Winter Melon (Plants vs. Zombies 2)

For other uses, see Winter Melon (disambiguation).

Winter Melon
Winter Melons do heavy damage and chills groups of zombies.
Statistics
Sun Cost	500
Recharge	5 seconds
Toughness	300 damage
Damage	80 damage
Range	Lobbed
Area	3x3
Plant Food Power	10%
Chill	10 seconds
Family	Winter-mint
Plant Food effect	Launches frozen melons at every zombie, dealing both damage and splash damage on impact.
Firing Speed	1/2x
Statistics (China)
Sun Cost	500
Recharge	10 seconds
Toughness	300 damage
Damage	80 damage
Attack Rate	2.9 seconds
Range	Whole Lane to the Right
Area	3×3 AoE
Class	Ranged
Quality	Orange
Tags	Damage, catapult, area of effect, freezing
Plant features	Blue plant
In-game statistics
Unlocked	Beat Wild West - Day 24
Unlocked (China)	Collect 10 of its Puzzle Pieces
Costumes
Code name	wintermelon
You may recognize Winter Melon's voice from such incredible documentaries as "It's Cold Up Here," "Ice Bingo," and "Surfin' Swedes."

Winter Melon is a lobbed-shot plant in Plants vs. Zombies 2. He can be unlocked by beating Wild West - Day 24.

Winter Melon attacks by lobbing frozen melons, each having an identical damage profile to those of the Melon-pult, except that they also chill zombies that are in their area of effect (3x3), slowing movement and attack speed by 50%. As with Melon-pult, Winter Melon's attack is only triggered by a zombie appearing in the lane in which he is planted.

His chilling effect will be nullified if his target is also hit by attacks from fire based plants. While his attacks are powerful, he attacks slowly, but this is compensated by the slowing effect and the large splash area, taking out even mechanical enemies with terrifying ease when properly supported.

About

Winter Melon is acquired after unlocking the Locked and Loaded levels for the Wild West before the 1.7 update, beating Wild West - Day 24 after the 1.7 update, or collecting 10 Puzzle Pieces of it in the Chinese version.

He has received some changes compared to the first game: his price was raised to 500 sun, and the frozen melon now deals 40 splash damage to all zombies in a 3x3 area. He is also no longer an upgrade plant, meaning that Melon-pult is no longer required in order to plant a Winter Melon.

Almanac entry

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

Winter Melon
	SUN COST 500 RECHARGE 5 TOUGHNESS 300 DAMAGE 80 RANGE Lobbed AREA 3x3 PLANT FOOD POWER 10% Special Chill Winter-mint Plant Food: Launches frozen melons at every zombie, dealing both damage and splash damage on impact. Winter Melons do heavy damage and slow groups of zombies. You may recognize Winter Melon's voice from such incredible documentaries as "It's Cold Up Here," "Ice Bingo," and "Surfin' Swedes."

Chinese version  (China only)

冰西瓜投手能造成范围性的伤害并让僵尸减速。 发射速度：1/2倍速 范围：抛掷 特点：受伤的僵尸也被冰冻 植物特征：蓝色植物 你可能在这 [sic] 部伟大的纪录片中会认出冰西瓜的富有磁性的声音，比如“这上面很冷”“冰冻重击”还有“冲浪的因纽特人”。 In English: Winter Melon can do area of effect and slow zombies. Firing speed: 1/2x Range: lobbed Special: damaged zombies are also frozen Plant feature: blue plant Maybe you can recognise the husky voice of Winter Melon in this [sic] great documentary, like "It's Cold Up Here", "Frozen Crash" and "Surfing Inuit".

Upgrades

Plant Food effect

Plant Food ability (animated)

When given Plant Food, Winter Melon will turn into a mortar and unleash a barrage of giant frozen melons separated into four waves to all zombies on the field, just like Melon-pult. Each giant melon deals 200 damage to the initial target, but only 20 splash damage to every enemy in a 3x3 area.

The chill effect will also be inflicted to every zombie hit. If there is no valid target, a single melon per volley will be targeted on a random tile. The more enemies present, the more melons he fires. If there are too many enemies, he fires 4-5 bursts, each with at least 12 melons.

Winter-mint effect

When boosted by Winter-mint, Winter Melon will gain an additional 160 damage on his melons (with an additional 80 damage added to his splash damage), an additional 15 seconds will be added to his chill duration, and his plant food effect will deal an additional 425 damage.

Notably, the splash damage on his plant food effect is not increased when boosted.

