Sap-fling

 is a premium plant in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time. It was added in the 3.1.1 update on the 4th of December 2014. It creates a puddle in an area of 1x1 by throwing its sap covered pinecones. Any zombie walking over it will turn orange and be slowed down. If it passes over that puddle, the zombie's speed will go back to normal.

Almanac entry
AREA: Tile

RANGE: Lobbed

Recharge: Fast

Sap-flings create zombie-slowing puddles of sap.

Damage Details: does no damage on impact, but creates sap puddle

Special: slows zombies who walk in puddle

You've gotta see Sap-fling's throwing arm to believe it. He may be young, but everyone agrees ... the kid's got TALENT. Scouts from some of the biggest Pinecone Ball teams have been keeping a close eye on him. He could be headed to the majors. Oh sure, some knock him for his incredibly sticky spitball. But he only uses all-natural sap, so it's entirely legal.

Plant Food upgrade
When fed Plant Food, it throws 20 Pinecones randomly on the lawn, turning into sap puddles which stay for fifteen seconds.

Strategies
As a plant with slowing down effect for an entire tile, it can be used effectively both as a replacement for plants with ice effect or together with ice plants. Its relatively low cost makes it useful in many situations. Sap-fling, being a lobbed shot pant also gives it a number of advantages and disadvantages. Its biggest downside is not being able to damage zombies.

Since Sap-fling does not use chilling status alignment to slow down zombies, it can be used very efficiently with strategies involving Torchwood. It renders slowing down zombies and massively damaging them with burning peas possible at the same time.

The slowing effect of the sap puddles can also be very useful when used alongside plants with limited range or one tile effect such as Bonk Choy, Snapdragon, Ghost Pepper, Spikeweed and Spikerock. It makes it possible for these plants to deliver a lot more damage against zombies as zombies move slower inside their shooting range. This effect is also very useful for plants with slow fire rates; like Laser Bean, Fume-shroom, Bloomerang and other lobbed-shot plants as these plants can deliver more shots against zombies.

Sap-fling is also very powerful when used alongside plants with freezing effects such as Snow Pea and Winter Melon as the slowing effects of ice and sap stack on zombies, making them move even slower. This extreme slowness effect is also further useful for plants with limited range and low fire rates.

Being a catapult plant, Sap-fling ignores tombstones and aim directly at the zombies. This gives it a good advantage against most of the other shooter plants on Ancient Egypt and Dark Ages levels. However Sap-fling, not able to damage zombies, does not aim at tombstones if there are no zombies left on the lane unlike other catapult plants. Also, its usage of sap puddles against zombies makes it disadvantageous to be used in certain Pirate Seas and Big Wave Beach levels because sap puddles cannot be created on water lanes or air. Also it is useless against the airborne zombies as they are not effected by the sap puddle. On the other hand when used alongside E.M.Peach, Sap-fling is very useful against mechanical zombies, as zombies slowed down via sap and doubly slowed down zombies stay disabled under E.M.Peach's effect twice and thrice longer respectively. While being useless against Jetpack Zombies, Sap Fling is definitely advised for the higher levels of Far Future, being exceptionally useful for slowing down a number of mechanical zombies simultaneously.

It is not advised to plant more than one Sap-flings on a lane as they do not damage zombies and one is enough to slow zombies in one tile simultaneously. Also, if there is a Sap-fling planted on every lane, it's not recommended to use plant food on it, since they can already handle the slowing down of a lane fine, having non-damaging sap puddles on random tiles does not make fighting again zombies easier in many situations.

Trivia

 * It is the second lobbed-shot plant that does not have the word "-pult" in its name with the first one being Winter Melon.
 * It is the first lobbed-shot plant to not deal any damage.
 * It is currently one of the two lobbed-shot plants that can slow down zombies, the other being Winter Melon.
 * The slowing of the ice and sap can overlap, meaning that zombies will be even slower if affected with both, rather than affected with one or the other. If this happens, the zombies will turn green.
 * It is the second pinecone related plant in the franchise, the first being Hazelnut Ball.
 * Sap-fling's name is a portmanteau of "sapling", "sap" and "fling".
 * Sap-fling is currently the only lobbed shot plant to lob a liquid projectile, though technically it throws pinecones that creates the sap
 * Sap-fling's sap can be compared to the Monkey Glue from Bloons Tower Defense, as both do not deal damage and slow enemies that pass through.
 * Its projectiles cannot be deflected by Jester Zombies. However, Sap-fling's plant food effect can be deflected by Jester Zombies.


 * Dead zombies can also be affected by its puddle, unlike the frozen ones. Their dying animation will also be slowed down.
 * Sap-fling and Snow Pea's ice trail generated by its Plant Food effect are the only plants that can slow down Zombie Chickens without killing them.
 * Since flying zombies are immune to the saps, Sap-fling will not throw sap if it encounters one. It will also not fire any sap if a zombie is currently treading through water in Big Wave Beach. However, Swashbuckler Zombie is still affected.
 * It appears to have a cold, often sniffling and wiping its sap on the ground as if it were snot from a runny nose.  In the Zen Garden, when watered, it will sneeze and some sap will be thrown to the ground as if it was snot.
 * It can still apply sap onto tiles occupied by other plants and tombstones.