Citron (Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2)

For other uses, see Citron (disambiguation).

Citron is a playable plant class in Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. He is depicted as a time-traveling, bounty-hunting orange from the future who time traveled to the present to turn the tide of battle. He is the tank class of the plants' team.

Descriptions[]

Website description[]

The Citron is a time-traveling bounty hunter from the future… and also an orange. His one of a kind transformation ability allows him to get into the action faster than any other Plant, then instantly transform to attack mode for maximum effectiveness!

Stickerbook description[]

Citron is a time-traveling bounty hunter from the future, who also happens to be an orange. He's here to chew bubblegum and kick Z-Mech butt, and he's all out of bubblegum.

In-game description[]

Use his ball form to roll right into the action before switching to attack mode, laying waste to Zombies with his Orange Beam!

AI Health[]

Easy: 120
Normal: 160
Hard: 200
CRAAAAZY: 240

Primary weapon[]

Citron's primary weapon is called the Orange Beam. It fires a laser beam with infinite ammo (though it will overheat if fired for too long), behaving very similarly to the Sunflower's Sunbeam, albeit not as strong. It deals 2 - 9 impact damage and 2 - 11 critical depending on range, with the beam dealing damage at a rate of 400 ticks per minute. The beam also deals 2 splash damage to any target within a 0.5 meter radius. This splash damage stacks with the direct hit damage.

Variants[]


Frozen Citron	Electro Citron	Iron Citron	Party Citron	Toxic Citron

Abilities[]

While in Assault Mode[]

Left abilities
EMPeach	More than just a robotic peach with a cute name, the EMPeach has been specially designed to stun Zombies, and especially Z-Mechs!
Center abilities
Citron Ball	Who wouldn't want to transform into a ball and roll past all of life's problems? The Citron doesn't just roll, he dashes into foes and rolls with super speed and super style.
Right abilities
Peel Shield	Harnessing cutting edge bio-citronics, the Peel Shield absorbs all incoming damage while still allowing you to shoot through it!
Mood Shield	Stronger than its Peel Shield counterpart, this shield can withstand more incoming damage, but has a much shorter duration. It also changes color so you know when it's almost destroyed!

While in Citron Ball[]

Left abilities
Hyper Ball	Activate futuristic ball technology to temporarily increase your movement speed and jump capabilities!
Center abilities
Assault Mode	Citron goes back into his normal form, allowing Citron to shoot again, and replacing Hyper Ball and Spin Dash with EMPeach and Peel Shield.
Right abilities
Spin Dash	Charge, then launch yourself at your enemies to inflict big damage!

Strategies[]

Citron's primary weapon, the Orange Beam, is most effective when consistently having the target zombie in the center of your crosshair. Keep in mind that in order to do proper damage to zombies with the Orange Beam, you will need to go right up to them (the beam does very low damage at long range).

With[]

As a Citron, you need to play as aggressively as possible. Charge into a fight or objective. With 200HP, Citron is able to absorb a lot of damage. He is also given an ability called "Peel Shield". Use that ability when you engage a Zombie player to give you some protection from frontal damage. If you feel that you are about to get vanquished, change into ball mode and get out of the area, and find a nearby Sunflower to restore your health. At full health again? Charge back into the fight.

Citron excels at Herbal Assault, as he is able to quickly jump into an objective to start capturing. Avoid attacking at long range if you aren't an accurate player. Missing your attacks gives away your position to Zombies. If you have good aim, definitely shoot long range targets. It doesn't do much damage, but by the time they reach you they will have much less health (making it easier for you or your teammates to finish them off).

Against[]

When fighting a Citron, try to make it as hard for the Citron to hit you as possible. Imps are great at dodging Citron's Orange Beam. Seeing that Citron isn't exactly a small target, it should be easy to hit him while he is in Assault Mode. As a Foot Soldier, don't be afraid to rocket leap up to a Citron and shoot your ZPG at it. Just be careful, as some Citron players can quickly block the ZPG with their Peel Shields.

All Ice variants of Zombie characters are extremely effective against Citron.

Tips & Tricks[]

The EMPeach can be used to immobilize regular zombies to help your teammates but its principal use is to act as a countermeasure against the Imp's mechs which will be disabled for a longer period of time than other targets if hit, allowing you and your allies to inflict maximum damage to it without fear of retaliation.
The Peel Shield will block any damage dealt from the front but any other angle remains vulnerable. Do not give your enemies a chance to flank you.
You can still use your primary weapon while the Peel Shield is active.
If you activate Citron Ball while you are using Peel Shield, the shield will be deactivated and enter cooldown. Always plan ahead of what abilities you use as the Citron has two abilities that conflict with each other (namely Citron Ball and Peel Shield which cannot be used simultaneously).
Citron Ball's best uses are to quickly traverse the battlefield to reach a firing position, and to rapidly re-position yourself. The ability can also be used to escape from a bad situation.
In Citron Ball form, enemies have a much harder time landing shots on you. Use this to your advantage by grabbing the attention of zombies. Jump around or circle them (try to make it difficult for them to hit you). While they are distracted trying to shoot you, your teammates can pick them off.
If you come across a zombie that is unaware of your presence, you can use Spin Dash to ram 50HP off of them (giving you an advantage when you go to finish them off).

