Nightcap (Plants vs. Zombies 2)

Bring BIG SURPRISE!

This item is only obtainable during certain events. However, it can still be used if you have already obtained it. It is currently available.

For more information about this character, see Night Cap.

Nightcap
Nightcap shoots piercing poisonous stars down the lane and withdraws into a toxic stealth mode when zombies get too close.
Statistics
Sun Cost	300
Recharge	5 seconds
Damage	30
Range	Multi-Hit
Plant Food Power	20%
Special	Poison
Family	Ail-mint
Plant Food effect	Poison Zombies in 3 lanes and push them back!
Special	Avoids most zombie attacks
In-game statistics
Unlocked	250 seed packets
Costumes	File:Nightcap Costume2.png
Code name	nightcap
Nightcap's always had a keen sense for justice, back from when she was a tiny spore watching late-night ninja movies instead of concentrating on her mycology homework.

“	Plant Nightcaps to shoot poison stars!	”
—Penny

Nightcap is a premium plant added in the 10.8.1 update of Plants vs. Zombies 2 as part of the “Nightcap’s Covert Season” arena. She attacks by shooting piercing stars in a four tile area ahead of her in a similar manner to Fume-shroom, these stars deal poisonous damage which lasts for 2 seconds.

Nightcap is also able to enter a stealth mode when zombies get close to her, in a similar manner to Cactus, Shadow Peashooter, and Scaredy-shroom. Nightcap cannot be damaged by any zombie attacks when she's in this stealth mode and she is able to deal poisonous damage to any zombie occupying her tile. In the Chinese version, her stealth mode lasts for 10 seconds, with a cooldown of 10 seconds before she can enter stealth mode again.

Origins

Nightcap gets her name from the plant with the same name from Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, however her appearance and attack is based on Nightcap's appearance in the pre-2021 version of Plants vs. Zombies 3, while her stealth form is based on Nightcap's Shadow Sneak ability from her Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville appearance.

Overview

Nightcaps have special abilities, which is similar to instant-use plants such as Power Mints and also Sundew Tangler:

• They cannot be destroyed by most means:
  • They cannot be eaten by zombies. Instead, the zombies will just walk through them.
  • They cannot be carried away by Zombie Parrot.
  • They cannot be crushed by crashing zombies. If Troglobite or Arcade Zombie run into them, they will stop pushing ice blocks or the arcade machine and just go ahead.
  • They cannot be transformed into sheep by Wizard Zombie and can't be covered by octopus from Octo Zombie.
  • However, they can be destroyed when Zombot Tuskmaster 10,000 BC makes ice blocks over where they are planted or speakers are spawned from Zombot Multi-stage Masher. They can also be destroyed by Zombie King, and drowned by the tide if not planted on a Lily Pad.
• They can not be pulled by Fisherman Zombie and can also block him from pulling other plants behind them.
• They are not affected by Boombox Zombie.
• Jester Zombie's reflected projectiles just pass through them.
• They are immune to freezing winds in Frostbite Caves.
• Dr. Zomboss will be stunned when he attempts to ram them.

Almanac entry

Note: The stats shown below only apply to Level 1.

Nightcap
	SUN COST 300 RECHARGE 5 DAMAGE 30 RANGE Multi-Hit PLANT FOOD POWER 20% Special Poison Ail-mint Plant Food: Poison [sic] Zombies in 3 lanes and push them back! Nightcap shoots piercing poisonous stars down the lane and withdraws into a toxic stealth mode when zombies get too close. Special: avoids most zombie attacks Nightcap's always had a keen sense for justice, back from when she was a tiny spore watching late-night ninja movies instead of concentrating on her mycology homework.

Upgrades

Plant Food effect

When given Plant Food, Nightcap will deal heavy damage to zombies in a 3x5 area, also poison them and push them back if they are surviving.

Ail-mint effect

When boosted by Ail-mint, Nightcap will deal an additional 200 damage with her normal attacks, an additional 300 damage with her poison attacks.