Level upgrade

Level	Seed Packets	Coins	Upgrades
			Sun Cost	Recharge (Fast)	Toughness (Typical)	Damage (Heavy)		Projectile Velocity	Plant Food Power (Damage*)	Special (Chill)^	Range	Area
						Direct	Splash
1	0	0	500	5 seconds	300 damage	80 damage	40 damage	Normal	200 damage	10 seconds	Lobbed	3x3
2	10	1,000	500	4.5 seconds	350 damage	85 damage	45 damage		225 damage	11 seconds
3	75	5,000	450	4.5 seconds	400 damage	90 damage	50 damage	+ 1.3x	250 damage	11 seconds
4	200	10,000	450	4.5 seconds	450 damage	100 damage	55 damage		275 damage	12 seconds
5	400	20,000	450	4 seconds	550 damage	110 damage	60 damage		300 damage	12 seconds
6	750	40,000	400	4 seconds	600 damage	120 damage	65 damage		325 damage	13 seconds
7	1,000	40,000	400	3.5 seconds	650 damage	130 damage	70 damage	+ 1.6x	350 damage	13 seconds
8	1,250	50,000	400	3.5 seconds	700 damage	140 damage	75 damage		375 damage	14 seconds
9	1,500	60,000	350	3.5 seconds	800 damage	150 damage	80 damage		400 damage	14 seconds
10	2,000	75,000	350	3 seconds	900 damage	160 damage	80 damage		425 damage	15 seconds

*Direct damage per projectile. Its Plant Food splash damage does not change through upgrades.
^Applies to both normal and Plant Food states.

Mastery upgrades

• Chance to Boost
• Damage Pierce

Level upgrade (China only)

Level	Upgrades	Description
	Freeze 冻结	Winter Melon has a 7% chance to freeze zombies when he deals damage. 使冰西瓜攻击时有7%概率冻结住僵尸。
	Combat Training 战斗训练	Winter Melon gains 50% more attack power and health (150% of initial).
	Quick Freeze 快速降温	Winter Melon's chance of freezing a zombie will increase to 14%. Any zombie that gets caught in his splash will also get frozen solid. 使冻结的效果提升100%。
	Cell Activation 细胞活化	Winter Melon gains another 50% more attack power and health (200% of initial).
	Ability Awaken 能力觉醒	Winter Melon may be boosted when planted.
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Winter Melon gains another 50% more attack power and health (250% of initial).
	Winter Melon Slices 西瓜片	Winter Melon has a chance to throw melon slices which deal damage to all zombies in a lane. 有概率对一直线目标造成伤害
	Fighting Power 战斗能力	Winter Melon gains another 50% more attack power and health (300% of initial).

Costumed (China only)

He can now launch "Frost-Burn" melons that deal quadruple the damage of a frozen melon. This does not prevent him from slowing down enemies as they technically still count as ice effect.

Strategies

Compared to his incarnation in the previous game, Winter Melon has been significantly improved, both in his damage and crowd control capability. As a result, Winter Melon can now hold on his own against hordes of Buckethead Zombies and win most levels by himself. The removal of Melon-pult as a requirement, as well as the general ease of acquiring sun also benefits Winter Melon greatly. However, his low firepower compared to his hefty sun cost remains a great problem, so he should still be used as a supporting plant, rather than the player's sole offensive option.

To deploy Winter Melons earlier, Gold Blooms can be used to either earn more sun to plant him right away, or to help set up some sun-producing plants in order to gain the amount of sun required later on. In Endless Zones, as higher levels tend to be much more fast-paced, it may be wise to use leftover Plant Food on sun-producing plants (except Moonflowers) to deploy Winter Melons as soon as possible.

Due to being an ice plant, Winter Melon is also useful in disabling Explorer/Torchlight Zombies and Prospector Zombies, preventing them from burning through or bypassing the player's defense.

Winter Melon has good synergy with plants that cause zombies to cluster together, eg Primal Peashooter or Wall-Nut. Clustering allows the melons to deal more damage, and the melons' slowing effect means that the clustering plant will have more time to work.

However, he also possess some weaknesses:

• Shield Zombies' shields can completely nullify the melon's chilling effect. Therefore, it is better to pair him with plants that can reliably deal with these zombies, such as Laser Bean and Fume-Shroom.
• Surfer Zombies can block the projectiles while walking on land with their surfboards, as they are lobbed projectiles. However, the melons will still slow zombies normally.
• Parasol Zombies' parasols can deflect most lobbed projectiles (including Winter Melon's), thereby protecting her allies from Winter Melon's chilling effect entirely.
• Jester Zombies can reflect Winter Melon's projectile back at the plants, dealing heavy damage to your front lines, while the zombies themselves remain unharmed.
• Zombie Chickens and Ice Weasels also pose serious threats to Winter Melon, as they will often run in front of the horde and overwhelm the melons, preventing Winter Melon from hitting the bulk of the zombies. Pair him with plants such as Lightning Reed or Cold Snapdragon to take care of the critters quickly. Snapdragon is ill-advised due to his fire effects cancelling out Winter Melon's chilling effect.

