Balancing is a disaster.
Popcap, your game is STILL broken. Teams are stacked with overpowered characters pretty much 90% of the time. Frozen Citron, BBQ Corn, Yeti Chomper...
And it's mostly the Plant team. What's up with that?
So, to try and give you an idea on how to PROPERLY balance the game, I've made my own list of ideas. Enjoy (or don't, I'm just making suggestions).
Commando Pea: Underpowered
Despite being one of my lesser favorite characters, I must agree with others that he is underpowered.
How to buff: Decrease reload time by 0.25 seconds, increase long range damage by 2.
Agent Pea: Overpowered
Can deal way too much damage too quickly, and reload is extremely fast.
How to balance: Reduce ammo to 10, increase reload time by 0.5 seconds.
Plasma Pea: Overpowered
Charge shot should take more ammo, like all the other charge shot characters.
How to balance: Increase ammo used on 1st charge shot (half charged) to 3, increase ammo used on 2nd charge shot (fully charged) to 7.
Hot Rod Chomper: Very Overpowered
It is too fast, along with abilities that completely stop enemy movement, rendering them COMPLETELY helpless against this Chomper.
How to balance: Decrease speed by 15% when speed boost is not active.
Toxic Chomper: Underpowered
Fire Chomper is a direct upgrade to this thing, you never see in any competitive game.
How to buff: Increase damage to 10, so it is identical to Fire Chomper.
Chomp Thing: Underpowered
Despite incredible health recovery, it doesn't help when you're being attacked by a rapid fire enemy, and remember that he has less health.
How to buff: Increase health to 150, gains 25 health when swallowing a Zombie.
Yeti Chomper: Very Overpowered
Ice + Range + Chomper = Very unbalanced combination.
How to balance: Decrease freeze rate (splash), decrease firing speed by 25%.
Disco Chomper: Underpowered
Very underwhelming for a legendary character.
How to buff: Increase Disco Fever damage multiplier to 1.5x (rebuff), increase digestion rate.
Unicorn Chomper: Isn't worth reaching Rank 313 in GW1.
It isn't really good enough of a character worth spending so much time to get.
How to buff: Increase warp distance, decrease warp cooldown.
Shadow Flower: Direct upgrade
It is a direct upgrade to default. Not good.
How to balance: Decrease max ammo to 40.
Metal Petal: Very Underpowered
The massive decrease in speed makes her as slow as the Armor Chomper, slowest character in the game.
How to buff: Increase speed to be 80% of other Sunflowers.
Vampire Flower: Hit detection
So this is more of a bug, but her hit detection is off. What may seem like a hit to you, as numbers popped up, might not have registered, and vice versa, you may not see numbers of damage, but the hit actually registered.
How to fix: Fix it, obviously.
Future Cactus: Overpowered
I honestly think the charge shot deoesn't take enough ammo.
How to balance: Increase ammo used on 1st charge shot (half charged) to 3, increase ammo used on 2nd charge shot (fully charged) to 6.
Camo Cactus: Underpowered
Way too inaccurate when unscoped, way too hard to turn when scoped, reload is too slow.
How to buff: Increase turn rate when scoped, decrease reload time by 0.5 seconds, bullets should penetrate enemies.
Zen Cactus: Overpowered
Reload is too fast along with the incredible damage.
How to balance: Increase reload time by 0.5 seconds.
Citron: Slightly Overpowered
While they did tone down his splash greatly, his direct hit damage is still too much.
How to balance: Decrease direct hit damage by 1.
Frozen Citron: Extremely Overpowered
His freeze rate was fine. The REAL problem is the duration of his beam.
How to balance: Increase heat generated, causing a significantly faster overheat, decrease freeze rate significantly.
Party Citron: Underpowered
Party Characters are underpowered.
How to buff: Increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, increase direct hit damage by 0.5, heat generated is decreased by 30% in Party Time.
Rose: Overpowered
She was fine before. Then they decided to increase her ammo supply.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 20 (renerf), increase reload time by 0.25 seconds.
Fire Rose: Slightly Underpowered
What was once an insane character quickly became near useless. And it is still a bad character after several buffs.
How to buff: Increase charge rate, increase 2nd level charge shot (full charge) damage.
Frost Rose: Very Overpowered
So let's see. A character that can fire insanely fast, almost as fast as someone can pull the trigger, ice effect, with a lock on system, and was recently buffed in damage.
How to balance: Renerf damage, decrease firing rate.
Party Rose: Insanely Underpowered
Party Characters, this one in particular, are underpowered.
How to buff: Increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, increase lock on effectiveness, increase ammo to 20, rate of fire is increased by 30% in Party Time.
Kernel Corn: Overpowered
Has too much ammo, along with incredible damage.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 35.
BBQ Corn: (Still) Insanely Overpowered
Rapid fire on a fire character. It's fine on Fire Flower... But not here.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 25, increase reload time by 0.5 seconds.
Mob Cob: Overpowered in some ways, Underpowered in others
He packs way too much ammo, but the slow firing hinders his damage output.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 30, increase overall damage by 2.
Party Corn: Underpowered, but too much ammo.
Party Characters are underpowered.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 30, increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, increase overall damage by 1, rate of fire is increased by 30% in Party Time.
Tank Commander: Underpowered
He may deal great damage on direct hit, but his splash damage isn't enough to make him a good character.
How to buff: Increase splash damage by 10, decrease direct hit damage by 5 (Will still be stronger, thanks to the splash damage increase).
General Supremo: Underpowered
Faster firing, less damage per bullet, very inaccurate. Not a good character.