Level upgrades

Level	Seed Packets	Coins	Upgrades
			Sun Cost	Recharge	Starting Recharge	Damage	Special (Poison Zombies)		Attack Range	Plant Food Power (Damage)
							Damage	Duration
1	0	0	300	5 seconds	3 seconds	30 damage	20 damage	2 seconds	4 tiles	2000 damage
2	50					40 damage	30 damage
3	100					50 damage	40 damage
4	200					60 damage				3000 damage
5	300					70 damage	50 damage	3 seconds
6	400					80 damage			5 tiles
7	500					90 damage	55 damage	4 seconds		4000 damage
8	600					100 damage	65 damage
9	800					110 damage		5 seconds	6 tiles	4200 damage
10	1,000					120 damage	70 damage	6 seconds		5000 damage

Mastery upgrades

• Chance to Boost
• Damage Pierce

Level upgrades (China only)

Level	Upgrades	Description
	File:Nightcap Upgrade 1.png Ninjutsu Training 忍术训练	The attack range of Nightcap is increased by 1 tile, and the cooldown time of the stealth form is reduced by 2.5 seconds. 暗夜菇的攻击范围增加1格，暗夜形态的冷却时间减少2.5秒
	Combat Training 战斗训练	Nightcap gains 50% more attack power and health (150% of initial).
	File:Nightcap Upgrade 2.png Ninjutsu Strengthening 忍术强化	The attack range of Nightcap is increased by 1 tile again, and the cooldown time of the stealth form is reduced by 2.5 seconds again. 暗夜的攻击范围再次增加1格，暗夜形态的冷却时间再次减少2.5秒
	Cell Activation 细胞活化	Nightcap gains another 50% more attack power and health (200% of initial).
	Ability Awaken 能力觉醒	Nightcap may be boosted when planted.
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Nightcap gains another 50% more attack power and health (250% of initial).
	File:Nightcap Upgrade 3.png Energy Splash 能量飞溅	Every time Nightcap attacks, there is a 15% chance to fuse all small energy balls into a large energy ball, which is then fired and disappears at the 6th tile at front. During which, when the large energy ball hits a zombie, 1 small energy ball will be spawned on each of the nearby rows for every tile it travels. The small energy balls spawned will travel perpendicular to the locus of the large energy ball until they hit a zombie or leave the lawn. They explode upon hitting a zombie, damaging all zombies within the same tile can deal Stun I for 0.5 seconds. 暗夜菇的每次攻击有15%概率，将所有的小能量球融合成大能量球向前发射直到第6格消失，大能量球在飞行过程中击中僵尸后，将会朝上下分别分裂出1颗小能量球，每格最多触发1次，小能量球会分别朝上下直线飞行直到击中僵尸或飞出场外，击中僵尸后产生爆炸，对单格范围内僵尸造成伤害并且眩晕Ⅰ0.5秒
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Nightcap gains another 50% more attack power and health (300% of initial).

Strategies

Nightcap has great potential under her awesome appearance. Although she costs a lot of sun, she’ll definitely brighten your eyes and be worth the money. From her attack mode, she’s like Fume-shroom of the same plant family, that is, she can trigger her attack when there is a target within front 4 tiles, but obviously has more advantages: first, she can poison zombies, which is similar to the effect of Shadow-shroom, and second, when the zombie is too close, returning to toxic stealth state, which makes up for the shortcoming of its close attack. Her poisoning ability can ignore armor, which makes her particularly effective against a group of zombies like Buckethead Zombies, but not very useful against units like Gargantuars and mechanical zombies.

Try to plant some defensive/slowdown plants/stun plants forward, such as Buttercup and Iceweed, which can prevent her from returning to invisible state, and also make its poison to kill zombies faster. At level one, the damage per second she causes is actually higher than that of Melon-pult with the similar amount of sun cost, and they are both group-effective plants. Because it can be seen as an upgraded-version of Fume-shroom, some strategies of Fume-shroom can be applied to Nightcap. For example, Nightcap is effective against zombies that attempt to shield themselves from normal projectiles, such as Barrel Roller Zombie, Shield Zombie and Excavator Zombie, hitting through their protection and killing them easily. It is worth to note that its poison doed not work in grid items such as tombstones.

