Character variants

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The Character variants are a gameplay mechanic in Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, which serve to differentiate the character variant from from the base character in ways other than through different damage parameters. There are currently 12 distinct variant types, each of which affect opponents in different ways.

Both elemental and non-elemental characters are included in this list.

Types

Variant type in question	Description of effects	Playable characters using this type
Fire elemental	Fire elemental characters use fire-based attacks rather than basic attacks. Any opponent that is hit by a fire-based attack will be ignited, suffering five damage per second for four seconds. However, Garden Warfare 2 opponents will be ignited suffering four damage per second for five seconds. This does not apply to Lil' Drake's mech, as the ignition is just like in Garden Warfare.	Fire Rose BBQ Corn Fire Pea Fire Chomper Fire Flower Fire Cactus Lil' Drake Captain Flameface Centurion Welder Paleontologist Cricket Star
Ice elemental	Ice elemental characters use ice-based attack rater than basic attacks. Any opponent that is hit by an ice-based attack will initially be slowed down slightly, but if they are hit a certain amount of times (varies by attack source), they will become frozen for two and a tenth seconds, fully immobilizing them and rendering them unable to use any abilities or their primary weapon nor can they turn until they thaw.	Frozen Citron Frost Rose Ice Pea Yeti Chomper Ice Cactus Arctic Trooper AC Perry Goalie Star
Toxic elemental	Toxic elemental characters use poisonous (toxic-based) attacks rather than basic attacks. Any opponent hit by a toxic attack will become poisoned, suffering two damage every second. Toxic characters (except Druid Rose, Sanitation Expert, and Toxic Citron Ball) have toxic aura which will instantly poison any enemies that get close enough to them. In Garden Warfare 2, if a poisoned character gets close to another non-poisoned ally, the poison effect will spread to the non-poisoned character.	Toxic Citron Druid Rose Toxic Pea Toxic Chomper Toxic Brainz Captain Squawk Sanitation Expert Dr. Toxic
Electric elemental	Electric elemental characters use electrical attacks rather than basic attacks. Any opponents that are hit by a electric attack will become electronically charged for a few seconds and will send out electric shocks to nearby allies which in turn will send out further shocks to additional allies. An electronic shock deals seven damage if it originated from the character that was hit by the electric attack (the host), and five damage if it originated from a character that was shocked by the host.	Electro Citron Electro Pea Power Chomper Power Flower Power Cactus Electro Brainz Electrician Physicist
Armored	Armored characters sacrifice either a small amount of movement speed or damage (or both) in exchange for higher health. This gives them higher damage resistance and inherently makes the better at defense but somewhat less useful on offense.	Iron Citron Rock Pea Armor Chomper Metal Petal Jade Cactus Petrified Cactus Roadie Z
Cloud-on-impact	Some projectiles fired from certain variants leave a cloud of their respective material that will cover a certain area and will stay in the world for a few seconds before fading away. The cloud rapidly damages all enemies that walk through it.	Toxic Citron Alien Flower Park Ranger
Burst-fire	Burst-fire variants have the ability to fire their primary weapon in bursts, as the name says. Every trigger pull fires a set amount of shots with a mandatory burst delay in between each trigger pull, preventing make-shift automatic fire. Burst-fire character often deal increased-per-shot damage than base characters but are restricted to burst-fire only. The burst length varies from character to character, ranging from 2 to 4 shots at present.	Pops Corn Sun Pharaoh Citrus Cactus Super CommandoPylon Imp
Vampire	Any opponents hit or vanquished by vampiric attacks will cause the user to recover a portion of health.  These variants typically have less health than their vanilla counterparts.	Count Chompula Vampire Flower
Charge-up	Charge-up variants have the ability to charge up their primary attacks, increasing their damage and oftentimes adding in other benefits to the charged shot. Charging up a shot will prevent the player from jumping with some characters. In Garden Warfare, charged shots use up one unit of ammo when fired while in Garden Warfare 2, charging up a shot will increase the amount of ammunition it uses, resulting in a charged shot using up multiple units of ammo when fired. Once fully charged, a charged shot can only be retained for a limited amount of time before it is automatically fired in the direction of the player's crosshair.	Electro Citron Frost Rose Fire Rose Nec'Rose Plasma Pea Mystic Flower Future Cactus Cozmic Brainz
Single shot	Single shot variants are armed with single-shot weapons which have to be reloaded after each shot, creating a very slow rate of fire. To compensate for this caveat, the shots fired inflict high impact damage and often have splash damage as well.	Iron Citron Captain Squawk Tank Commander
Manual detonation	Some characters have the ability to fire projectiles that can be manually detonated in mid-air, allowing them to deal damage to opponents behind cover without the need to hit nearby surfaces. To help with timing, the projectiles travel slower through the air but deal more damage to compensate. All manual detonation characters share the same weapon crosshair, when a projectile is in the air, the crosshair will rotate 90 degrees to the right and will remain so until the fired projectile strikes a surface or is detonated after which the crosshair returns to its idle position.	Electro Pea Petrified Cactus Captain Cannon
Spray	Currently represented mostly by a variety of Chompers, spray characters' primary weapons fire a large spray particles, inflicting contact damage to everything caught within range of the attack. Spray characters have little to no damage fall-off at range but outside of their (limited range) they are unable to deal any damage except through abilities.	Fire Chomper Power Chomper Toxic Chomper Chomp Thing Captain Squawk Roadie Z Chemist
Legendary	Legendary characters have access to a legendary meter which will fill up as the player vanquishes enemies. The fill rate is 5 vanquishes to fill the meter all the way with the Scallywag Imp being the only exception, requiring only 3 vanquishes to fill up his legendary meter (but his "boost mode" doesn't last as long). Once the legendary meter is filled up, it will automatically activate a powerful "boost mode" during which the character's movement speed and damage are increased considerably. The player however, will not gain any resistance to damage taken from enemies.	Iron Citron Party Citron Party Rose Party Corn Commando Corn Disco Chomper Party Imp Scallywag Imp Toxic Brainz Party Brainz Captain Partyman Computer Scientist
Unique variants	Some characters possess traits shared by no others, one-of-a-kind traits in other words. As such, these traits are not found on enough characters to warrant an own header and they are instead listed below. Variable fire rate: Currently only represented by Breakfast Brainz, variable fire rate characters can fire their primary weapons at different speeds depending on the circumstances. In the case of Breakfast Brainz, his rate of fire starts out lower at first but firing his primary weapon continuously will ramp up the fire rate to a much higher level, increasing his damage output per second. Unlike Trigger-sensitive variants, Variable fire rate characters' fire rates cannot be controlled by the player. Trigger-sensitive: Currently only represented by the Law Pea, characters with trigger-sensitive weapons have the ability to fire their primary weapons as fast as the user can pull the trigger. This grants them the ability to fully control how fast they fire and allows them to alter between slow, accurate shots for long-range combat and rapid fire for quick and dirty shooting up close. Health-on-vanquish: Currently only represented by the Stuffy Flower. Unlike Vampiric attacks, health-on-vanquish attacks will, upon a vanquish cause a small amount of Sundrops to be generated for any plant to use. These Sundrops behave identically to ones generated by a Heal Flower.	Breakfast BrainzLaw Pea Camo Ranger* Stuffy Flower *(not verified)

