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Plants vs. Zombies
- The Bungee Zombie drops down and randomly steals one of your plants, and it's not easy to kill him before he escapes. He can be hard-countered by Umbrella Leaf, but that requires wasting a seed slot on a plant that doesn't do much other than countering Bungees. On Roof levels, they also drop off fellow zombies onto your front lines during huge waves. This is invoked in-universe by Crazy Dave, who outright states how much he hates them.
- Balloon Zombies, unless you planted a Cattail or put a Cactus in each lane. Otherwise, you have to plant a Blover every time one shows up, or it'll float right over every defense you have. They're easy to stop, but when you're trying to get enough sun for something fairly expensive, it can get REALLY frustrating to have to keep using up 100 sun to get rid of them. Strangely enough, a group of them tends to be less dangerous than a single one for this very reason.
- Digger Zombies. Similar to the Balloon Zombies, they totally wreck you unless you have specific plans to deal with them. Most players put all their heavy defensive units at the front, and have the shooters sitting behind them, facing forward. Diggers tunnel underneath you to the patio, then turn around and start attacking you from behind, where all your most vulnerable but important plants are. You'll need Magnet-shrooms or Split Peas to deal with them, and even then you'll probably have to replace your sunflowers quite regularly or put Pumpkins on all your rear-most plants.
- Dolphin Rider Zombie also gets hated for his dolphin's annoying screeching sound and how quickly he speeds down the pool lane until he runs into a plant to jump over. He's usually more of an annoyance than an actual threat, though, due to his low HP and losing his speed after jumping.
- Snorkel Zombie is annoying because he jumps in the water and becomes invisible for the straight-shooting plants, all until he finds something to eat. And even then, as soon as he is done with one plant, he will go back underwater and stay that way until he gets the next target and so on. Better bring something to stall him or an insta-kill plant because he can only be attacked while attacking something. Pult plants can hit him while he's underwater, but you only get them in the Roof levels where he doesn't appear in, and long after he's first encountered.
- In the puzzle mini-game "I, Zombie" where you play as the zombies, the Snow Peas and Kernel-pults are these. The Snow Peas slow down your zombies, and the Kernel-pults will randomly stun them with a block of butter, as well as having a higher chance to lob butter more often than your regular Kernel-pult. Heaven help you if a Kernel-pult and Snow Pea are in the same row, slowing and stunning your Football Zombie. Bonus points if it also happens while he's on a bed of Spikeweeds.
Plants vs. Zombies 2
Pirate Seas
- The Zombie Parrot that comes with the Pirate Captain Zombie flies to any plant you own and begin to steal it. For a small bird, they can take 1.5x as much damage as a regular zombie, and they move fast. If you can't pile on the DPS on them or hit them down with the Kernel-Pult's random chance of butter, say goodbye to one of your plants, while the parrot comes back for another run. Fortunately, the Blover from the Far Future can easily blow the Parrot away for good cheaply and quickly.
- The Imp Cannon is a major annoyance. It regularly fires out annoying imps up to the fifth square, and if you don't destroy it in time, it self-destructs and rains a bunch of imps randomly onto your lawn, up the the third column deep into your defenses. The main problem is that it's hard to hit with most non-penetrating plants as they tend to target the imps in front instead of the cannon, and while the imps can be blown away by the blover, it requires spot-on timing as they're fired out quickly and land quickly. Good tip, when you use plant food on Infi-nut, the force field can block the imps, and they'll fall into the water.
Wild West
- Prospector Zombies, who have the ability to jump over to the left side of the lawn and eat your plants from behind (similarly to the Digger Zombie), can be very annoying if you don't have a Split Pea or Celery Stalker to kill them.
- Zombie Chickens, which are spawned by the Chicken Wrangler Zombie to Zerg Rush your plants. In Big Bad Butte, Chicken Wrangler Zombies will sometimes spawn early in a level before you have the chance to set up your defenses to deal with them. If you have no lawnmowers and no Lightning Reeds (or Spikeweeds), the chickens can instantly kill you. The good news is the chickens are weaker than Imps, just one attack will take them down.
Far Future
- The Shield Zombie's shield makes it (and any zombies behind) immune to splash damage projectiles such as Winter Melon's, meaning that piercing plants, E.M.Peach or instakills are needed if you don't want them to protect other zombies behind.
- Disco-Tron 3000 in later 4-flag levels of Terror From Tomorrow, once you've built a good defense. A huge number of them will spawn, and they'll most likely be able to summon their Jetpack Disco Zombies, each of which have a long death animation and hence stay on the screen for a good while. The sheer amount of clutter will cause the game to lag, even if they all go down quickly.
Frostbite Caves
- Hunter Zombies stay in the back row and throw snowballs at your plants to freeze them (3 snowballs completely freezes them), essentially a nerfed version of the Octo Zombie. While a few fire plants can easily remedy the Hunter's freezing ability (placing fire plants in front completely negates their ability), the Cold Snapdragon blocks snowballs, and a boosted Infi-Nut stops them dead, they will freeze your plants faster than you can warm them up if there's too many of them.
