forces on the battlefield, and this will make enemies retreat since they can't anymore win a duel or a single trade, or will make them tilt, because they have not much enough information. For example a Scientist suddenly used a warp and he's trying to kill a Corn, but you suddenly appear. He has to make a decision, staying and kill both of you or retreat. If he has not much decision making he will eventually tilt and stay, and this will results in a dead Scientist if your empach is not on cooldown

Why this character is clunky?

Think about if Citron wasn't Clunky. Whenever you are going to lose a trade you can easily transform yourself into a ball and just run away in every situation, and this is bad because Citron Ball has no Cooldown!
Or even worst. Making yourself transform from ball to battle mode, reaching your target, empeach him quickly, shielding yourself quickly will eventually make him not only a huge frontliner but also a very good assassin. So there will be no reason to not run x6 Citron in your team and plant team will be overpowered.

You have to accept the fact you can't do all by yourself, and probably not going to take a lots of glory moments.

You're playing a character that brings utility. You have to accept the fact you can't win every single 1vs1 or appearing always in the top of scoreboard. Citron is not meant for the glory. Citron is meant for one thing.. this thing is called VICTORY.

But when i play Toxic PeaShooter my scores are always Better. How can i win with that?

Toxic PeaShooter score is faked. Is not that hard to steal underserved kills or taking underserved assist. What do you think is more worth as an assist? A toxic dot that deals so less damage or protecting a sunflower from a Scientist and kill him before your friend will die? There's nothing to discuss here.

How can i know if i played good?

Just don't care for your personal K/D. First, the thing you have to watch is your KDA (Kill + Assist/deaths) and your kill partecipation (the amount of kills you were involved by %)
Usually when the KDA is less than 2,5 does mean you usually played bad. You died too much. You have to think why have you died in first place? Maybe you were out of position or you was thinking to trade with someone fairly superior.  An average KDA is around 2.5 - 3.5. Anything else above 3.5 means you played correctly and you contributed to the win. What is Kill Partecipation? You just played a Team Vanquish and your team has won with 50 kills. Your score is 8/9/17. Your KDA is 2.78. Really nothing special. Maybe you died too much, but to compensate you are involved in 25 kills. That does mean pretty much you were involved in the 50% of team kills and you made the game

Choose your own Battle

You know you can't win a trade against a SharkBite at long range, and same way you can hardly win one against a Zoologist on close one. So choose your own battle. You have to know exactly how much damage your character does.

I always overheat my weapon! This weapon overheat too fast!

First most of classes just works once you unlock the upgrades. To fully maximize Citron power you have to Unlock "movespeed upgrade", "damage upgrade" and "overheat Upgrade"

Just listen the sound your weapon does. This will help you  to understand when it's going to overheat. One trick that could help you, you have to understand the nature of beam lasers. If you keep taking pressed the Fire Button the weapon will deal an certain amount of damage every  0,2 seconds. (i dont know, its just an example). But you also know that Laser Beam do damage at the first instance when touching an enemy. So if you manage to tapping your Fire Buttons virtually 5 times at second (not really hard than you think) you can do the same damage but the weapon will eventually last a little bit longer.

My abilities are clunky when i want to activate them!

Yes, when you press the Empeach and the Shield there is delay of time while your character can't use his laser beam, this will eventually means that you can't abuse all the stun duration of the Empeach and Shielding will make you lose against someone that will eventually kill you before you can kill him.
How can you solve these problems? To take profit of Empeach just group with someone, look, sunflowers at the moment are struggling. Help them and make their life less painful!
One more trick that could really help you is use your dead times. Don't use those abilities at the start of a duel, use them at the middle of a duel, when you want to refrigerate your weapon before goes on overheat, and take profit of those dead times.

Be greedy with your skills, don't use them unless is very necessary

Be greedy with your skills, don't waste them. Don't use your empeach at the first enemy you come  across. You have 200 Hp and a good laser beam, your set up allows you to trade back pretty much a lots of zombie classes. Use your Empeach properly to protect a team-mate, stop a S.Brainz Hero Kick/Turbo twisting or a Mech. Remember if you see a S.Brainz, don't waste your Empeach suddenly, attack him and force him to turbo twisting for the damage reduction, this is the right moment to empeach him, if you predict the exactly moment is going to turbo twisting he will eventually not dealing a single damage to you.
Once more little trick that can help you against Imps, whenever you are facing one of them, remember your weapon has some splash damage, and this can really help you a lot against a class that is really hard to aim. When you come across a Imp don't use suddenly your empeach if you know is gravity grenade in on cooldown, you have enough resources to kill him before he will eventually kill you. Watch his movements, if he is going to throw a gravity grenade just use your empeach at the same perfect timing. This will results in him not taking any advantage of his skills.

Be creative with your skills

If you see you are going to die anyway, transform yourself into a ball and make enemies chasing you. If eventually more than one zombies will chase you they will lost time and pressure in objectives. Or you can use your ball form to bait them into an ambush. Be creative. Be smart.

Be a Friend, Be a team-helper.

You're playing a character that is meant to come across the map and help the plants, tank damage for them and empeach zombies before they rushing to your team-mates.  Don't play like a lone wolve who search kills, if you see a zombie getting away with low HP but chasing him will make you lost a lots of times just letting him go if your team-mates meanwhile are getting troubles.

Correct your attitude

If you constantly think about Citron being clunky or weak, he will become clunky and weak. Correct your attitude. If you have to trust your character. That character is an expression of your gameplay, of your behaviour. You have to think you're playing a Strong or an Op Character no matter what. This will make you have better results.

Fitting your team-comp. Choose your own Citron

So you have to know flaws and qualities of each Citron.
Regular Citron has splash damage and high damage. You pick him in a normal situation. He's very good at killing Imps with the splash damage. You pick him when you are confident about your skills and want some more raw damage in order to have more chance to carry your team. Also the Splash damage is good against Imps.

Frozen Citron do so less damage and has no splash at all, also the weapon overheat a bit faster. You pick him when in the enemy team is full of Tanky class like S.Brainz or All-Star and your team lacks any Ice Class. You play him in order to get carryed, and instead of bringing more raw damage you just help your team by providing more utility. This class is also recommended if you are not that good at citron because he brings more utility than damage, so even if you have a bad score you have probably helped your team to the victory.

Electro Citron is the sniper variant. Take note he can move and jump while charging and this makes him very unique. His HeadShots do tons of damage. You can play him like a Sniper when your team lacks a presence of a Cactus.

 

Iron Citron is the tank variant. While his weapon takes a lot to reload, has low DPS,  doesn't have a lots of damage on mid-high range and he's extremely slower you can tank more damage. He is a very good counter to Scientists burst damage and if you're accurate trying to kill them with two shots. Also even if he Lacks DPS, his weapon has some burst damage, so is very good against all squishy classese..if you're accurate.

EDIT: moved in the correct section