Holly Barrier

*Holly Barrier deals damage to zombies attacking him, and can launch 3 prickly barrier leaves to knock back and damage zombies.*

### Usage

Tap to arm, tap on target tile to fire; can fire up to 3 barriers

### Special

Projectile knocks back, does damage, leaves barrier on empty tiles

## In-game statistics

### Average DPS

Self melee - 20
Barrier melee - 10/20

### PDE

Self melee - 28.5
Barrier melee - 14.25/28.5

### Codename alias

hollyknight

**Holly Barrier would like to advise folks not to eat his berries. "It's rude to eat somebody's berries without asking," he says. "In addition, they are highly toxic."**

**Holly Barrier** is a premium plant in *Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished*. He costs 75 gems to purchase.

Holly Barrier is a wall plant that acts much like Endurian, blocking and attacking zombies that eat it. He also doubles as a manual-use plant similar to Banana Launcher. The player can tap on Holly Barrier to arm him, then aim at any tile on the lawn to fire a prickly leaf barrier that deals 100 damage and pushes back all zombies in a 1x3 area by half a tile. Afterwards, the leaf barrier stays on the board if there isn't a plant or obstacle in the way, becoming an additional wall which also blocks and attacks zombies that eat it.

Holly Barrier can fire 3 times before needing to recharge. The charges do not grow back on their own, and must instead be replenished via Wall-nut First Aid or feeding Plant Food. Unlike the main plant, prickly leaf barriers can block and damage flying zombies such as Jetpack Zombie, in a similar way to Tall-nut.

## Almanac entry

**Holly Barrier**

Holly Barrier deals damage to zombies attacking him, and can launch 3 prickly barrier leaves to knock back and damage zombies.

Usage: tap to arm, tap on target tile to fire; can fire up to 3 barriers
 Special: projectile knocks back, does damage, leaves barrier on empty tiles.
 Special: can be healed by Wall-nut First Aid

Holly Barrier would like to advise folks not to eat his berries. "It's rude to eat somebody's berries without asking," he says. "In addition, they are highly toxic."

## Plant Food effect

When fed Plant Food, Holly Barrier will replenish all his health and lost berries and fires 4 reinforced leaf barriers with 3000 health each at full force on random tiles. Leaf barriers that land on empty tiles will stay there much like their normal variants and will have a different appearance, as well as dealing 350 damage on impact instead of 100 and 20 damage to any zombie eating them as opposed to the normal 10 damage.

## Strategies

Holly Barrier's array of abilities make him a bit confusing at first, but he's pretty simple to understand. With both the plant itself and the barriers that it launches acting as mini Endurians, Holly Barrier functions as a 4-in-1 alternative to Endurian. Each part of Holly Barrier has comparatively low health, though, so slowing plants like Sap-fling and Snow Pea can be used to keep barriers up for much longer. Combined with the ability to knock zombies back, Holly Barrier can greatly help in keeping the zombies at bay, albeit with a high investment cost.

While Holly Barrier is usually incredibly expensive for a defensive plant, there are methods to greatly lower overall investments. Intensive Carrot can revive a defeated Holly Barrier at a great discount, only requiring 75 sun to restore the plant and his barriers at the same time. Alternatively, depleted Holly Barriers can be shoveled to recover the spent sun: With all three shoveling upgrades, Holly Barrier's final cost can be brought down to a mere 90 sun. By using these methods, Holly Barrier can greatly outdo Endurian in blocking and damaging zombies for an efficient cost.

Holly Barrier's Plant Food effect can be quite useful as well. The combination of enhanced impact damage, health and the melee damage allows the barriers dropped by the Plant Food effect to defeat hordes of zombies with relative ease. On top of this, Holly Barrier recharges his salvo of barriers, allowing him to continue stalling zombies without restoring the barriers through other means.

With the leaf barriers being able to block low flying zombies (but not the plant himself), Holly Barrier can act as a good counter for Imp Cannons, Imps thrown by Zombie Bull or Rodeo Legend and many other flying zombies encountered in various worlds. The leaf barriers are also a good counter for chickens and weasels, with the melee damage able to quickly destroy critters without much issue. The leaf barriers can also act as cannon fodder for stalling zombies whose abilities interact with plants or even outright make them use their one-time ability, such as Excavator Zombie or ZCorp Chair Racer, although it may be better to instead consider sacrificing cheaper plants such as Sunflowers or Puff-shrooms.

Beware using Holly Barrier in levels with Plant Loss or Max Plant objectives, as the leaf barriers will be counted as plants after landing.

## Balance changes

### Initial launch

* ▲ +90 projectile damage
* ▲ +150 PF projectile damage
* ▲ +1000 health for barrier
* ▲ +90 projectile damage
* ▲ +500 health for PF barrier
* ▼ +200 Sun
* ▼ 1x3 projectile range
	+ Originally 3x3 projectile range
* ▼ -32 knockback
* ▼ -10 damage for barrier