Game Mechanics Guide Series: Guide 1 - Reviving Allies!

Hey everyone,

This guide series intends to go over game mechanics that can be used to your advantage while playing Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. These can help you to win games, do better in games or to help your team. Some of these game mechanics can be situational based on the character you are playing or the game mode you are doing, however, this guide will cover a game mechanic, reviving, which is in almost all aspects of the game.

This guide will cover pretty much all there is to know about reviving within the game. It will include lots of different content related to reviving your allies, such as why it is a good idea, how you are limited during a revive, methods to make it more easy to achieve a revive, rewards for doing so, some interesting tricks you can do with a revive and more. 

REVIVING ALLIES

When a player is vanquished, anyone else on their team is able to revive them, which brings that player back into the fight, with half health. However, if a healer on a specific revives an ally, they will be revived with full health. Reviving is a really useful technique as it improves your chance of winning a fight. If an ally gets vanquished, you can revive them and bring them back to continue the fight. For this reason, it can be really useful to revive allies, but it will be hard to achieve if surrounded by allies. During a revive, there is a limit to what you can do without cancelling the revive. But reviving your allies can really improve your chances of winning a team fight, especially if you start reviving allies earlier on.

METHODS OF REVIVING

While you revive an ally, you are limited to what you are able to do. However, there are a number of methods you can employ to increase your chances of successfully achieving the revive without being vanquished. This is how you are restricted during a revive (unless you cancel the revive), however some of these limitations can be ignored, depending on the character or upgrades you use:

• Your movement speed is reduced and you cannot leave the revive circle.
• You are unable to use abilities or jump around.

I will provide some footage of me doing all these revive methods. The methods for getting revives with a lower chance of being vanquished are as follows:

Be a Healer

If you are a healer character, you excel in revives. Any ally you revive gets revived much faster than a regular revive (more than twice as fast). Any ally you successfully revive also is revived with full health (if you are not a healer character, they only get revived with half of their maximum). While you may have low health as a healer character, because of the quicker revive, you will be vulnerable for much shorter amounts of time, because the revive will be faster. Support characters (including healers) have some upgrades and tricks up their sleeve that can be utilised if you wish.

Assisting With Shared Revives

Multiple players can contribute to a revive at one time, and the more players that are helping to revive a single fallen ally, the faster they will get revived. If you see a revive near you, you could jump in and help revive that ally for rewards, or you can start a revive and others may help you. This means you can bring back allies back faster and leave yourself vulnerable for shorter periods of time. You can also use allies to protect yourself if you are low on health or are going to get vanquished. Everyone who contributes to a shared revive will gain any rewards that are associated with reviving, so there is no punishment by having multiple allies contributing to a revive.

Using Cover

When you revive an ally, if there is cover really close to the fallen ally, you can actually move to behind cover while in the revive circle. While this means you are very unlikely to be able to provide primary cover fire against enemies, it does mean that you should not end up being vanquished as enemies have to get to where you are before they can shoot you. Using cover from the natural terrain can be really useful. You may be able to peek out and shoot enemies, if they are not paying attention to you, but be ready to maneuver back into the cover if you are taking enemy fire. However, being able to use cover is situational, an ally may be vanquished out in the open where there is no cover. In that case, you can use other methods.

Provide Cover Fire

When you revive an ally, you are unable to use your abilities, however you can still use your primary weapon during a revive. This allows you to revive allies, while also helping your team in a gunfight. However, starting a revive makes you reload, but it results in you having a full clip of ammo that you can use during your revive. It is probably best to focus on attacking enemies that are on fairly low health or that may give you trouble. If your team is in front of you, hopefully you will not be attacked and you can continue to fire at your enemies. Cover fire is really good to utilise, you could also move around and shoot. If you do, while you may have trouble landing some of your shots, you will reduce your chances of being hit or vanquished during the revive.

Have High Health

If your character has high health, you are less likely to be vanquished during a revive. This is because enemies need to deal more damage to you before you get vanquished. However, you may also have a larger hitbox, meaning enemies are less likely to miss. For this reason, you should probably only attempt a revive with a high health character if you are currently at or near full health, or if there are only a limited number of enemies nearby. Unless there are multiple enemies nearby, you should be able to successfully achieve the revive before enemies are able to deal enough damage to actually vanquish you. If you are a Team-Up character and have passengers with you (Oak or Space Station), your passengers can additionally provide you with protection, such as healing or shields.

