Gargantuar Prime

*For other uses, see Gargantuar (disambiguation).*
*For the similar zombie in Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, see Mech Gargantuar.*

## **Gargantuar Prime**

Has it all: heavy armor, laser eyes, smashing arms, and Bug Bot deployment system.

## Almanac statistics

### Damage

Crushes plants with telephone pole arms, randomly burns tiles with laser eyes

## In-game statistics

### Weakness

 (disables)
  (with Plant Food, one crush cycle will trigger both explosions, destroying it instantly)
  (Kills/Hypnotises him)
  (Plant food kills him)

### First seen

Far Future - Day 8 or Terror from Tomorrow

The imp pilots of the Gargantuar Prime series are handpicked by Dr. Zomboss himself. They are the imp elite. The small, the mean, the fearless! But mostly the ones who can drive a stick shift.

**Gargantuar Prime** is a mechanized variant of Gargantuar that appears only in *Plants vs. Zombies 2*. It moves slower than a regular Gargantuar and can be disabled by E.M Peach but at this slight cost, it has additional abilities. The eyes can fire lasers, which burns plants and zombies caught within its area of effect. It smashes each plant twice in a row, twice as fast as a regular gargantuar.

## Origins

Its name is a reference to *Optimus Prime*, the protagonist of the *Transformers* series.

## Appearance

The Gargantuar Prime, which resembles an actual Gargantuar in mechanized form, has a cockpit on top of its head with an Imp sitting inside piloting the machine. The head of the Gargantuar Prime is less circular than that of Gargantuar, with yellow lights for eyes which shoot powerful laser beams. When shooting laser beams, they turn purple. Similar to Gargantuar, it has a missing tooth and also wears a dog collar on its neck.

Its main body is brown colored, with a cannon that resembles a trash can on its back from where it shoots out a Bug Bot Imp. Instead of arms, it has two telephone poles attached to its shoulders, as a reference to the telephone pole the Gargantuar holds.

Finally, its legs are colored dark blue, like the pants the Gargantuar wears. These move very stiffly, which explains the robot's slow speed.

## Almanac entry

**Gargantuar Prime**

TOUGHNESS: Great

SPEED: Stiff

Has it all: heavy armor, laser eyes, smashing arms, and Bug Bot deployment system.

Damage: crushes plants with arms
Damage: randomly burns tiles with laser eyes
Special: launches Bug Bot when damaged

The imp pilots of the Gargantuar Prime series are handpicked by Dr. Zomboss himself. They are the imp elite. The small, the mean, and the fearless! But mostly the ones who drive a stick shift.

## Overview

The Gargantuar Prime absorbs 3600 damage per shot, and it does not degrade. It launches its Bug Bot Imp at 1800 damage per shot.

## Encounters

* Player's House: Piñata Party
* Far Future: Days 8, 12, 19, 22, 25, 26, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35, Terror from Tomorrow, and Piñata Party.
* Dark Ages: "Epic Quest: Premium Seeds - Hot Date!" Epic Quest - Step 6
* Modern Day: Days 3, 10, 16, 19, 33, 41, and "Electrical Boogaloo" Epic Quest - Steps 1 and 8

## Strategies

### General

Gargantuar Primes are considerably more dangerous than the other Gargantuar types, possibly except for Sloth Gargantuars, Hair Metal Gargantuars, and Jurassic Gargantuars. One can already be threatening, but five or more of these can destroy all the plants in your lawn. If paired with lots of Mecha-Football Zombies, it can cause lots of havoc on your lawn, emptying everything. When it launches its Bug Bot Imp, quickly use a Blover/Hurrikale to blow it away, since Bug Bot Imps are harder to destroy than a normal Imp.

Unlike other Gargantuars, this variation will utilize a laser to kill plants in the back or in other lanes with a single hit. Therefore, be ready to replant your sun-producing types like Sunflower and offensive plants by keeping a large supply of sun on hand or revive plants using Intensive Carrot. Also, be cautious about planting or replacing high-value plants, like Winter Melons, in the presence of Gargantuar Primes to avoid wasting up to 500 sun in the process.

Like any threat, you can put an Iceberg Lettuce in front of it, as long as there are no other zombies to protect it. A boosted Iceberg Lettuce or its Plant Food upgrade makes it more effective if multiple Gargantuar Primes are on-screen. Also, use of an E.M.Peach can disable it both before it first enters your lawn or later on to disable multiple machines in its target area. You should definitely time the use of either of these methods whenever you see their laser eyes start to glow, to help defeat Gargantuar Primes easily before they can use their last resort. In dangerous situations, it's recommended to use Plant Food Refresh on E.M.Peach, so it can be deployed faster.

