Nightshade

*For the version in Plants vs. Zombies: All Stars, see Nightshade.*

Nightshades are shadow plants that smack zombies with slappy leaves.

### Costumes

For Nightshade, smacking is a duty and a privilege. He comes from a long line of ardent smackers, and his family counts three kings, four ambassadors and a president as among those proudly slapped around.

**Nightshade** is the second plant obtained in Modern Day in *Plants vs. Zombies 2*. He will slap any zombies in front of him with his leaves but can only do this three times and can only do so at close range. If powered by a Moonflower, not only can his leaves actually be fired in Appease-mint-style formation, but he also gains the ability to regrow said leaves, effectively turning him into a long-ranged offensive plant instead of a melee plant. However, thrown leaves do less damage compared to leaves slapping a zombie.

## Origins

He is based on the *Solanaceae*, which is an economically important family of flowering plants, known as climbing nightshades.

His appearance may be based on *Solanum dulcamara*, with his leaves being based on the purple petals and his cap being based on the reproductive part of the flower.

## Almanac entry

**NOTE: Nightshade costs 50 sun in Chinese version.**

**Nightshade**

SUN COST: 75

RECHARGE: 5

TOUGHNESS: 300

DAMAGE: 100

RANGE: Straight

FAMILY: Conceal-mint

Nightshades are shadow plants that smack zombies with slappy leaves.

Special: hurls and regrows leaves when powered

For Nightshade, smacking is a duty and a privilege. He comes from a long line of ardent smackers, and his family counts three kings, four ambassadors and a president as among those proudly slapped around.

## Upgrades

### Plant Food effect

When fed with Plant Food, Nightshade will regrow all of his leaves, then hurl three large leaves at zombies. Each large leaf deals 600 damage per shot, similar to the large pea Repeater shoots at the end of his Plant Food effect. Additionally, after performing the effect, all leaves thrown by Nightshade will deal 150 damage per shot instead of 100.

The leaves the Nightshade uses will now remain as the powered color, and also have changed damage when in both melee and ranged form. In melee form, he is capable of defeating a Conehead Zombie with one leaf, and a Buckethead Zombie with three leaves. Tombstones enter their second degrade when hit with one ranged leaf, which occurs at 160 damage per shot.

### Conceal-mint effect

When boosted by Conceal-mint, Nightshade will do an additional 400 DPS on its ranged attacks, an additional 700 DPS on its melee attacks, an additional 1800 DPS on its Plant Food ranged attacks, and an additional 1100 DPS on its Plant Food melee attacks.

It will be powered even if not adjacent to a Moonflower.

### Level upgrade

\*After being fed with Plant Food and throwing large leaves, all leaves thrown normally after that will be powered.

### Level upgrades (China only)

 Combat Training
 Cell Activation
 Fighting Power

### Costumed (China only)

Nightshade now hurls all three of his plant food leaves at once, which does more damage. However, he only does this once.

## Strategies

Nightshade's main strength is his high potential effectiveness for his fairly low price of 75 sun. When powered by Moonflower, a Nightshade can deal almost three times as much damage as an average Peashooter, and will, therefore, have little problem can make much quicker work of Basic and Buckethead Zombies. This ability could also be considered a downside, however, as Nightshade is heavily dependent on Moonflower which is a plant with a relatively slow recharge rate, and Nightshade's performance when not powered is below average due to him not being able to regrow his leaves. Nightshade also faces great challenges in the world he is introduced in, as the amount of methods used by the horde to deter straight-shooting projectiles, plus the sheer zombie density can render even the most powerful of single target plants insignificant.But player can plant it with Dusk Lobber because Dusk Lobber can do a splash damage to the zombies and Nightshade can more easily to kill them.

## Trivia

* He reuses attacking sounds from Cactus.
	+ He also reuses the Plant Food sound effects from Wall-nut and Tall-nut when he is given Plant Food.
* When he is not powered, he would sometimes have powered leaves instead of the basic purple leaves.
	+ When he attacks whether powered or not, his leaves turn purple. This is only a visual error.
		- However, if fed Plant Food, his leaves remain as the powered leaves.
* If one looks closely, his costume slightly shakes during his idle animation.
	+ This is because every other animation loop, he blinks his eyes. This causes the shades to shake a little because of the blink.
* He resembles Bloomerang in terms of appearance.
* If Nightshade is near a zombie and Plant Food is used on him, Nightshade will instead do his melee attack, opposed to his Plant Food effect. He will not continue the Plant Food attack after the zombie is defeated.
* Him, along with Red Stinger and Spikerock, are the only plants that cannot be repaired with Wall-nut First Aid despite visually degrading.

## See also

* Shadow plants

ru:Паслён
es:Solanácea
pl:Nightshade
fr:Bouton-noir