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.
@chogath_player Sorry, I think I replied at the same time you posted yours so I haven't realized you said anything about that...
Ah... It always comes to that in discussions, Rose vs Engineer...
It's interesting because most attack heroes aren't parallel either. yet people like comparing Rose to Engineer.
Yes, Rose is not Engineer and you said it yourself... Yes, you can compare them, you are free to do so, of course. Even though they are "Support" they are entirely different since GW2 (aside from her building teleporters in there). And the developers know that very well. They could've made them identical if they wanted, but that's not how it works with PvZ.
Rose's Time Snare upgrade can win you most 1v1 against most heroes. It completely immobilizes enemies, denying them the chance to do anything. Rose has a weird small hitbox, and she's a difficult target to hit while moving and hovering. So she can win most fights if played carefully. Time Snare ALSO snares nearby zombies, it's not limited to one Zombie only... In grouped fights, you deny a group of zombies the chance to escape. This assists your Chompers/Snapdragons significantly as they can get closer to the enemies. (She synergies well with both)
Her main weapon is excellent because it's homing and if your aim was good already, you can make use of all the shots you have without wasting any... Buffing her weapon damage might make her OP and broken. If you can't get Top Asissts in most games, then you're not shooting enough or dying too often to be effective. She is one of the easiest heroes to get assists with. But you can still get many vanquishes if you play her well and be among the top 3 players. (It usually depends on who you're playing with or against when it comes to being top anything.)
Goatify can be used this way:
Arcane Enigma:
Jinx
Rose is actually a difficult hero to make use of due to her high cooldowns. I noticed that most players "just spam" abilities without having priorities or understanding when to use what or how to use them properly. She is a Support hero, so most of what I mentioned is more benifical when you are around your teammates. You shoulnd't go flank on your own or go astray using her, that is not your role (although I do it sometimes, but I know what I'm doing and what I'm getting myself into). Your optimal position is behind other players and not at front because you are a 100 HP hero and need your teammates protection. She is not a sniper or a long range hero, those targets aren't for you to deal with. Although you can shoot stationary turrets from afar if you wanted, since they won't move and you can hit them most certinaly. You can take down parrot pals with ease and that should also be one of your priorities when you play as her.
They need to give her more score/XP for playing her cleverly. E.g. using Arcane Enigma while an enemy player using Crater Maker should give you more XP.
All I want to say is... that she is useful and can punish players while also helping your team evade many highly damaging abilities. She is a great hero that leads to winning and succeeding in Turf Takeover or PvP, regardless of the score/vanquishes, which isn't an accurate method of measuring a hero's usability.
That's all what I can think of...for now
I completely understand that they are not the same character. All the characters have unique kits. But some are obviously supposed to be similar in order to keep things fair. Wouldn't be fun if zombies had speed and dmg buffs and plants didn't. Or if Plants had a really good healer and zombies had nothing. For rose and engineer, both have speed boost abilities, dmg buffs and big aoe cc. Both are more effective when hanging around the team and both can make big plays (Rose can kinda make plays, but they're not as effective as plays the engi can make). In the current patch, the engineer can do what rose can do, but with much less effort (which is just strange). The engineer is getting nerfed soon though.
Small things to note:
Rose is hard to hit, especially with hard target, s-cape or speedy, but she is punished severely should the zombies successfully land anything on her (due to that small health pool). She can get away with arcane enigma, but her health doesn't regenerate (immediately) unless she has an upgrade. So shes kinda forced to retreat to a safe spot before reengaging. She hits decent dmg if her targets aren't moving much (or you have time snare equipped), but if they're good players, they'll just go right up to you and bunny hop in your face. Where your homing projectiles are completely blind. "It completely immobilizes enemies, denying them the chance to do anything." I'm pretty sure zombies can still use abilities while time snared. I've had 80s action heroes dive away after I've snared them and foot soldiers rocket jump away. Maybe it's lag???
Engineer has definitely got one of the easiest projectiles to hit in the game. They're fast, bounce off walls and can be spammed if he's next to turret. he can kill nightcaps and acorns around corners accidentally. His health is larger but that's only because he's fatter and easier to hit.
Their dmg boost abilities:
Engi doesn't have to force people to target specific plants with the dmg boost. He just places it down and the zombies can choose who to unload on. Rose, however, does not get this luxury. She highlights zombies in a small area. You can only tell if they've been jinxed if they have a very faint red mist on them. With all the particles and explosions happening in fights the red jinx mist can sometimes be hard for teammates to notice. You might jinx someone standing in the open, but your teammates will end up targeting someone in the distance instead. Perhaps if they made it easier to tell when a zombie is jinxed, it may be more effective. Like highlighting them in red or something so teammates know to shoot them.
