Excavator Zombie is the seventh zombie encountered in Lost City in Plants vs. Zombies 2. He holds a golden shovel that can protect himself and all zombies behind him from incoming projectiles shot by straight-shooting plants like Peashooter. Additionally, he can shovel up plants when he gets close to them and throws them three tiles back.
As the Almanac suggests, his main weakness is lobber plants, such as A.K.E.E. or Melon-pult. He can also be shot from behind by the likes of Split Pea. The player can also use an area of effect plant, like Laser Bean or Fume-shroom, which can ignore his shovel. Note that Coconut Cannon's projectiles can only deal splash damage to him.
Damage: blocks incoming projectiles, but is vulnerable to lobbed shots
Excavator Zombie once heard a song about having a hammer. He liked the idea, but decided it was too mainstream for him - so he got a shovel. Now he's confident that he's clearly the coolest zombie, the others are just too jealous to admit it.
Overview
Excavator Zombie absorbs 350 damage and degrades upon absorbing 175 damage, before dying at 350 damage.
Excavator Zombies are one of Lost City's most dangerous threats because his shovel denies all projectiles fired directly at him, and he can easily remove any defensive plants.
If you see this zombie on the seed selection screen, make sure to bring a plant whose attacks are not absorbed by the shovel (e.g. as Penny mentions, lobber plants). After seeing this zombie entering the lawn, plant a lobbed-shot plant, and try to use other plants to keep him stunned for a while (two A.K.E.E.s are enough to kill him). However, this must be done quickly as he can reach your lawn mower or house if you don't defeat it in time. When these zombies come alone, using a Bonk Choy can be a good way to defeat them (the punches bypass his shovel and can attack from behind). Similar to Bonk Choy, the Celery Stalker and Split Pea can also attack the Excavator Zombie from behind.
The Excavator Zombie is also weak against Area Effect plants since they will ignore the shovel. Two columns of Laser Beans should be enough to kill the Excavator Zombie before he gets near your defensive plants. After an update though, he can actually eat plants. If you put the plant while his shovel is in a different tile, he will attempt to eat so now using Chili Bean or Explode-O-Nut is a valid option to stall him. Unusually, he can eat Spikeweeds and Spikerocks too.
Do not use Plant Food on the straight shooting-based plants when Excavator Zombie is approaching. It will only compound your problems, as Excavator Zombie will block them all, wasting Plant Food. Exceptions are plants that can penetrate the shovel.
Primal Peashooters, while they will not damage the zombie, will still occasionally stun or push back the zombie, making them useful for stalling them.
The Infi-nut is extremely useful against him with his Plant Food ability, as the force field will prevent him from moving plants behind the Infi-nut.
Note that, unless they are behind, above, or below him, Homing Thistles will not be able to strike him, since they will shoot his shovel rather than his back.
Although Phat Beet bypasses his shovel, it is a bad choice to use them because he can survive due to his speed, either shoveling or passing them very quickly.
Split Pea is good against him as it will still shovel up Split Pea to behind, causing its reverse repeater to attack him
With Parasol Zombie
A Parasol Zombie and Excavator Zombie pair can be very hard to defeat, because they move very fast and can stop any projectile. Instant-use plants are still your best choices to kill them, along with two plants with forward projectiles and two lobber plants in the same lane. Two Red Stingers and two A.K.E.E.s can kill them. However, it is not recommended to use forward or lobber plants without area of effect as these zombies will often show up in groups in later levels.
In this level, Excavator Zombies only come in the first and last lane, where there are endangered A.K.E.E.s. They can throw them behind, making them vulnerable. Therefore, you can plant one more A.K.E.E. to kill them as soon as possible, so they cannot reach your endangered plants. One A.K.E.E. cannot handle this zombie if he is protected by other zombies in front of him, because the target of A.K.E.E. is still limited.
Excavator Zombie only appears in 4 levels in Modern Day, one being the Zomboss battle and another being an expansion level. In both normal level appearances, he is very deadly. In Modern Day - Day 12, this zombie is paired with Parasol Zombie, as well as dinosaurs and the objective of not losing more than 10 plants. He will also appear very early in the level too. Using Guacodile in this case will help immensely, as it does not count as losing a plant.
