Cucurbita Conglomerate

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This article is about NoobsAreCoolAndCoolerThanCasual/Cucurbita Conglomerate. You may be looking for other Breaker enemies.

Cucurbita Conglomerate
"An amalgamation of Cucurbita who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time...being infected by the shard corruption, this enemy will split into MORE enemies upon death." -Enemy Description
Mode Appearance	Haunted Harvest
Wave Debut	7
Statistics
Base Health	125
Defense	20%
Speed	Average > Above Average (Variable)
Cash Given	$75 upon death (New modes)
Hidden?	Variable
Flying?	No
Ghost?	No
Lead?	No
Attributes	Mutation (Variable) Slime (Variable) Bloated (Variable) Nimble (Variable) Lantern (Variable)
Abilities
Ability 1	Spoilage Sustainability - The Cucurbita Conglomerate will start with an average speed and 20% defense. For every 25% health lost, the Cucurbita Conglomerate will begin to crack. Its defense will drop by 5% and increase speed by 10%, up to an above average speed.
Ability 2	Catastrophic Combustion - Upon death, the Cucurbita Conglomerate will stagger and windup for 2 seconds before exploding in a small radius, stunning any tower within the vicinity for 3 seconds whilst splitting into 3 Pumpkids, granting them randomly 1 of 3 attributes, being Bloated, Nimble, And Tank.

Overview

The Cucurbita Conglomerate is an enemy that appears in the Haunted Harvest gamemode. It debuts on wave 7, is an average enemy, but comes with the special ability to split and stun towers. It proves a major spike in difficulty, and while they aren't densely spammed they can still prove to be a threat towards your defenses.

Additionally, the Pumpkids spawned by the Cucurbita Conglomerate will be granted 1 of 3 random attributes, meaning that the spawns may vary in difficulty.

Because of this, stall and crowd control towers like the Cryomancer or Demoman prove to be effective counters to this enemy.

Appearance

The Cucurbita Conglomerate seems to be 3 purple humanoid pumpkins fused into 1, riddled with orange magmatic accents. There is one slightly larger than the other 2, and one of them seems to be sticking out from the bottom, and one sticking from the top and they seem to be melded together in an unnatural way. The Cucurbita Conglomerate possesses a large gaping hole within the primary humanoid's chest, and all 3 lantern heads seem to be carved in smiles. Every time the Cucurbita Conglomerate receives damage, purple and orange cracks will appear across its body.

Analysis, Ranking, and Strategy

Yo it's me, Noobs! I'm here to overanalyze this enemy so you don't have to! I'll also give a threat level ranking and overall tips n' tricks so...you don't have to! 

The Cucurbita Conglomerate receives a 6/10 for threat level. While it isn't too powerful, the fact that it appears so early on requires you to think ahead and take it down quickly.

towers that can easily deal with this enemy like Minigunner may be good against them, but...not really.

Hmm...because of how early they appear, cheap yet cost-efficient towers like...maybe the Electroshocker or Freezer could help stall them, especially considering how vulnerable they are to them. Also, crowd control towers like the Mortar should make quick work of them.

• Due to their ability to stun nearby towers, short-ranged towers like Gladiator or Warden will struggle against this enemy.
  • On the contrary, they can also handle the Conglomerate quickly. If you decide to use such troops, I'd say you should bring ones that are resistant to stuns or at least bring something alongside it to catch leaks (aka the spawns), like Trapper.

...It might also be a good idea to remember that the attributes given to the spawns are randomized. You COULD have a double-health enemy OR a speedy one...or maybe just a mega-tank...this makes the spawns rather tricky to counter since you never know which buff they'll receive, but but since their base counterparts are rather weak they shouldn't be much of an issue.

• What IS an issue however, is how synergetic the Cucurbita Conglomerate is. Enemies that can clone others like the Mischievous Mystery can prove quite a detriment to your defenses, especially considering the passive stun on death.
  • Even so, while this combo can make you good day bad and your bad day WORSE, they can still be countered with relative ease by most crowd-control towers like the Sledger or the Rocketeer.

In summary, while the Cucurbita Conglomerate is a rather average enemy in which most efficient crowd control (or stun) towers can handle, it proves incredibly synergetic and can overwhelm your defenses quickly if not taken care of.

Original Concept

Original Cucurbita Conglomerate design.

The original Cucurbita Conglomerate was designed to be quicker and less tanky, splitting into 3 different enemy types instead of spawning Pumpkids with applied attributes.

These were originally to be named "Separated Saplings", and 3 of them would spawn.

1. Sapling1 would have been fast, but below average health.
2. Sapling2 would have been tankier, but a below average speed.
3. Sapling3 would have been a balance between the 2, being a rather average enemy.

I was planning on giving it a passive in which upon receiving the Lantern attribute, it would gain double the health and split into 5 spawns instead of 3.

However, I scrapped this overall design as I didn't enjoy the aesthetic or the way it came out, as I believed it would've been a bit too unbalanced for its debut, so I instead replaced the later variations with enemies like the Radioactive Slime and Cucurbita Coffin.

Trivia

• The Cucurbita Conglomerate is loosely inspired by both the Breaker from Tower Defense Simulator, and the Mutated Zombie from Tower Defense X.
  • According to the definition, a "Conglomerate" is a multi-definition word that may refer to an amalgamation or buildup of multiple things mashed together.
    • Additionally, a Cucurbita is a type of plant family that classifies things like pumpkins, squashes, etc.
• This enemy concept had the least thought put into it, and was the second last enemy I designed for Haunted Harvest, last being the Riot.
  • It was primarily designed to be a slight twist to the traditional wave structure, as Breaker-type enemies usually debut after the first boss.
    • However, this isn't the case for the Cucurbita Conglomerate.
• Hence the enemy description, it seemed to have gotten a direct surge of energy by Ominous' fragment, fusing it together.
  • Hilariously enough, both a Breaker-type enemy and a Mystery-type enemy appear in this event. This is rather intentional to make fun of the subjective matter of "Mysteries vs. Breakers".[1]

Update History

• In Never of Never-
  • NiL!1!.

Notes

1. Albeit the chances of each spawn being granted an attribute, each attribute granted has an equal chance of being applied (33.33333%, rounded down to 33%).
2. The remaining 1% will instead be translated into spawning an additional Pumpkid.