Guild Guidebook: Singing Sunflower Quest

In this edition of Guild Guidebook, we will explore how to get the most evil pet in the entire World of Warcraft Universe: The Singing Sunflower.

To start, you need to go to Brazie's Farmstead in Hillsbrad Foothills and speak to Brazie the Botanist. He will have the quest Basic Botany. The entire questchain revolves around you completing a mini-game, based off of Plants VS Zombies.

In this quest, you have to survive one massive wave of zombies. But first, let's get acquainted with the UI.

1: The Playing Field

This is where the action takes place. This image will be helpful for the rest of the guide:

2: Fertilize-O-Tron 2000

This is your last line of defense. If hit, it will mow down attackers in that lane.

3: Your House

Defend at all costs! If zombies reach your house, they will eat your brains and you will fail the quest.

4: Ghoul Spawning Grounds

All enemies will spawn in one of the 5 rows, and proceed to your house.

5: Progression Meter

When you defeat a wave of zombies, the progress increases. When it hits full, the quest is completed.

6: Plant/Ability Bar

Start with one plant, and end up with 6. It costs Solar Power to use them.

7: Solar Power Tank

Every time you get a solar power, you gain 5%. This is used to place plants.

This is a picture that is a great reference to columns and rows. It will be used throughout this guide:

Understanding Your Plants and Their Abilities

• Sunflower - Costs 10 Solar Power, and helps you gain Solar Power faster. 
• Spitter - Costs 20 Solar Power, and spits poison at enemies causing 50 damage to enemies in line of fire.
• Freezya - Costs 20 Solar Power, and deals 35 damage, but slows enemies. 
• Rocknut - Costs 15 Solar Power, and acts as a barrier until destroyed. 
• Strangler Vine - Costs 30 Solar Power, and will grab nearest enemy (except for abomination or Warden) and slowly kill it.
• Pumpkin Bomb - Costs 40 Solar Power, and does massive damage to enemies on adjacent squares to where you place it. Very effective against Warden. 

Understanding Your Enemies

• Zombie - They move slowly and die quickly.
• Ghoul - The move quicker and do more damage than zombies. Use a Freezya to slow them down, or a rocknut while spitters take them down. 
• Abberation - The most dangerous common unit. Destroys plants very quickly. Recommended to use a Strangler Vine to trap it, or a Pumpkin Bomb to kill it.
• Abomination - Very slow, but very tough and deal large amounts of damage. Use Rocknut to slow them down, or Pumpkin Bomb to take them out. 
• Obelisk - These units block spitter attacks from reaching Warden Stillwater. Strangler Vines is the only effective way of getting rid of them. 
• Warden Stillwater - The final boss. He will not attempt to cross the playing field, but instead will pace back and forth on the ghoul spawning ground. Periodically tossing vials of fertilizer on your plants, which will kill them after 30 seconds. He will also build his own defenses in the form of Obelisks. Pumpkin Bombs are the most effective against him. 

Walkthrough

Basic Botany

There is no need to rush the first part. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with the UI. Meanwhile, you will be seeing glowing golden orbs falling from the sky onto the field. This is your Solar Power. Right-click on those orbs to collect them. You will notice your tank filling up in 5% increments as you collect more orbs. 

When you are ready, click the first icon in the ability bar: the Spitter, and place it in 3A. Once you place your spitter, you will hear the familiar groan of a zombie, and then see him appear in the center lane of the ghoul spawning ground. Your spitter will start attacking the zombie as it moves towards your house. Even if you only plant that single spitter, you will still complete this mission. But, to speed things along, you can plant more spitters in lane 3. 

After you defeat a few zombies, you will see this warning:

This just means, in the tutorial stage, that 5 zombies are going to spawn. One spitter can take them all out before they reach your house, but by now you probably have 3-5, so the wave should fall rather quickly. When you complete the first quest, you will unlock your next ability: The Sunflower.

Flower Power

Start collecting Solar Power, and start planting Sunflowers on 1A, 1B, and 1C. By now a zombie should be on the field. Plant a Spitter in column B in whatever row the zombie appeared on. Continue planting sunflowers until 1A, 1B, 2C, 5A, 5B, and 5C all contain a sunflower, only diverting if a zombie appears on a row you don't have a spitter yet.

You should now have a spitter on 2B, 3B, and 4B. Around this time, a zombie will drop a sack on the field containing Freezya seeds. Right-click on this to unlock your third plant, the Freezya. 

Start planting a Freezya in 2A, 3A, and 4A. Your layout should look like this:

Now you can continue to plant spitters in rows 2, 3 and 4 until the end of the mission. Plant them in the rows that contain the largest amount of enemies first. After defeating this mission, you will gain access to the Rocknut.

Ghouls Hate My Grains

Plant a Sunflower on 1A, and with the next 10 Solar Power, plant another Sunflower on 3A. By now, a ghoul should be coming onto the field in row 3. Now you should place a Rocknut on 3E when you have 15 Solar Power. With your next 10 Solar Power, place a third Sunflower on 5A, then place a Spitter on 3D to take out the ghoul. If everything was timed right, the ghoul should die before the rocknut is destroyed.

Your next three moves, you should plant a Sunflower in 2A and 4A, and a Freezya in 3C. Your layout should look like this:

Your next goal should be to fill column B with Sunflowers, Column C with Freezyas, and Column D with spitters. If you are making good time, you should be able to plant 2 sunflowers before the next zombie starts coming. Plant a Spitter on the row the zombie appears on. Another zombie should be incoming now, so plant another Spitter on his row. There should be a ghoul incoming now, as well. Place a Rocknut to block the ghoul while you save up some Solar Power, and as soon as you get 20 Solar Power, plant a Spitter in the Ghoul's lane.

