Boom Balloon Flower

*Boom Balloon Flowers spawn exploding balloons that can be placed anywhere on the lawn as traps for zombies.*

### Special

Tap or drag from Boom Balloon Flower to move a balloon to a tile

## In-game statistics

### Codename alias

boomflower

**Boom Balloon Flower's balloons are inflated with hydrogen and aerosolized kerosene. It's an anti-safety measure.**

**Boom Balloon Flower** is a premium plant in *Plants vs. Zombies 2: Reflourished*. She costs 75 gems to purchase.

Boom Balloon Flower is able to launch exploding balloons to any tile on the lawn the player aims them at; afterwards, she will take 10 seconds to rearm.

* These balloons can be planted on any tile (even those occupied by plants), and will then act as a trap that will explode when zombies get near them in a similar manner to Potato Mine. They can be stacked up to 3 times to deal 300 damage in a 1x3 area per balloon when triggered, and if left alone, will self-destruct after 90 seconds.
* If a balloon is placed on top of a zombie, it instantly explodes and will deal 300 damage to all zombies near the balloon.

## Almanac entry

**Boom Balloon Flower**

Boom Balloon Flowers spawn exploding balloons that can be placed anywhere on the lawn as traps for zombies.

Usage: tap or drag from Boom Balloon Flower to move a balloon to a tile

Boom Balloon Flower's balloons are inflated with hydrogen and aerosolized kerosene. It's an anti-safety measure.

## Plant Food effect

When given Plant Food, Boom Balloon Flower will spawn a giant "Doom Balloon" that drifts towards the fifth column of the lawn. The balloon explodes once it reaches the fifth column, dealing 600 damage to all zombies and obstacles on the lawn.

After the effect ends, Boom Balloon Flower instantly reloads a balloon and can attack normally.

## Strategies

Boom Balloon Flower can be summarized as Banana Launcher lite, trading in high damage for a cheaper sun cost, faster reloads and the instantaneous deployment of attacks. Two balloons have enough power to destroy a Conehead Zombie (as opposed to Banana Launcher being able to almost completely destroy a Buckethead Zombie's armor in the same time). Additionally, Boom Balloon Flower can opt to set her attacks like a mine, to offensively protect any particular tile - including being deployed in otherwise inaccessible locations like Slider tiles, mold colonies, tides and even other plants - and can stack up to three balloons at once for protecting from healthier invaders. With these combined traits, Boom Balloon Flower can be skillfully used to manually control the pace of the game, either protecting vital plants and chokepoints, or directly damaging dangerous zombies on the lawn - albeit, with lower firepower that requires greater support from other plants.

In direct comparison to Banana Launcher, Boom Balloon's reduced, more frequent firepower is more suited for handling hordes than single targets. This usecase is expounded by the latter's "Doom Balloon", dealing damage to the entire lawn. With help from Tile Turnip, the Plant Food effect can be amplified to deal more and more damage to the lawn, making for a powerful field clear that can often out-do Banana Launcher's targeted banana launches. Keep in mind that since Doom Balloons only explode at column five, the effect will trigger fastest when Boom Balloon Flower is planted near the middle of the lawn - a risky location for high cost plants such as herself.

Like with Banana Launcher, lane redirection can be used to bring more zombies into the same tile, giving more targets for Boom Balloon Flower to directly target. Options like Sweet Potato and Void Orchid will be most helpful for their simultaneous ability to pull zombies in and block them like a wall, while plants like Hurrikale and Thyme Warp can groups zombies together at the back of the lawn (with Thyme Warp, balloons can even be deployed in the rightmost column as the zombies are being warped).

While Boom Balloon Flower's damage is typically enough for dealing with standard zombie types, higher health zombies as simple as a Buckethead Zombie are much tougher for her to deal with, needing additional firepower to deal with such threats. Multi-hit and area-of-effect plants like Bloomerang and Laser Bean can used to finish off weakened targets. High DPS plants like Citron, Celery Stalker and ironically Banana Launcher will be better suited for dealing with especially tough zombies like mechanical threats and Gargantuars.

Overall, the choice of using Boom Balloon Flower or Banana Launcher ultimately depends on the level. While Banana Launcher's incredibly high damage output makes him fantastic for late-game destruction, Boom Balloon Flower's cheaper sun cost and greater flexibility make her better suited for the early game, a useful deterrent for protecting particular tiles and easier to set up as part of a well-rounded offense.

## Balance changes

### Initial launch

* ▼ +25 Sun
* ▼ +10 second recharge
* ▼ -125 projectile damage
* ▼ +10 second cooldown between attacks

### Version 1.1.2

* ▲ Direct Damage: 450 -> 560
* ▼ Splash Damage: 600 -> 560
* ▼ PF Damage: 875 -> 600
	+ Developer Note: Her damage was shockingly inconsistent, and that has been fixed at the cost of less damage compared to her original splash and her Plant Food effect's power being cut (875 to the full board was quite high).

### Version 1.1.4

* ▲ Fire Rate: 20 -> 10
* ▼ Damage: 560 -> 300
* Target audience: General
	+ Developer note: Boom Balloon Flower always felt like a strange sidegrade to Banana Launcher, with its balloon stacking ability never coming into play often and players using her as a banana launcher instead. We played around with its ability to stack balloon mines on the lawn, cutting the fire rate in half but lowering the damage as a result, in hopes that this can be a more fun way to use Balloon Flower to stack damage on the lawn. We hope you like it as much as we did!