- Dodo Rider Zombies are fast and have good health for a fast enemy, and they are the one of two types of zombie that can hop over barrier blocks, meaning that you do have to actually put some offensive plant in that row instead of filling it completely with sun-producers. The Blover can kill them when they hover while the Hurrikale will kill them if they're hovering or if they're pushed onto a Slider tile.
- The Ice Weasels summoned by Weasel Hoarders have two HP instead of the 1/4 HP that chickens have, while also having the Dodo Rider's ability to bypass ice floes.
- Troglobites come in pushing 3 ice blocks across the lawn, which instantly crush any plant they're pushed onto (including Spikerocks, which destroys any strategy of planting those too far ahead). While this is easily countered by using a Hot Potato to melt the ice or having enough DPS to destroy the ice, it's still annoying as the ice blocks can't be planted on, and protect other zombies from most non-lobbed shots. They become potentially dangerous in Icebound Battleground, where they appear in numbers, pushing in long chains of ice blocks which limits a lot of space. And if your plants get frozen, they get pushed as well.
Lost City
- Lost Pilot Zombies are ambush units that drop down in groups from the fourth row onwards during a Parachute Rain, but stick above a tile for a short while before landing on the lawn, and have more health than a normal zombie. What makes them annoying is the fact that they immediately drop down onto your lawn if a Blover is used, and they tend to appear alongside Bug Zombies and Relic Hunter Zombies (see below) that pose a greater threat but are killed by the Blover. Draftodil however will instantly kill them, even though Blover and Hurrikale do not.
- Bug Zombies can carry regular, conehead, and buckethead zombies, and act as a fast jetpack with pretty good health. The main problem comes if they're carrying bucketheads, and the level doesn't allow you to bring a Blover. Hope you can kill the bug in time before the Buckethead gets too deep into your defenses... ALSO, they can spawn along Lost Pilot Zombies, meaning you can't use a Blover because it makes Lost Pilots drop in the lawn instantly.
- Parasol Zombie stops lobbed-shot projectiles, rendering powerful plants such as Winter Melon or A.K.E.E. useless. And if they come with Excavator Zombies? Hope you have fun. Fortunately, they don't have much health, so a couple of columns of penetrating or melee plants (which bypass both Excavator and Parasol) will kill them quickly.
- Relic Hunter Zombies are basically stronger versions of the Swashbuckler, having twice the health of a Conehead variant, and they can drop anywhere between columns 4-6. You can easily kill them using a Blover, but sometimes they spawn with a Parachute Rain Ambush, so you must decide between having a bunch of not-so-strong-but-great-quantity zombies past your defenses, or having two or three greatly resistant zombies past your defenses. Very nice.
Jurassic Marsh
- Dinosaurs. They don't directly attack your plants, but all of them can greatly help the zombies in some way or other. Thank goodness that the Perfume-Shroom charms them to affect the Zombies instead... but not only it has a very bad recharge time for such an expensive plant, it can only be used in Jurrasic Marsh. They also can't be attacked or affected by your plants, with the exception of Perfume-Shroom and Meteor Flower's Plant Food. note
- The Raptor wanders back and forth on the lawn, and when it encounters a zombie it kicks them three squares forwards. Unlike Breakdancer, it can only kick one at a go, but at twice the range! They can easily kick zombies up to the third column, past most of your defences!
- The Stegosaurus sticks at the right side of the lawn, then catches zombies with its thagomizer spikes before flinging them to random lanes on the fourth column of the lawn, bypassing most of your defences entirely.
- The Pterodactyl will pick up the zombie furthest from your lawn, turn them around, and carry them to the front of your house, essentially turning them into a Digger/Prospector that eats your defences from behind. This also applies to Bucketheads and Fossilheads! Even worse? The Blover does jack all to them, which means that if they're carrying a zombie and you don't have an available Perfume-Shroom, said zombie WILL be placed at the front of your house.
- The Tyrannosaurus rex will use a Mighty Roar to scare all zombies in his lane, causing them to move forwards and eat very quickly for a period of time, allowing groups to demolish walls with ease (especially in the case of the already-speedy Jurassic Imps). Thankfully, slowing plants will cause the zombies to be slowed, overriding the Status Buff. The main problem comes when it's paired up with a Pterodactyl- when it roars, all zombies in the lane will turn towards the house. Yes, that includes the zombie that the Pterodactyl dropped off on the square next to your house...
- The Ankylosaurus stays at the back, and hits zombies forward with the Epic Flail on its tail. Thing is, any zombie pushed forwards this way will push the first plant back and all others behind if there's no space, flinging out those at the back when they hit it (in a manner to Mecha-Football Zombie above). The only way to stop this is with the Cactus, who can override the pushback by hiding underground. But she's a premium, and if you haven't bought her, or if she's already underground and an ankylosaurus pushes more zombies forwards... Well, good luck.
- Jurassic Imps have half the hit points of a regular Imp, but move and eat at around twice the speed. Furthermore, they tend to appear in much greater numbers than other Imp types, and enough of them can and will pile up the damage on your defensive plants.
Modern Day
- Balloon Zombies are essentially Bug Zombies if their bugs had more health, as they move quickly and take a lot more damage before their balloon is popped. A Blover will take care of them, thankfully, but in levels without Blover, they are a pain to remove.
