I'm already seeing people use many of the tactics described in this topic, I'm quite overjoyed to be perfectly honest. I had actually engaged in a 2 minute or so shoot out with someone who made it very difficult to hit his hand behind a wall. I got him, oh yes, but at the cost of my vanquish number total due to hyper-fixating on a target who should've been left alone or approached by route of "However he got to his nest" ;3 I'm such a dork.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Basic Quality of Life Tips ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-The Jackhammer-
As Engineer, your Jackhammer actually gives you a slight increase to your jump height as well as your speed, thereby with practice allowing you to jump over fences and ledges which are slightly too tall to leap over when not riding the jackhammer. A good example of this would be on Zen Peak (Let us use Gnome bomb as a reference):
At Zombie side-Tombstone "C" (The one under the Gazebo/Pagoda,) you can only access by running through Zombie spawn, taking the bridge, or waterfall side stairway. There is also a little Ledge located along the creek bed that Roses and Citron can jump to due to their incredible jump right! Well, while operating a Jackhammer, you can actually make this jump too, effectively allowing you to hop up "Behind" the point, possibly even snagging a vanquish (Or getting vanquished yourself if they see you coming)... the point is, you can hop higher on that Hammering tool of yours!
Speaking of the Jackhammer, it's a very useful tool for making the life of a Plant really hard to cope with! Ramming a plant while riding the Jackhammer will knock them back. If you ram a Chomper while he's trying to burrow and you're on the hammer, it will knock them back AND cause them to lose their burrow cooldown entirely! You can also ram into rooted Sunflowers or Peashooters to cause them to get knocked out of their super damaging Gatling Pea or Sunbeam skills, and cause their cooldowns to be wasted too! (I do not know if they have to fire first for this to be true).
Not only that, but let us go into detail about "Aggressive Engineer tactic". A glance at the random tips while loading will clue you in to hop around on your Jackhammer to outmaneuver your foe and make yourself hard to hit, but while riding the Jackhammer and jumping around (Possibly while ramming the enemy) you can be shooting the ground during this entire ordeal and overwhelm plants who have no idea how to back up and aim at this offensive style of play. (Which isn't all that easy to do either if the Engineer is locked onto you, they will chase and continuously stun you).
This is very useful as the Default Engineer, as his concrete launcher cracks out 20 damage in a very generous splash radius per throw. Couple this with you bouncing around and running into people, possibly even jumping over them to make yourself as har dto hit as possible, it will only take 5 shots to the ground to vanquish a sunflower. 7 for a Peashooter who doesn't try to use his hyper. -- WHILE AIMING THOSE DIRECT HIT 36-40 DAMAGE CRITICALS IS KEY TO REALLY BEING A MENACE AS ENGINEER, AND TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION HE MAKES A MUCH BETTER DEFENSIVE PLAYER IN MY OWN OPINION, THIS TACTIC GOES AGAINST EVERYTHING I KNOW TO BE TRUE ABOUT THE ENGINEER. But there is no doubt that Aggressive Jackhammering can take players by surprise, especially ones who aren't knocked over by the hammer that often or have difficulty chasing their target in circles while being moved.
Lastly, your Jackhammer will actually deal REALLY STRONG damage to Tallnuts and Potted plants. Ramming into an enemy deals 5 damage. Ramming into something that doesn't move when you bump it causes that 5 damage to occur at a very rapid rate. As always, be mindful of Potato Mines, remember that jumping over obstacles can be more quick than trying to destroy them, and that the entire mention of this is so that if you do decide to destroy a tallnut and are riding on a jackhammer at the time, you can conserve precious ammo simply by ramming the barricade.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Really cheap tip for Sunflower ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunflower when behind "Low cover" that you can jump and get a free shot out of just to land and be safe again, can actually drop their Heal/Dark Flower, and jump on it. An example would be the All-Star Mansions fencing, (The Marble/Stone, not the Picket/Wood). As a Fire Flower, hopefully with friends because you really won't last long if 2 or 3 people come looking for you to punish you for your annoyance -- Plop down that Heal Flower, hop on its head, and peg the poor little defenders with that ultra-sweet Fire damage burn as they hide in the corner attempting to ambush players trying to capture their point. It is NOT wise to keep your head above cover on top of your flower for too long. Once you take a hit or two, hop down and hide in cover as per usual, allowing your fire damage to whittle the enemies health away while your Heal flower recovers your health, giving you little downtime, and more time to hop back on your flower and continue your assault until you draw enough attention to have to flee.
There are other places to use this, and you can even use this flower like a Tallnut to access areas you normally wouldn't be able to AS a Flower. (Keep in mind that this comes at the expense of your Flower Cooldown.) These locations aren't many (There's lots of spots that aren't "That good" which are open and allow easy visibility of your dainty little flower self, beware!)
The right Fire Flower in the right place can make all the difference, since she can spray 10 or so pulses onto a point in Herbal Assault and nearly FORCE players to leave that capture zone.
The same is true for any character played just right however. :D Take care out there P's & Z's! And thanks for contribution to the Strategy thread reality. We should all try to enlighten our fellow players. For stronger teammates. FOR BETTER OPPOSITION! lol
