From Plants vs. Zombies Wiki
- For the version in Plants vs. Zombies Heroes, see Zombie King (PvZH).
Zombie King is the tenth zombie encountered in Dark Ages. This zombie's main role is to provide a boost in toughness to Peasant Zombies, Conehead Peasants, and Buckethead Peasants by granting them knight helms and transforming them into Knight Zombies. The Zombie King does not move; an Announcer Imp will appear on a tile in the rightmost column, blow a horn, and the Zombie King will fall down and crush the Announcer Imp along with any plants on the Zombie King's respective tile. He has also been seen moving onto the rightmost tiles but never more than this. He will then remain on that tile until he is defeated. If there are no other zombies on the lawn at the end of the level, all Zombie Kings will be defeated.
Audio
Appearance
He will fall down on the Announcer Imp on the rightmost column of any row, or simply move there on its own. He will remain there and convert all Peasant Zombies near it into Knight Zombies.
He has a brown beard and a golden crown on its head. It sits on a throne and holds a scepter. He has a red fur coat and a purple shirt, He also wears a red ring on his right hand. Zombie Kings wear lime green colored pants and a pair of brown shoes. The horn blown by the Announcer Imp can be seen under the throne of Zombie King, as well as one Imp hand and a leg, too.
Almanac entry
Zombie King
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Grants knight helms to nearby peasant zombies.
As Shakespeare once wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." And Zombie King couldn't agree more. It is incredibly difficult to get a good night's sleep with a crown on your head. That thing is all kinds of uncomfortable.
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Encounters
Overview
Zombie King absorbs 1000 damage and his appearance changes upon absorbing 500 damage before dying at 1000 damage.
Strategies
General
When you see this zombie on the lawn, kill it quickly or destroy all the Peasant Zombies as fast as you can because it will slowly transform all those zombies nearby into Knight Zombies, who absorb a lot of damage. An easy way is to use Primal Potato Mine on nearby Peasant Zombies to kill it instantly as they have splash damage. Although it does not move, close-range plants like Snapdragon and Bonk Choy are useless (unless fed with Plant Food), as other zombies will quickly overwhelm them. Chompers and Toadstools are also useless as they cannot devour the zombie and can only damage it. In addition, avoid using Homing Thistles and Coconut Cannons as they can easily be distracted by other zombies or any nearby tombstones, unlike most offensive plants. The best strategy to deal with it is to put a column of Magnet-shroom, as they will attract Knight Helms, making the Peasant Zombies useless. However, Zombie Kings can immediately replace them back, meaning defeating the zombie afterwards must be done quickly. Because of that, avoid using Citrons as when they destroy the knight helm, the helms will be immediately granted back, thus wasting their previous attacks and causing them to have a hard time destroying the Peasant Zombies. Butter from Kernel-pult may help, especially when fed with Plant Food, ensuring no Peasant Zombies can be granted Knight Helms. Garlic are somewhat useful as it is possible to lure them away into other lanes, where the player will have less trouble taking them out. Spikeweeds and Spikerocks cannot be placed on Zombie Kings, and will be crushed when a Zombie King appears. Brute force from your plants will also work if you have enough fire-power. Shadow-shrooms are useful (especially with Plant Food) as they will ignore all helms and destroy the Peasant Zombies instantly. Banana Launchers and Missile Toes are also useful as they can send a powerful attack to any tile on the screen. Hypno-Shroom, Enchant-Mint and Caulipower can be used to remove any peasant variant as a threat, turning them against other zombies while distracting the Zombie King, who will continue to restore their helms.
When the first huge wave comes, three Zombie Kings will immediately appear at once. A Kernel-pult should stun them, so you can try planting as many as you can before they appear. Kill it quickly with Fume-shrooms and plant Pea-nuts to protect your plants from the Knight Zombies. However, save the Plant Foods, only use them when the zombies cannot be killed.
These, along with Jester Zombies, Knight Zombies, Wizard Zombies, and Dark Ages Gargantuars are very dangerous if all of them appear in one level, especially that this zombie does not move, which ensures that fast and stronger zombies such as Jester Zombie and Dark Ages Gargantuar absorb most of your attacks, similar to Wizard Zombie. If you see these five types of dangerous zombies in large numbers in one level, all of these zombies can cause massive havoc on your lawn, emptying everything and causing you to lose the game. To prevent massive havoc from happening, you must have a Cherry Bomb, and some very heavy hitting plants, like Winter Melons, as well as, area of effect plants such as Laser Bean. In later levels, boosts such as Iceberg Lettuce are highly recommended.
The Zombie King can be a considerable threat in Piñata Parties, but only in the presence of Peasant Zombies. Due to most Piñata Parties using Escalation to spawn zombies, Peasant Zombie and his armored variants appear frequently in certain Parties with Zombie King, allowing for more zombies for him to work with. Outside of that, he does absolutely nothing and only serves as a meatshield for zombies entering the lawn.
