Class Discussion: Snapdragon
Snapdragon time. Similar to the Chomper in concept and looks, yet quite different in many ways. I’ve seen some say to drop this character as the Fire Chomper could return and fill a similar role, but I disagree. I feel that the Snapdragon is different enough to let us have variants (there’s the Cold Snapdragon in PvZ2 already), and keep both characters in the game.
Another good model with nice animations and the voice is just silly enough to work for the character. Another floaty jump style character that due to them having wings from the dragon portion of their name, makes sense and fits the concept well. 175 health for a character that is mostly designed to get into the thick of battle works well enough. An argument could be made for 150 with how its longer ranged attacks work as well. I’m fine either way to be honest, let accurate balancing determine where it needs to be.
I’ll talk about variants first rather than last as I feel it makes sense as the basic character is heavily fire themed for obvious reasons. I had earlier suggested changing the Blue Blazes and Blazing Trail to fit the element or theme of any variants while leaving the basic character as essentially the fire variant, but it was discussed that doing so could be complicated and add a lot of work if each variant had to have 2 abilities redone in addition to the main weapon and skin. So, let’s leave the basic Snapdragon as the fire variant and the others will just have to have their main weapon changed to fit their theme, leaving those 2 abilities fire based. Swoop Slam fits any variant so no worries there. Cold Snapdragon is the obvious 1st variant as it already exists, but to make the variants more unique and exciting, how about one that is based on toxic, and leaves a toxic trail as it moves or lands in swoop slam but does less base damage? A slightly different take on the standard toxic variant.
The basic weapon alternates between the cone attack of the Flame Blower and the zoomed in Flare Ball attack. The character has no ammo and instead uses the overheat/cooldown system. I don’t use the flare ball all that often as I prefer to get in close and personal with this one, and the flare ball causes overheat more rapidly. It was adjusted in an earlier patch to be less of an issue, but it’s a playstyle choice for me more than anything. This attack should be adjusted so it lacks that weird issue where it can’t vanquish or has issues doing so with its burning effect, but otherwise, I don’t see any real problem here.
Swoop Slam is a problem. Not in the idea, as I love that, but in execution. Firstly; the camera and movement are, like with most BfN rapid movement abilities, a mess. It has been improved a bit, but it’s still bad as far as that goes. Get that fixed so its easier to aim and see where you’re going and it’s a fun ability, but secondly; the damage is too high as well, at least for the inner blast radius at 109. Get that damage down a bit, not too much, I’m not asking for it to be like 25 or anything crazy, but 109 is a bit too much for an ability that also gives a nice burst of mobility. You can use it to escape instead of as an attack of course, even with the obvious windup that the zombies will take advantage of that helps to balance it, but cut that damage down some, fix the movement/camera and I’d say we’re good to go.
Blue Blazes is very similar to GW2 Super Brainz’s Guided Ultra Ball but travels much faster. It does less damage than the guided ball, but travels much faster. It still packs a punch at 109/55 for inner/outer radius, which is nothing to sneeze at. It probably needs to lose some damage and/or some speed to bring it in line. At least its tracking seems to work well. I’ve not seen it go astray like some other abilities like 80s’ Can’t-Miss-Ile often does.
Blazing Trail is very useful and especially in TT for making zombies have to get off of it or take a fair amount of damage. The wiki lists the damage as lower than I expected, 5 per second for 5 seconds seems low, but it also causes impact damage, which the wiki also lists as 5. It’s a fairly large AoE so maybe it’s fine, but if that damage is correct, it could use a bit of a buff. It sticks out when compared to Swoop Slam and Blue Blazes, with such low damage. It can damage several zombies at once which could add up to a lot, but 25-30 damage isn’t going to deter an All-Star or a mech, unless they’re already badly hurt.
I already mentioned variants earlier so no need to rehash that now. But again, I see no reason that we can’t bring this character forward to a new game, while also bringing back the Snapdragon pots since BfN lacks in bot/pot variety in the first place! While Snapdragon and Chomper do have some overlap, they play differently enough that we can have both in the next game.
