Power Peony

When Power Peony starts an attack, she first enters a petal-spin firing phase: four electronic projectiles appear near her body, rotate with the petals for a short time, then release upward, downward, leftward, and rightward. The projectiles are not decorative during the spin. They are already collision objects, so targets standing close or crossing from the side settle against the projectile's current size and damage.

Her practical output therefore has two layers: a close rotating sweep before release, and straight cross-flight afterward. A target directly in front of her may be hit while the projectile is still small; a target passing above, below, or beside her may meet a larger projectile. Version 0.17o corrected close-boundary behavior, but tactically she should still be read as a hybrid of cross-lane shots and near-body rotating hitboxes.

Power Peony enters with q=5, meaning all five petals are lit, so her first successful attack uses charged projectiles immediately. Once that charged shot finishes, q resets to 0. After that, she only recovers charge by being hit by other Power Peony electronic projectiles.

Charging only occurs between Peonies with the same allegiance state: normal Peony to normal Peony, or hypnotized Peony to hypnotized Peony. When an ordinary projectile hits a same-state Peony that is not full, q increases by 1 up to 5. If allegiance or hypnotic state differs, the projectile resolves as a hit instead of charge.

At full charge, the next attack uses charged projectiles: the linear collision scale expands by √7, and damage resolves at a 7× multiplier. Because the charged shot spends the whole petal charge set, one Peony cannot naturally maintain continuous burst fire without other Peonies or crossing trajectories feeding charge back into her.

As a power source, Power Peony's main support value is not self-stacking damage, but strong current inside the Wiremoss system. When Wiremoss reads a nearby source, the line rises to a high current level; that shortens conduction rest time and lets nearby electric plants read an activated state.

Lightning Reed can also feed weak current into a line, but its level is below Peony's and is not enough to activate Lightning Reed's own second-target state. In formation terms, Peony provides stable power while Wiremoss distributes it and defines the affected area. A line that relies only on Lightning Reed can light up, but it does not replace a strong power source.

If Wiremoss is planted on all four corners of Power Peony's tile, the local line closes and triggers a short circuit. The Wiremosses do not need to be precharged; the important condition is that all four corners are occupied and Peony is able to resolve the event. Once triggered, she enters the short-circuit animation instead of performing a normal shot.

The short circuit first creates small ash explosions along the participating Wiremoss line and removes those Wiremosses. It then creates a large explosion at Power Peony's own position, and Peony disappears as well. External Wiremoss connected to the four corners is included in the spread, so the mechanic can be used as tactical demolition or accidentally tear down an established line.

The horizontal momentum of electronic projectiles can push Wheel Zombie's stone wheel. Ordinary shots apply only a small shove; charged shots, because of their larger scale and multiplier, push the wheel at roughly four times that strength. Several Peonies releasing on staggered cycles can drive the wheel back toward the zombie side.

Magnet Truck Zombie attracts nearby projectiles, which makes four-way shots that would normally miss converge on the truck body. Against it, Peony's cross pattern changes from distributed pressure into focused fire, turning projectile attraction into a weakness.

Placement must balance damage and power-source duty. A forward Peony triggers rotating sweeps and Wiremoss supply more reliably, but is also more likely to be accidentally short-circuited by four-corner Wiremoss. A rear Peony is safer as a stable strong-current source and can recharge other Peonies through crossing projectile lanes.