Ribes nidigrolaria
A native-only perennial herb that opens fast, self-heals twice over, and can cling to life late, but stays soft throughout.
Jostaberry is a low Perennial herb that fights as a fast-opening, self-healing skirmisher. In this game it exists only as a native — of Eastern North America — so you always play it as a native buffer for your bench; there is no invasive attacker version. It is a reasonable card: quick off the mark and hard to wear down, though it is soft and never gains armor.
Its starter attack, Bitter Sap, unlocks at level 1 for 2 Sun and hits for about 30 as a native — a plain strike. The free once-per-battle ability, Hemicryptophyte Hold, arrives at level 25: Hunkers at ground level — Bind and Wither the foe. — it mends the plant. The advanced attack, Crown Division, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (40 native) and mends the plant as it strikes. Most of your jostaberries sit below level 40, where only the starter is live. None of its moves carry an initiative rider.
Jostaberry keeps a single always-on trait: Resprout. Because it draws only one eligible trait, Resprout comes in at half strength on the level 10 riser and matures on the level 68 one. When it works it lets the plant survive one otherwise-lethal hit at roughly a quarter health — but it fires only about 60% of the time, so treat it as a coin-flip reprieve. See Abilities.
Jostaberry carries no trait keywords, so nothing punishes an attacker for hitting it. It is non-toxic — no hazard ring, no poison rider. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. As a native support piece, defensive field gear helps it stay alive to keep buffing your bench.
At level 40 jostaberry reads 103 HP as a native, with ATK around 25 — a fair punch for a soft herb. DEF is just 4, at the soft floor of the perennial-herb band, so it takes hits with almost no armor. Its tempo is front-loaded: turn 1 runs on initiative (51) and every turn after on SPD (34), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced later. Retreat costs 16 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, jostaberry swells to 190 HP as a native and 45 ATK, but DEF only reaches 8 — a soft herb gains health and almost no armor, so it stays fragile against any real hitter. Retreat rises to 33 Sun and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature one acts last against almost anything young.
As a perennial herb, jostaberry is in the Competitor succession group. It hits Ruderal plants for ×1.5 and takes only ×0.667 from them; it is weak to Specialist plants, which strike it for ×1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Competitors and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play jostaberry as a fast, self-sustaining opener: lead turn 1, chip away, and mend through both the ability and the advanced attack to outlast a soft opponent. As a native buffer, its HP cushion and bench overshield help a fragile ally survive, which rounds out its worth. It is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks ×1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher early and leans on its modest bulk later, crossing over around level 30 — always worth leveling.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.