My headcanon is that Bowling Bulbs, after going off screen, dig into the ground then quickly roll back to their spot like a bowling ball would do at a bowling alley
Bowling Bulbs don't die instantly when they are fired. They actually live long and fulfilling happy lives after they roll off the lawn. I personally interviewed the creator of the Bowling Bulb at PopCap.
Normally I don't find myself wanting to use bowling bulb because its effects aren't as satisfying to me as some other plants, if it had those classic sounds I would literally only use it lol
I think PvZ Eclise did a very interesting take on Bowling Bulb to balance it out, they sorta buffed it and nerfed it at the same time, in Eclise, Bowling Bulb can only fire when there is a Zombie at most 3 tiles in front of it, but due to the blind spot, big bulbs have a much higher likelihood of growing back.
Lol I was seeing whether anyone said it or not, and I agree with that, I always from the start in vanilla thought they could have taken inspiration from Fume-shroom about it
Honestly I was going to bring this up as it does help make Bowling a lot easier to use, but then I realised the video was 20 minutes long and just went "nah"
Bowling Bulb is one of the best plants for Penny's Pursuit and Arena, because once you Level it to Level 3 and above this plant becomes one of the best crowd controlling plants.
I got mine to level 7 and such, but I still find it outclassed there, as my best Arena setup is Threepeater, Torchwood, Primal Sunflower (when applicable), Pea Vine, and Appease-mint.
@@twelved4983 I know that pea-vine with torchwood is OP, but If you watch any good PvZ 2 Arena Guides (k-Gaming and Long vu) than you will See that Bowling bulbs are still Sometimes a better Option than pea-vine with torchwood.
I haven't even watched the video yet, but I want to add my thoughts that bowling bulb (especially with pea vine) hard carries me through modes like penny's pursuit, and even more so with the zomboss fights
There is another fun strat that makes bowling bulbs pretty effective (I tested it and I can assure you it's pretty great). Instead of being spread out across all lanes, Bowling Bulb works better when stacked in specific lanes over others. That way they can finish the targets in their lanes quickly enough to charge up the big bulbs and let them bounce to the other lanes. You obviously still need some backup for said other lanes (probably stallers are best for this) but this actually makes the plant far more effective.
So, likely you'd want about one or two at the extremities, a bunch in the middle, and then in-between you could have maybe 3 to 6 according to your strategy, right?
i'd actually really like to see an analysis on blooming heart, as it would seem powerful on paper, slowly accruing exponential damage on big targets like 4th tier zombies (i.e. pyramid heads and fossil heads), gargs and zomboss, but for some reason, it just lacks the punch. Why is that? If you're willing, please make a video detailing as to why. Thanks!
I find that it focuses a little too much on 1 zombie each time. Plus, every new zombie it faces, it has to kinda restart to accrue that damage. I guess it's hurt by zombie wave spamming in Endless + Penny's Pursuit. Plus, it has a damage cap, which kinda limits its damage (especially in Pursuit). That's just what I find in BH. I myself don't mind these drawbacks but I don't use it that often either
Blooming Heart costs 150 sun and has the same damage per second as Peashooter, Cabbage-pult, etc. initially; at its prime, it very slightly outperforms Repeater. Most common zombie layouts in the games involve surrounding a strong zombie with a bunch of weak zombies (worlds like Lost City, Arena, Endless modes, Penny's pursuit). So, it's highly likely that blooming heart is going to hit most of its shots with almost the same DPS as cabbage pult. You could use plants like laser bean or fume shroom or melon pult to filter some of the weak zombies so that blooming heart can focus on the strong zombies. You could use it early-game when the zombie density is less but 150 sun is a bit expensive and that makes one consider another more consistent option.
I love Bowling Bulb. Its satisfying seeing it shred thru packed groups of hordes and is generally rather reliable when paired with some support. Recently playing thru custom levels and whatnot made me realize that and its just a really fun plant to play with. Vanilla leveling really cheeses this plant especially with how easy you can get to level 3 for a MASSIVE DPS boost.
It would be fun if zombies that quickly get to the back of the lawn then move back to the front on being killed by the bowling bulb before having jumped/dug or whatever else they do, then the bowling bulb will jump to the front and move back.
Bowling is why balancing TD games is a nightmare. You have to make to try to balance skill requirement with stats. Especially with high skill floor plants. Sometimes we end up with cases like magni and sometimes we end up with bowling. I don't entirely discredit popcap here because trying to balance plants like bowling isn't fun and we still say it's bad. The more negative feedback we give without recognizing it's strengths make this task of balancing even harder.
I personally think it's better to make all plants with about the same stats, and also make it to where there are low skill strategies for all of them but don't have nearly the same effect as the higher skill ones that are also there for all of them, meaning that the low skill ones will still end up getting left behind, especially if you also make it such that the skills can all counter each other, meaning your strategy can get countered and moreover make the enemy stronger, like for instance the torchwood sets things on fire, but perhaps a certain enemy has an unlit torch that when lit will suck all the oxygen out of the nearby air and remove fire from any of your buffed projectiles. However, the time and effort it takes to do something like that properly is likely something that EA will not ever end up doing.
And if you want to be really dramatic with the low skill strategies not working anymore, then you can make it to where frozen zombies nearby the torch will thaw off and create a puddle that speeds up the zombies. However, to make sure not to make the torchwood itself useless, but rather the strategy he's used for, you'll need additional things like for instance, you could make it to where a few zombies on getting too close to the torchwood will burst into flames running around setting things ablaze, and of course there could be counters to that too, and so on. With the idea not so much being about getting the highest damage plants but rather about making sure the damage that you are able to get actually makes it to the enemy, which prevents power creep, increases the potential strategies, but also still makes it possible for low complexity strategies to exist for until the enemy finds a way to counter, it also should make a nice bridge as it won't be a sudden plunge from simplicity to a high complexity strategy, but rather just one counter to one mechanic you were using to your advantage at a time getting added slowly.