After the level upgrade, the performance of Nightcap has improved by leaps and bounds. Apart from the steady increase of normal attack damage, its poisoning effect has also been strengthened, making it "infinitely" poison zombie (if it keeps attacking them) at level five. This is because its poisoning duration exceeds its attack interval. At level six, she gained an additional attack range of 1 tile and another one in level nine. These made one of her disadvantages - short-range completely offset. Plus the features of poisoning zombies and high-damage attack, zombies generally can not pass through Nightcap. However, with the level upgrades, the sun cost of Nightcap has not decreased.

Therefore, it is recommended to carry efficient sun-producing plants such as Gold Bloom or Solar Sage to get more sun and plant more Nightcap. Nightcap are particularly effective in some fields, such as Endless Zone. When powered by Ail-mint, Nightcap gains a lot of damage increases, making it common attack and poison attack reach an amazing level. Considering the attack interval of Nightcap and the duration of Ail-mint, Nightcap can quickly destroy a large group of zombies after Ail-mint's poisoning effect. Total poison damage of max-level Nightcap powered by Ail-mint can reach 2220, and there are also additional 320 normal-attack damage. Nightcap's Plant Food effect is to deal huge damage to targets within the 3x5 area, and to poison and knock back the undefeated zombies. It is as practical as Fume-shroom's.

Nightcap is almost invincible, which makes her useful in levels that does not allow you to lose plants. Some zombies are immune to poisoning, such as Healer Zombie and Zombie Medusa. The former will even cure other poisoned zombies, greatly reducing total damage of Nightcap. Someone may compare Nightcap with Goo Peashooter. Although Goo Peashooter has a faster attack speed and a lower sun cost, it can only affect one zombie per pea, while Nightcap's stars can damage all zombies in an area. Not to mention Nightcap's poison is higher than Goo Peashooter's. The only advantage of Goo Peashooter is its ability to slow down zombie, and this thing is often not very effective because it requires many stacks to reach 50%. The comparison of their Plant Food effects is also a complete victory for Nightcap, as Nightcap can deal a large amount of damage (accurately 2000 damage at level 1), and also has the ability to poison and knockback zombies. The only thing better about Goo Peashooter's Plant Food effect than Nightcap's is that its knockback can be combined with Blover.

Gallery

Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Night Cap.

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Nightcap
Simplified Chinese	暗夜菇	lit. "Dark Night Mushroom"
French	Bonnet de nuit
German	Nachtporling
Italian	Berretto da notte
Brazilian Portuguese	Touquinha	Diminutive for the Portuguese word touca
Russian	Ночной Колпак/Ночная Шляпка
Spanish	Gorro de noche

Trivia

• Nightcap is the second plant to debut in Plants vs. Zombies 3 before Plants vs. Zombies 2, the first being Buttercup.
• Before making her introduction in 10.8.1 loading screen as one of the featured plants, Nightcap has made several cameo appearances in the loading screen since the 9.3.1 update, long before she was added to the game:
  • From the 9.3.1 to 9.6.1 update before her abrupt disappearance in 9.7.1 update, Nightcap can be seen behind between Squash and Parsnip.
  • In the 9.8.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen with Parsnip, Headbutter Lettuce, Tall-nut, Spore-shroom and Sunflower.
  • In the 9.9.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen behind Tomb Tangler.
  • In the 10.0.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen in the time-space background, behind the Octo Zombie.
  • In the 10.1.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be subtly seen near Turkey-pult's tofu turkey.
  • In the 10.2.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen hanging on #feastivuscaketank at the right of loading screen.
  • In the 10.3.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen inside Penny along with Wall-nut.
  • In the 10.4.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be subtly seen standing on the rooftop of the house at the left of loading screen.
  • In the 10.5.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen standing on the beach afar as a silhouette, near the game's logo.
  • In the 10.6.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen outside of the ZCorp buildling.
  • In the 10.7.1 loading screen, Nightcap can be seen standing on the rooftop at the right of loading screen.
• Despite having sprites for it, Nightcap's costume went unused in the international version, but was added properly into the chinese version.

See also

• Fume-shroom
• Goo Peashooter

View · Edit	Plants (Tower defense)	L · G