A max rank's perspective on balancing (Tier List)

Introduction

Hello everybody! I decided to partake in the balancing discussion as I have reached max rank and all of my characters are grandmaster 5, which should allow me to have a clear view of the current meta (26/05 Update). I know many of you have reached max rank as well and that it is nothing special, yet I decided to mention it, as I play as every character and a lot of opinions posted here seem to come from people who have a dedicated main.

Main Points - Broken Tier

Every character in this tear has some abilities or upgrades that, in my opinion, are disproportionately good. I know it may seem like some picks don't fit in this tier, but hear me out!

Scientist

Scientist is here for obvious reasons. Without steam blaster, I would put him in the good tier. I think he is slightly better than sunflower. Despite him not being able to shoot while healing, he can heal a large group at once rather quickly while sunflower is stuck with 1 or 2 plants (without using sunny side up). In addition, he has a much easier time staying close to his team using his warp ability.

Super Brainz

Brainium basher, as discussed in this forum before, is way too good. Therefore I'd like to focus on normal Super Brainz, as he is op, even without the legendary upgrade.

He can jump towards any plant (except cactus with his mines) or group of plants and pull them closer to himself. This way he can approach without taking damage. He can then use his primary insta-kill button Super Ultra Ball, or his other insta-kill Turbo Twister. Turbo Twister can vanquish multiple plants within 1 or 2 seconds.

Despite him having god like abilities as is, his primary weapon does a lot of damage and can be extended to have a forth punch via an upgrade. Other upgrades that make him op are the ones that make him gain health when around plants, as he wont ever die and the one that makes him able to use his shield while using Super Ultra Ball. His shield adds to his already way too good set of features by enabling him to revive teammates safely and acting as a pseudo-citron for his team. I realize it doesn't last very long, but often just enough when capturing points.

Chomper

Grody goop should do a little less initial damage and either less damage per second or have a decreased duration. What annoys me the most though is that it sometimes doesn't do anything when directly fired at a zombie. To further add to the frustration, it sometimes doesn't render when playing as a zombie. His sniping attack when zooming shouldn't be as strong as it is.

Engineer

Honestly, he is just like a bad Elvis impersonator. He is overweight, does a ton of damage and leaves just as quickly he has dealt it. Various upgrades add to this by giving his projectiles longer range and duration. Heavy Helper makes it so that any zombie in range basically never has too reload. This needs to be addressed. I don't know how in the world the developers thought he would classify as a support.

Electric Slide

Back in founders she used to be balanced by having a bad primary weapon and awesome upgrades and abilities. Now she has both, making her a pain to deal with. The most op thing about her is the upgrade that allows her to regenerate health while using Outta Fight. While rose has a similar upgrade, her ability to use it was nerfed to the ground while Electric Slide can still be invulnerable for 6 seconds, all while regenerating back to full health. The worst thing is the cooldown is only 20 seconds! Her primary is way to precise and does too much damage that can hit multiple targets at a time and temporarily stun them. Disco Tornado deals too much damage as well (initially and per second).

Wizard

It shocks be to see how many people think he is a well balanced support. He used to gain insane amounts of xp (which has recently been fixed). Spell disaster spawns 6 homing magic orbs that simply can't be escaped. They all deal 80 damage, which menas that low health characters are insta-killed and every other character as well if he has taking even only a little bit of damage. There are some characters which are powerful on their own, which become a nightmare with a wizard attached. Additionally, a wizard should not be able two attach to another wizard, as it gives them the ability to have 2 spell disasters and Zee-lixirs in the same place. Op upgrades include the one that makes Zee-lixirs start health regeneration and one that makes players killed by Spell Disaster orbs unrevivable (especially in battle arena)

Space station

Space cadet alone would be placed in the good tier. Space Station, however, is way harder to take down than an Oak with acorns (health increase with every space cadet that joins, shields, normal primary when docked while acorn's primary overheats almost immediately). There is an upgrade that grants extra fuel for Crater Maker when vanquishing either a player or npcs. This upgrade is one of the most ridiculous ones in the game. I've seen it (and tried it) in both pvp and ops. When the plant team is close together, you can vanquish the entire plant team. In ops you can defeat entire spawn point waves of enemies. The first time I saw it in pvp I thought the person doing it was a hacker.

