What makes the Painter so special is that its weapon exaggerates the use of crowd control. The Painter's arsenal consists of a Paint Crossbow. The Cactus and its variants have a similar weapon, as they both are designed for long range. The Painter creates a next level generation of rivalry between the Cactus and the Engineer. It also has a small bullet drop, which can make aiming a little harder at long ranges.
Primary weapon
The Painter's primary weapon is the Paint Crossbow. The facts below apply to a fully upgraded weapon.
The damage per hit at all ranges base and critical is 48.
The Sonic Grenade is a grenade that, when thrown, will stun plants in a small radius for a short time and forces BurrowingChompers out from the ground.
An alternate ability of the Sonic Grenade, the Proximity Sonic Mine is a landmine which can stun plants for about five seconds when they come close to it. It makes Chompers come out of their Burrow ability if they are using it. This can be very useful for defending a teleporter or trying to escape from plants.
The Jackhammer allows for quicker movement but at the cost at not being able to use your other abilities, though you can still fire your primary weapon, and if you bump into a plant, the plant will suffer knockback and light damage.
An alternate ability of the Jackhammer, the Turbo Jackhammer functions the same as the Jackhammer except that it travels faster, but lasts for a shorter amount of time.
The Sonic Grenade is a grenade that, when thrown, will stun plants in a small radius for a short time and forces BurrowingChompers out from the ground.
An alternate ability of the Sonic Grenade, the Proximity Sonic Mine is a landmine which can stun plants for about five seconds when they come close to it. It makes Chompers come out of their Burrow ability if they are using it. This can be very useful for defending a teleporter or trying to escape from plants.
The Jackhammer allows for quicker movement but at the cost at not being able to use your other abilities, though you can still fire your primary weapon, and if you bump into a plant, the plant will suffer knockback and light damage.
An alternate ability of the Jackhammer, the Turbo Jackhammer functions the same as the Jackhammer except that it travels faster, but lasts for a shorter amount of time.
Weapon upgrades - GW1
Less Sticky Reloader
Paint is sticky! This reloader replacement makes it less sticky resulting in faster reload times.
Zomboss Enhanced Paint Box
A Zomboss enhanced paint box holds more paint. Well, really, it's just a bigger box.
Enhanced Paint Fumes
Enhanced paint fumes cause more damage to Plants.
Strategies
The Painter is arguably the best Engineer variant for those who like to snipe plants from afar instead of exclusively going for the teleporter. The Painter's high projectile damage (which is 45 by default and 48 when upgraded) makes it quite lethal in the hands of an accurate player. The Painter is also a good counter to the Cactus because the Painter has a variety of perks that the Cactus does not have; first of all, the Painter deals more damage per hit than any Cactus (barring on headshots from the Camo Cactus), it deals splash damage, meaning misses can still deal damage, and finally, the Jackhammer gives the Painter an agility advantage in close quarters in addition to allowing the painter to "tackle" plants by running into them, and on top of that, it provides some degree of safety against Cacti as the increased movement speed makes the Painter hard to hit. However, the Painters shots will not always land where the reticle shows it will land. At longer ranges, the Painter has more difficulty trying to hit plants due to its clunky aim and slower projectiles.
Despite the mentioned advantages, the player should try to avoid close-range combat as the Painter since his slow firing speed makes hitting targets up close exceedingly difficult unless you manage to stun them with either the Sonic Grenade or the Proximity Sonic Mine.
His crossbow has a faster bullet drop than most other weapons in the game.
This can also make hitting targets from a long distance challenging.
Painting is considered an art of architectural detail, which is why he is an Engineer variant. Same goes for civil engineering, and even plumbing.
In the Stickerbook, it says that his weapon (Paint Crossbow) has a short range. But actually, it seems to have long range and he's technically the sniper variant.
It also says Painter ZOMBIE, similar to Chemist in the Stickerbook. Though, both of them don't say "zombie" in the variant's name.
He is also the only one of these zombies not to be a Foot Soldier variant.
The Zomboss Enhanced Paint Box resembles a Weighted Storage Cube from the Portal series.
Similarly to Camo Cactus, he also gains bonus field of view when aiming.
The Paint Crossbow can paint patterns of various colors on a variety of surfaces by shooting at them, like walls, the ground, the Pumpkins in Zomboss Estate, or even Coffin/Barrel/Outhouse Zombies' armor.
There is a mission where you have to kill painters because they painted some graffitti on a potted plant's house.