Utilising Shields

Shields can be really useful during a revive. The shield is able to protect you during the revive, and the enemies will need to break through or get around the shield before they can attack you, unless they have a way to pierce through it. If your shield is a secondary weapon, you can actually pull it up at any time, even at any point through a revive, however at the cost of being able to provide cover fire to enemies (unless the shield is Shogun-Guard). You can do this if you are damaged and cannot afford to take much enemy fire. Decide whether cover fire or shields are more important. If your shield is an ability, you can place it down before starting a revive (if you are All-Star) or protect the entire Station while they revive (if you are a Space Cadet passenger).

Continuously Move Around

While you are reviving, constantly continue to move around as you do so, to reduce your chances of being hit. Try and move unpredictably for even better results. By doing this, you can avoid being hit by many attacks or abilities, including ones that deal enormous amounts of damage or that would vanquish you in a single hit. You may be able to move behind cover while doing this, in which case you will not need to continue to move around, or you could move and shoot at enemies at the same time, to try and damage or vanquish enemies that are relatively close to you while hopefully dodging their attacks. But only do this if it is necessary, otherwise you do not need to bother.

Activate Abilities Before Reviving

You cannot use abilities during a revive normally, however you can actually activate most abilities just before you start a revive. For instance, you could activate an ability that deals lots of damage to enemies, just before beginning the revive (such as Shuck Shot or ZPG) and the ability will resolve and you have another way of defending yourself during your revive. You may even be able to get vanquishes this way. Some abilities such as Pea Suped or Space Force allow you to activate them, then start the revive, but gain their benefits, such as their increased movement speed and attack speed. Not all abilities can be activated this way, and you have to wait until the ability has resolved, but some are really convenient to quickly activate before you are locked out of using the ability again for a short time, unless the revive is cancelled.

Sprint Reviving

Funnily enough, you can actually sprint while you are reviving an ally, however you still cannot leave the revive circle (or the revive will be cancelled) and you will still have that reduced movement speed during a revive. Also, you cannot attack while you are sprinting. If you wish to sprint revive an ally, without accidently leaving the revive circle, try and sprint around in a circle around the revive circle until you have achieved the revive. You reduce your chances of being hit this way, so if you wish to move around faster while you revive an ally, consider using this method of sprinting. You can begin and stop sprinting at any point during the revive if you want.

Make Use of Revive Upgrades

There are some upgrades available to some characters that allow you to achieve a revive faster under certain conditions. If you intend to revive allies often, you can actually use these upgrades well. They require you to use specific abilities before starting the revive, but if you are willing to use these abilities for reviving, they are probably worth using, so check them out. Here are the upgrades that do that:

• Incubate (2 upgrade points). Available for Nightcap. Allies you revive in your Casting Shadows get revived by you twice as fast (or, in other words, it only takes half as long).
• Smelling Salts (2 upgrade points). Available for Foot Soldier. Allies you revive in your Super Stink Cloud get revived by you twice as fast (or, in other words, it only takes half as long).
• Injury Time (2 upgrade points). Available for All-Star. Allies you revive in your Dummy Shield get revived by you twice as fast (or, in other words, it only takes half as long).
• Reanimate (2 upgrade points). Available for Scientist. Allies you revive in your Sticky Healy Thingy get revived by you 1/3 faster (or, in other words, it only takes 2/3 of the normal time).

Using The "Super Savior" Upgrade

Support characters have access to a unique upgrade called Super Savior (1 point). This drastically helps when it comes to reviving. When you run this upgrade, you are able to jump and use your abilities as much as you want, at any time, during the revive. This means that reviving does not restrict your use of these. You can jump around to make yourself harder to be hit, and you can use your abilities to protect, buff or heal yourself, or to simply help or heal your team. If you are playing as a Support character, consider using this upgrade as it only costs 1 point and it makes it a bunch easier to revive. However, even when using this upgrade to revive, you still cannot leave the revive circle, and your movement speed penalty still applies.