Yet to finish the video, but I enjoy bowling bulb because the sound of all the bulbs bouncing, and the fact its a fun plant. Ultra Late Edit: Finished watching the video, and my opinion hasn't changed. Bulb is still fun, and "Making Your Own Fun" is a great section, and is the best segment of any PVZ2 video on this channel.
8:46 I think it would be a bit cool to see a Dark Ages level with Jesters where your only attacker is Bowling Bulb. You could use plants like Iceberg Lettuce or Stunion to hold the Jesters in place, because if they can't move, then they can't deflect anything. Although there probably shouldn't be *too* many Jesters, or it would be hell without spamming Plant Food on Iceberg Lettuce.
Hm, I don't know much about Jesters or bowling bulbs, I actually never figured out what triggers and what ends the deflect mode, or even what counters it, so I just had to get lucky for the levels that had them. But wouldn't that make the bowling bulbs more powerful since the jesters are letting them be like pinballs?
@@flameofthephoenix8395 Technically yes, but that power would be used against you since the Jesters would be deflecting the bulbs and hitting all of your plants with them.
@@thebucketheadgaming Oh, I see. I had thought maybe the bowling bulbs would just be getting a second go around, and possibly a third after that given another jester.
I'm so glad this video came out because I've been hating Bowling Bulb at first but I've really been wanting to give it a second chance especially after spamming it in Arena with Plant Food panels
Talking about how to unlock worlds brings me back. I got through all three methods. Beating the gargantuar levels for keys was definitely the most challenging. Getting all keys at once made it so that you get plants like sun shroom very early without being stuck in a difficult world. Now im playing through it again, beating each world linearly. I like how its more like pvz1, but i miss my good plants :(
im really glad you dont take the easy way out with your videos it makes them SO much more interesting especially since i have a very similar playstyle, and i really appreciate the analyses since they go into more depth from someone who knows a lot more than me about the game
As someone who started playing when all of the worlds were available at once, I got Bulb early (Big Wave Beach looked fun) and is one of my go-to plants.
Bowling bulb is my jam. Thanks for making this. I also think the only change I’d make to Bulb is to give it access to Wall-nut aid,similar to say,Holly Barrier. It’d help with bulb’s offensive momentum.
@@pedroivog.s.6870I mean as in you being able to plant a seed packet of bulb when he shoots off all his shots. Like how you can recover Holly’s limited shots by planting on him.
@@ratlinggull2223 I mean,I always do that lmao. I just think that sometimes,it’d be faster to just plant on top of Bulb,rather than waste potential time on shoveling.
I love BB so much, especially in Reflourished. He's so fun to spam. Edit: Your introduction to BB opened my eyes. So this means BB is infinite, they infinitely spawn... Holy shit, is this the Dugtrio of PVZ?
I love pvz, when I was 7 I used to watch videos about pvz2 on english(my mother language is spanish so, it was a big effort for a kid) because I really enjoyed watching the new plants and new zombies, the different style and a big etc. When you started talking about making your own fun with pvz I couldn´t stop thinking about how much I love this franchise, every year I download pvz1 and challenge myself to beat it one more time, trying to use different plants and differents strategies. What you mentioned really touched me, thanks, you are an amazing pvz creator
The zombies are actually the good guys trying to stop Dave who is a serial killer. He has so many brains to feed his aquarium zombies. " Bro, its just a minigame , chill" But hear me out , zombies get up from your lawn or pool in te late game, that means people were burried there . Why does Dave have corpses in his back yard?
bulbs are root plants, root plants still have an actual roots, plants can get pruned to produce more of itself. therefore, bowling bulbs are self pruners that uses its self pruning abilities as a defence by flinging them at threats. the bulbs double as seeds as they bounce from threat to object to object, then set roots when it runs out of momentum and produce more bulbs. we plant the hivemind part where it produces the bulbs and gets split to be pruned when there's a threat
I had one endless run where Bowling Bulb was the best pick on the third leve in Egypt; and I turned out to love the sound of a screen full of graves get bowled all the way
I feel like a good buff (for base PVZ2 not mods) that can't happen due to the way this game works is having the individual bulbs have their own respawn timer from each other, so you can still have the ability to launch higher damage bulbs somewhat consistently without having to level it and make it stupidly broken
Honestly, just a snall change can make bowling super useful Turn it from auto firing to being like coconut cannon or magnifying grass. Those ones are the most fun, seeing how you tap once and boom the zombies are gone, it feels like you personally are killing the zombies. And it allows for the bulbs to grow back
I used to grind out the arena too much, and bowling bulb was one of my go-to options, especially when explosive plants were debuffed, making primal potato mine unusable. Mixing it with tile turnip did wonders.
Your point about making your own fun rings more true for me now that I've been trying the endless zones. Getting to use plants I didn’t use much during adventure mode has been VERY fun--even if it means I lose runs, I still get to use some *really* neat plants and evolve my strategies.
This, along holly barrier is my absolute favourite plant, although i do think its slightly underpowered for 200 sun. And despite the fact that leveling is objectively bad in the main game, leveling bowling bulb makes them eventually quickly regrow in reverse order so that boosts its damage by around tenfold
Honestly, I love seeing these videos on more minor/disregarded plants As a Casual player, these videos help change my mind on plants I thought were fairly useless or not the best Banana Launcher was one that I never really thought of as good due to its cost and the fact it was manual, but playing through and using it really showed me how good it can be if you just learn to use it. I've got a similar issue with Magnifying Grass but I doubt I'll ever use it like Banana, the use of sun just doesn't work for me. But thank you for making these videos, please keep making more.