Balance changes
Update 5.8.1
- ▲ Health increased from 1000 damage to 1500 damage
Update 6.0.1
- ▼ Health decreased from 1500 damage to 1000 damage
Gallery
Plants vs. Zombies Wiki has a gallery for Zombie King.
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In other languages
Please note that only official translations are used.
Language |
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Description
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English
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Zombie King
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Simplified Chinese
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国王僵尸
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Lit. "King Zombie"
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French
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Roi zombie
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German
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Zombiekönig
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Italian
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Re Zombi
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Brazilian Portuguese
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Zumbi Rei
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Spanish
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Rey Zombi
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Trivia
- He is the first zombie that does not have speed listed in its Almanac entry because he cannot move. The same applies to the Fisherman Zombie.
- William Shakespeare's passage "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown" is a reference to the first scene of the third act of Henry IV.
- The Announcer Imp is present in the Dark Ages trailers. It holds two parts of a coconut and makes a galloping horse sound to pretend that the Knight Zombie was riding a horse. Then they would stop by and visit the Jester Zombie and the Imp Monk Zombies. This is likely a reference to the British comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
- Zombie King in his Almanac picture is seen with his scepter.
- He can restore helms to any peasant zombie as long as they don't currently have one.
- In older versions, Zombie King did not disintegrate when a Cherry Bomb was used; instead, the head fell off as normal. This trait was shared with the Zombie Bull, Fisherman Zombie, and all of the mechanical Far Future zombies.
- However, in the newer updates, he now reuses the charred animation for most zombies also.
- The death animation of this zombie is different from the others; his head breaks away from his body and rolls down his belly, and then the zombie and his head disappear.
- Zombie King, Fisherman Zombie, Imp Cannon, Zombot Tuskmaster 10,000 BC, and Zombot Multi-stage Masher are the only zombies that cannot move.
- Zombie King cannot be blown away by Blover when falling and will not be bounced away by the Spring Bean or Reinforce-mint. However, Citron's Plant Food effect can still toss him away.
- Unlike Imp Cannons, there can only be one Zombie King per lane. This trait is shared with the Fisherman Zombie.
- He cannot be moved by Spikeweeds or Spikerocks, or by the Power Toss.
- However, in the piñata party of October the 1st in 2019, it was possible to move the appearing Zombie Kings forward (and backward again) by using Spikeweed's Plant Food ability. This glitch was probably a result of the fact that Thyme Warp could be used on him, which is impossible in adventure mode at least prior to Update 10.5.1, when Thyme Warp could now be used across all worlds.
- The same level appeared in level 2 of Witch Hazel's Epic Quest in 2019 from the 19th of November until the 26th of November.
- If the Zombie King has Plant Food, then the Announcer Imp will visually have Plant Food too.
- He is the first zombie to make vocal noises in his Almanac entry. Formerly, Zombot Multi-stage Masher had vocal voices in its Almanac entry, but this was patched in the 4.2.1 update.
- Announcer Imp is not generally counted as a zombie, as it does not have any effect on the game's flow or outcome (it does not move further than one tile and does not eat plants or brains, nor does it summon or boost zombies).
- Tombstones will be crushed by the Zombie King if he falls on one.
- The player cannot plant on an Announcer Imp, but if there already is a plant on the tile when the Announcer Imp arrives, it will remain there until the Zombie King falls.
- In the Dark Ages' preview and the icon in the Almanac, there is no dirt around his throne.
- In the soft release of Dark Ages Part 2, he had the Protected toughness according to his Almanac entry. This was later changed to Dense after the update.
- Zombie King, Imp Porter, Z-Mech, and Cardio Zombie are the only zombies that can crush a Spikerock immediately.
- He can also destroy all kinds of plant. However, for the instant-use plants, this happens rarely.
- Zombie King does not heal the Peasant Zombie while granting a helm. Therefore, the player can see a Knight Zombie with an intact helmet but without one of his arms.
- A similar effect can be observed with Shadow-shroom and Goo Peashooter, as the poison effect ignores armor.
- The helmet will still be granted to the Peasant Zombie with both shoulder pads even if the Peasant Zombie is missing one arm.
- The Zombie King is voiced by Mark Barrett and Chris Sampson according to the credits.
- In the credits and in the Travel Log, this zombie is called "King Zombie."
- He, Bungee Zombie, Zomboni, Catapult Zombie, Imp Cannon, Pianist Zombie, Wizard Zombie, Fisherman Zombie, Octo Zombie, Excavator Zombie, Jurassic Rockpuncher and Zcorpion Zombie are the only non-Gargantuar zombies that do not eat plants.
- Zombie King holds the record of being in the least amount of Adventure mode levels, being 4 in total as he does not make any appearances in Modern Day. (Levels that it is in are Dark ages Night 16, 17, 18, 19)
See also