Class Discussion: Captain Deadbeard
On to the new characters introduced in GW2, we’ll start with Captain Deadbeard.
I wanted to cover this character first as they’re more or less the zombie version of Cactus, and we’ve already covered her. I don’t play snipers all that often, usually only to get particular quests/challenges done, but unlike most other games, I still play these 2 characters more than their snipers; I actually play Sniper less than Spy in TF2, and that’s saying something.
The basic weapon is of course a snipe with good scope and long ranged accuracy, with the ability to use it as a short-ranged shotgun for point defense. The basic version of the character in GW2 is quite effective and easy to fire consistently at range, and the shotgun let’s you deal with closing foes. In BfN they give you a weapon that is like Cactus, essentially the same as Widowmaker from OW; still with the shotgun option. It does do 99 on a fully charged crit, which has seen me vanquish more invisible nightcaps by accident when I was trying to snipe someone else than I would have imagined. My favorite variant is Captain Sharkbite, he has a shark laser! Captain Cannon is annoying and overuse like all detonation characters, but not as bad as E-Pea, but worse to play against than Petrified Cactus. Despite the shade thrown at the character, I like Captain Squawk too. We’ve talked about the pirate even needing the shotgun version of their weapon before, but I don’t really have a position here. I’m fine with it being a thing, but it all depends on how it balances out, especially versus Cacti and them having or not having a close up weapon, their closest plant counterpart.
Barrel Blast and Bling Barrel Blast. In GW2, this ability gives you ‘Chomper armor’ but that feature doesn’t exist in BfN. My biggest issue with BfN’s version though is that it’s a bizzare mix of bad (it’s too easy to take out before detonating), and too good (with upgrades it’s a powerful offensive weapon), that make it an odd ability in that game. You can go extremely fast when upgraded in BfN, which I’ve seen used a lot in PvP, but even just a few weeds can break you out of it in PvE before it can detonate. Maybe they made it less armored to balance out how more effective it can be, but I’d rather have the GW2 version back, with or without the chomper armor it gives. You do get bonus XP for taking out a pirate in a e in GW2, but it’s not all that easy to do, but it’s also not that hard to get away from in GW2. This ability wouldn’t be difficult to bring forward in some form to a new game, I don’t see any reason that it can’t be used mostly as is.
Parrot Pal, Future Parrot. I’ll actually start with the BfN version; like the garlic drone in BfN it’s too slow and has an awkward hit box, but it also has a far better bomb than the garlic drone. I get the idea of the parrot having one huge blast and the garlic having several smaller ones to make them a bit different, but the garlic drone is definitely worse here. I swapped to the future parrot in GW2 mostly as I like the extra health and the mechanical parrot’s looks, but that’s mostly a preference thing. Perhaps in the next game we could also have a Pelican pal that has even more health than the future one but is slower and has other abilities (PvZ has pelicans transporting zombies into battle after all), or other birds.
Cannon Rodeo and Anchor’s Away. I freely admit that while I don’t dislike cannon rodeo, I prefer the mobility of anchor’s away. It does suffer from the same janky movement and camera issues that many of BfN’s mobility abilities have, but unlike the cacti’s petal power, it does work well and activates quickly so you aren’t stuck as a sitting duck in midair. Cannon Rodeo is fun but it’s another turret mode where we have so many already. I mostly use it to get quests that require it done. That being said, it’s less of a hit box issue than the big bolt blaster of the engineer, and only has 6 shots (powerful ones to be sure), so it’s never been a huge issue to fight against either. I’d be fine with either of these being the main ability in a new game, with the other as an alternate.
Overall, the pirate’s most impactful change in BfN is the main weapon being changed to a charged shot. This is my biggest complaint about the class in BfN. Visually, they’re fine, and I like both legendary hats, although their sprint is kind of just normal and not as amusing as most. Parrot Pal functions better in GW2 than BfN and like Cactus, that bug in BfN where you’re trying to pan your cursor while zooming where it suddenly and randomly jumps has gotten me vanquished at least once, and that needs to be fixed. Of course, that turret bug in GW2 where you enter turret mode and are still firing your normal attacks is a weird bug that affects all the turret modes, so that needs to be fixed too.
In conclusion, I’d like the class to be more like GW2’s version overall, especially the main weapon not being a charged attack like it is in BfN, but I like anchor’s away (with fixed camera and smoother motion) more than cannon rodeo. Get barrel blast adjusted as needed, do the same for the snipe attack and the shotgun if kept, get the variants in line with the base character, fix the drones so they are better balanced with the Cacti (and hopefully, Engineer drones), and we should be good to go with this one.
