Dragon's Lens

Dragon's Lens is a premium plant added in the 11.1 update of Plants vs. Zombies 2 alongside Dragon Bruit as part of the Dragon's Lens' Dance Off Arena Season for the 2024 Lunar Zoo Year event.
Dragon's Lens buff the plants in 3x3 around him, giving them double the damage and have fire effect similar to Torchwood but to almost every attacking plants, even plants that are already using fire attacks. they will have no effect on instant-used plants like Cherry Bomb, one-used plants like Squash or Potato Mine, manual plants like Coconut Cannon or Banana Launcher and Power Mints. Ice plants like Snow Pea will lose their chilling or freezing effect, and have no effect from Dragon's Lens' buff. The effect does not stack with themselves or Torchwood.
It has 3000 health, every time 1000 health gets eaten away, they will howl forward to stun zombies in front of it by 1 tile and gain an almost permanent boost in their buff. Undamaged will give 2 times effect, first degrade will give 2.5 times the effect, and second degrade will give 3 times the effect. If they are healed by other plants, it will reset their boost effect, which is the only way they will lose the boost outside of getting destroyed.
Being a fire plant, in Frostbite Cave they will emitting heat every 6 seconds that gradually thaws frozen or chilled plants in a 3x3 area surrounding them, as well as being immune to all freezing effects themselves.
==Origins==
Dragon's Lens' origin is based on multiple things. First is the plant it is based on, being Longan, a plant native to China, and name translated to "Dragon's eye" in Chinese, hence its name.
The Lens part of his name is based on the fact that lens are part of eyes, referring to dragon's eye. As well as sounding similar to "dance", which combined with "Dragon's" result in another origin, Dragon dance. Dragon dance is a traditional dance in Chinese culture similar to Lion Dance, where dancers hold up a paper dragon and dance while holding it. It is usually performed in Chinese New Year.
It being a plant for the Lunar Zoo Year event is not only based on the fact that dragon dancing is performed in Chinese New Year, but also because this year is the Year of the Dragon. Therefore having a double meaning to dragon.
His ability is based on fire dragon dancing, a type of dragon dances that uses fire for extra effect. It is also based on how traditional dragons have fire power, similar to Snapdragon.
His Plant Food ability is based on dragon dance's "corkscrew" routine, a pattern that dragon dancers perform.
==Almanac Entry==
==Upgrades==
===Plant Food effect===
When fed with a Plant Food, he will start twirling the dragon around permanently, this will increase the buffing effect by plus 1 time. Undamaged will become 3 times, first degrade will become 3.5 times, and second degrade will become 4 times damage. However unlike other Plant Food effect, this will not heal Dragon's Lens to full.
===Pepper-mint effect===
When boosted by Pepper-mint, undamaged Dragon's Lens will boost for 3 times, first degrade will become 3.5 times and second degrade will become 4 times. Plant Fooded version will boost for 4 times when undamaged, 4.5 times at first degrade and 5 times at second degrade.
===Level Upgrades===
Level	Seed packets	Coins	Upgrades	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades
Level	Seed packets	Coins	Sun Cost	Recharge (Sluggish)	Toughness (Typical)	Damage Multiplier (Undamaged)	Damaged Boost 	Plant Food Effect	Range
1 	0 	0 	325 	30 seconds 	3000 Damage 	2 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
2 	50 	0 	300 	29 seconds 	3100 Damage 	2.2 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
3 	100 	0 	300 	29 seconds 	3200 Damage 	2.3 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
4 	200 	0 	300 	28 seconds 	3300 Damage 	2.4 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
5 	300 	0 	275 	28 seconds 	3400 Damage 	2.5 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
6 	400 	0 	275 	27 seconds 	3500 Damage 	2.6 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
7 	500 	0 	275 	27 seconds 	3600 Damage 	2.7 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
8 	600 	0 	250 	26 seconds 	3900 Damage 	2.8 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
9 	800 	0 	250 	26 seconds 	4000 Damage 	2.9 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
10 	1,000 	0 	225 	25 seconds 	4000 Damage 	3 times 	+0.5 time on buff for at most twice	+1 time on buff 	3x3
=== Mastery upgrades ===
* Chance to Boost
* Toughness Bonus
==Strategies==
Dragon's Lens can be compared to Torchwood in regards of assisting attacking plants. As both can double ally plants' attack damage by giving them fire property and doubling the damage. Dragon's Lens can boost almost any type of plants, while Torchwood can only boost straight-shot peas. giving them an edge when fighting against Excavator Zombie and Jester Zombie. While they lack the self defense option Torchwood has, they can stun zombies at each degrade, giving them utility. They do have higher health so they can be placed at the front more often than Torchwood. Torchwood gain advantage when paired with Pea Vine thanks to their family synergy, as well as able to buff multiple pea plants in the same lane as oppose to around them. However Dragon's Lens can buff even more when damaged, which is where they shine the most.
