Gameplay discussion: charge up variants

I thought some could hold their charged attacks while others could not, but I'd have to test that and I can't recall precisely. I know that for those that work these things out that charged characters are quite good, but I don't play these characters all that much as I prefer being able to shoot whenever I need to without needing to charge them up. For those that like this playstyle though, I certainly won't deny their effectiveness, and they are generally good characters. Most/all of them lose speed and the ability to jump while charging or holding a charged shot and that can be deadly!

I 100% agree too, while some may need some ammo usage adjustments, making charged attacks take more ammo than just 1 per shot makes sense and prefer the GW2 version of charged characters.

Plasma Pea: I remember when they added him into GW as part of that contest (man, I love the days with all the feedback between us and the devs, we need those days back). Great looking character, although I prefer the GW version a bit over the GW2 version. Cool charge up sound effects and certainly effective. 

Mystic Flower: Love how she looks and her 'ohhwaaa!' sound she makes when fully charged. She isn't too bad if you spam her basic no charge attack either. 

Future Cactus: Funnily enough, she's the most like the BfN cactus with the charged attack, but back when she was first introduced in GW, she felt very different from her sisters. As a sniper I don't mind her charged attack as much since you generally don't want to play her in close range engagements anyway, so can usually charge up while looking for targets.

Electo-Citron: I remember how insanely good this guy was way back, and now he's merely ok. Some say he's great, others say he's awful, I don't use him a lot though and while he can be powerful among closely packed close range targets, at long range he got hit hard when citron's damage at range got a big drop off, which did at least help with all those sniping frozen citrons!

Fire Rose, Frost Rose, Nec'Rose: Not a huge rose players and when I do it's usually the regular rose, druid, or party. All the rose effects in GW2 are really good though, and Nec'Rose looks amazing. Nec'Rose still feels a bit too good with jinx being huge, especially against mechs since they're big targets which makes them magnets for firepower and easy to see the jinx debuff since they are so large, and she's my favorite of these 3. Fire and Frost are a combination of elemental effects with charging and while they look great, I find them not all that great to use, especially in PvP.

Cozmic Brainz: Ah this guy. So many saying he's awful, others claiming he's OP. His charged fist makes kind of Chomper-like as you point out, if you vanquish a plant as they can't be revived just like being swallowed by a Chomper. I find him mostly bad to play as his non-charged fist is not that great and as its a melee attack, holding it while getting beat on, bitten, shot at, makes it less than ideal. I'm a bit confused on the automatic laser comment though, as even basic Super Brainz has a purple beam attack, and Breakfast Brainz fires a salvo of waffles that increases in fire rate as you go. 

80s Action Hero: Building on your mention of him; I do really like the character, but his basic uncharged attack is too easy to spam. So, while you lose tags and other effects of the fully charged shot (depending on your upgrades), constantly shooting his weakest attack is really effective and also annoying to be peppered with. I feel they should have made his uncharged attack a little slower and/or weaker and made the charged attack more consistent. His bow uses energy, so I get why he has infinite ammo, but maybe making him use ammo (like as you charge the weapon, more physical arrows get added to the ones he has nocked in his bow), would make him more like the older ones.

So while I'm not a huge fan of actually playing these characters, I like that they exist. I also like GW2 tried to expand on GW's variant idea by mixing stuff up like Frost Rose and then going even further with Cozmic Brainz.