Blastberry Vine

*Blastberry Vines can be planted on top of other plants to provide increased defense and an additional attack in the form of lobbed projectiles that break into explosive bomblets.*

## Almanac statistics

### Unlocked by beating

LCX-VI

**Blastberry Vine snickers to himself. He imagines lobbing bomblets. He's been reading up on it and he knows it's gonna make a big splash when it happens. "Soon," he whispers.**

**Blastberry Vine** is the first plant available in Lost City Extra in *Alternate UniverZ*. Similarly to Pumpkin, Blastberry Vine can be planted on other plants. In addition to this, he lobs an explosive berry over several tiles, which explode into five small bomblets dealing splash damage.

Blastberry Vine is unlocked after beating LCX-VI.

## Almanac entry

**Blastberry Vine**

SUN COST: 125

RECHARGE: 7.5

TOUGHNESS: 300

DAMAGE: 5

FIRING RATE: 2.9

RANGE: Lobbed

Blastberry Vines can be planted on top of other plants to provide increased defense and an additional attack in the form of lobbed projectiles that break into explosive bomblets.
Blastberry Vine snickers to himself. He imagines lobbing bomblets. He's been reading up on it and he knows it's gonna make a big splash when it happens. "Soon," he whispers.

## Plant Food effect

When given Plant Food, Blastberry Vine launches a barrage of 3 grenades in its lane, with each grenade berry exploding into 9 small bomblets, dealing 80 damage each in a 1x1 area. Additionally, when a plant is planted on top of Blastberry Vine when you activate his Plant Food effect, the plant on top will also activate its Plant Food effect.

## Costumes

* Current
* Pre 1.5

## Strategies

Although Blastberry Vine appears to function similarly to Pumpkin, his use is quite different. For one, Blastberry Vine's health is significantly lower than Pumpkin's, so much so that Blastberry Vine actually has as much health as a regular plant. Because of this, Blastberry Vine is not best used to fortify a plant at the start of a level, nor should he be used to fortify a plant that is constantly under attack.

Blastberry Vine is best used when planted on plants that are either rarely under attack, or aren't at risk of being attacked at all. Blastberry Vine's damage, while minimal, can provide an extra source of damage. Because of this, Blastberry Vine is best used when placed on plants that are already protected, as a secondary source of damage as well as a safety net.

In order to support Blastberry Vine spam, lots of sun production is needed. Sun-shroom or Gold Leaf alongside Sunflowers are best for this, but Twin Sunflower can also work. It is recommended that you support these through the use of either Sun Bean or Solar Tomato to further increase sun output. Once sun production as well as a basic defense has been established, Blastberry Vines can then be planted. Start with the most threatened lanes first, and continue to plant them until your defense is covered.

Another interesting aspect with Blastberry Vine is his unique interaction with Plant Food. When using Plant Food on Blastberry Vine while another plant is on top of it, the Plant Food will also trigger for that plant, effectively doubling the use of the Plant Food. As Blastberry Vine's Plant Food does a noticeable amount of damage, adding Blastberry Vine to Tile Turnip/Power Tile based strategies can also be an effective option, as using Plant Food on matching tiles that each have two plants on them will double the effect.

Despite Blastberry Vine's low damage, Blastberry Vine can work as decent crowd control against weak zombies such as Zombie Chickens or Ice Weasels. This means that it can work effectively with plants that fire slowly in exchange for damage such as Coconut Cannon or Citron.

Blastberry Vine can also be used on Save Our Seeds to help protect endangered plants, but be weary of his average toughness.

In Lost City, he is useful for dealing with both Excavator Zombies and Parasol Zombies, as both of these zombies cannot nullify Blastberry Vine's projectile in any way. However, due to his average health, he may have trouble withstanding the barrage of Lost Pilot Zombies and Relic Hunter Zombies, so plant him close to the house to reduce the chance of him being destroyed, or pair him with plants that can deal with large amounts of zombies at once, such as Winter Melon or Laser Bean.

In Dark Ages, particularly in the endless zone - Arthur's Challenge - he can prove to be a valuable asset in dealing with hordes of Jester Zombies, as his projectiles cannot be reflected by them. He can also be used to increase the firepower from your offense, since most of the plants you can use with respect to the Jester Zombies' presence are rather weak in terms of damage. His property as a vine plant also allows the player to compact their defenses up to the left side of the lawn, leaving the spaces on the right side for graves to appear, therefore reducing the chance of your plants being knocked out of place. Although, the player may have trouble spamming him due to the reduced amount of sun production, so do not rely on him as your main offensive plant.

However, Blastberry Vine is not without his faults. Blastberry Vine is rather weak in terms of damage, and cannot be relied on as a source of damage on its own. Blastberry Vine also does not make for good protection against ambushes as well as Imps thrown from Gargantuars since his health and damage are far too low in order to be able to deal with them reliably, so it is generally best to use other plants such as Spikerock to deal with those.

## Balance Changes

### Version 1.4

* Bomblet count: 4 > 5
* Plant Food bomblet count: 5 > 7
	+ Dev Note: Blastberry is a helpful damager which specializes at chipping away hordes while your main attackers take out tougher threats. This should help it expand upon that power more.

### Version 1.5.1

* Attack speed: 2.9s > 2.4s
* Bomblet count: 5 > 6
* Plant Food bomblet count: 7 > 9

### Version 1.6

* Recharge: 15 > 7.5
* Plant Food effect buffed
	+ Dev Note: Self-explanatory. Also god, we don't remember the PF effect being this bad!