Interesting post. I don’t agree with all of your assessments of specific characters, but I appreciate the main thrust of your argument.
I think players coming from GW2 are finely adjusted to how characters play in that game, and are upset when a play style that used to work for them is no longer effective.
I went through this with chomper and came out the other side believing that the new chomper is an improvement. It is fairer to play against, while still being a very effective attacker.
I’m not a great player by any stretch, so the question I ask when I struggle to play a character is: has someone wrecked my game playing the same character against me? If the answer is yes, then it must be that I am the one at fault, not the character.
P.S. I don’t believe Nightcap is dumpster trash. Fung Fu is good and all, but I believe shadow sneak is her true superpower. You can sneak right past a zombie, attack from behind, and then sneak out again. I stay alive longer with Nightcap than any other character, thanks to her excellent escape act. Her primary isn’t stellar, but it’s good enough to get the job done, especially when you are shooting an unsuspecting target. Fung Fu is a great finisher, but you have to know when to use it.
Shes not useless, but shes definately out gunned by pretty much all the zombies should they know how to play the game. Im not a bad nightcap myself, its just I find her to be really fast to kill. Even if shes invis an electric slide can still hit her by simply shooting plants near her. Theres currently too many ways to oneshot her. Fungfu is nice and all but you could honestly be of more use to the team playing someone who can take more hits... so any other character
Nightcap is a flanker... her main job, usually, is to clear enemies on the sides (left/right) allowing her teammates to capture objectives. She can also take on enemies from behind to distract them, especially Deadbeard. She's not ideal for defending because of her low HP, unless you have a good reliable Sunflower that can overheal you.
But yeah, you can contest the objective when no one is doing that. I'm not saying don't do it. But it puts you at a huge risk to be around the objective since you're a squishy character and bound to die eating damage from multiple sources.
In some games, you might not get the best score/vanquishes... But if you tried clearing out enemies successfully while having a team that have the will to capture points, then things can go smoothly for everyone. I see many plant teams struggle in Turning Point when all what they can do is just switch to Nightcap and surprise enemies from the back to distract them. It works like a charm.
I just don't like Fung Fu because it's an ability that can get you killed with high risk low reward. Especially since most zombies can evade and also kill you during it. I'd rather have full control of Nightcap if you ask me.
My other problem with Nightcap is Peashooter... Why does Peashooter, who is "slightly" taller than her, has 50 more HP? Peashooter is a hard target to kill and I assume he's one of the main reasons people want sprinting nerfed.
If a peashooter has the homing upgrade and they use pea suped. They are a freaking nightmare to deal with when they start jumping.
On cactus mines. I have no issue getting a lot of vanquishes with potato mines at all. I especially enjoy planting them in the AI summoning piles on TT and in the corners of objectives where zombies go to hide and then set the mines off. I'm currently specced on my cactus so that they act as scanners for my team too which I find highly useful.
I was one who wanted Nightcap nerfed but they may have overdone it. She is very vulnerable to damage and despite her small size isn't that hard to hit unless the person jumps around a lot, a feature they share with Imps (a good Imp player with the current general aiming issues is insanely annoying). I too use Fung Fu far less than her normal spore strike attack as even with the fact that it drops down at long range, as it puts me at less risk than getting stuck in and trying to use Fung Fu.
Butter Beacon for Kernel Corn is so underrated. It's more useful in PvP than PvE, but the ability to highlight enemies, even through walls, and giving you bonus damage to your attacks is something you should want to use a LOT. It makes him far more useful than he otherwise looks like. Not saying he's in an ideal spot, but I've been able to do well with him, and use the beacon often.
Rose is in a weird place. Her utility is incredible, but the way her shots go nowhere when they should be hitting makes her frustrating to play. It's annoying to be on the winning side, constantly jinxing and goating the zombies, and still being low on the team. I'm still waiting for them to improve some of the core shooting/moving/aiming mechanics before I can truly judge her, but she seems to be the worst affected by this problem right now.
There are a few other things that I really think need to be looked at; Scientist, Super Brainz, and Engineer all feel strong with few weaknesses, the space station definitely gets too good with many cadets onboard whereas its not such an issue when and Oak has acorns aboard (Super Sap Trap is still a problem though), and the drone/parrot situation is off. There may be other things that need to be looked at as well (Citron shields and Deadbeard's barrel for example), but we'll have to see what the early November patch does and go from there.
Super Sap Trap is still disgusting. The only times i had to respawn in recent Ops was because of a sudden plop. For whatever reason Barrel and Beans deal less damage but Super Sap deals full damage in Ops. Oh you wanted to react to it? Well... 0.3 seconds was clearly enough and you are just too slow. Don't mind it sticking to you, nobody in your team will remove it anyways. 😞
But what is this with Nightcap? Mushroom is fine now. These projectiles are super strong. My personal favourite Nightcap skill is actually that shadow grenade. I even think that one could use a slight buff to make i last longer. Its useful to help allies, to disrupt groups of zombies and even to revive plants in the middle of a fight. Since anybody is so busy fleeing from it you can just go in and revive somebody. Also good luck running from it when under fire by a Pea Gatling~
What i noticed with Rose is that her homing does not work on the Space Station. I would generally say they overdid her to ensure GW2 does not repeat. But her primary weakness is the speed of her projectiles. Which funnily enough is more of a general problem with all characters in this game.
She gives also an interesting insight into Popcaps design of BFN. As they scratched Time Snare as ability. Time Snare has a strong sudden impact on enemy movement. And that did the development team not want to happen. In favour of running, they degraded it to an upgrade that requires multiple hits to activate.
Anything that stops opponents is super strong in BFN.
Thats also why Super Brainz Jump Thump is so strong. Its a Rocket Leap that sucks enemies in. Followed by Super Ultra Ball its broken. They should change that to a knockback.