How to buff: Increase overall damage by 1 OR Increase accuracy.
Camo Ranger: Personal opinion buff
Bullets should penetrate enemies, damage falloff should be removed.
Centurion: Underpowered
If Corn is meant to rival Soldier, why is BBQ Corn rapid fire, while this guy isn't?
How to buff: Increase firing rate, increase ammo to 15 (from 12).
Park Ranger: Very Overpowered
This guy STILL dominates bosses WAY to easily, thanks to the incredible stink cloud damage and duration.
How to balance: Decrease ammo to 15, decrease stink cloud duration by 1 second.
Mechanic: Underpowered
Rapid fire on a character like this may seem good, but this guy is way too inaccurate.
How to buff: Increase accuracy.
Painter: Very Underpowered
This type of weapon does NOT work well on a support type character, and fires very slowly.
How to buff: Increase firing rate.
Plumber: Underpowered
He was once known and feared for his splash radius, now it's about as weak as the basic Engineer.
How to buff: Increase splash radius.
Chemist: Insanely Underpowered (for a Scientist)
He was never Overpowered. There were many other Scientists capable of even more damage at close range, like Marine Biologist.
How to buff: Rebuff damage and firing speed.
Paleontologist: Overpowered
This Scientist not only has fire, but splash damage as well! This gives him an option for long range, keeping himself out of danger.
How to balance: Remove splash entirely.
Computer Scientist: Underpowered
He's not the same since the Crunch Mode nerf.
How to buff: Increase Crunch Mode damage multiplier to 1.5x (rebuff).
Hockey Star: Underpowered
His DPS is amazing, but his weapon overheats WAY too fast.
How to buff: Decrease heat generated, causing a slightly slower overheat.
Rugby Star: Very Underpowered
His firing is too slow, and overall damage is too weak.
How to buff: Increase firing speed, decrease heat generated, causing a slightly slower overheat, increase splash damage by 2.
Wrestling Star: Underpowered
DPS is a bit too low compared to other All-Stars.
How to buff: Increase long range damage significantly, increase close range damage by 2.
Moto-X Star: Very Underpowered
Covering enemies in dirt doesn't really do much, only disabling abilities for a short 3 second duration.
How to buff: Enemies covered in dirt run slower, up to 50%, when fully covered in dirt, Plants cannot attack at all.
Tennis Star: Overpowered and Underpowered
Too fast with gun reved up, too little damage.
How to balance: Tennis Star runs at 70% speed while gun is reved up, increase overall damage by 0.5.
Imp: Underpowered (NEW)
I feel this little guy can't put out enough damage, without relying on his Gravity Grenade.
How to buff: Increase ammo to 40.
Lil' Drake: Underpowered
His bullets fire and move slower, making it even harder to hit enemies.
How to buff: Increase projectile speed.
Pylon Imp: Overpowered
It was nice to decrease his ammo, but it doesn't help with his ridiculously fast reload time.
How to balance: Increase reload time by 1 second, decrease splash damage by 4 but increase direct hit damage by 4 to make up for it.
S.H.R.Imp: Underpowered
Firing speed is too low, and really hurts his DPS.
How to buff: Increase firing rate.
Party Imp: Mostly Underpowered (UPDATED)
Party Characters are mostly underpowered.
How to buff: Decrease ammo to 35, Increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, rate of fire increases by 30% in Party Time.
Various Imp Mechs (NEW AND UPDATED)
The cooldown time decrease and mech duration increase were a little absurd. But, I think some other changes are in order, too.
How to balance: Renerf cooldown time and mech duration times, adjust mech health (Party: 300, Default, S.H.R.Imp, and Z7: 400, Drake: 500)
Drake Mech: Decrease damage to 10.
Z7 Mech: Increase heat generated, so it overheats faster.
Party Mech: Decrease overall damage by 2, mech can fill the Party Time meter and activate it. While in Party Time, the mech does NOT increase in speed or regain health when it activates, but firing speed increases by 30%, along with the 1.5x damage multiplier.
Cozmic Brainz: Overpowered and Underpowered
Laser damage is too high along with the duration, fists are weak.
How to balance: Increase heat generated, causing a faster overheat (laser), increase fist damage to 25-50-80.
Electro Brainz: Very Underpowered
Hasn't been the same since the nerfs he took.
How to buff: Increase punch rate, fists cause electric spread for ALL punches, not just the last one, decrease heat generated, so laser overheats slower.
Party Brainz: Very Underpowered
Party Characters are underpowered.
How to buff: Increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, increase punch damage to 10-20-40, heat generated decreases and punch rate increases by 30% in Party Time.
Captain Deadbeard: Overpowered
Scattershot is too powerful.
How to balance: Decrease scattershot damage by 5, decrease scattershot firing rate by 25%.
Captain Flameface: Personal opinion buff
Damage falloff should be removed.
Captain Sharkbite: Very Underpowered
Was balanced before, useless after nerfs.
How to buff: Rebuff ammo and damage.
Captain Partyman: Underpowered
Party Characters are underpowered.
How to buff: Increase rate of filling the Party Time meter, increase scope damage by 2, rate of fire increases by 30% in Party Time.
Side Notes
All All-Stars: Remove overheat nerfs.
Disco Chomper, Iron Citron and Computer Scientist: Increase legendary meter upgrade effectiveness.
And to you people who don't like my ideas and want to hateme for my opinions? Get this. I don't care.
I'm open to any better suggestions, from anyone who has read all of this, but please, don't post angry messages and hate me for my opinions.