Dusk Lobber

Dusk Lobber is the fourth plant obtained in Modern Day in Plants vs. Zombies 2. It lobs explosive buds at zombies or tombstones in its lane, dealing 1.5 direct damage and 1.25 splash damage in a 3x3 area. When powered by Moonflower, it lobs buds into the lanes next to it in a manner similar to the Threepeater.

Origins
Dusk Lobber is based on Opuntia, or prickly pears, a genus in the cactus plant family.

Plant Food effect
When given Plant Food, Dusk Lobber will fire four large explosive bulbs that land on four random tiles with zombies nearby on the lawn, with each explosive bud dealing 17.5 damage in a 3x3 area.

Strategies
Dusk Lobber can be considered to be one of the most potent lobbed-shot plants, as the plant under the right condition is only second to Strawburst in terms of splash damage per second, while costing less than half of that of a Melon-pult or a Strawburst. This makes Dusk Lobber an incredibly useful weapon in both normal levels and the Endless Zones, unlike most other heavy offensive plants which are often restricted by usually high cost. The ability to attack multiple lanes also make Dusk Lobber highly useful early on, as this allows the player to secure the lawn quickly against Imp rushes or enemies on multiple lanes. This is however balanced by the plant's reliance on Moonflower and coupled with mildly slow recharge rate. This means Imitater will help the player field a decent amount of Dusk Lobbers in later levels, though you will always need Moonflower. Also, due to Moonflower's extremely lackluster Plant Food effect, it is advised to also bring Gold Bloom along.

Dusk Lobber may seem more powerful compared to the straight-shot shadow plant, Nightshade, but each has its downsides - Nightshade deals a meager amount of group damage compared to Dusk Lobber and lacks crowd control, while Dusk Lobber's higher sun cost and slower recharge makes it harder for the player to get many of them out, and it is also much weaker against isolated targets. As such, it might be advisable to bring both, if one has enough seed slots, when Moonflower is used.

Avoid using Dusk Lobber against Jester Zombie and Parasol Zombie as they will deflect its buds. Chicken Wrangler Zombie and Weasel Hoarder can quickly overwhelm any catapult plants upon releasing its counterpart so it is not a good idea to use Dusk Lobber when they're around.

Trivia

 * It, Ball Cactus, Tree Cactus, Prickly Pear and Cactus, its Heroes version and its Garden Warfare version and variants are the only plants based on cacti.
 * It is the only one of the group that doesn't have the word cactus (Or in Prickly Pear's case, a type of cacti) in its name.
 * When its projectiles are reflected by Jester Zombies, they will harmlessly pass through the plants and go towards the player's house. This was fixed in the 4.7.1 update.
 * If it's projectile misses it's target, it will not land on the lane it is lobbed on, but rather the lane directly below it. The same happens if it targets a zombie that is in the water in Big Wave Beach.
 * It and Apple Mortar are the only lobbed-shot plants that can lob projectiles into more than one lane without being fed with Plant Food.
 * It is the fifth lobbed-shot plant able to do splash damage. The others are Melon-pult, Winter Melon, Pepper-pult, and Strawburst.
 * It, Homing Thistle, Pea-nut, Pepper-pult, Dandelion and Apple Mortar are the only projectile-shooting plants that do not have a fast recharge speed.
 * Its idle animation is minorly unfinished, as it will cut back to the start of its animation every second or so, instead of looping smoothly. This is likely an oversight.