Balancing changes[]

Post Beta Patch[]

▼ Increased Heat Per Bullet for Citron from 0.1 to 0.11
▼ Decreased Heat Drop Per Second for Citron from 0.52 to 0.5

Trouble in Zombopolis: Part One DLC[]

▲ Made bone-collision changes to reduce size of Citron’s critical hit area
▲ Citron can now fire sooner after coming out of Ball Form
▲ Removed movement speed penalty from transition into and out of Citron Ball Form Mode
▲ Increased close-range impact damage from 5 - 6
▲ Increased explosion damage from 5 - 6
▼ Reduced damage falloff start/end distance from 25/35 – 20/30
▲ Reduced heat generated when firing so it now takes longer to overheat
▼ Reduced reticle bloom

July 2016 Patch[]

▼ Decreased far damage from 3.5 to 3
▼ Decreased damage falloff star/end distance from 20/30 to 10/20
▼ Decreased splash damage radius from 1.26 to 0.5
▼ Decreased splash damage from 6 to 5

May 2018 Patch[]

▲ Increased the Orange Beam's close-range damage from 6 - 9
▼ Decreased the Orange Beam's long-range damage from 3 - 2
▼ Decreased the Orange Beam's splash damage from 5 - 2

Related achievement[]

	Just Peachy! Stun 50 Z-Mechs using Citron's EMPeach.

Gallery[]

Citron has a gallery!

Visit this page to see it.

Trivia[]

Function-wise, Citron appears to based of the Droidekas seen in the Star Wars franchise as both are able to curl themselves up into a spherical ball-shape to quickly traverse the battlefield and both use shields to block incoming fire (although the Droideka uses a spherical all-encompassing shield while the Citron's shield only protects its frontside) in addition to using laser weaponry to attack (although the Droideka fires a stream of singular blaster bolts while the Citron uses a continuous laser beam).
- His Citron Ball skill could be a reference to Samus Aran's Morph Ball from the Metroid series.
- His description also says "The Citron is a time-traveling bounty hunter," which may also refer to Samus Aran because she is a galactic bounty hunter.
His name could reference three things; one being Citrus, the fruit, which is an orange-like fruit, the name could come from the word "Citrus" and the "tron" part would come from Citron being part-robot, or, the name could come from Citron, the lemon-like fruit.
The sentence, "He's here to chew bubblegum and kick Z-Mech butt, and he's all out of bubblegum" in the stickerbook description is a reference to Nada's phrase from the 1988 movie They Live, in which he says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I'm all out of bubblegum.". This phrase is commonly mistaken for originating from Duke Nukem 3D.
He appears to be the only plant class that originates from Plants vs. Zombies 2, although it is heavily redesigned.
The Spin Dash is probably based on the similarly named move of Sonic's from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
Mentioning that he is from the future references Far Future.
- The original Citron was from Far Future as well.
- EMPeach, his ability, is based on the plant of (almost) the same name from Far Future.
Citron and Rose, along with their variants, are the only plants to wield an actual weapon. Citron is equipped with an orange laser blaster.
According to the Garden Warfare comics, Citron's Orange Beam is solar powered.
When the player customizes Citron, they can transform Citron into Ball Mode.
- The player can also customize the looks of Citron whilst in his Ball Mode.
In the January 2016 patch, Citron's weapon now overheats faster. In addition, his Peel Shield now absorbs 75 damage rather than 100.
According to Gary Clay, Citron and Future Cactus are best friends and occasional bounty hunting rivals in the future.
In Assault Mode, he has the slowest movement speed out of all playable characters. In Citron Ball Mode, however, he is the fastest character.
He and Citrus Cactus are the only plants based on oranges. However, Citrus Cactus doesn't return in Garden Warfare 2.
He is one of the four classes to have two Legendary variants (Iron Citron, Party Citron), with the others being Super Brainz (Toxic Brainz, Party Brainz), Kernel Corn (Party Corn, Commando Corn), and Imp (Party Imp, Scallywag Imp).
- Coincidentally, the former two characters (Citron and Super Brainz) are also the only classes that doesn't have a fire variant yet.
Citron, Torchwood and some variants of Chomper are so far the only plant classes that do not use clip-based weapons but instead use a weapon with infinite ammo that overheats.
In trailers, he had 32 ammo, different ability icons and his weapon name was "Orange Laser" instead of "Orange Beam." This was later changed to infinite ammo with an overheating mechanism
- Electro Citron is the only variant that actually had 32 ammo in the final release. Though it was later reduced to 24 ammo.
The Statue based on Citron able to be placed in the Backyard Battleground in the Plant Base is missing his laser arm