I like the concept of manual detonation characters, but in practice they are just too good in their current state. I would have nerfed these characters before something like Rose's Goatify. I don't play these characters often as I'm not particularly good at timing the detonation.
Of these three, I like Petrified Cactus the most as I see her the least, and tends to be less annoying than the other 2. That, and I like that she has a nest for those critters that ride her around.
In the middle is Captain Cannon. Like you say, his defensive scatter gun version is fine, but his extend-o-cannon is too good in the hands of those that are proficient with this weapon.
And of course, there's a reason Electro-Pea is infamous in GW2. A good E-Pea is far, far worse than even Toxic Brainz can be, since at least Toxic Brainz has to get into melee (he still needs nerfing of course). I've seen more posts on the Reddit complaining about max ranks using E-Peas to abuse lobbies than pretty much anything else. This guy really needs the nerf bat.
They could keep this idea, as the concept is fine, but it needs to be less easy to abuse. One issue all 3 games have is with the 3rd person view is how some players use that corner viewpoint exploit where they can shoot past corners even though you can't see them, and these characters make this worse, even if they can be used to counter this behavior from the other side. The biggest changes I'd ask for if the next game is largely based on GW2 is to nerf Toxic Brainz, buff Disco Chomper, nerf Astronaut, give Imp Punt some kind of wind up/visual queue to make it easier for plants to avoid, and above all, make these guys less oppressive.
@Iron_Guard8Im absolutely terrible at timing the detonations with these characters and bot versions of them seem to fire rather slowly rather than detonate so they aren't oppresive.
I really like the animal variants, especially on zombies since you seem them treat them rather kindly.
They should also remove electro pea's speed buff or Atleast make it well known as it's stupid he has an internal advantage.
I mainly agree with you list: major nerf or rework to electro pea, minor nerf to toxic Brainz, nerf to astronaut, visual windup or better arm times for certain abilities, and disco to be buffed alonsgide chomper getting that back chomp rework. They could also ise my idea of the pick rate scale to judge if a character needs buffs or nerfs.