Examples of different types of variants

Fire Cactus, a fire elemental variant

Ice Pea, an ice elemental variant

Toxic Chomper, a toxic elemental variant

Physicist, an electric elemental variant

Rock Pea, an armor variant

Alien Flower, a cloud-on-impact variant

Vampire Flower, a vampire variant

Party Rose, a legendary variant

Pops Corn, a burst variant

Nec'Rose, a charge variant

Tank Commander, a single-shot variant

Captain Cannon, a manual-detonation variant

Trivia

• A variant that is unique and has no similar character from another class is not a variant type.
• Although all elemental variants use colored numbers to match their element, the Alien Flower isn't an elemental, yet she still uses pink numbers to indicate the damage.
• Fire is the only type which contains a variant of each class in Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare.
• While most characters behavior-wise adhere to one variant type only, there are currently 10 characters that, due to their behavior, are counted as using two types simultaneously.
  • Electro Citron is both an electric and a charge variant since his primary weapon can be charged up and deals electric damage.
  • Iron Citron is an armored, a legendary, and a single-shot variant since he has higher health than the default Citron, has to reload his primary weapon after each shot unless using Iron Mode, and has a legendary meter.
  • Toxic Citron is both a toxic and a cloud variant since he is a toxic character whose primary weapon leaves toxic gas clouds behind when hitting surfaces.
  • Fire Rose is both a fire and a charge variant since she deals fire damage and her primary weapon can be charged up.
  • Frost Rose is both an ice and a charge variant since she chills/freezes enemies and her primary weapon can be charged up.
  • Electro Pea is both an electric and a manual detonation variant, since he deals electric damage and his projectiles can be detonated in mid air.
  • Petrified Cactus is both an armor and a manual detonation variant, since she has more health and her projectiles can be detonated in mid air.
  • Toxic Brainz is both a toxic and a legendary variant since he deals toxic damage and has a legendary meter.
  • Captain Squawk is both a toxic and a single-shot variant since he is a toxic character while operating a single-shot sniper.
  • Roadie Z is both an armored and a spray variant as he has higher health than the base Engineer while his primary weapon damages everything within its range.
• Toxic Brainz and Disco Chomper are the only Legendary variants that fill their meter differently from other Legendary variants. Toxic Brainz requires landing punches, and Disco Chomper requires swallowing Zombies. All other Legendary variants require vanquishes (as mentioned above) to fill up their legendary meter.