Pinecone bromeliad

Overview

The Pinecone bromeliad is an epiphyte in Supplant. It is native to South America and is recorded as invasive nowhere, so it plays purely as a defensive buffer: a card that shores up your team rather than an attacker.

Moves

Its kit fills in across three slots, and most of your copies will be well below the snapshot level of 40 where all three are live — the plant unlocks them as it grows. Tug is the starter attack, available from level 1 for 2 Sun. The free once-per-battle ability, Canopy Soil, unlocks at level 25: A whole soil built in the branches: heal 65% and +4 ATK. The advanced attack, High and Dry, comes online at level 40 for 6 Sun — Leaves the foe stranded — it can't heal.

Its attacks land for about 27 (starter) and 25 (advanced) at the snapshot level.

Turn order splits across two stats: initiative (32) decides who moves first on turn 1, and SPD (34) decides every turn after. The two are close on this card, so it neither dominates nor loses the tempo battle outright. See turn order for how the two interact.

Abilities

Pinecone bromeliad holds two working traits. Peltate Trichomes (level 10) are the bromeliad scales themselves, and they blunt damage-over-time by 30%. Sapromyophily (level 68) makes the plant the group's decoy for any single-target effect. See Abilities.

Features

For field gear, a Calcium/Magnesium amendment adds flat DEF (most worthwhile on a bulky front-liner, least on a soft body), and the N/P/K fertilizers drive its economy (see Gameplay uses). This species is not Moss-Pole-eligible: that gear is keyed on a climbing growth habit (vine, epiphyte or hemiepiphyte), and its species record carries no growth-habit tag.

Stats

At the snapshot level (40) it reads roughly HP 103, DEF 2, with a retreat cost of 16 Sun and tempo pips of 32 initiative / 34 SPD. Its DEF sits at the soft floor — expect no real plating. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects a green HP overshield bar onto your active — its whole role is defensive support. Sun refills at +1 every 15 minutes up to a cap of 120; an empty bar attack-locks the plant. From level 52 it regenerates Sun mid-battle, and a level 85 capstone drops its starter to free. See stats.

At Level 100

HP creeps up toward 190 but DEF stays at the floor (3); it never stops being frail. Retreat rises to 33 Sun (an older plant is more rooted and costlier to pull), and the inverted tempo has sunk to its floor by now — the fast opening it had as a seedling is gone, so a mature copy leans entirely on power rather than turn order.

Weaknesses & Resistances

In the succession wheel it is a Specialist. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, vines, shrubs and broadleaf trees) for extra damage (×1.5), and takes extra damage from Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs). Against its own group and the off-wheel "Weird" categories it is neutral. See the type chart.

Gameplay uses

Its only role is the native buffer: sit it on the bench to project an overshield, or field it as a body that soaks hits for your carries. An epiphyte is a frail, low-armor card, so this one leans on its traits rather than its body — Peltate Trichomes from level 10 and a Sapromyophily taunt from level 68. It is inedible in the game's economy, so any fertilizer you feed it banks ×1.25 XP rather than coins — useful as level fodder, not as a coin source. In the Total power gallery below you can watch it trade a fast-skirmisher opening for raw bulk as it levels: it leans on speed until about level 24, after which its power takes over. It is monotonically stronger the higher it goes, so there is never a reason to hold it back.