Hallow Gourd

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This article is about NoobsAreCoolAndCoolerThanCasual/Hallow Gourd. You may be looking for the official variation, being the Hallow Guard but I refuse to give a link because I'm feeling lazy.

Hallow Gourd
"An advanced grunt within Ominous' forces. Being quite a step up from the previous Pumpkids, the Hallow Gourd is armed with a longsword and armor capable of tearing through your unprepared defenses." - Enemy Description
Mode Appearance	Haunted Harvest
Wave Debut	10
Statistics
Base Health	350 (Easy) 680 (Hard)
Defense	10%
Speed	Below Average
Cash Given	$300 > 600 on death (Variable)
Hidden?	Variable
Flying?	No
Ghost?	No
Lead?	No
Attributes	Mutation (Variable) Slime (Variable) Bloated (Variable) Nimble (Variable) Lantern (Variable)
Abilities
Ability 1	Sulfuric Slash - The Hallow Gourd will be stationary, winding up a 45° slash, stunning any tower within the radius for 5 seconds and granting the Hallow Gourd the Lantern attribute for 3 seconds proportional to the amount of towers hit, up to 15 seconds.
Ability 2	Ethereal Enhancements - Upon being given the Lantern attribute, the Hallow Gourd will be granted the attribute and 25% more speed. However, the Hallow Gourd cannot perform the Sulfuric Slash ability while in this form.

Overview

The Hallow Gourd is an enemy that appears in the Haunted Harvest gamemode. It debuts on wave 10, serving as the first boss within the gamemode. It can prove a detriment to your unprepared defenses, and possesses the ability to stun nearby troops via its sword and enter an "Ethereal" phase.

Due to its high health but below-average speed, towers with high firerate like the Minigunner or simply high-damaging towers like Ranger can deal with the Hallow Gourd effectively.

Appearance

The Hallow Gourd takes inspiration from the Hallow Guard, being an ethereal, humanoid pumpkin consisting primarily of a magmatic color scheme. It wears medium armor with metallic protrusions sticking through the collar area. It wields a flaming longsword, and emits a flame effect when moving. While the Hallow Gourd enters the Ethereal Enhancements, it becomes slightly transparent, and the legs are instead replaced with a wispy aura.

Analysis, Ranking, and Strategy

Yo, it's Noobs again! I'll overanalyze this enemy as well so you don't gotta! This guy's alot tankier than the Conglomerate, so strap in...![1]

• The Hallow Gourd proves a major difficulty spike for how early its debut is, being wave 10.
  • Because of this, towers that are cheap but have relatively fair dps like the Golden Soldier should deal with this enemy with relative ease.
    • Better yet, towers that don't require being placed down multiple times to have a high DPS like the Accelerator can deal with the Hallow Gourd significantly better.

Now, I WOULD say that towers capable of stunning opponents like Electroshocker can prove efficient, BUT considering how on first debut (wave 10) the Hallow Gourd possesses the Boss attribute, they aren't particularly necessary. This is ESPECIALLY because after the first appearance this enemy kinda just becomes obsolete.

• While not necessary, the Hallow Gourd does indeed possess defense, being 10%. If this is truly an issue, towers like the Pyromancer can easily chip down its defense.

So, keep in mind that if the Hallow Gourd stuns your towers, it can enter the ethereal form, gaining the hidden attribute for up to 15 seconds. Because of this, I'd heavily advise bringing long-ranged OR stun immune towers like Pursuit or maybe Sniper to avoid this.

• It's worth considering the fact that after the difficulty spike of its debut, the Hallow Gourd will lose the Boss attribute, meaning that it can be stunned by troops like Freezer.

In summary, the Hallow Gourd receives a 7/10, being a slow, tanky enemy that can be rather intimidating on first spawn, but can be handled easily by long-ranged towers like Minigunner. This can be used to counter its ability to stun troops, entirely negating the ethereal shift.

Trivia

• The Hallow Gourd's design is loosely based off the original Hallow Guard.
  • This is especially apparent when looking at the armor, sword, and overall structure.
• The Hallow Gourd had an original design, taking on a purple hue.
  • However, this was scrapped as I didn't particularly enjoy the design.
    • It was later repurposed into the Hallow Gourd's upgraded counterpart.

Update History

NiL.

Notes

1. Keep in mind that the Sulfuric Slash's Lantern attribute application will be applied for 3 more seconds for every tower hit for a maximum of 15 seconds. Because of this, the effect will maximize after 5 towers hit.