Imitater (Plants vs. Zombies 2)

For other uses, see Imitater (disambiguation).

Imitater
Imitaters let you use two of the same plant during a level!
Almanac statistics
Sun cost	As the imitated plant
Recharge	As the imitated plant
Damage	As the imitated plant
Toughness	Invincible (transforming) As the imitated plant (after the transformation)
In-game statistics
Rarity (China)	Super-Rare
Unlocked	NA: $6.99 · EU: €5.49 · UK: £4.99
Unlocked (China)	Collect 10 Imitater Puzzle Pieces
Costumes (China)
Having studied French Theater at Julienne, the Imitater went to the streets with his art, and has perfected his technique he calls "Potato stuck in a box".

Imitater is a plant in Plants vs. Zombies 2. His special ability is that he can copy any plant and its abilities, except himself. He can be used to effectively cut the recharge time of plants in half, although he takes up another seed slot.

History

For more information about this character, see Imitater.

The Imitater is a premium plant that can be purchased for $4.99 USD ($2.99 USD prior to the 5.9.1 update). Selecting the Imitater's seed packet causes it to imitate the previous seed selected, making it impossible to bring an Imitater plant without the regular version. After selecting, he will take up a slot as the imitated plant in a melancholy gray. The Imitater transforms notably faster in this game. However, the copied version will have the original color.

On August 13, 2015, PopCap wanted the players to vote Imitater or Squash, which one should cost gems for a limited time. On August 18, 2015, Imitater won the competition; and the day after that, he became available in the shop for 159 gems until August 25, 2015. This offer came about again around August 9th, 2016 to August 17th, 2016. The price was the same.

On April 19, 2017, Imitater was featured as the "Plant of the Week" in the store, claiming to be a "Limited Time Offer". However, in keeping with recent "Plant of the Week" offers, no price reduction has been offered, nor is the plant available for gems.

Almanac entry

Imitater		SUN COST ??? RECHARGE ??? SUN COST: ??? RECHARGE: ??? Imitaters let you use two of the same plant during a level! Special: can imitate any other plant Having studied French Theater at Julienne, the Imitater went to the streets with his art, and has perfected his technique he calls "Potato stuck in a box".

Imitater

		SUN COST ???			RECHARGE ???

SUN COST: ???
RECHARGE: ???

Imitaters let you use two of the same plant during a level!

Special: can imitate any other plant

Having studied French Theater at Julienne, the Imitater went to the streets with his art, and has perfected his technique he calls "Potato stuck in a box".

Chinese version  (China only)

变身茄子允许你同一个关卡携带两张相同的植物卡片！ 特殊：可以模仿其他植物 变身茄子在法国进修过表演艺术，在街头表演中完善了他的最新节目“关在盒子里的茄子”。 In English: Transforming Eggplant [sic] allows you to bring two of the same plant cards! Special: can imitate other plants Transforming Eggplant [sic] has studied art of performance in France, in a street performance he perfected his newest show "Eggplant [sic] in a Box".

Upgrades

Costumed (China only)

Reduce the recharge time of copied plant.

Strategies

Imitater can now mimic plants in this game much more quickly than the previous one, saving approximately one second in transformation time. Additionally, he cannot be eaten in this game until he has finished transforming, except for the Chinese version, in which he has the HP of a level 1 plant.

Imitater is extremely useful in Endless Zones, especially in higher levels, due to the fact that he allows the player to have two of a seed slot, which can be very powerful with the right set of plants.

Good candidates for imitation:

• Sunflower or other sun producing plants (faster sun development)
• Potato Mine and Primal Potato Mine (easily kills more zombies that appear on the lawn)
• Grave Buster (removes two tombstones at once, use this on Pyramid of Doom and Arthur's Challenge in levels with large number of tombstones)
• Cherry Bomb, Grapeshot and Bombegranate (massive damage to zombies in three different rows, and if Grapeshot, allows more grapes to bounce, not to mention an abundance in exploding seed traps if Bombegranate is chosen)
• Hot Potato (for melting two frozen blocks in Frostbite Caves at once, or removing two octopi if Hot Potato is upgraded to Level 5+)
• Stallia (can slow down all zombies on screen every twenty seconds)
• E.M.Peach (can permanently stun almost all zombies in Far Future)
• Magnet-shroom (will attract two metal objects at the same time, especially useful in Dark Ages and its endless zone, where Knight Zombies are abundant)
• Thyme Warp (helps send more zombies back)
• Perfume-shroom (enchants two rows of dinosaurs at once)
• Moonflower (ramps up sun adjacency bonus quickly and synergizes defense against early zombie rush)
• Power Lily (creates two Plant Food at once)
• Hurrikale (chills and pushes two rows of zombies at once)
• Gold Bloom (produces 750 sun total)
• Shrinking Violet (can shrink all zombies on screen every fifteen seconds. This is especially useful in endless mode where many Gargantuars can spawn at once.)
• Solar Tomato (you will be able to farm twice as much sun)
• Ice Bloom (can freeze zombies for a longer time)
• Puffball (poison will do double damage)
• Any other slow recharging plants
• Any plant boosted in the Zen Garden (the Imitater will also be boosted, maximizing the use of said boost)

From the above list, Power Lily is the best plant to choose to be imitated, if the player has this plant and Instant Recharge. This is due to the fact that Plant Food can help the player recharge any slow recharging plant (including Power Mints) instantly.

It is worth noting that Imitater cannot copy Power Mints such as Fila-mint and Reinforce-mint.

Gallery

Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Imitater.

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Language	Name	Description
English	Imitater
Simplified Chinese	变身茄子
French	Imitateur
German	Imitator
Italian	Clone
Brazilian Portuguese	Imitadora
Spanish	Imitadora

Trivia

• In levels where the player must use multiple pre-selected plants, it's only possible to imitate the last pre-selected plant, as he only imitates the plant that's selected before him.
• In the seed selection, removing a plant that is imitated will also remove him. For example, if the player uses a Wall-nut and an Imitater to copy it and then removes the Wall-nut card, the card that imitates Wall-nut will also be removed.

Notice the Imitated Sun-shroom seed packet is a boosted one, but the Sun-shrooms are not in 3rd seed slot.

• Imitated plants keep their same colors, not gray, similar to its version in the iOS and Android versions of the original game.
• During the 1.4.0/1.4.1 update of the Chinese version, the spinning animation was removed and was planted like normal plants. However, in the 1.9.1 update the animation returned.
• When he copies a boosted plant, the imitated version of the plant will also be boosted.
• Despite being unable to be upgraded, his seed packets can be obtained via Piñata Parties.
• If an imitated Pea Pod is planted on an already existent Pea Pod, the imitation animation will cover the Pea Pod.
• In earlier versions it could be destroyed by zombies like Explorer Zombie. This was fixed in later updates.
• When he is imitating a defensive plant and the player uses an Imitater as Wall-nut First Aid, the Imitater will not play his animation.