Rose's jinx is not useless, but it is 100% outperformed by the engi turret (the ability that serves practically the same purpose - helps the team vanquish guys faster). Engis turret is also tanky and basically adds another ranged zombie to the team to help shooting guys (further increasing total damage output).
Speed Boost abilities:
Engis boost pad is also great for speeding zombies away from danger and getting them to points. its also really good at slingshotting deadbeard barrels into plant groups. Placing it at spawns saves some zombies from having to use the upgrade that gives them a speed boost after respawning (if they like using that upgrade). Note that while engi is speeding allies up, he is able to use abilities and attack freely. Another thing rose doesn't get to do. Her abilities don't do dmg so there's no real reason for her to not be able to use them while in arcane enigma. She also has to be right next to zombies she is speeding up. She can't do anything else while speed-boosting an oak or peashooter around.
Massive aoe abilities:
Goatifying zombies attacking your objectives does remove their primary weapons and abilities, but at the cost of them becoming faster and smaller. They move at sprint speed and can bunnyhop all day. They can also ram you for 25 damage. Engis stun minefield covers a relatively large area, is thrown instantly and completely immobilises enemies. They can't do squat for 2 - 7 seconds. They're sitting ducks. Unfortunately, goatifying bomb carriers doesn't make them drop bombs ☹️. I think I can understand why this might be the case though. Zombies carrying bombs can't sprint, so unless there's an engi boost pad nearby, they're definitely going to be struck by it. A potential fix to this issue to simply remove the whole sprinting and bunnyhopping thing off of goatify and make it so zombies move only slightly faster than normal movement speed. Then it would have a similar effect to the stun mines.
I'm really looking forward to this guy getting nerfed. 7 second stuns is just way too much. But I also don't see why Rose shouldn't get buffed a bit. It's just weird to see the zombies have a blatantly easier to play, low-risk high reward version of the plant team's rose. Engineer gets away with a lot of things with his abilities. Why doesn't Rose get the same treatment?
They're both in bad spots for now. We will see what's changed next patch. Maybe after the engi nerfs Rose will be god tier. Depending on what they nerf about the engineer.
ALSO - They said next patch they're going to make it easier to hit moving targets and people sprinting away. That's kinda going to screw with Rose's whole hard target gimmick. She may be affected by these nerfs the most.
@chogath_player Thanks for reading and writing a long reply.
I'm fully aware of all what you're saying and I think my win-rate, if I can see it, could be around 70 ~ 75% as Engineer. The speed pad when defending does wonders especially with its upgrade. I see more teammates around the objective whenever I play Engineer and for that we usually win and contest faster. The Speed Pad being infinite is "weird" it should have limited usages and then breaks after that. Because you can spam use it to get your cool downs faster.
The thing is... If enemy players are gathering around turrets, you can use Nightcap to punish them all since she has piercing shots. That's what I usually do and I get multiple vanquishes from afar. If I'm not mistaken, Heavy Helper can't target you if you shadow domed it.
I wish they'd remove the weapon buff from Heavy Helper. The Zombies already deal massive damage + Heavy helper itself damages targets... There is no need for damage buff at all. I rarely use it to buff my main weapon because it works as a great distraction if you were on the opposite side of it. The plants would try to shoot it while you shoot them and then replace it again to your location when it's almost dead =p rendering all of their efforts to destroy it useless lol
Engineer’s stun is actually “fine”… I know you’ll hate me for saying that... But, the real problem with this game is “hero stacking”. When the enemy team has 5 Engineers, you can’t really breathe with all those stuns. If there was only 1 Engineer, then it would be fine and manageable.
But for that, I think they should change it and rework it. Especially if they insist on allowing players to stack heroes in BFN. Everything should be balanced around that. Although I wish they’d introduce a new mode with “no hero duplicates” and balance the game around that instead. This way, you know there would be 1 Peashooter, 1 Super Brainz, 1 Scientist, 1 Sunflower… and that would make the game more strategic and fun. Now, even if you vanquished 1 Scientist, there will be 3 others lurking around =p so your efforts to vanquish healers mean nothing.
Some people think stacking heroes is more fun... I don't think so, really... We are back to what people used to do in Overwatch exactly when it first got released.. All of your team would switch to Torbjorn, the turret guy, and place turrets everywhere... This happens exactly in BFN, especially in Turning Point when you try to get the batteries. You see too many turrets everywhere, and all of those Engineers would stun you, giving you no chance to do anything...
Anyway, even with Rose under performing vs Engineer, for the reasons I told you, I still think I have a relatively high win-rate as her and that makes her "useful". The only buffs she needs is in her utility. Arcane Enigma could be better, she could leave roses on the ground to speed boost plants, for example. Otherwise, I think she's a powerful hero who’s useful to the team.
I don’t think she’s “a throw pick” in the hands of good players. I’ve played with very few good Rose players who get it, but they’re a rarity.
