Rosa rugosa
A firm-DEF Competitor shrub that plays well as an invasive attacker or native buffer, disrupting with bench hits and a stall-and-heal-lock.
Rugosa rose is a shrub, one of the Competitor categories. It is native to East Asia and invasive in Europe and eastern and western North America - so it fills both roles: a native HP buffer, or an invasive attacker depending on the arena. See categories for what a shrub does in battle.
Its kit unlocks in three stages. Hedge Hammer is the starter attack from Lv 1 at 2 Sun, 30 native or 35 invasive. Arrested Succession is the free once-per-battle ability at Lv 25: Stops the forest before it starts — the foe stalls and can't heal. It deals no damage but stalls the foe and shuts off its healing. Fruit Drop Kick is the advanced attack at Lv 40 for 6 Sun, 25 native or 29 invasive that also nicks the enemy bench. No move carries an initiative rider, so it acts in the normal order.
From its trait schedule it keeps two working always-on traits. Extrafloral-Nectaries arrives at Lv 10: whenever an attacker lands a damaging hit on it, its nectar recruits ant bodyguards that chip that attacker for about 3% of its max HP, a contact-retaliation bite that ignores DEF and the overshield. Lure stacks on at Lv 68 as a working taunt - a decoy that soaks single-target incidental damage off its allies: wherever the engine would pick one victim out of a group, whether a splash, scatter or bench-reaching hit, this shrub takes that hit instead, and at its Lv 68 mature tier it always taunts. At the snapshot level of 40 only Extrafloral-Nectaries is active; Lure is still ahead of it. Although it is a rose, its schedule holds no Thorns trait, so it inflicts no contact recoil.
It carries no special combat keywords and is not toxic. It is not a climber, so it is not Moss Pole eligible. Its field gear splits by role and by economy: it is edible with a resolved fruit part, so a Phosphorus amendment pays coins, while a Calcium/Magnesium amendment pushes its solid shrub DEF higher for the native buffer role.
At Lv 40 its native card shows 103 HP (with the +15% cushion) and 20 ATK; its invasive card trades the cushion for 89 HP and a much heavier 32 ATK, the jump that makes it a real attacker. DEF is a firm 11 either way - well above weed level - and retreat costs 15 Sun. Its tempo is balanced: initiative 35 and SPD 35 are equal, so it opens and cruises at the same middling pace. The invasive card pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout; the native card instead projects an overshield bar from the bench.
HP climbs to 190 native or 165 invasive, and ATK caps at 35 native or 66 invasive - the invasive edge, deferred onto the cap, is fully paid off by then. As a shrub its DEF hardens usefully to 23, firmer than any weed though short of a canopy tree. Retreat rises to 30 Sun and its tempo settles to roughly one percent of cap, so its middling early speed is spent by the endgame.
Shrub is a Competitor category. Competitors crowd out Ruderals, dealing x1.5 to annual-forbs, grasses, aquatics and bulbs, but are outlasted by Specialists, taking x1.5 from succulents, conifers, ferns and epiphytes. Damage is even against other Competitors and the neutral Weird group.
This is a capable all-rounder. As an invasive it hits hard with Hedge Hammer and chips the bench with Fruit Drop Kick, backed by respectable DEF that lets it trade rather than fold - a sturdier attacker than most shrubs. As a native it is a firm buffer feeding the overshield. Arrested Succession's stall and heal-lock is strong against sustain-reliant opponents. Outside battle it earns coins: edible with a fruit part, it pays x1.25 coins on a Phosphorus feed. As an invasive it plays as a skirmisher until about Lv 24 (Lv 23 native), after which its bulk and armor take over from its tempo.
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.