It can also call in a Corn Strike in which each corn can deal up to 70 damage. The Corn Strike attack takes 10 seconds to recharge. Although it is very strong and fast, it has a weakness of fragility, with having only 5 health.
It can also fly for a limited amount of distance, shown by a Flight Power bar at the bottom. It takes 60 seconds to recharge. Its zombie counterpart is the Zombot Drone (Garden Warfare only) and Parrot Pal (Garden Warfare 2 and Battle for Neighborville only). The alternate abilities of this ability are the Artichoke Drone, the Dark Garlic Drone, and the Red Artichoke.
Associated upgrades (Battle for Neighborville only)
Spotlight
● 2
Display health bar of enemy to team by dealing damage with Needle Shot.
Sustenance
● 4
Gain flight fuel by earning a vanquish with Garlic Drone.
Strategies
With
The Garlic Drone is great for vanquishing players, especially in modes such as Suburbination, Gnome Bomb, and Herbal Assault. It has a fast fire rate, and each shot will deal a lot of damage. The corn strike is slow, but will deal a lot of damage, so place it in a strategic spot where zombies are or will run to. You will likely only get to use one corn strike, but it is possible to use two if you're fast enough.
However, the Garlic Drone has its downsides. Its shots are extremely inaccurate, making vanquishing a lot harder. Combine this with its low health, it can be difficult to defeat a zombie with its primary weapon. The corn strike, while damaging, is extremely slow, takes a second to fall down, and takes at least 2 seconds for the corn to detonate, allowing zombies to move out of the way.
Against
Garlic Drones are extremely obnoxious to take care of, as you might concentrate on shooting them. Good targets are most Scientist, All-Star, and Engineer variants (except ones with good accuracy or a high rate of fire such as the Mechanic), which are typically worse at getting rid of Garlic Drones due to their short range or bullet drop. Other classes have easier means of defeating Garlic Drones.
Ascending or descending while controlling it will deplete its flight time marginally faster.
As with some other features being closely related to Battlefield, it was mentioned in a commentary that Cactus is a reconnaissance/sniper, and the Garlic Drone is its MAV.
It is possible to fly with it. Any player must simply stand on top of it and it must be moved by the Cactus. It is possible for the Cactus to ride it too, although it requires being on the near edge of an object.
This is not a glitch. It is a solid object which cannot be passed through. Due to this, it can be ridden on, and since it can move, it can also move anything standing on top of it.
It can be destroyed if it touches the water. This applies to all drones.
It can be destroyed by its own corn strike if it flies too near to it. This also applies to all drones.
In very early footage of the game, there used to be a caption on the screen right when deploying it, saying: "Garlic Drone Ready!". It also says the Corn Strike is ready when throwing down corn strikes. The text was most likely scrapped due to it probably being unneeded for the game.