What's ironic is that theoretically, Bulb and Garlic work together. You put Garlic in front to divert zombies to other lanes while Bulb regenerates the bulbs. The problem is that Garlic's way of diverting zombies to other lanes doesn't work well with zombies in PVZ2, unlike how Sweet Potato and Hot Date do it.
10:45 it's now patched in the latest version, but I think the reason was probably a bug related to the Crazy Dave and Penny dialogue. The second Dave would talk or attempt to talk, it would crash
I actually agree, PvZ strongly discourages experimentation, and creating more varied objectives and modes such as "Beat this level as many times as possible without reusing a plant" or stuff like that would be really cool.
Bowling bulb is a great plant. Haven't watched the video yet, but always thought the devs introduced it a little weak since you normally won't be able to recharge the other bulbs. Would be interesting if the bulbs did recharge but slower than the small one, even if the small one fires. For example, 2 times the small one, you get the medium, or something similar.
I've always imagined that it leaves a bit of the bulb underground and it would grow a new bulb from the roots and that small bit, like how you can grow potatoes from just a small chunk of a seeding potato.
Creeps taking the easy way out is exactly like not using bowling bulb, plus there will always be people like me, I've always loved bowling bulb and it's interesting and cool to see other people that do too, otherwise all of us would be the same and that's not interesting at all, please keep making videos and ones people don't like to hear :)
Coming back to this video, it makes me realize how crazy bowling bulb is. It single-handedly carried me to the top of Jade in arena last year. I will never forget that, despite how much dusk lobber wants me to.
In my experience with the game and mods, the bulbs have amazing synergy with lane diverging plants. Plant a garlic or sweet potato in the right lanes, and you can virtually keep the attackers to the middle 3 lanes, bypassing bulbs' main weakness. Just watch out for gargs and other threats that can mess up your garlics
I think bowling was automatically ruined for me by its primary introduction/relevance being connected to the bowling minigames, which I don't find that fun after getting older
I know this is a pretty niece point, but pea vine covers bulb's consistency weakness while also powering it up immensely. It's currently my default loadout.
I see that the biggest issue with Bowling Bulb, it's its fire rate. It just attacks so slowly. When the aquamarine bulb keeps lauching itself at a zombie repeatedly, it's not doing a damage output of a Repeater, it's doing the damage output of a Peashooter, for a plant that costs 100 Sun more. Honestly, the way i would buff this plant, is to make it cost 225 Sun, but make the aquamarine bulb do 60 damage, the blue bulb do 140 damage and the orange bulb do 200 damage, so that not all of the bulbs are wasted on a Browncoat. I will also make the bulbs recharge 2×+ faster. I'm seeing in the wiki, apparently the "1st" bulbs take 2.5 secs, the "2nd" take 5, and the "final" take 10. So, i would make them recharge at 1 sec, 2 secs, then 3 secs, just like the wiki order. I will also make a buff on their Plant Food. After giving the 1st Plant Food, the aquamarine bulbs will turn blue, until that plant is lost, if you know what i mean, and the 2nd Plant Food Effect will turn all bulbs into orange bulbs. Yes, that may sound and look cursed, but i don't care too much. I just want to make this plant objectively good.
My experience with bowling bulb was using it in the rf continuation levels. It absolutely destroys large hordes and the plant food can destroy entire waves
To me, I just find bowling bulb way too unsatisfying to use. Constantly using the weakest bulb when I know it has stronger ones and being inconsistent with how the bulbs bounce make it a little infuriating having to work around. I can definitely respect it, but I would never use it.
If you level it to 7, the damage inconsistency problem is mostly gone... ...only to be replaced with the issues of forced grinding to that excessive level + it kinda becoming too OP sometimes. The bulbs bouncing, that's a permanent issue.
Thyme warp can make bowling bulb buffer. When thyme warp channels before it sends zombie back to place, it makes zombie unseen for the plants for a while, this gave bowling bulb a time to recharge to blue bulb or till orange bulb depends on the timing. I think developers should make thyme warp channeling time much slower to give bowling bulb a time to recharge full capacity regardless of timing. Or just make bowling bulb tappable like coconut or magnifying grass or maybe just make it stop firing when it's not in full charge.
2:15 How do you know they're sent to their deaths? Maybe they just burrow back to the starting position, like how real bowling balls have a system set up to return to the player.
About the whole 'sentient projectiles' thing, have a little theory/headcanon about the nature of the sentience of all the plants in the game. The almanac descriptions always seem to imply a distinct individual for each plant, even though any given instance of a plant is one of a million fodder. What if each kind of plant functions as a kind of hive mind? Let's take Sunflower for example. The sunflowers you plant in game would all just be an extension of the collective being that is Sunflower. Losing one of these drones would be no more significant to the hive mind than clipping a leaf off of a tree. It's a weird idea to be sure, but like, *how else do you justify the sentience of the explosive plants?!?!*
Cherry Bombs, Jalapeños, and Potato Mines exist, yet you're worried about Bowling Bulbs dying? EDIT: Doesn't Bowling Bulb have a similar advangage with Octo Zombies as with graves? Why then, is it utterly useless in BWB? EDIT 2: "Making your own fun" is exactly why I love Electric Currant. EDIT 3: 19:08 If they covered mainstream topics and argued all the points people agreed with, I wouldn't be all that interesting. Keep making these videos - they're great!
