Plants are WEAK on offense

I still don't believe it's true. Having said that I'm sure someone mentioned about the maps in the original being more open than they are now (which they are). This, along with the plants more defensive abilities, helped keep the game balanced. So last night I played pretty much exclusively plants, and turf takeover (I'm assuming that's the gamemode most people are playing).

Great White North:

Plants won pretty much ALL the time. In one game we had around 6 chompers to counter all the super brain / all stars. On that occasion they didn't get past the third cap point.

Zomburbia:

Ugh. This is where the close confines of the spawn and exits to the first cap put plants at a major disadvantage. Plants didn't win any last night. I'm putting it down to both map design and very bad counter picks in the games I played (sunflowers as front line, cactus just trying to drone from spawn). I know from playing it, that once past the first 2 points it is much, much easier and the ending one is a piece of cake, getting there is a problem though. You'll need alot of corn, citron, peas and chompers to even attempt it.

Moon Base Z:

Seems pretty even so far. I'd say the hardest cap points are the 2nd/3rd. If you pass them you should win. 

Seeds of Time:

Another fairly even map after the patch, BUT it would seem that if zombies can get past the 2nd cap point you will find it much harder to contain them. I've seen this go down to the last second a few times, completely unsure who was going to win. I'd say it favours zombies slightly.

Bar zomburbia it doesn't seem all that out of whack to me. I'd be quite worried that any buff to plants might just be the tipping point that puts them in front again. I think it would be better to alter zomburbia as this is the one that seems to be a major problem. 

Personally I'd love to see Main Street again. That would be amazing.

Honestly, the only times the plants lose in Herbal Assault are when they stay back and play TDM instead of pushing the objective.

Honestly, one of the biggest offenders against balance is Super Brainz, particularly Electro Brainz with his OP beam. He's supposed to be the Zombie equivalent to the Chomper, yet he has more hp (barring the Armor Chomper) and has a ranged option. I'd say a safe balance option would be to reduce his max hp by 25 to be more in line with the chompers - and obviously nerf electro brainz's beam. His spin already gets shut down by em peach, spin dash, burrow, or spikeweed. (only problem is pubs don't spam Citron or Chomper much to counter him)

The Citron is cruelly underestimated, especially when it comes to stopping spinning imps (and their mechs) or superheroes. The beam can get plenty of kills on the lower hp classes if you use the beam wisely - or drive them behind cover, letting you push. Frozen Citron actually does more damage per tick than the regular with added freezing at the cost of less beam duration. The ball mobility is great for mobility and pushing - and it's a hard thing to shoot at top speed.

The cacti are fine provided you don't get spawn camped by superheroes, all stars, or z mechs. Less pressure means more time to snipe your low hp zombie counterparts. Deadbeard only has two variants (Three if you count the party variant) that are worthwhile overall. And Zen Cactus is still plenty strong - dunno what you're on about.

Scientists get shut down by clever Chompers and Peashooters using hyper. If you eat a scientist, they're unreviveable, which means they cant revive/heal their team, and one less zombie to worry about for 10-20 seconds. If there's a cluster of scientists, go peashooter or corn. Hyper peas are hard to shoot, they can potentially stop reinforced pushes with bombs, and the splash damage adds up.

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@Rhendyr wrote:

I'm setting out to mathematically dispel some of the assumptions out there, so within the next few days I'll have a detailed sheet for all of the base classes damage. But right now, Rose, Sunflower, and Scientist all 3 do 40 DPS for body shots, while the Engineer is around 22-23 DPS with body shots and 32 DPS with head shots. 

So far, it seems that the Dev's set out to balance the classes around 40 DPS, so that's what I'm guessing the rest to be at or near. Right now, there's a problem though with people thinking that big, single, yet slow shots deal more dmg than much faster, lower dmg shots, which over the course of the same amount of time it takes to fire a couple slow shots ends up dealing at or near the same damage. 

Hopefully, math will win out over opinion, but, it will take a reasonable and rational mind to accept that over "feelings". 

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Dude don't waste your time making the spread sheet. There are a lot of factors to consider in the game than just DPS. I mean some have splash , others don't, like the case of sunflowers and scientists - up close no chance for sunflower, far away she can't hit every single shot, dps affected.

Wouldn't you rather use that time to play the game instead?? 

I think this game sucks right now, and harped on everything you just said. I play Turf Takeover exclusively for pvp because it's the big team battle. It's disgustingly unbalanced and I can't recommend this game to any friends the way it is. Definitely not like GW1 was in terms of balance. I actually don't like this game right now, and I am a long time player since the original. Harsh language saying the game sucks, but I'm fed up and saying the game sucks is the truth.

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@Shogunbear wrote:
Yes but the math argument is mute unless u have a way to gather average accuracy with close range powerful shotgun vs fast firing machine gun style weapons. I'm a pretty decent gamer and frequently control at least one boast but my accuracy with scientist is typically 50-75% or higher. My accuracy with a sunflower is typically 25-50%. Now I'm sure you die hard fps fans probably have a better average but it's a tough sell that your average player is hitting percents that are equal with a machine gun vs shotgun .

I used scentrist vs sunflower solely due to the common comparisons and easy contrast. I don't really think nerfing scientist or buffing flowers is the solution to game balance. As many have stated there is a really close balance right now though it really requires a lot of thought strategy and teamwork on plants side to win on offense.

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I wouldn't say it's a moot point, it's a very solid point that shows that numbers-wise, they are fairly balanced. Yes, it's easier to hit with a Scientist, but if they miss, it hurts them more than if the Sunflower misses a few shots. A miss for a Scientist is 30+ dmg, 1-2-3 misses for a Sunflower is 9-18-27 dmg. Accuracy is hard to quantify, and once you get into that realm, you start talking about player skill. If you have to start using player skill as an argument on why one class may be better than the other, then chances are those two classes are balanced to the point that any more "fiddling" will ruin the current balance and actually make the imbalanced.