Turquoise Skull Zombie

For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, see Turquoise Skull Zombie.

Turquoise Skull Zombie
Uses skull to steal sun, then unleashes energy in a destructive beam.
Almanac statistics
Toughness	Protected
Speed	Basic
Special	Tries to steal sun Beam range is increased as more sun is stolen Stolen sun cannot be retrieved
Damage	4000, 1500 to Primal Wall-nut
In-game statistics
Absorbs	250 damage
Weakness	(cannot be burned) (triggers rush attack) (can't be burned if ready to bounce) (can't be burned if hiding) (automatically recovers from its damage) (takes 3 beam blasts to be destroyed) (prioritizes zombie)
First seen	Lost City - Day 27
Unlike the more famous crystal skulls, turquoise skulls are totally non-mysterious and common as dirt.

Turquoise Skull Zombie is a zombie encountered in Lost City. In a similar manner to Ra Zombie, he steals sun, but can also use his turquoise-colored skull to burn the player's plants up to four tiles in front of him. The zombie does not need sun in order to do the latter. If he manages to steal sun from the player, the beam's range will be increased and the sun will not be returned to the player when the zombie dies, unlike Ra Zombie.

Origins

He bears a strong resemblance to Archimedes Q. Porter from Tarzan. The skull used by him is an obvious reference to the crystal skull in the Indiana Jones movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This is further proven by his Almanac entry, which references crystal skulls and his internal name lostcity_crystalskull.

Almanac entry

Turquoise Skull Zombie
	TOUGHNESS Protected SPEED Basic Uses skull to steal sun, then unleashes energy in a destructive beam. Damage: destroys one plant on the 4 tiles in front of him after attempting to steal sun Special: tries to steal sun Special: beam range is increased when more sun is stolen Special: stolen sun cannot be retrieved Unlike the more famous crystal skulls, turquoise skulls are totally non-mysterious and common as dirt.

Turquoise Skull Zombie

TOUGHNESS Protected SPEED Basic Uses skull to steal sun, then unleashes energy in a destructive beam. Damage: destroys one plant on the 4 tiles in front of him after attempting to steal sun Special: tries to steal sun Special: beam range is increased when more sun is stolen Special: stolen sun cannot be retrieved Unlike the more famous crystal skulls, turquoise skulls are totally non-mysterious and common as dirt.

Overview

Turquoise Skull Zombie absorbs 250 damage and degrades upon absorbing 125 damage when his arm falls off, before dying at 250 damage. He will have 5 seconds to charge his skull before beaming. His beams deal 4001 damage on Tall-nuts, Primal Wall-nuts, and most armored Wall plants.

Encounters

• Player's House: Piñata Party
• Lost City: Days 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, Temple of Bloom, "Beghouled Blitz" Epic Quest - Step 5 and Piñata Party
• Modern Day: Days 17, 34, 44, and Highway to the Danger Room (portal only)

Strategies

The instant kill abilities of Turquoise Skull Zombie can quickly become a problem, especially in Temple of Bloom, when he is accompanied by a group of Buckethead Adventurer Zombies, Excavator Zombies, Parasol Zombies, or worse, Porter Gargantuars.

The main weakness of this zombie is his own ability to steal sun, as it keeps him from being overpowered, as he will always try to steal sun before burning the plants in front of him. Because of this, the player has a decent amount of time before killing him. This can be prolonged if you let the sun travel a bit towards his turquoise skull. If more expensive plants are close to Turquoise Skull Zombie and he has not been killed yet, it is perhaps best to dig the plants up. Turquoise Skull Zombie, however, only uses his attack when plants are in close range; therefore, if the player removes plants from his range or it is far away, he cannot use the attack. Also, unlike zombies such as Gargantuar Prime, Wizard Zombie, and Octo Zombie, their attacks do not stack up and can be effectively stalled, akin to Jester Zombie, Hunter Zombie, and Excavator Zombie. Therefore, you can stall them with hard-shell plants such as Primal Wall-nut. Do not use them when there is another Turquoise Skull Zombie behind as they can be easily destroyed.