I find this plant designed much better in Grind Thousand where its range is restricted to three tiles. Basically, this plant is not hard to use. It is just hard to get any worth of because it antisynergizes with itself. If there are no zombies in the lane, it deals more dps. But if there are no zombies in the lane, all the high dps will be shot out at first zombie to come and bounce at no to one other enemies. On the other hand, with zombies in the lane the dps output gets minute, but there are zombies in the lane! The additional bounces won't likely save you from them as they punish zombies in many lanes. I would add a range to the plant as they did in GT000, and cut the shot speed in half to make the plant interesting and playable. Also, it should cost some 125 sun in the current state as it's not much better than a peashooter in dps (worthless all the time and sometimes big) but doesn't even get boosted by torchwood
This is the wallnut mini game from the first game but as a plant, the projectiles bounce between zombie and are alive, and beside most likely dying we have no idea what happens to them once off screen making it morally questionable at best.
Could someone please explain what the Mint currency from arena is for? I looked at the wiki, I looked on UA-cam, and I haven't found anything. I just started playing about a month ago. I used to play during the first ~three years of the game, but I stopped, and everything is so different now.
They're for Power Mints. These plants are bought from the shop at different months, & are used to power up the plants related to it for a short time. Because I don't like Arena (for personal reasons against PvP modes in single-player games) & Arena is often based more on cheesing OP strats than skill, it's kinda hard to accumulate them effectively most of the time. I'd recommend using them to just unlock & collect each Power Mint, & also to save all mint candies to level up your favorite one(s). Also, remember when the world maps looked like a board game / diorama? Those were the good days...
My headcanon is that Bowling Bulbs, after going off screen, dig into the ground then quickly roll back to their spot like a bowling ball would do at a bowling alley
Fair enough actually
Honestly, I like this idea a lot
Makes sence, that probaly would be mentioned if the almanac was in the game.
Our headcanon*
After all, they're one of these plants that are just a plant version of a thing in the real world, like Bloomerang or Peashooter
Bowling Bulbs don't die instantly when they are fired. They actually live long and fulfilling happy lives after they roll off the lawn. I personally interviewed the creator of the Bowling Bulb at PopCap.
a fact we never needed to know, but liked to learn anyway
does they get a job at local 24 hour market, get a nice house, and a hot wife?
They could reunite in a marathon after doing their job
@@kepan2009 probably a fun time considering how fast bowling bulb is
@@Sp3ctralI oh, maybe they win race against sonic and get loans o money.
If only Bowling Bulb came with the Wall-nut Bowling sound effects, they’d be incredible
Just imagine that sweet sweet bowling bulb asmr
*Cue full lawn with Zombies and bulbs bouncing multiple times*
*Loonboon starts playing*
We need a mod of that actually, a Mod that changes nothing but adding Wallnut Bowling Bulb Music
step 1. go to endless mode
step 2. get bowling bulb
step 3. get to level 5+
step 4. true asmr
Normally I don't find myself wanting to use bowling bulb because its effects aren't as satisfying to me as some other plants, if it had those classic sounds I would literally only use it lol
I think PvZ Eclise did a very interesting take on Bowling Bulb to balance it out, they sorta buffed it and nerfed it at the same time, in Eclise, Bowling Bulb can only fire when there is a Zombie at most 3 tiles in front of it, but due to the blind spot, big bulbs have a much higher likelihood of growing back.
That must be wild in jurassic march!
Lol I was seeing whether anyone said it or not, and I agree with that, I always from the start in vanilla thought they could have taken inspiration from Fume-shroom about it
I think Eclise have made Bowling Bulb overall more consistent and versatile.
Honestly I was going to bring this up as it does help make Bowling a lot easier to use, but then I realised the video was 20 minutes long and just went "nah"
I may be in the minority here but 20+ minutes is no issue for me lol
Bowling Bulb is one of the best plants for Penny's Pursuit and Arena, because once you Level it to Level 3 and above this plant becomes one of the best crowd controlling plants.
I got mine to level 7 and such, but I still find it outclassed there, as my best Arena setup is Threepeater, Torchwood, Primal Sunflower (when applicable), Pea Vine, and Appease-mint.
@@twelved4983 I know that pea-vine with torchwood is OP, but If you watch any good PvZ 2 Arena Guides (k-Gaming and Long vu) than you will See that Bowling bulbs are still Sometimes a better Option than pea-vine with torchwood.
@@henryhacker5076 what about bowling bulb with pea vine
@@henryhacker5076 Or, better yet, run Bowling Bulb ALONG WITH Pea Vine and Torchwood.
@@markdaniel9657 I actually do it in the current Arena to kill the Dragon imps.
Bowling bulb is a pretty fun concept, just feels hard to use
get him to lvl 3, and he just demolishes everything
especially in vanilla because it costs way too much
Tumbleweed is better than bowling bulb, especially with Imitater and boost
Tumbleweed is really satisfying and fun to use
@@ChiekChiek preach
I haven't even watched the video yet, but I want to add my thoughts that bowling bulb (especially with pea vine) hard carries me through modes like penny's pursuit, and even more so with the zomboss fights
Bowlingbulbiscool. Thanks UA-cam.
Yeah ,It happened to me too
@@plantas007 it’s almost certainly the file name. I just thought it was funny.
There is another fun strat that makes bowling bulbs pretty effective (I tested it and I can assure you it's pretty great). Instead of being spread out across all lanes, Bowling Bulb works better when stacked in specific lanes over others. That way they can finish the targets in their lanes quickly enough to charge up the big bulbs and let them bounce to the other lanes. You obviously still need some backup for said other lanes (probably stallers are best for this) but this actually makes the plant far more effective.
