Cattail is a plant in Plants vs. Zombies. It attacks zombies by firing homing spikes at the nearest zombie to it.
It is an upgrade for the Lily Pad and becomes available to purchase before playing Level 4-5. It costs $10,000 to buy from Crazy Dave’s Twiddydinkies and 225 sun to upgrade Lily Pad in the Pool. It fires two spikes at the same speed of a Repeater and can pop the balloons of Balloon Zombies, who it prioritizes over all other zombies when they are still airborne.
Because a single Cattail can cover all six lanes and have the damage and rate of fire of a Repeater, it makes a good early defensive plant. It also prioritizes Balloon Zombies and helps deal with Digger Zombies and Imps. However, they are easily overran because they cover all six lanes and, when there aren’t any Balloon Zombies, go after the zombie that’s closest to them. For example, a Cattail may be targeting a Conehead Zombie, then a Pole Vaulting Zombie that overtakes the Conehead and becomes closer, letting the Conehead Zombie go on unhindered. Also, all of your Cattails will typically fire at the same target (except under certain conditions). While this makes Cattails a very powerful plant in the right circumstances (a large number of them can even kill a Gargantuar in a short amount of time). This also means relying on them as your sole attacking plant is a bad idea.
It is a good idea to use Cattails in large numbers in Survival Mode that take place in Pool or Fog, as they do well against Balloon Zombies. Do not forget to back them up with more consistent firing plants, such as Repeaters or Melon-pults.
Cattails can be very useful in large numbers as they can destroy zombies rather quickly and will be able to save space in other lanes. However, the fact that they are only available in Pool and Fog limits their utility.Its leaves’ filenames in the game are Cat_paw1.png, Cattail_paw2.png, and Cattail_paw3.png.
It is the only upgrade plant that is aquatic and is also the only offensive upgrade plant that upgrades from an unoffensive plant. It is also the only aquatic plant that needs to be planted on Lily Pad.
It can be downgraded to a Lily Pad if the player has a Pumpkin on it and tries to dig it up, as that would cause the Pumpkin to fall into the water otherwise. Bungee Zombies can also downgrade it with a Pumpkin. This makes it the only plant to be able to downgrade.
It is the most expensive aquatic plant, costing 225 (25 extra for Lily Pad) sun with a 250 sun total. However, this value can rise in Survival: Endless due to the increasing price of upgrade plants.
During the ending credits of Zombies on Your Lawn, it is shown next to Laura Shigihara’s name. She says it is because it is her favorite plant.
When a zombie is defeated, the spikes from Cattails are still aiming for the same direction, it will not damage the zombie behind the defeated one (unlike some other projectiles, which hit the zombies at the back).
Its spikes move slower than Cactus’.
It and Lily Pad are the only aquatic plants that can have a Pumpkin on them.
Its spikes on the Nintendo DS version of the game will sometimes miss the zombies, and keep circling it until it dies, as well as not target zombies, but rather fly straight ahead and rotate slowly.
It has the longest range among the shooting plants.
It can fire in the most directions. The plant that fires in the second most directions is Gloom-shroom (eight) and the third is Starfruit (five).
Despite the fact it can pop Balloon Zombie’s balloon, Cattail is not listed as a weakness of Balloon Zombies in the Suburban Almanac entry.
It will not aim at a Snorkel Zombie when it’s underwater. However, it can fire anywhere on the screen and will aim at Balloon Zombies. This is possibly because it cannot see it. It may also be because it cannot fire at it as the Cattail might not be able to fire heights that low.