While that's being taken care of, plant your next Sunflower, then plant a freezya on the row where the ghoul is destroying the rocknut. Next, plant your final spitter on row D. Now with all 5 rows attacking, you can plant the remaining sunflowers and freezyas. 

The first massive wave should be about to happen, and in any spare time you have, you should plant Rocknuts in column G. The field should look like this, with maybe some rocknuts in column G:

Your next goal should be to fill column G with Rocknuts. About that time the first wave should be dead, and a ghoul will drop a bag onto the field. Click the bag, and unlock your fifth plant: the Strangler Vines.

The next stretch before the final wave is mainly about placing plants where you need them. If any of the Rocknuts were destroyed, rebuild them in the same locations. The rest of your Solar Power should be filling rows E and F with Spitters, alternating with dropping Strangler Vines in row H. 

Once the second, and final, massive wave starts, your grid should look something like this:

When this wave starts, you will be introduced to the third enemy unit: Aberration. If he appears in a lane where you do not have a vine planted, that should become top priority. All Solar Power should be spent in replacing rocknuts and vines. Once you defeat all the ghouls, and complete the stage, you will unlock your final plant: the Pumpkin Bomb.

Someone Setup the Pumpkin Bomb
This is arguably the most difficult quest in the series. You will need to play the field reactively since you won't have a lot of time to plan things out due to the randomness of the invaders.

You will need a lot of rocknuts to block the right side, as you build up to this setup on the left:

Anytime you see a ghoul coming from the spawning ground, you should place a rocknut in column G or F, depending on whether the ghoul has made it a square or not before you had the Solar Power. 

If you don't have the setup above before the first Massive Wave begins, it's better to just reset and try again. Otherwise, you are just delaying the inevitable loss of brains.

During the first wave, you will be assaulted by Zombies, Ghouls, and Aberrations on all lanes, so you will be using a combination of Rocknuts, Vines, and Pumpkin Bombs to survive. Drop a Spitter into Column E when pumpkin bombs and vines are on cooldown, until column E is full. 

You will not be able to prevent plant loss in this stage, so don't get too worried if you start losing some of your front line. If there are too many enemies building up, make sure to use a pumpkin bomb in the middle of the cluster. Losing a full row during the first wave is not unusual for this stage. Just try to refill those squares in the base defensive line as quick as possible. If you see an Aberration by itself, it's a good idea to use a vine on him. But, if he is surrounded by 1-2 other enemies, save your Solar Power for a Pumpkin Bomb and take out the cluster. 

Moving into the second wave, your defensive line will probably be a mess. Just make sure you have the two full columns of sunflowers and focus your Solar Power on Rocknuts and Pumpkin Bombs. The second and final wave of this stage will introduce the Abominations. You will get three of them in the initial rush. They are immune to vines, so you need to rocknut the lanes they are in and then save up Solar Power for Pumpkin Bombs. It's going to take 2-3 hits for the bombs to take one out, so try to set them up to hit as many adjacent enemies as possible.

An Aberration or Ghoul may have already broken an entire row, but if there is still a Fertilize-O-Tron 2000 in that row, don't waste any Solar Power trying to kill it. Stay focused on taking down the Abominations. The Fertilize-O-Tron 2000 will take out the enemy and everything else in its lane when he reaches it, so it might actually help you. However, if there is no defense remaining in that row, then place a vine to stop him. 

With a little luck and timing, you should have defeated this stage by the skin of your teeth.

Lawn of the Dead
This is the last stage, and requires you to defeat Warden Stillwater. When he arrives, you will notice his health bar instead of the usual Progression Meter. Your main goal before he arrives is to build one column of Sunflowers and one column of Spitters. You will need to make strategic use of Rocknuts to buy some time to finish these columns if you want to make it in time.

Your layout when Warden Stillwater arrives should be very minimum, like this (with some rocknuts at various stages of decay on the right side):

About the time after you get that set up, Stillwater will spawn. Your goal now is to fill column B with sunflowers and column C with Freezyas. As with the previous stage, you will need to switching between dropping a lot of Rocknuts and Strangler Vines on the right side of the field to delay the clusters while you set up the defense lines. 

Once those left-side columns are full, the fight becomes a lot like the final wave of the previous fight, mixed with a lot of maintenance. You will need extra maintenance because periodically throughout the fight, Stillwater will throw vials of fertilizer onto your plants, which will kill them in 30 seconds - Replace it as soon as you are able. 

Each time this happens, a green globe of fertilizer will drop somewhere on the field. Collecting the globe will give you a buff that increases the drop cycle of the Solar Power by 100% for 15 seconds. This boost is a good time to drop a Strangler Vine and Pumpkin Bomb on large clusters and repair holes in your defenses.

Additionally, he will spawn 2-3 Obelisks on row G to protect him from incoming attacks. You need to plant Strangler Vines in row F to clear them out of the way. 

The rest of the fight will rotate between dropping Pumpkin Bombs on Stillwater, repairing holes in your defensive line, and dropping Rocknuts to slow down the clusters. 

And that's all for this edition of Guild Guidebook. If you have a suggestion for a future Guild Guidebook, let me know in the comments below!

Also, credit to Wowhead user damiensarin for the awesome guide and all the pictures.