INTERESTING REVIVING TECHNIQUES

I have noticed these reviving techniques over time (and basically that they are possible). While they are not super useful, you can apply these techniques in particular situations. They can give you an advantage or just benefit you at the time, if you come over one of these opportunities (and there are not really enemies around), you can use one of these strategies.

Respawn During Revive

If you would like to change your current character, you can actually start to respawn while you are reviving an ally. However, this makes you even more vulnerable while normal during a revive, as you cannot move at all. That said, you can cancel the respawn. If you wish to do this, attempt to get to an area where you are unlikely to take damage, or do it when not many enemies are around at the time. The other thing that you should really take into consideration is, unless you are a healer, you will probably end up respawning first, so wait until the revive process is about halfway, or this technique probably will not work. 

Place Pots, Bots and Summonables

While you revive an ally, if you are near a Pot, Bot or Summonable location, you can actually place one if you are close enough to it. For instance, you could place a Pot, Bot or Summonable that heals you, gives you protection or simply gives cover fire, while you wait to achieve the revive. It is probably only advised to do this if no enemies are near you, as you will not be able to move or particularly concentrate on enemy fire if you are busy trying to decide which Pot, Bot or Summonable you wish to place. If you are quick at choosing, though, that can help. If you are behind at least some form of cover, however, this will be fairly easy to manage, but do watch out for enemies if you employ this technique.

Collect an Item

If there is an item very close to you, while you are reviving an ally, you can actually collect it, even if you are in the middle of reviving, without cancelling it. Examples include the Gnome Bomb, Crystal Dog (in free-roam region, if you are playing with someone else), Battery (from Turning Point in Turf Takeover) or Bomb (from Loggy Acres in Turf Takeover). If an item is close by when you revive an ally, you can pick it up and head to wherever you need to go with the item as soon as you have revived your ally. Your ally that you revive can help you in your quest to take your collected item to the objective, as you will lose your abilities, but they can protect you possibly. As a bonus, you heal to full health if you collect an item, so you can use this technique to save yourself if you are able to get vanquished.

Bonus: Something else you can do is gesture and stuff while you revive an ally, but keep in mind that you cannot move while doing this. However, this has like no effect on combat.

REWARDS FOR REVIVING

By getting a revive, you get rewarded, but exactly how you get rewarded mostly depends on the situation. Here are the list of rewards broken down:

• 150 XP (165 XP with the Levelling Up upgrade), for each revive you achieve, whether you contribute to it or get it on your own. This can be an effective way to level up your character.

If you use these upgrades:

• Refreshing Revive (1 point). If you achieve a revive with this upgrade equipped, you get a significant reduction in your ability cooldowns. This means that you will be able to use your abilities more often if you revive allies often. This upgrade can be equipped on all characters.
• Revive Reward (2 points). If you achieve a revive with this upgrade equipped, you gain 75 health. You can gain overhealth this way. This is a good way to sustain yourself after taking damage, or it gives you a way to gain overhealth, even if there is no healer on your team. You also gain 10% Armor during a revive if you use this upgrade. This upgrade can only be equipped on Support characters.

These are the revive upgrades that you can use, in order to benefit yourself if you get successful revives, or to make it even more easier to get revives. All of these upgrades, except for Refreshing Revive, are exclusive to Support characters.

In Team Vanquish:

• -1 point for the enemy team. If you get a revive in Team Vanquish, it denies the enemy team of a point. If your team gets lots of revives during a game of Team Vanquish, you can significantly improve your chances of winning. 

Bonus: You also have a chance to be on the podium at the end of a round, if you achieve a decent number of revives. If you are the player in the lobby to get the most revives during a match, you will be on the podium.

CONCLUSION

So, that is reviving for you. I am a revive lover, and I really enjoy reviving, and I sometimes do it even when I virtually know I am going to be vanquished. However, that said, I have practiced it a lot and have managed to use a variety of methods and techniques to my advantage. Hopefully, the methods and techniques for reviving that I have provided will help others to achieve revives, and will encourage more players to revive. It seems to be underrated, but reviving is actually really useful in all game modes, but especially Team Vanquish. If you do not generally tend to revive, give it a try! See how much of a difference it can make!

Hope this inspired you!

By the way, the next guide in this series will be on vanquishing!

Regards

@TheSprinter85