Do not use the Winter Melon with fire plants unless absolutely necessary (like in former Modern Day 42/current Modern Day Dustup Step 6, where Winter Melon and Snapdragon are both critical plants). The chilling effect will be removed by the fire. If you use fire plants, you are better off by using Melon Pult, who provides the same splash damage at a lower cost.

As with many lobbing plants, he can miss if the Zombie is too fast, although due to chill and splash damage, this shouldn't be too big of a concern.

Locked and Loaded - Wild West

See also: Locked and Loaded, Wild West - Day 9, Wild West - Day 22

Although they might seem impractically expensive, Winter Melons are required in these levels in order to defeat the massive numbers of zombies which swarm the screen, especially Day 9 where both Lightning Reeds and Split Peas cannot reliably take care of Poncho Zombies. In Day 22, it is advised the player places one on the hindmost mine cart in order to slow down the zombies. Be aware that Zombie Chickens can throw off Winter Melon's aim, so Bloomerang and Repeater should still be planted in order to deal with them.

Endless Zones

Similar to in Survival Mode in the previous game, Winter Melon is a key plant in all Endless Zones, due to his ability to suppress the incoming threats, giving the player more reaction time. His Plant Food in particular will prove to be one of the player's most useful assets - the ever-increasing zombie density only serves to increase the amount of splash damage Winter Melon can generate, and multiple Winter Melons when linked with Tile Turnip in higher levels can fire off a gigantic amount of frozen melons, capable of devastating even Gargantuars with ease.

However, the player may find his price of 500 sun quite annoying early on due to the pace of Endless Zones, thus it's a good idea to have some early defenses to go along with him, such as Cold Snapdragon and instant-use plants or even just a simple Puff-shroom.

In Arthur's Challenge and Temple of Bloom, Winter Melon should not be used on levels with Jester Zombies and Parasol Zombies for aforementioned reasons. If the player wishes to boost multiple Winter Melons through Tile Turnip, it is recommended to link them to a non-damaging plant such as Sun-shroom and Iceberg Lettuce and then boost said plants, as boosting a Winter Melon first can accidentally kill off weaker zombies and as a result reduce the amount of splash damage dealt in the ensuing barrage.

Gallery

Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Winter Melon.

Visit this page to see it.

In other languages

Please note that only official translations are used.

Language	Name	Description
English	Winter Melon
Simplified Chinese	冰西瓜投手	lit. "Ice Melon-pult"
French	Courge	lit. "Cucurbit"
German	Wintermelone	lit. "Winter Melon"
Italian	Cocomero invernale	lit. "Winter Melon"
Japanese	ウィンターメロン	Transliteration
Brazilian Portuguese	Gelancia	Portmanteau of gelo and melancia
Russian	Ледяная арбузопульта	lit. "Ice Melon-pult"
Spanish	Melonpulta congelada	lit. "Frozen Melon-pult"

Trivia

• He, Banana Launcher, and Missile Toe are the second most expensive plants in the game (500 sun each), the most expensive being Tile Turnip, with his cost capable of going up to 16,000 (64,000 in the Chinese version) sun.
• He is the only upgrade plant from Plants vs. Zombies to not have his total sun cost changed in Plants vs. Zombies 2.
• His vine that connects his body to his basket and his leaves under him are now completely blue, unlike the first game.
• The Almanac states that he does the same damage as a Melon-pult, even though in the first game, the Almanac states falsely that he does very heavy damage.
• He is featured in Wild West - Days 9 and 22, despite not being unlocked yet.
• His Winter Hat costume is a reference to Eric Cartman's hat from the hit animated TV show South Park.
  • Likewise, his Chinese costume is Kyle Broflovski's hat from the same show.
• He is not immune to the freezing winds in Frostbite Caves despite being a cold plant. The same applies to Iceberg Lettuce, Snow Pea and Cryo-shroom.
• His Almanac entry could be a reference to Simpsons character Troy McClure.
• Unlike other plants, his cost is reduced by 50 sun with each sun cost reduction when he is being leveled up. Other plants only have their sun cost reduced by 25 sun when they level up.
• Winter Melon uses the same watering animation as Melon-pult.

See also

• Lobbed shots
• Melon-pult

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