So, likely you'd want about one or two at the extremities, a bunch in the middle, and then in-between you could have maybe 3 to 6 according to your strategy, right?
Which lanes should you stack them in? The edges? The middle? Whatever lane has the most zombies in it at the moment?
@@OhCrapI_He i'd say edges and middle. That way you have the most supports in the semi-undefended lanes
i'd actually really like to see an analysis on blooming heart, as it would seem powerful on paper, slowly accruing exponential damage on big targets like 4th tier zombies (i.e. pyramid heads and fossil heads), gargs and zomboss, but for some reason, it just lacks the punch. Why is that? If you're willing, please make a video detailing as to why. Thanks!
I find that it focuses a little too much on 1 zombie each time. Plus, every new zombie it faces, it has to kinda restart to accrue that damage. I guess it's hurt by zombie wave spamming in Endless + Penny's Pursuit. Plus, it has a damage cap, which kinda limits its damage (especially in Pursuit).
That's just what I find in BH. I myself don't mind these drawbacks but I don't use it that often either
Blooming Heart costs 150 sun and has the same damage per second as Peashooter, Cabbage-pult, etc. initially; at its prime, it very slightly outperforms Repeater. Most common zombie layouts in the games involve surrounding a strong zombie with a bunch of weak zombies (worlds like Lost City, Arena, Endless modes, Penny's pursuit). So, it's highly likely that blooming heart is going to hit most of its shots with almost the same DPS as cabbage pult. You could use plants like laser bean or fume shroom or melon pult to filter some of the weak zombies so that blooming heart can focus on the strong zombies.
You could use it early-game when the zombie density is less but 150 sun is a bit expensive and that makes one consider another more consistent option.
@@kairostimeYTcant you use lazer beam e-pea to make bheart deal more damage?
I love Bowling Bulb. Its satisfying seeing it shred thru packed groups of hordes and is generally rather reliable when paired with some support. Recently playing thru custom levels and whatnot made me realize that and its just a really fun plant to play with. Vanilla leveling really cheeses this plant especially with how easy you can get to level 3 for a MASSIVE DPS boost.
It would be fun if zombies that quickly get to the back of the lawn then move back to the front on being killed by the bowling bulb before having jumped/dug or whatever else they do, then the bowling bulb will jump to the front and move back.
Bowling is why balancing TD games is a nightmare. You have to make to try to balance skill requirement with stats. Especially with high skill floor plants. Sometimes we end up with cases like magni and sometimes we end up with bowling. I don't entirely discredit popcap here because trying to balance plants like bowling isn't fun and we still say it's bad. The more negative feedback we give without recognizing it's strengths make this task of balancing even harder.
I personally think it's better to make all plants with about the same stats, and also make it to where there are low skill strategies for all of them but don't have nearly the same effect as the higher skill ones that are also there for all of them, meaning that the low skill ones will still end up getting left behind, especially if you also make it such that the skills can all counter each other, meaning your strategy can get countered and moreover make the enemy stronger, like for instance the torchwood sets things on fire, but perhaps a certain enemy has an unlit torch that when lit will suck all the oxygen out of the nearby air and remove fire from any of your buffed projectiles. However, the time and effort it takes to do something like that properly is likely something that EA will not ever end up doing.
And if you want to be really dramatic with the low skill strategies not working anymore, then you can make it to where frozen zombies nearby the torch will thaw off and create a puddle that speeds up the zombies. However, to make sure not to make the torchwood itself useless, but rather the strategy he's used for, you'll need additional things like for instance, you could make it to where a few zombies on getting too close to the torchwood will burst into flames running around setting things ablaze, and of course there could be counters to that too, and so on. With the idea not so much being about getting the highest damage plants but rather about making sure the damage that you are able to get actually makes it to the enemy, which prevents power creep, increases the potential strategies, but also still makes it possible for low complexity strategies to exist for until the enemy finds a way to counter, it also should make a nice bridge as it won't be a sudden plunge from simplicity to a high complexity strategy, but rather just one counter to one mechanic you were using to your advantage at a time getting added slowly.
Yet to finish the video, but I enjoy bowling bulb because the sound of all the bulbs bouncing, and the fact its a fun plant.
Ultra Late Edit: Finished watching the video, and my opinion hasn't changed. Bulb is still fun, and "Making Your Own Fun" is a great section, and is the best segment of any PVZ2 video on this channel.
8:46 I think it would be a bit cool to see a Dark Ages level with Jesters where your only attacker is Bowling Bulb. You could use plants like Iceberg Lettuce or Stunion to hold the Jesters in place, because if they can't move, then they can't deflect anything. Although there probably shouldn't be *too* many Jesters, or it would be hell without spamming Plant Food on Iceberg Lettuce.
Hm, I don't know much about Jesters or bowling bulbs, I actually never figured out what triggers and what ends the deflect mode, or even what counters it, so I just had to get lucky for the levels that had them. But wouldn't that make the bowling bulbs more powerful since the jesters are letting them be like pinballs?
@@flameofthephoenix8395 Technically yes, but that power would be used against you since the Jesters would be deflecting the bulbs and hitting all of your plants with them.
@@thebucketheadgaming Oh, I see. I had thought maybe the bowling bulbs would just be getting a second go around, and possibly a third after that given another jester.
penny pursuit devs please make this guy your level designer ❤❤❤
I'm so glad this video came out because I've been hating Bowling Bulb at first but I've really been wanting to give it a second chance
especially after spamming it in Arena with Plant Food panels
Talking about how to unlock worlds brings me back. I got through all three methods.
Beating the gargantuar levels for keys was definitely the most challenging.