Guacodile can help stop these zombies, as they begin to rush when Turquoise Skull Zombie shoots them with his laser. Ghost Pepper can also be useful to defeat this zombie and a group of Lost City zombies. Kernel-pult may be useful to stop these zombies, but only when you have two or three columns of them. Spore-shrooms are also useful as the newly created ones can stall this zombie. However, avoid using these strategies when Parasol Zombies are in front of them. Spikeweed or Spikerock could be useful, as his beams cannot destroy those plants. One attack from Magnifying Grass will instantly kill one of them. Cactus and Celery Stalker can also be useful. However, Cactus must be planted near the zombie to avoid being burned by his beam. If these zombies get close, knockback plants like Primal Peashooters can knock them out of range, causing them to waste an attack or incinerate plants that aren't that useful. Intensive Carrot can instantly recover any destroyed plants.

Infi-nut can be useful as a defensive plant against this zombie because, unlike other defensive plants, Infi-nut can recover once shot by the laser of the Turquoise Skull Zombie. It is not recommended to use Infi-nut's Plant Food ability, as its force field can be easily destroyed by this zombie. Even though Explode-O-Nut will still explode as Turquoise Skull Zombie hits it with his beam, he usually too far away to take damage. On the other hand, you can use them to trigger the explosion early and take out any other nearby zombies. If it's too late to kill this zombie before he fires his laser, the player can recover some sun by shoveling up the more expensive plants.

Beware that this zombie can still attack unarmed or even armed Potato Mines and Primal Potato Mines, so don't plant them when he's stealing sun.

Note: Avoid using Bonk Choy, Wasabi Whip, Parsnip, and non powered Nightshade against this zombie (unless you feed them Plant Food) as he can outrange these plants and destroy them instantly.

Balance changes

Update 5.8.1

• ▲ Health increased from 350 health to 600 health

Update 6.0.1

• ▼ Health decreased from 600 health to 350 health

Update 6.3.1

• ▼ Health decreased from 350 health to 250 health

Gallery

Turquoise Skull Zombie has a gallery!

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Turquoise Skull Zombie
Simplified Chinese	失落考古学家	Lit. "Lost Archaeologist"
French	Zombie crâne bleu
German	Türkis-Schädel-Zombie
Italian	Zombi teschio turchese
Brazilian Portuguese	Zumbi da Caveira Turquesa
Spanish	Zombi calavera turquesa

Trivia

• Lasers fired by Turquoise Skull Zombies can destroy almost all hypnotized zombies in one hit, but a hypnotized Imp Dragon Zombie is immune to the laser since it counts as a fire attack.
  • Some hypnotized Gargantua Variants, such as the Jurassic Gargantuar or the Gladiator Gargantuar, can also survive a hit from a Turquoise Skull Zombie at full health, as their defense is higher than the damage the laser deals.
• Hypnotized Turquoise Skull Zombies are bugged, as their lasers are fired backwards and still destroy plants. However, the fired backward laser can also destroy tombstones and enemy zombies.
• He and Imp Porter are the only zombies in Lost City that can insta-kill plants aside from Dr. Zomboss.
• Unlike when killed by Explorer Zombie's torch, an Infi-nut hologram will be "burned" but the projector will stay if it gets hit by the laser beam.
• He deals the most damage to plants, with approximately 4001, even more than the longer-ranged laser of a Gargantuar Prime. Therefore, he can destroy Infi-nut's shield even at full health.
  • Along with Mecha-Football Zombies, Glitter Zombies and MC Zom-Bs (with their respective jam's playing), Dr. Zomboss, and ankylosauruses, Turquoise Skull Zombies are the only zombies able to destroy an Infi-nut's shield in one hit.
• The beam created by Turquoise Skull Zombie is similar to Gargantuar Prime's laser.
• He is similar to Explorer Zombie, as they both burn plants and have the same health.
• His walking animation is the same as Ra Zombie's and Boombox Zombie's.
• He is slightly smaller in size than regular zombies.
• He will not charge his laser if all the plants on his row cannot be hit by the laser. (i.e. Spikeweed, Spikerock, Celery Stalker, etc.)
  • He will, however, target Cactus and Spring Bean when they are upright, as they switch between being regular and low-lying plants.

See also

• Ra Zombie
• Solar Car Zombie

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