Finale discussion: wall-nut hills

I'm still a bit puzzled as to why this map was ported to GW2 when I would rather have any of the others. Don't get me wrong, I overall like this map but beyond how much zombies get camped at the first point in their spawn, the finale here is a bit of a mess.

Energy warp can easily break this finale (so if BfN characters were on it, Electric Slide's outta fight would also do so). I found that out early on as I used to always use energy warp for a time and not only can you sneak in without taking damage, you also set off any spikeweed and potato mines you pass over, so you also ruin defenses. Only physically blocking you works when using the warp so I stopped doing that and tend to switch to engineer to help keep the teleporter up as it tend to be heavily fought over here.

On the plant team, I tend to place goop and freeze plants in the pots as you point out, with ice peashooters in some spots for their extra range and ice effects. 

Shooting the tallnut cannons can help the zombie team out but like the final point on Main Street with the corn mortars, the zombies can get distracted taking them out and lose a lot of time so in general it works out. 

Perhaps the hedge line, just behind the tallnut cannons and at the end up the upward path to the mansion and grounds could cancel movement abilities for all players, some kind of negation field, to prevent the abuse of energy warp and other abilities to get into the house too easily could indeed help fix how easily zombies usually win this step.

Here are my thoughts on this map:

The Objectives

Unlike most maps in GW2, I notice that there are some locations that are hidden by cover which the zombie faction can especially make use of. For instance, in the first objective, there is a small bush and wall that the zombies can hide behind and standing there counts as being in the objective, which makes these objectives slightly easier to capture for the zombies. I actually like this as having some cover in an objective can help the capturing team to stay alive for longer, or even the defenders. Although, there should not be too much cover available as it will be harder to battle enemies, but this map does not have an excess of cover, so that is really good. There are some good rooftops and high places for the plants to attack from, which the zombies could use to flank. Not many other maps have rooftops near objectives that can be made use of, so this is an interesting feature and I do not mind this.

Remember that I am covering GW2 here. I do wish that the new characters in GW2 could have been used in this map, although apparently the reason that they were not usable in this map is because some of the characters would get stuck in specific areas. That being said, you can actually use new variants of current characters, which is cool, but I feel that the developers could have fine tuned the map to address the areas where the new characters could get stuck so that they can be used. The advantage here though is the map feels "more like the original Garden Warfare", by not being able to use the GW2 (and BFN) exclusive characters. This is the only GW2 map that has 7 objectives, I would prefer it to have the regular 5, but I understand that this is the same as the original Garden Warfare's Wall-Nut Hills so it is fine with me.

The Final Objective

The zombies can really have trouble reaching the top of the hill, as the Wall-Nuts can vanquish them instantly and they can be hard to avoid. Although, there is a hard way of countering this. Engineer can build the teleporter and can bypass this, you could even swap to Engineer at any time and use your Jackhammer to get to the teleporter quickly and to avoid the Wall-Nuts. The teleporter locations are relatively secluded, so it should be quite easy to get the teleporter up and running. This makes it really easy to get to the mansion and completely bypasses the Wall-Nut  hazards. I do feel that the plants should get damaged by the Wall Nuts, it discourages the plants from camping and there is no real need for them to go on the hill. The teleporter locations are out of the way of the Wall-Nuts, so if you want to try to destroy it as a plant, you have the option to without needing to deal with the Wall-Nuts.

Being able to destroy the Wall-Nut cannons seem fine to me, I have done this before, it takes a really long time on your own to destroy one, however once destroyed, it can make it much easier to capture the mansion, even if a teleporter has not been set up. This can make the objective trivial to an extent, so I could recommend giving them more health again to discourage the zombies from destroying them, while still giving them the option to. I am quite sure that the plants are unable to damage the Wall-Nut cannons, but if they are able to, I would remove that right away without another thought. The Wall-Nut cannons could maybe be tweaked to not instantly vanquish a plant, but honestly I do not really mind either way. 

I agree that it is way too easy for the zombies to enter the mansion, as abilities like Jackhammer (or especially Turbo Jackhammer), Warp (or especially Energy Warp) or Rocket Leap can make it really easy to enter the mansion. The only thing I would recommend to counter this, as this objective, once getting past the Wall-Nut cannons, is distancing the mansion further, making it slightly more difficult for the zombies to enter. That being said, plants can have counters. Appropriate Pots can be dropped to slow the enemies down, trap based abilities (like Potato Mines and Bean Bombs) can be used, defense based abilities (such as Tall-Nut Battlements) can be taken advantage of. Plants can also attempt to destroy a teleporter and prevent it from being built again to make it harder for the zombies to capture. 

Overall Thoughts

This is the map in GW2 that I am the least experienced with, because it was the newest map, and I have not currently played the original Garden Warfare, so I am still not greatly familiar with the map. Unfortunately, I give this map the award for my least favourite GW2 map in Turf Takeover. However, it has some unique perks compared to other GW2 maps (probably because this map was in the original Garden Warfare) which is interesting, such as rooftops and extra objectives, and I think that is cool. The final objective seems way too easy for zombies, especially once the teleporter is built, so I would recommend making the mansion located slightly further away (although how hard this would be, I do not know) and increasing the time it takes to destroy the Wall-Nut Cannons. I also do wish that you were able to play with the new characters, but I see why it is not an option.

Overall Score: 60%. I never really have an issue playing with this map, although there are some features I would have liked to see added in the GW2 version, such as being able to play new characters.