Getting all keys at once made it so that you get plants like sun shroom very early without being stuck in a difficult world.
Now im playing through it again, beating each world linearly. I like how its more like pvz1, but i miss my good plants :(
Same. Those were the good ol', difficulty-based-on-skill-instead-of-cheesing, days
There were 4 methods though.
-Star gate system.
-1 world key per garg level system.
-Every world key after 1st garg level system.
-Linear system.
@@KPoWasTakenlol true
I could feel the sarcasm from that zoom on that face at 5:14 before you even announced it. Simply sublime and informative videos.
im really glad you dont take the easy way out with your videos
it makes them SO much more interesting especially since i have a very similar playstyle, and i really appreciate the analyses since they go into more depth from someone who knows a lot more than me about the game
Bowling Bulb is one of my favourite plants simply because of the reference to Wall-nut Bowling
As someone who started playing when all of the worlds were available at once, I got Bulb early (Big Wave Beach looked fun) and is one of my go-to plants.
“I’m starting to uh think that the plants aren’t actually the good guys”
MATPAT INTENSIFIES
Bowling bulb is my jam. Thanks for making this.
I also think the only change I’d make to Bulb is to give it access to Wall-nut aid,similar to say,Holly Barrier. It’d help with bulb’s offensive momentum.
You mean the bulbs being able to bounce on wall plants?
Just shovel it though...
@@pedroivog.s.6870I mean as in you being able to plant a seed packet of bulb when he shoots off all his shots. Like how you can recover Holly’s limited shots by planting on him.
@@ratlinggull2223 I mean,I always do that lmao. I just think that sometimes,it’d be faster to just plant on top of Bulb,rather than waste potential time on shoveling.
@@crackersandpie136 still, with maxed shovel boost you get 150 from digging it up
I love BB so much, especially in Reflourished. He's so fun to spam.
Edit: Your introduction to BB opened my eyes. So this means BB is infinite, they infinitely spawn... Holy shit, is this the Dugtrio of PVZ?
Yeah, he is really really good to use in reflourished
Bowling bulb>>>>dugtrio
If bowling bulb’s young killings themselves is a bad mental image, just wait until you see Strawburst!
Sending infants to their death carelessly is a pretty standard behaviour amongst animals
I love pvz, when I was 7 I used to watch videos about pvz2 on english(my mother language is spanish so, it was a big effort for a kid) because I really enjoyed watching the new plants and new zombies, the different style and a big etc. When you started talking about making your own fun with pvz I couldn´t stop thinking about how much I love this franchise, every year I download pvz1 and challenge myself to beat it one more time, trying to use different plants and differents strategies. What you mentioned really touched me, thanks, you are an amazing pvz creator
The zombies are actually the good guys trying to stop Dave who is a serial killer.
He has so many brains to feed his aquarium zombies.
" Bro, its just a minigame , chill"
But hear me out , zombies get up from your lawn or pool in te late game, that means people were burried there . Why does Dave have corpses in his back yard?
bulbs are root plants, root plants still have an actual roots, plants can get pruned to produce more of itself. therefore, bowling bulbs are self pruners that uses its self pruning abilities as a defence by flinging them at threats. the bulbs double as seeds as they bounce from threat to object to object, then set roots when it runs out of momentum and produce more bulbs. we plant the hivemind part where it produces the bulbs and gets split to be pruned when there's a threat
but that's just a theory, a WIDE STREETCH OF A THEORY
Chill out commenting
@@jamesgibb8160 why? im on a roll!🥁
Also Bowling Bulb is probably based of oniond
I had one endless run where Bowling Bulb was the best pick on the third leve in Egypt; and I turned out to love the sound of a screen full of graves get bowled all the way
I feel like a good buff (for base PVZ2 not mods) that can't happen due to the way this game works is having the individual bulbs have their own respawn timer from each other, so you can still have the ability to launch higher damage bulbs somewhat consistently without having to level it and make it stupidly broken
Bowling bulb is 1 of my favourite plants so glad u covered him
Honestly, just a snall change can make bowling super useful
Turn it from auto firing to being like coconut cannon or magnifying grass. Those ones are the most fun, seeing how you tap once and boom the zombies are gone, it feels like you personally are killing the zombies. And it allows for the bulbs to grow back
Creeps has mentioned this and says he would hate bowling if this wad the case lol
I think one way to change bowling would be to make all the bulbs' reload times independent of eachother
That just sounds like strawburst with extra steps
The "make your fun thing" applies to all things and giving yourself restrictions is one of the most fun things to do :)
I feel like people hate Bowling bulb soo much is because they give you them in Big Wave Beach, and can't be placed on lillypads
I used to grind out the arena too much, and bowling bulb was one of my go-to options, especially when explosive plants were debuffed, making primal potato mine unusable. Mixing it with tile turnip did wonders.
Bowling Bulb is my favorite plant! I’m so glad to see this video finally!
Your point about making your own fun rings more true for me now that I've been trying the endless zones. Getting to use plants I didn’t use much during adventure mode has been VERY fun--even if it means I lose runs, I still get to use some *really* neat plants and evolve my strategies.
This, along holly barrier is my absolute favourite plant, although i do think its slightly underpowered for 200 sun. And despite the fact that leveling is objectively bad in the main game, leveling bowling bulb makes them eventually quickly regrow in reverse order so that boosts its damage by around tenfold
Honestly, I love seeing these videos on more minor/disregarded plants
As a Casual player, these videos help change my mind on plants I thought were fairly useless or not the best
Banana Launcher was one that I never really thought of as good due to its cost and the fact it was manual, but playing through and using it really showed me how good it can be if you just learn to use it. I've got a similar issue with Magnifying Grass but I doubt I'll ever use it like Banana, the use of sun just doesn't work for me.