However, it is still a poor choice unless you use Plant Food or plant him directly on the Excavator Zombie. Modern Day - Day 2, is a bit different. Excavator Zombie can shovel up valuable plants like Coconut Cannon closer to the zombies, rendering them useless. It is best to revive all the Kernel-pults and the two Phat Beets in the middle of the lawn against him. The Fume-shroom can also inflict great damage if he is buttered.
Excavator Zombies start appearing during Level 11 onwards of Highway to the Danger Room. He can be very threatening, especially if multiple Lost Cityportals spawn early. Instant use plants should be used, as well as lobbed shot plants. However, with other zombies such as Shield Zombie and Jester Zombie, using area of effect plants is more optimal.
Excavator Zombies are very dangerous during the punk jam as their speed doubles, making them much difficult to beat. They also tend to be paired with Parasol Zombies and Punk Zombies, whose speeds are also very fast. When these zombies appear in large numbers, they can destroy many of your plants in seconds, causing you to lose the game without spending coins on Plant Food or power ups. To prevent this, Stallia and Hurrikale are effective with slowing groups of zombies.
Area Effect plants make good use here to take out a lane or area of zombies. It is recommended that you put plants near the back of your lawn so that they do not get overwhelmed. Infi-nut's Plant Food also renders them ineffective, as they are unable to use their abilities and so can be finished by a few Snapdragons.
Before an update, if Excavator Zombie lost his shovel (by being hit by splash damage from Coconut Cannon or Dandelion), he would run very quickly through any plant he encountered without eating them. This cannot be observed now, as the glitch has been removed.
However, if he reached a Hypno-shroom planted one space ahead of him, he would eat the plant and be affected.
His eating animation can be seen by placing a plant behind him, or by placing a plant directly on him.
This is due to him reusing a line of code from Explorer Zombie that makes him ignore plants instead of eating them.
As of 9.6.1, due to Bramble Bush's ability to remove items, this code was removed, meaning Excavator can now eat plants that are placed on the same tile as him.
Unless it is planted right underneath him, he can shovel up Chard Guard before it can hurl him backwards.
Similarly, Guacodile will not trigger his rush attack unless he is planted right on Excavator Zombie. If a Guacodile gets shoveled up, he will not do his rush attack after he lands unless he encounters another zombie.
He does not dig Infi-nut's or Moonflower's shield and is forced to eat them like a normal zombie with the animation being smashing it with his shovel. He also does this to hypnotized zombies, plant spawnables, some plants with delayed-activation like Stunion, plants planted directly onto his tile, and when he "eats" the player's brains.
When he loses his arm, it will not show the bone that most zombies do. His arm pops off, unlike other sound sprites of other zombies.
A plant will get shoveled up even if the player uses a Hurrikale to push back an Excavator Zombie in the middle of the act.
The phrase "a song about having a hammer" is a reference to the song "If I Had a Hammer" by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays.
This is the first time the song is referenced, the second being in the description of Smoosh-Shroom (whose mushroom cap resembles a hammer).
If the plant he is shoveling is in the seventh or eighth column, it will be thrown to the rightmost column instead of being thrown off the lawn like Mecha-Football Zombie or Fisherman Zombie. This happens as long as there are no more plants behind.
However, if the plant is in the rightmost column, it will be tossed away normally.
If he gets ashed, the sound effects of him shoveling up a plant are still heard even after he dies.
Even though Cactus has the ability to pierce through zombies, he does not take damage when Cactus' thorns pierce through his body. The same applies to SeaFlora.
In some areas of the Chinese version, such as the world preview, he has a silver shovel.
This may be why he has unused animations of his Shovel being stolen by Magnet-Shroom.
In previous versions of the Chinese version, he was immune to lobber plants. This made him nearly impossible to defeat.
He is one of the two zombies to have a shovel, with the other being Mixed-Up Gravedigger.
He is voiced by Chris Sampson according to the credits.
If he is hit by a straight-shooting projectile during his shoveling animation, he will not take damage despite the fact that he is not being protected by the shovel during the animation.
However, if he turns around (by Sweet Potato's Plant Food ability), his shovel will not protect him and he can be easily killed.
In his Almanac entry (in both the international and Chinese version), for some reason the icon for health (the shield) is green instead of purple.
Between the 6.3 and 7.0 updates, when he was defeated, he would drop two shovels, the one in his hand and the other dropped slightly ahead of him. When he collapsed the shovel he held would quickly despawn.
His shovel can block projectiles fired by Power Snow.
