Ultomato

*Ultomatoes charge up slowly, then fires a devastating beam down the lane that damage zombies as long as the charge lasts. Ultomatoes can be made more powerful by planting multiple Ultomatoes on the same tile.*

### Special

Can be planted on top of itself, mutating from green to yellow to red

### Usage

Costs more sun the more Ultomatoes on the board

## In-game statistics

### Codename alias

ultomato

**Ultomato yawns as unimaginable energies build up inside his being. It's cool. He can afford to wait. He's got allllll day.**

**Ultomato** is a plant in *Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished* and the ninth plant obtained in Wild West. He is unlocked at Wild West - Day 31.

Ultomato fires a powerful laser beam down his lane every 6.5-6.7 seconds, repeatedly hitting the front-most zombie in that lane. He can be replanted on the same tile up to two times, with each planting growing his size and greatly enhancing his power. However, each instance of an Ultomato, including those that are stacked onto a single tile, will increase the price of additional Ultomatoes by 50 sun.

If there are grid items and zombies on the same lane, Ultomato will prioritize on damaging zombies first, then grid items.

## Almanac entry

**Ultomato**

Ultomatoes charge up slowly, then fires a devastating beam down the lane that damage zombies as long as the charge lasts. Ultomatoes can be made more powerful by planting multiple Ultomatoes on the same tile.

Special: can be planted on top of itself, mutating from green to yellow to red
Usage: costs more the more Ultomatoes are on board

Ultomato yawns as unimaginable energies build up inside his being. It's cool. He can afford to wait. He's got allllll day.

## Plant Food effect

When Ultomato is fed Plant Food, he will grow instantly, then explode, dealing 1200 damage to all zombies on the lawn.

## Strategies

Ultomato is capable of developing the highest damage of any plant in the entire game, with his red stage capable of taking down almost an entire Knight Zombie in a single attack. The ability for this attack to pass through defeated zombies also allows Ultomato to clear low health hordes to a degree that can even rival traditional AoE plants like Laser Bean and Electric Peashooter.

However, there is a major roadblock to unleashing the power of Ultomato: scaling sun costs. A single red Ultomato will cost a total of 900 sun, but each planting of Ultomato becomes more and more expensive, demanding heavy sun production in order to build a full column of them. In fact, completing a column of red Ultomatoes requires a massive investment of 9000 sun. Because of this, it is recommended to bring plants like Twin Sunflower, Shine Vine and Power Lily to facilitate high sun production, and to fill the board with sun producers in order to make Ultomato more affordable.

It is possible to get around the expense of planting multiple Ultomatoes by utilising the minecarts of the Wild West. Minecarts allow a single Ultomato to be moved around to cover multiple lanes, meaning less have to be developed in order for every lane to be covered by his immense damage. Escape Root can be used to similar effect in other worlds, albeit more sluggishly.

Keep in mind that Ultomato isn't the only plant that can fit immense power into a single tile. Pea Pod can achieve more modest results when combined with Torchwood, but at a comparative fraction of the cost of a complete set of Ultomatoes. Alternatively, Magnifying Grass can be fed sun directly to deal damage to zombies. These options can be used much more flexibly compared to Ultomato, thanks to their lack of scaling sun costs.

Alternatively to the main attack, Ultomato's Plant Food effect can be used to deal incredible damage to the entire lawn, at the cost of destroying the Ultomato. While powerful, it is only recommended to use Ultomato's Plant Food when not using him as an offensive plant, or otherwise as a last resort, due to his inherently expensive sun cost. Using the Zen Garden, Ultomato can be transformed to the effect of a fast-recharging Doom-shroom, dealing massive damage to the lawn for only 250 sun.

## Balance changes

### Version 1.1.4

* ▼ Damage (small): 350 DPS -> 300 DPS
* ▼ Damage (medium): 750 DPS -> 600 DPS
* ▼ Damage (PF): 1800 -> 1200
* ▼ Recharge: 6.5s -> 10s
* Target audience: Veterans
	+ Developer note: You all knew it was coming eventually. Ultomato was the sleeper best plant constantly floating under our radars, mainly due to a lack of knowing how exactly to tune him without killing off his appeal. We determined that the primary focus of Ultomato should be to build him to the final stage, and then shuffle him around using either world gimmicks or other means (We heard lane redirection is a particularly flavorful combo!), as such we tuned the damage of the lower stages down to really focus on that incredibly powerful higher stage. The PF effect of Ultomato was intentionally left as a giant nuke due to it being funny (and for the purposes of the First Strike booster), but we realized it has been doing more harm than good, and so it was deemed time to reel in the power.

### Version 1.2.1

* ▲ Sun Cost: 250 -> 150
	+ Sun ramp-up unaffected.
* ▼ Final Stage Damage: 1600 -> 1200
	+ Developer note: For a plant with an escalating sun cost, it costs a lot to plant at first, doesn't it? Of course, that's the price you've gotta pay for such a high damage output - but we and many in the community felt that was overtuned as well. To kill two birds with one stone, we lowered the initial price for Ultomato as well as its final stage damage, encouraging his use in the early-game while weakening his potential in the late-game.