But thank you for making these videos, please keep making more.
3:45 they can FLOAT?
Bowling Bulb in the same Tier as Garlic. That's painful.
What's ironic is that theoretically, Bulb and Garlic work together. You put Garlic in front to divert zombies to other lanes while Bulb regenerates the bulbs. The problem is that Garlic's way of diverting zombies to other lanes doesn't work well with zombies in PVZ2, unlike how Sweet Potato and Hot Date do it.
As intended
10:45 it's now patched in the latest version, but I think the reason was probably a bug related to the Crazy Dave and Penny dialogue. The second Dave would talk or attempt to talk, it would crash
I actually agree, PvZ strongly discourages experimentation, and creating more varied objectives and modes such as "Beat this level as many times as possible without reusing a plant" or stuff like that would be really cool.
Bowling bulb is a great plant. Haven't watched the video yet, but always thought the devs introduced it a little weak since you normally won't be able to recharge the other bulbs. Would be interesting if the bulbs did recharge but slower than the small one, even if the small one fires. For example, 2 times the small one, you get the medium, or something similar.
I've always imagined that it leaves a bit of the bulb underground and it would grow a new bulb from the roots and that small bit, like how you can grow potatoes from just a small chunk of a seeding potato.
Keep doing videos you like to make, I’ll enjoy all of them
I think it'd be a neat little reference if the bowling bulbs instantly killed conehead zombies. You know... bowling, bowling cones, coneheads...
Yes, that would be so awesome!
Bowling bulb is worst in the world it’s introduced in? No wonder everyone thinks it’s terrible. It’s fallout three and laser weapons all over again.
I found this out on accident. If you plant food a bowling bulb with no zombie in front of it, it will hold its shots until there is one.
Bowling bulb has always been one of my favorite plants
Here’s why you haven’t done a Blooming Heart video yet, you’re saving that for a quick and easy Valentines Day video
Finally I found one of the other three Bowling Bulb fans very happy about this
I just love that they took the old pvz1 walnut bowling minigame and turned it into a plant.
This video was so necessary for me, I never knew how to use Bowling Bulb and so every stage I had to use it in BWB I would die inside
Creeps taking the easy way out is exactly like not using bowling bulb, plus there will always be people like me, I've always loved bowling bulb and it's interesting and cool to see other people that do too, otherwise all of us would be the same and that's not interesting at all, please keep making videos and ones people don't like to hear :)
Theory, there's a factory under bowling bulb that produces infinite bulbs.
Coming back to this video, it makes me realize how crazy bowling bulb is. It single-handedly carried me to the top of Jade in arena last year. I will never forget that, despite how much dusk lobber wants me to.
13:59 I'd say that spring bean fits this
In my experience with the game and mods, the bulbs have amazing synergy with lane diverging plants. Plant a garlic or sweet potato in the right lanes, and you can virtually keep the attackers to the middle 3 lanes, bypassing bulbs' main weakness. Just watch out for gargs and other threats that can mess up your garlics
I have been subbed to you for about a month and I do not regret it
Bowling Bulb is hated because Lightning Reed exist
I think bowling was automatically ruined for me by its primary introduction/relevance being connected to the bowling minigames, which I don't find that fun after getting older
I know this is a pretty niece point, but pea vine covers bulb's consistency weakness while also powering it up immensely. It's currently my default loadout.
Wait, at 10:24 bowling bulb killed the zombie in the middle
Eating animation makes it sometimes stop acting as if it's in water
I see that the biggest issue with Bowling Bulb, it's its fire rate. It just attacks so slowly. When the aquamarine bulb keeps lauching itself at a zombie repeatedly, it's not doing a damage output of a Repeater, it's doing the damage output of a Peashooter, for a plant that costs 100 Sun more. Honestly, the way i would buff this plant, is to make it cost 225 Sun, but make the aquamarine bulb do 60 damage, the blue bulb do 140 damage and the orange bulb do 200 damage, so that not all of the bulbs are wasted on a Browncoat. I will also make the bulbs recharge 2×+ faster. I'm seeing in the wiki, apparently the "1st" bulbs take 2.5 secs, the "2nd" take 5, and the "final" take 10. So, i would make them recharge at 1 sec, 2 secs, then 3 secs, just like the wiki order. I will also make a buff on their Plant Food. After giving the 1st Plant Food, the aquamarine bulbs will turn blue, until that plant is lost, if you know what i mean, and the 2nd Plant Food Effect will turn all bulbs into orange bulbs. Yes, that may sound and look cursed, but i don't care too much. I just want to make this plant objectively good.
never really seen anyone compliment bowling bulb before, nice change of pace for me
I love using bowling bulb honestly. It's a great idea for how to harken back to walnut bowling in a plant usable in a normal level.
Day one of asking creep20 to make a video on guacadile
ive always liked the design and concept of bowling bulb
My experience with bowling bulb was using it in the rf continuation levels. It absolutely destroys large hordes and the plant food can destroy entire waves
I mean bowling bulb in arena is so chaotic using the correct plants with plant food it's just chaotic
To me, I just find bowling bulb way too unsatisfying to use. Constantly using the weakest bulb when I know it has stronger ones and being inconsistent with how the bulbs bounce make it a little infuriating having to work around. I can definitely respect it, but I would never use it.
If you level it to 7, the damage inconsistency problem is mostly gone...
...only to be replaced with the issues of forced grinding to that excessive level + it kinda becoming too OP sometimes.
The bulbs bouncing, that's a permanent issue.
