Sear-rano Pepper

Sear-rano Pepper is a plant introduced in the 9.6.2 update in Plants vs. Zombies 2. He is a special plant that is unlocked by winning twenty consecutive Arena matches, and would've been located in Day 19 of Mesopotamian Riverside, but was scrapped in favor of Baby Carrot. 
When planted, Sear-rano Pepper will boost all other offensive plants in a 3x3 radius, increasing their damage by 5% and their rate of fire by 10%. They can be planted on each other to boost the boosts. It increases in 5% and 10% boosts respectively, and can be stacked until there are 5 Sear-rano Peppers on one tile. However, they cannot be planted on the same tile as another plant.
Sear-rano Peppers also have a side effect of damaging zombies in a 3x3 radius. They deal 10 damage per second, and fire at a rate of 60 RPM. They also have a special property of being immune to freezing and being able to thaw ice in Frostbite Caves in a 3x3 radius.
You can obtain Sear-rano seed packets by opening the Daily Gift piñatas, the Fire Plant piñatas, and the Fruit Plant piñatas from the Store.
==Origins==
Sear-rano Pepper is based on the serrano pepper, a type of chili pepper originating from Puebla and Hidalgo, two mountainous states in Mexico. His name is a portmanteau of "sear" and "serrano."
It gets its flavoring from it being a "mildly hot pepper," according to spice connoisseurs. 
==Appearance==
Sear-rano Pepper is a long red serrano pepper with a green stem. His teeth are gritted together in a frown. He also has a lot of red marks on his body and fire in his black eyes to simulate his anger.
His costume in the international and Chinese versions of PvZ2 give him a pair of shades and a red goatee.
==Almanac Entry==
==Upgrades==
===Level Upgrades===
Level	Seed Packets	Coins 	Upgrades	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades	Upgrades	Upgrades
Level	Seed Packets	Coins 	Sun Cost	Recharge(Slow)	Toughness	Damage 	Buffs 	Buffs
Level	Seed Packets	Coins 	Sun Cost	Recharge(Slow)	Toughness	Damage 	Damage 	RoF
1 	0 	0 	125 	36 seconds 	500 dps 	10 dps 	5% 	10%
2 	10 	1,000 	125 	35 seconds 	550 dps 	20 dps 	7.5% 	15%
3 	25 	2,500 	125 	34 seconds 	600 dps 	30 dps 	10% 	20%
4 	50 	5,000 	100 	33 seconds 	650 dps 	40 dps 	12.5% 	25%
5 	100 	10,000 	100 	32 seconds 	700 dps 	50 dps 	15% 	30%
6 	200 	20,000 	100 	31 seconds 	750 dps 	60 dps 	17.5% 	35%
7 	350 	30,000 	75 	30 seconds 	800 dps 	70 dps 	20% 	40%
8 	500 	50,000 	75 	28.5 seconds 	850 dps 	80 dps 	22.5% 	45%
9 	750 	75,000 	75 	27 seconds 	900 dps 	90 dps 	25% 	50%
10 	1,000 	100,000	50 	25 seconds 	1000 dps 	100 dps 	30% 	60%
 	 	 	50 	 	 	 	 	
 	 	 	50 	 	 	 	 	
===Level upgrades===
===Plant Food effect===
When fed with Plant Food, Sear-rano Pepper will fire a large flame in a 5x5 radius. These flames will set all zombies that make contact with them aflame, dealing 1200 damage upon contact and dealing 60 damage per second to surviving zombies for the next 10 seconds. The flames will also buff any plant that makes contact with them, doubling their health, their damage, and their rate of fire for 10 seconds.
===Pepper-mint effect===
When there is a Pepper-mint on the lawn, Sear-rano Pepper will buff every plant and damage every zombie in a 5x5 radius, and his damage and boosts are multiplied by 1.5.
===Costumed===
When he has his costume on, Sear-rano Pepper will instead 6 fire columns of fire that deal 300 damage per column.
==Strategies==
Sear-rano Pepper is an extremely strong plant at what he does, especially considering that he is the only normal plant that can buff any offensive plant (excluding the Mints and the vines). He also has very strong buffing potential.
His main synergy would be with other fire plants. He does fire damage, after all. He is very strong with his own class, as he can set zombies aflame, which can really help out your lawn with massive amounts of damage.
Sear-rano Pepper can also fend for himself, acting like a more useful Gloom Vine if used properly. He does deal high amounts of damage when he is leveled up, and he is very good at clearing groups of zombies if you have a good enough strategy for him. He also has an extremely strong Plant Food effect, which can completely destroy a large amount of zombies at a time, while utilizing his increased buffing to kill any zombie that didn't get affected by the large 5x5 flame radius. 
His strongest use independently would be in Frostbite Caves, where he can not only be immune to freezing and where he can thaw ice around him, but also that he can act as a barrier against the Hunter Zombies and their snowballs.
However, Sear-rano Pepper is not without his drawbacks, the main one being his limited buffing potential. He is unable to buff both defensive Plants and support Plants, and he can be a complete waste to the players who are unaware of this limitation. He also anti-synergizes with ice plants, where he can thaw the freeze and slowing effects that these plants offer by simply being next to an affected zombie, and his attack also thaws the ice. This is why if you use a stunning Plant with him, you should use Stallia over Iceberg Lettuce.
Sear-rano Pepper also has the limitation of not being able to be planted on, or be able to plant on something. He has to take up his own tile just to buff the plants, so that could pose a major problem for the player if they run out of space and have to shovel expensive or strong plants to place him. Overall, he's a solid plant with his own uses, but he isn't the best plant ever, not even overpowered.
==Gallery==
File:SEARRANOPEPPERALMANAC.png|Sear-rano Pepper on a premium plant background
File:OriginalHDSearranoPepper.png|"HD" Sear-rano Pepper
File:searranopeppercostume.png|Sear-rano Pepper's costume
File:Searranopepperseedpacket.png|Sear-rano Pepper's seed packet
File:Searranopepperseedpacketnocost.png|Sear-rano Pepper's seed packet without sun cost
File:SEARRANOPROJECTILE.png|Sear-rano Pepper's projectile
File:Searranopeppergp.png|Some gameplay of Pirate Seas featuring Sear-rano Pepper
==Trivia==
*Sear-rano Pepper is the first plant on the PvZCC wiki (I think) to be based off of the serrano pepper.
* Sear-rano Pepper's images are currently bugged and don't work in the gallery right now.
*This plant was created by Orthodontist Zombie, and is the page he worked on the (2nd) hardest!
* Originally, Sear-rano Pepper had much more expensive seed packet costs, in a pattern similar to Granny Smith.
**Speaking of Granny Smith, that was the page used for helping with the table!
* This is Orthodontist's first verified article!
*This page took 6 hours of drawing and writing. 
** I'm ashamed to admit that almost 1/3 of that was just learning how fandom tables work. :(
***I also had to completely rebuild the table because of a saving issue that deleted my table 😭😭😭
*This idea was posted in #general-concepts in the PvZCC wiki Discord on March 9, 2022! Thanks to "bigmac" for the small suggestion.
Category:Plants vs. Zombies 2 plants
Category:Buffers
Category:Peppers
Category:Pepper-mint Family plants
Category:Fire Plants
Category:Orthodontist Zombie's Stuff
Category:Uncleared page