Character Guide - Foot Soldier!

Hey everyone,

This guide series intends to cover every playable character in the game with some depth and detail involved. In this guide, I will be covering the Foot Soldier.

I used the following link for some of the information in this guide, the rest of it is my own personal information, you can also refer to this link if you want to know more about Foot Soldier, go here: https://plantsvszombies.fandom.com/wiki/Foot_Soldier_(PvZ:_BfN)

Overview of the Character

Foot Soldier is an Attack character on the Zombies faction that uses a paintball gun to fire at their enemies, and has 125 health by default. Its primary weapon is "Rapid-fire assault pellets."

"Foot Soldiers are highly versatile attackers. They can hit targets at far ranges, provide cover and eliminate the largest foes with their ZPG."

Special: Can shoot ZPG while using Rocket Jump.

Primary Weapons and Abilities

Primary Weapon

Primary Weapon: Z-1 Assault Blaster. It is a paintball gun weapon which fires pellets at a rapid rate. It deals 6 damage for regular hits and 7 damage for critical hits. The rate of fire of Foot Soldier's primary is fast. The maximum default ammo capacity is 40. 

Abilities

Super Stink Cloud: This ability throws out a Super Stink Cloud in the direction where you throw it. This is a very versatile ability, so keep this in mind. Enemies cannot see through your Super Stink Cloud, but you and your team can, also enemies take minor damage at a rapid rate while they are in it. This ability has many uses, such as damaging groups of enemies, hiding yourself and allies, denying areas, confusing your enemies and much more. Try to use this ability in the way that you think is best for the situation when you are able to use it.

Super Stink Cloud Character Upgrades:

• Smelling Salts (2 upgrade points): When you revive an ally inside of your Super Stink Cloud, the time it takes in order to revive them is reduced by half. Or, in other words, you revive them twice as fast. Awesome! This means you can use the Super Stink Cloud to revive allies more easily, as well as giving yourself some form of cover.
• Sticky! (3 upgrade points): The Super Stink Cloud sticks to enemies and surfaces now, meaning you can blind enemies and give you and your team a free vanquish, or you can stick it to walls for some interesting bonus uses. This does require some skill though, such as hitting the target directly, and not missing with it.

Rocket Jump: This ability makes you do a leap into the air. This ability can actually have quite a bit of uses, such as getting to higher locations, avoiding some enemy attacks, or even as a form of mobility. By default, this ability does not damage or annoy plants, however you can use it to get out of sticky situations. You are also able to use your ZPG while you are in the air with your Rocket Jump, allowing for some air-shot ZPGs. Attacking from a height gives you the advantage against enemies. 

Rocket Jump Character Upgrades:

• Liftoff (2 upgrade points): When you use your Rocket Jump, it creates an explosion, which damages nearby enemies. Enemies in the inner blast radius take 50 damage, if they are close enough to be hit, if they are close enough to take damage from the blast but are not in the inner blast radius, they will take less damage than this. This is good for finishing weakened enemies or as another way to deal damage.
• Rocket Leap (2 upgrade points): When you use your Rocket Jump, you travel a further distance forward, meaning you can use your Rocket Jump as a fairly reliable way of movement. It can help when going vertically upwards, but even when heading forward.

ZPG: This ability deploys a ZPG after a medium delay, a zombie-propelled grenade, that does very high damage to any enemies that it hits, and can instantly vanquish some plants with lower health, or that are weakened. It also deals some decent splash damage, which means you can quite easily damage groups of enemies. You can use your Rocket Jump, and then activate ZPG, to attack from the air, or use your Super Stink Cloud on a group of enemies, to weaken and blind them, then finish them off with your ZPG. However, because of its fairly high delay, timing when to use it is important. If you are at very low health and attempt to use, you can easily be vanquished instead. The other thing to note is that you cannot attack or use other abilities once you have activated it, until it has resolved.