Their double or more damage boost can work really well with high damage attackers like Melon-pult and Citron since it double their already impressive damage output, though they are slower in attacking and cost a lot, so they have trouble against Chicken Wrangler Zombie and can't easily be afforded in the early game, especially when Dragon's Lens himself is high cost and slow recharge. Plants with splash damage and piercing damage will be boosted for all hit, making them very good at clearing out large area. You can plant Vine plants in their buffing area so that you can use the most spaces for the damage boost. Since they have high health, you can also use melee plants behind them as they get boosted even without projectiles.
Their damaged boost effect is really powerful. Even at level 1, they can boost as much as 3 times when full damaged, 4 times when given plant food, and 5 times when upgraded, an insane amount of damage especially when the aforementioned high damage plants. This does have a drawback as its a high risk high reward type situation, where letting it damaged makes it better, but taking too much damage and they will be destroyed. Pumpkin is a really good plant in this situation, when Dragon's Lens howl, you can put a Pumpkin on them so that they are no longer damaged by zombies. They are weak to instant-killing zombies like Gargantuar, as most defensive plant does, since it completely negate their howling ability and damage boost. You can also try using healing plants like Aloe, but this means they can't easily reach their max damaged boost state, since healing also revert the damage boost.
Their Plant Food is also really good, as it provide a permanent effect on the damage boost similar to Torchwood. However unlike other defensive plants, this will not heal them to full, so they will stay at the same amount of health, this is useful for mantaining damaged boost effect, but are bad when you try to use it as defense. This plays into their high risk high reward gameplay, as if they gets eaten with Plant Food, you will lose that Plant Food forever. You can also Plant Food them alongside their vine plants, which can be useful with Pumpkin for defense or damaging vine plants for more damage.
Pepper-mint are very good with them, since they can boost them for more damage boost. And as fire plants also get boosted, you can use a mainly Pepper-mint family plant strategy to destroy zombies.
They are extremely good in Frostbite Cave, as their heating radius is the same as their boost area, allowing you to only bring Dragon's Lens as support heating option so that you can use other non-fire plants as offense.
They aren't invincible though. Like most Pepper-mint family plants, they are weak to Imp Dragon Zombie, ironically. As they resist the fire effect, all plants boosted will deal zero damage to them. They are also bad when used with ice plants, as not only do they not get buff, they also lose the chilling or freezing effect, making them terrible when used alongside Dragon's Lens. The fire effect can also reignite torches and dynamite for extra trouble.
==Gallery==
File:Dragon's Lens.png|Dragon's Lens HD
File:Dragon's Lens Almanac.png|Dragon's Lens on the premium lawn
== In other languages ==
==Trivia==
*During development, Dragon's Lens' another names were "Dragon's Longancer" and "Dragon's Lens Dancer", but they sounded weird so went unused.
*Dragon's Lens' horns is similar to Sea Serpent Zombie's horns.
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Category:Season Plants
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Category:Support plants
Category:Fire Plants
Category:Defensive plants
Category:Sluggish recharge plants
Category:Pepper-mint Family plants
Category:Boosting Plants
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