Other opinions

I don't think going over each further entry in the list would be helpful, so I chose to highlight what I think will be the most unpopular opinions, based on previous forum entries by others. Each one has an explanation as to why I think the current community opinion is questionable, especially once you have at least mastered every character and have a general understanding of all characters and their various playstyles.

1.) Imp is not underpowered

Judging by the reactions to the patch notes, this one will upset many. Imp, like acorn, is a low health character with a tiny hitbox. The difference is that imp can stay in the air for much longer when double pressing the jump button, which is something acorn can't do. This makes it much harder to judge where he is going to land and therefore harder to hit him. While airborne, it is extremely difficult to hit him. But one must remember that this is his intended playstyle. Now add his stronger pre-nerf primary into the equation. While I think the nerf to his primary should't have been quite as strong as it ended up being, it is justified. Impkata is also too strong.

Other factors to consider are his invulnerability after 1 second or so when calling the Mech, him being regenerated to full health when entering and exiting the Mech and explosive escape. Every Imp player can bunny hop, kill a few plants and then when they are low health call the Mech. This allows them to AGAIN vanquish a few plants and using explosive escape AGAIN kill some plants. After escaping, via explosive scape or his Mech losing health or power, he is back to full health. This is extremely unfair and not fun. Acorn doesn't get invulnerability and such crazy benefits when transforming to Oak, so why should Imp?

When transforming to the Mech, Imps health should be saved and restored once exiting it. Explosive escape simply shouldn't exist. His reward for exiting before losing all health should be him not dying in an explosion. After all, he is the one inside of the thing that explodes.

While many think the update nerfed him too much I still see a lot of players having crazy vanquish streaks with him, as everyone plays him because of the character missions. I as well did not struggle playing as him, I ended up on top of the leaderboard most of the time

2.) Peashooter is not "cancer" and does NOT need to be nerfed

Peashooter, contrary to popular belief, is not overpowered. He does a lot of damage with his shots, but his rate of fire is not good. I think foot soldier is way better, especially with the rapid fire upgrade. Chili Bean Bomb is not too strong. Unlike other insta-kills, it has limited range and most importantly, a clear VISUAL and ACOUSTIC warning. As a result, it hardly ever gets to blow something up. It is mostly used as a distraction or as a way to get some distance between the Peashooter and the zombies. Think of it as a plant version of the Funky Bouncer, rather than an actual bomb. Homing pea barely works and party time isn't as useful as people think (as well as last ditch). In pvp it hardly ever occurs that Party Time activates, and when it does, there should be a noticable benefit. Else the upgrade points would be wasted.

4.) Acorn & Oaks placement in my list

I would place them higher up, but Sap Trap has been broken for ages and hardly ever deals damage. It only bounces Zombies upwards most of the time. Acorn seems fine as is. When on top of an oak, however, it is way too vulnerable

5.) Sunflower was nerfed too much

Sunflower can only heal 1 or 2 targets without using Sunny Side Up, which takes time to recharge. Scientist can Warp and heal large groups easily. Sunflower can shoot while healing, but it doesn't help much. They increased the prices of upgrades that make healing more efficient, while simultaneously making them nearly useless. In addition, these upgrades can't be combined anymore.

6.) Citron is not good, let alone "God Tier"

I can't understand why some consider Citron op. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Yes, the shield is very powerful, but on the other hand, zombies can easily use abilities that aren't blocked by the shield or get close to Citron, as the shield doesn't work properly when someone is up close. Citron's primary isn't good and navel laser is useless. It might be an insta-kill, but not for the zombies, rather for the player playing as citron.

7.) Nightcap is unreasonably hated and was unnecessarily nerfed in the last few updates

I guess some think the concept of nightcap is in itself op and the character therefore needs nerfing, but i couldn't disagree more. The nerfs were simply too much. And if the concept is considered op, how come that Wizard is not, when he can add a lot of dps to any character?