Sun Bean

Sun Bean is a plant in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time introduced in Dark Ages. After a zombie eats a Sun Bean, it will drop a very small sun, which is worth five sun, for every normal damage shots. The zombie will faintly glow yellow and white to indicate that it is affected by a Sun Bean.

Almanac Entry
Sun Cost: 50

AREA: Single

RECHARGE: Sluggish

Sun Beans infect zombies with sun. As a zombie takes damage they generate sun.

As the eldest of the bean brothers, Sun Bean often finds his siblings exasperating. Chili Bean is a little crude, Laser Bean is too far out, and Spring Bean is just plain lazy. Still, he loves them just the same. That's how it is with family.

Plant Food Upgrade
Sun Bean turns bright yellow. When eaten, the zombie who consumed the Sun Bean will explode and give the player 15 sun for each normal damage shot the zombie had left. The higher the health of the zombie, the greater the amount of sun will be given to the player when it consumes a Sun Bean.

General
Sun Beans are best used against zombies with high amounts of health, allowing a large amount of sun to be generated before the zombie dies. A Sun Bean is not recommended to be used with a normal Zombie, because the normal zombies will give back only 50 sun, thus wasting the Sun Bean totally. Using multiple columns of plants with less damage per hit allows the Sun Bean to be able to make large amounts of sun with each use because sun falls out of the zombie with each individual hit. Ideal plants to combine with Sun Bean include the Lightning Reed, Spikeweed, Peashooter and other peashooting plants, Fume-shroom and Puff-shroom.

Zombies with a high amount of hitpoints are the most valuable zombies to use the Sun Bean on. As a result, the Buckethead Zombie, Pharaoh Zombie, Robo-Cone Zombie, Disco-tron 3000, and the Knight Zombie, with their high amounts of health, make smart targets for the Sun Bean. The amassed sun can be combined with existing sun production to afford more expensive plants, or power Magnifying Grass uses. Knight Zombies are the best Zombies to be used with Sun Bean in Dark Ages.

The following are perfect targets for feeding Sun Bean:
 * Buckethead Zombie
 * Pharaoh Zombie
 * Knight Zombie
 * Robo-Cone Zombie
 * Disco-tron 3000

Endless Zones
One good tactic though is to boost it especially starting from mid level 70s because the tendency to spawn a high health zombie, such as Pharaoh Zombie will increase by 60%. This will help you expand an army of your Winter Melons  more quickly than consuming all of your Plant Foods that you have obtained from the previous levels of Endless Zones.

This strategy will help you in higher levels of Endless Zones especially at triple-digit level onwards. The picture in the right shows one way to bolster your sun production, which can also be used outside Dead Man's Booty. Look for a zombie with high amount of health like the Buckethead Zombie, place the Sun Bean four squares away from the zombie. If you don't feel satisfied, freeze the zombie with Iceberg Lettuce and plant another Sun Bean adjacent to the zombie. Once it consumes two Sun Beans, it will give you fifteen sun for every damage dealt, twenty if you manage to plant a third Sun Bean either by forcing it to go to the leftmost column of the lawn or stalling it with plants like Wall-nut and Tall-nut, then digging it. Finally, kill the zombie with either a Chili Bean or a Potato Mine. Be careful in using this strategy though.

Another tactic, if you are squashed by a certain situation where zombies are already close in to your defenses for example, a group of Buckethead Zombies and Zombies are already about to eat your defenses, you can also use Sun Bean there as an alternative means of boosting you defense parameters instead of consuming excess amount of Plant Foods or buying one. With it, you can slowly turn the tides in to your favor, which saves you money. However, this tactic most of the times will not work on cases where zombies like Wizard Zombie, Imp Cannon, Chicken Wrangler Zombie, and many more especially in cases where Wizard Zombies are present.

Trivia

 * It does not work on Zombie Parrot, as it just steals it, while Mecha-Football Zombie pushes it, Gargantuars, Pianist Zombies, and Barrel Roller Zombies with Barrels will just crush it.
 * Similar to Laser Bean, Sun Bean's name is a pun on the term "sun beam".
 * This and Magnet-shroom are the only plants that need Plant Food to kill zombies.
 * For the Sun Bean to be a worthwhile investment, and therefore give extra sun, the zombie that must be targeted for sun boost must have a minimum of 11 normal damage shots (or 3 1/2 if boosted).
 * Sun Bean is the first sun-producing plant that does not directly produce sun.
 * Sun Bean is also the first sun-producing plant that is also a single-use plant.
 * Oddly enough, it still can be used in Sun Bomb levels.
 * A sound is played after a zombie consumes a Sun Bean.
 * According to its almanac entry, it is related to all the other Beans in the game.
 * Sun Bean and Hypno-shroom are currently the only plants whose Plant Food effect takes place after they have been eaten.
 * It is the only plant and the only new plant to appear in Dark Ages while others are the returning mushrooms.
 * Sun Bean, Citron, Snapdragon and Fume-shroom fed Plant Food are the only plants that could completely kill a Pharaoh Zombie.
 * If a full-health regular garden variety zombie (e.g. Basic, Mummy, Pirate, etc.) eats a Sun Bean, it will give you a total amount of 50 sun, so it is useless to feed a zombie with 10 or less health points. However, if you give a full-health Cowboy Zombie with one Sun Bean, you get a total of 60 sun. If you kill five Sun Bean affected Cowboy Zombies, you get an extra 50 sun, unlike all the regular zombies. But you can get 50 sun from a Cowboy Zombie like a normal zombie after it takes one normal damage shot.
 * Depending on how much health a zombie is, if the player gives a zombie a Sun Bean and then kill it instantly, you will get a varied amount of sun depending on the zombies health. This tells us how to count the zombies' health: Let a full-health zombie eat Sun Bean, then use an instant kill plant. Count how much sun you got from the zombie, then divide by 5, that is the zombie's health. Or you can use its Plant Food to count, but divide 15 instead 5. However, if another zombie can survive two instant kills, then you will have to count twice. For example, a regular zombie can produce 50 sun after consuming one Sun Bean; a Cowboy Zombie produces 60 (which explains its "Solid" toughness); a Conehead Zombie produces 125 sun and a Buckethead Zombie produces 270 sun.
 * If Magnet-shroom steals an object from a Sun Bean affected zombie, it will generate sun. Technically, Magnet-shroom does damage zombies when it steals their objects. However, it cannot degrade the zombie on the other side, it just reduce its health into a regular zombie with just a health of 10.
 * If one feeds the same zombie a Sun Bean multiple times, its effect will stack up, multiplying the amount of sun for every Sun Bean fed.
 * In the almanac entry, Coffee Bean is not included as the bean brothers because it is not based on a legume rather than a seed derived from the Coffee fruit.
 * When Sun Bean is given Plant Food, its eyes become larger.
 * Its costume is based on the Statue of Liberty.
 * Along with the other beans in the game, all are capable to perform a one-hit kill.
 * Spring Bean can instantly eliminate all zombies in Pirate Seas if and only if they are close to the plankless rows. Otherwise it will only bounce them one square.
 * Chili Bean can kill a zombie regardless of its health when consumed.
 * Laser Bean can blast a row of zombies with its Plant Food ability. (However, it is not correct when comparing its damage and the zombies like machines and Gargantuars)
 * Sun Bean can make a zombie explode when given Plant Food.