@@TimerdonDWI I’ve always had a problem with the leveling system in this game, especially when it is the only way for some plants to be useful.
@@firstwaddledee9182 True that.
I have a soft spot for Bowling Bulb after they let my brick-arena ass get 5.4 million points in one game.
Bowling Bulb has the best plantfood ever for clearing out zombies.
Shadowshroom with plant food outcast
@@lol-yz2kd the only problem with that is how long it takes for the posion to kill and some are immune.
Hey man love the content but I think you forgot to put the link to the tier lists in the description 0:32
heck my bad
@@Creeps20 put them
In the thumbnail, you used the wrong its
"It's" is a contraction, meaning "it is"
So what you wrote is that it's incredibly cool in it is own way
Should've been "its", I guess.
I BLAME AUTOCORRECT / FORCES OF HABIT
10:43 I have this glich still but at like level 28.
Thyme warp can make bowling bulb buffer. When thyme warp channels before it sends zombie back to place, it makes zombie unseen for the plants for a while, this gave bowling bulb a time to recharge to blue bulb or till orange bulb depends on the timing.
I think developers should make thyme warp channeling time much slower to give bowling bulb a time to recharge full capacity regardless of timing.
Or just make bowling bulb tappable like coconut or magnifying grass or maybe just make it stop firing when it's not in full charge.
This reminded me of when peashooter's pea that he shoots was supposed to have a face
Loving these types of videos! Keep it up
I love this series. Analyzing strategies with these plants is very entertaining.
I agree
I was relieved you said that Big Wave Beach Day 18 crashing was a game thing. I though my tablet broke at that point of the game lmao
guess this video is a birthday gift!
Happy Birthday
@@TimerdonDWI thanks!
2:15 How do you know they're sent to their deaths? Maybe they just burrow back to the starting position, like how real bowling balls have a system set up to return to the player.
About the whole 'sentient projectiles' thing, have a little theory/headcanon about the nature of the sentience of all the plants in the game.
The almanac descriptions always seem to imply a distinct individual for each plant, even though any given instance of a plant is one of a million fodder.
What if each kind of plant functions as a kind of hive mind? Let's take Sunflower for example. The sunflowers you plant in game would all just be an extension of the collective being that is Sunflower. Losing one of these drones would be no more significant to the hive mind than clipping a leaf off of a tree.
It's a weird idea to be sure, but like, *how else do you justify the sentience of the explosive plants?!?!*
This plant had so much potential,but since you don't control when it shoots,it makes it near pointless
I love the Bowling Bulb design for the eye. They are not bright enough yet through...( Get the joke?)( Bulb-Bright?)
This may be a hated hard to use plant, but do you know what’s a beloved hard to use plant? Haunted Log.
Bowling bulbs are an absolute powerhouse in arena when it reaches level 3
And just think about level 7...
(Saving the Pinata Tracker for BWB helps with the grinding)
Cherry Bombs, Jalapeños, and Potato Mines exist, yet you're worried about Bowling Bulbs dying?
EDIT: Doesn't Bowling Bulb have a similar advangage with Octo Zombies as with graves? Why then, is it utterly useless in BWB?
EDIT 2: "Making your own fun" is exactly why I love Electric Currant.
EDIT 3: 19:08
If they covered mainstream topics and argued all the points people agreed with, I wouldn't be all that interesting. Keep making these videos - they're great!
I find this plant designed much better in Grind Thousand where its range is restricted to three tiles. Basically, this plant is not hard to use. It is just hard to get any worth of because it antisynergizes with itself. If there are no zombies in the lane, it deals more dps. But if there are no zombies in the lane, all the high dps will be shot out at first zombie to come and bounce at no to one other enemies. On the other hand, with zombies in the lane the dps output gets minute, but there are zombies in the lane! The additional bounces won't likely save you from them as they punish zombies in many lanes. I would add a range to the plant as they did in GT000, and cut the shot speed in half to make the plant interesting and playable. Also, it should cost some 125 sun in the current state as it's not much better than a peashooter in dps (worthless all the time and sometimes big) but doesn't even get boosted by torchwood
This is the wallnut mini game from the first game but as a plant, the projectiles bounce between zombie and are alive, and beside most likely dying we have no idea what happens to them once off screen making it morally questionable at best.
The reason bowling bulb sucks is because it doesn't have wallnut bowling's sounds. I'd use it more if it gave me gool ol' bowling ASMR.
I love this youtube channel! Great videos!
I never used bowling bulb before this week's arena level, but by god it works wonders
Could someone please explain what the Mint currency from arena is for? I looked at the wiki, I looked on UA-cam, and I haven't found anything. I just started playing about a month ago. I used to play during the first ~three years of the game, but I stopped, and everything is so different now.
They're for Power Mints. These plants are bought from the shop at different months, & are used to power up the plants related to it for a short time.
Because I don't like Arena (for personal reasons against PvP modes in single-player games) & Arena is often based more on cheesing OP strats than skill, it's kinda hard to accumulate them effectively most of the time.
I'd recommend using them to just unlock & collect each Power Mint, & also to save all mint candies to level up your favorite one(s).
Also, remember when the world maps looked like a board game / diorama? Those were the good days...
@@TimerdonDWI I remember when they changed the map, so I had twin sunflower BEFORE I unlocked it on the new map. I was SO confused. X>
When you have zero ideas left
They missed the chance to name it Bowling Berries which rolls off the tongue better
I guess the hard, 2nd "b" in "bulb" is what does it
bowling bulbs are just the bowling minigame from the og pvz. prove me wrong
I think the best way to fix bowling is by making it manual similar to strawberry
Yes, that can work.