Citrons with Plant Food or boosted versions will instantly kill a Gargantuar Prime if there are no other machines in front to block it. Avoid using Jalapenos and use Cherry Bombs while they are frozen, as it will thaw them. Snow Pea and Sap-fling can slow and halt their progress while damaging them at a low cost to replace, until your disabling plants have a chance to recharge.

Gargantuar Primes are actually threats from afar, as they are too slow to get far in a well-defended lawn, despite their bulk. They still can crush plants, therefore, do not put your defenses too up front. Do not try stalling them with Spikerocks, as they can kill them far faster than other Gargantuars (due to not stopping to smash until the plant is dead) despite the slower animation. However, one can use the lasers to their advantage, as they can melt frozen block spawned by Troglobite, and can destroy Gravestones. Besides the lasers, the Bug Bot Imps are also notable threats. They will still land at the third column, but they get to move a longer distance. The best way to deal with them is Magnifying Grass, as it is the cheapest to plant option and can destroy them as long as there are no machines in the way. Make sure to save room in the first two back columns for any plant to deal with the Bug Bot Imps. However, if you are using Magnifying Grass, you will need to spend 350 sun to fully destroy the Gargantuar.

### Terror from Tomorrow

Their lasers are your greatest threat as they can burn your plants instantly from far away. As such, you must be able to defeat Gargantuar Primes immediately, regardless of their numbers, while making sure nothing else is sneaking by. The most effective way is the smart use of Power Tiles. In the beginning, plant Twin Sunflowers on Power Tiles of the same color (minimum of three in almost all games) and use a Plant Food on one of them. This allows you to gain much-needed sun in the beginning. Another advantage of Power Tiles is that plants that are using Plant Food are immune to lasers. However, this will NOT work on levels with weird tile placements.

You must also establish key defenses like Winter Melons in order to slow them down. Once they start showing up, replace a Twin Sunflower on one Power Tile with an Iceberg Lettuce and another with a Winter Melon. This way, when you power up each time, you get some sun, you freeze every zombie, and you get a deadly Winter Melon power-up all at once. For this strategy to work, though, you need a lot of Plant Food, so you will need a Power Lily and usually an Imitater as well. Imitater with Cherry Bomb can work too. But to actually deal with all these gargantuars, this only takes out ones on three lanes and it's often better to use a combination of E.M.Peach to stall it continuously and use Winter Melon to slow him down, in doing so doubling the stunning effect's duration. Primal Potato Mines can then be deployed for it's deadly effect, as just some melons and the Gargantuar will be weak enough to be defeated in one shot. If he explodes too early, it will not cause the EMP stun effect/chill effect to wear off, unlike the Cherry Bomb which defrosts frozen/chilled zombies.

One method that may quickly and easily get rid of all Gargantuar Primes (and other zombies) is to use a the Reinforce-Mint + Blover Combo. Plant the Blover, then quickly deploy Reinforce-Mint. Since he knocks all zombies (that have fully entered the lawn) back and momentarily mid-air, the Blover can easily destroy them all at once.

## Trivia

* Unlike its *Garden Warfare 2* counterpart, it does not shoot electricity out of the telephone poles.
* Its arms resemble the telephone pole the Gargantuar carried in the original game.
	+ While there was only one telephone pole carried in the original game, the design was implemented to both arms of the Gargantuar Prime.
* Despite that its Almanac entry says that its laser eyes burn tiles, it actually only burns plants and does not decimate power tiles.
* Its lasers do not always instantly kill plants, despite saying that it incinerates them.
* When burning a plant, the burning animation from explorer/torchlight/turquoise skull zombies is played.
	+ However, in the Chinese version, the plant just disappears without the burning animation.
* It is missing a tooth. It is located on the lower part of the mouth, just like a normal Gargantuar.
* It has the shortest death animation of all Gargantuars. It simply dissipates and disappears within a second.
* Starting with the 3.1 update, Gargantuar Primes can no longer attack while off-screen, and unless stalled, do not fire their lasers until they reach the second column from the right, have a reduced rate of fire, and stop firing their lasers after an Iceberg Lettuce effect ends. This was done in an effort to balance the zombie, as it was considered to be way too powerful before the update.
* Its color palette is used by the Mechanical Wolf Zombie.
* Unlike other robot zombies, it can be stunned by Stunion, despite the fact that it is a machine and not an actual zombie.
* Despite the fact that Shrinking Violets shrink Imps into oblivion, the Imp controlling it does not get shrunk into oblivion, effectively preventing the gargantuar from being defeated easily.
	+ It shares this trait with the Disco-tron 3000.
* In the Travel Log, it is called "Gargantuar Prime Zombie."
* It slightly resembles the original Zombot from *Plants vs. Zombies*.

### Specific to *Plants vs. Zombies Heroes*

* It and Poncho Zombie are the only Zombies appear cameo in *Plants vs. Zombies Heroes* when player received Spudow, despite not being a card.

ru:Гаргантюа-премьер
fr:Gargantua Prime