ZPG Character Upgrades:

• Propellant (2 upgrade points): Your ZPG's projectile speed is increased, meaning it flies through the air faster and can hit your enemies more quickly, and give them less time to react to it. This can be good for surprise attacks with your ZPG, or if you find a good situation to use it where you would need to quickly utilise it for maximum results.
• Shockwave (2 upgrade points): When an enemy is hit by your ZPG, it knocks them away, both backwards and upwards, meaning you can knock them away from you, cancel some abilities or to push enemies around or away from an area. Basically, it gives you a form of knockback for your Foot Soldier.

Exclusive Character Upgrades

Foot Soldier's exclusive character upgrades are as follows:

Ranger (2 upgrade points): When you are aiming your weapon, you get increased zoom, which means you are more effective in combating enemies further away. However, you may have some more trouble attacking enemies at closer ranges, if you aim your weapon.

Ammo Thing-A-Ma-Bob! (2 upgrade points): You gain 18 maximum ammo for your primary weapon, meaning that you have a 58 ammo capacity, insetad of the 40 ammo default. This means you can shoot for longer periods of time without the need to reload. You are less likely to enter situations where you need to reload during a fight. It is best to reload out of fights though, to make use of your enhanced maximum ammo.

Bottomless (3 upgrade points): Whenever you vanquish an enemy, you gain 22 ammo for your primary weapon. This can allow you to keep firing if you get a vanquish, and you can hopefully get more vanquishes without the need to keep reloading. You can potentially have infinite ammo if you continue to frequently vanquish enemies. Effectively, this upgrade provides an ammo increase, but only on vanquishes.

Rapid Fire (4 upgrade points): When firing your primary weapon in succession, you slowly gain an increased rate of fire, until it caps at about a 20-25% fire rate bonus, until you stop firing your primary weapon or need to reload. This can essentially give you a higher DPS, but shooting in short bursts will not really help as you need to constantly fire your weapon. This upgrade is more effective if you have increased ammo capacity or if you can keep gaining more ammo.

Usefulness in Situations

General

More effective against larger enemies and targets that are further away, due to having the capability of dealing lots of damage and having a fast firing primary, along with ZPG.

Reviving Allies

• You can throw your Super Stink Cloud on your vanquished ally before you start reviving them, as a sort of invisibilty cloak for protection while you revive them. Use the Smelling Salts upgrade (2 upgrade points), to double the speed of your revive, when you use this tactic.
• You can activate your ZPG just before you start a revive, in order to possibly get some vanquishes with it, and to distract enemies that are in front of you.

Contesting the Objective

• Use your Primary weapon to try and focus on single targets (one target at a time). It may be worth trying to take out targets with higher health first.
• Your Super Stink Cloud can be used for many reasons. You can use it to hide you and your team, to deny area for enemies, to confuse enemies, to deal damage to enemies, the list goes on. Try to utilise it in the best way possible.
• Your Rocket Leap can be used to make yourself harder to hit, or to quickly change position. You can also use your Super Stink Cloud or ZPG from the air this way, make yourself less vulnerable while doing so anyway.
• Use ZPG to try to take out a large target, or if enemies are grouping, try to damage the cluster of enemies. Try to also activate the ZPG behind cover as you are less vulnerable this way.

When Abilities are Negated

• Once you have collected an item, you can still use your primary weapon. Try to utilise it to damage enemies in front of you. Larger targets are easier to hit and damage.
• You can throw your Super Stink Cloud before you collect an item to deny space for enemies, and you can go through that area.
• You can activate your ZPG before you collect an item to try and vanquish enemies in front of you.

Tips

• When possible, aim for enemies with larger hitboxes or that are at longer range to make the most out of Foot Soldier!
• Aim for critical hits when you possibly can. You will deal more damage this way, and you can vanquish enemies much faster.
• Throw Super Stink Cloud on groups of enemies for maximum damage output, or use it in the best possible way you can think of for each situation.
• Use Rocket Jump to change your position, or to get to higher locations where you can attack from above or be out of range from a Chomper's burrow.
• Use ZPG on enemies with higher health or against grouped enemies. Use Rocket Jump, then ZPG, if you want to attack from the air. Try to seek cover, then peek out when you fire your ZPG.

These are my Foot Soldier tips. Thanks for reading!

@TheSprinter85