Skimmia

Skimmia is an obtainable plant available in the expansion levels of Frostbite Caves in Plants vs. Zombies 2. Skimmia uses his dense shrubs to periodically decorate a passing projectile from behind him with skis that leaves a snow trail across the whole lane, chilling zombies that it passes through. Its dense shrubs prevents plants behind him and himself from getting frozen. 
When planted, the first projectile that passes through him would be put on skis and slide through the lane. The projectile will carry its original damage and properties, and will separate itself from the skis when it hits a zombie. The ski deals small damage to zombies it hits and leaves a snowy trail. The snowy trail will remain for 4 seconds.
After sending out skis, he will 'curl up' and reload his skis for 8 seconds. In this state, projectiles will pass through without interruption. Having a Winter-mint family plant present (excluding himself) in adjacent tiles or having freezing projectiles pass through him will reduce his reload by 3 seconds.
He will also enter a constant 'curl up' state when there is a Pepper-mint family plant present in tiles adjacent to him. Fiery projectiles passing through him will destroy the projectile and force him to reload, which can also be caused by fiery area attacks. 'Curl-up' states that happen this way will disable his ability to block out chilling winds, and will last a full 10 seconds. 
==Origins==
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Skimmia is the name of a genus of shrubs, with the plant design being specifically based on the species Skimmia japonica, a species cultivated as an ornamental plant. Its name is also derived from skis, an object used for recreational sport.
His plant food effect deploying berries refer to the fruits it produces, as is not present in his normal mechanic.
==Almanac Entry==
==Upgrades==
===Plant Food effect===
When given Plant Food, he will end his reload time and builds up a tall branch covering a massive object. This branch will remain until a projectile passes through. 
Once a projectile passes through him, the projectile will be destroyed and the tall branch will collapse, revealing a massive sledge covered in berries that fill a 3x3 area. The sledge passes through the lane, leaving a 3-row wide icy trail that lightly damages and freezes zombies on it for 7 seconds. Several berries will jump off the sledge onto adjacent lanes, freezing zombies that they hit with a priority on higher health zombies.
After 7 seconds, the icy trail turns into a snowy trail. Skimmia will not enter reload once he releases the sledge.
===Winter-mint effect===
When boosted by Winter-mint, any existing snow trails will have their durations reset. He will end his reload time prematurely, and will not reload until he has deployed 3 skis. His skis deal double the damage.
===Level upgrade===
Level	Seed Packets	Coins 	Upgrades	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades 	Upgrades
Level	Seed Packets	Coins 	Sun Cost	Recharge (Fast)	Toughness	Ski Damage	Snow Trail Duration	Plant Food Power(Sledge Damage)	Plant Food Power(Ice Trail Duration)
1 	0 	0 	200 	12 seconds 	2250 dps 	15 dps 	4 seconds 	30 dps 	7 seconds
2 	10 	1000 	200 	12 seconds 	2500 dps 	17 dps 	4 seconds 	45 dps 	7 seconds
3 	25 	2500 	200 	10 seconds 	2750 dps 	20 dps 	4.5 seconds 	60 dps 	8 seconds
4 	50 	5000 	200 	10 seconds 	3000 dps 	22 dps 	4.5 seconds 	75 dps 	8 seconds
5 	100 	10,000 	200 	10 seconds 	3250 dps 	25 dps 	4.5 seconds 	90 dps 	8 seconds
6 	200 	20,000 	200 	10 seconds 	3500 dps 	27 dps 	4.5 seconds 	105 dps 	8 seconds
7 	400 	30,000 	175 	8 seconds 	3750 dps 	30 dps 	5 seconds 	120 dps 	10 seconds
8 	800 	50,000 	175 	8 seconds 	4000 dps 	33 dps 	5 seconds 	135 dps 	10 seconds
9 	1,200 	75,000 	175 	8 seconds 	4250 dps 	36 dps 	5 seconds 	150 dps 	10 seconds
10 	1,600 	100,000	175 	8 seconds 	4500 dps 	40 dps 	5 seconds 	180 dps 	11 seconds
==Strategies ==
Skimmia functions as a great sustainer that utilizes the chilling mechanic very well due to his splash damage capabilities. He can make plants like Snow Pea and Cold Snapdragon much more viable in Frostbite Caves by enabling survivability without having to use any fire plants that prevents chilling effects.
Skimmia is quite strong as a sustainer due to his own decent health, with the requirement of needing a straight-shooting plant behind him to make him functional. This does however make him more costly, especially in the early game, as sun needs to be spent for an offensive plant on top of his own sun cost. Planting him in the early game is ill-advised as sustaining small waves of zombies would waste his splash-chilling effect. Instead, planting offensive Winter-mint plants will later support him in the mid-to-late game.
Skimmia's chilling uptime at Level 1 is quite short, with it lasting only about 50% of his reload time. However, utilizing Winter-mint plants, especially Snow Pea, would greatly reduce his downtime, and allow him to constantly deploy snow trails with only 1 second between reloads. To activate his reload reduction, using Snow Pea or Cold Snapdragon synergizes well due to their constant attacks passing through him without the need for them to be adjacent to him. Iceweed can also be used due to its front-line placement.
As a sustain plant, his drawbacks are more visible from his interactions with (some) instant-use plants and its inability to be planted with a Pepper-mint family plants. Instant-use plants will not only disable him, but also removes his snow tiles.
The following is a list of attacks that disables Skimmia temporarily or removes his snow trails if it comes into contact: 
* Any explosion caused by a Bombard-mint family plant
* Coconut Cannon's explosion radius
* Jalapeno's fire trail
* Fire Peashooter's pea or any peas lit on fire
* Wasabi Whip's attack or Plant Food effect
* Torchwood's death fire trail
* Bombegranate's seeds if on the same tile
His snow trails are his main utility, and instant-uses would risk ruining his sustain or disabling him for a while if not planted carefully. It is not advised to use Pepper-mint family plants along with him, but using instant-uses carefully in a pinch is still viable.
His skis deal decent chip splash damage that can tear down Ice Weasels in his origin world (and consequently, Zombie Chickens) and weaken the horde of zombies that gets chilled by him. Using him to disable Explorer Zombies' torches would be a safer option due to its consistency in the case of Iceberg Lettuce being on cooldown.
His plant food effect can be used in a pinch to freeze his lane and adjacent ones and several potentially-threatening zombies outside the area-of-effect. However using his plant food in his own world is useless due to zombies being immune to freezing.
His placement is versatile, where using him as a weak wall or just to sustain with his snow trail is both viable. If solely utilizing his snow trails, placing him behind sun producers (wherein the sun producers are treated as walls in the frontline) allows him to get the most value out of his snow trail and his plant food effect.
==Gallery==
File:SkimmiaHD.png|HD Skimmia
File:SkimmiaSeed.png|Skimmia seed packet (level 1)
File:SkimmiaSeedNoSun.png|Skimmia seed packet without sun cost
File:SkimmiaAlmanac.png|Skimmia on a Frostbite Caves lawn
==Trivia== 
*Skimmia berries are very attractive to birds, but they taste very sour.
*Skimmias are evergreen shrubs, which means their foliage stay green throughout the whole year.
**On another note, Skimmia shrubs can tolerate frost really well.
Category:Defensive plants
Category:Support plants
Category:Winter-mint Family plants
Category:Chilling plants
Category:Freezing Plants
Category:Free-use