Farmer

Farmer
Rednecks Redstreak Dale
They destroyed his farm. Now he wants revenge.
Main Stats
Type	Shotgunner
Rarity	Stars Reward
Health 18 Ranged Damage 6 Melee Damage 2
Crit. Chance	Ranged: 0% (base) 50% (ability, locked) Melee: 1%
Crit. Damage	5%
Speed	6
Prepare Time	30s
Courage Cost	20
Behavior Stats
Agility	80
Aggression	100
Detection Range	150
Agility Penalty	50%
Aggression Penalty	50%
Morale Stats
Charisma	50
Valor	200
Abilities
Special Ability	Has a 50% chance to fire from two barrels, knock back and slow the enemy
Ranged Data
Firing Period	1.4s (base) 0.7s (ability)
Reloading Period	2.5s
Range	90
Bullet Spread	35°
Unlock Requirements
Stars	4
Player Level	Any

Farmer is an elderly man who seeks to avenge his destroyed farm. He is armed with a double-barreled shotgun and dressed in a blue and yellow T-shirt, a gray short sleeve vest, black pants, and a yellow bucket hat. He sports some gray stubble.

Redstreak is Farmer's first exclusive skin. He is armed with a double-barreled shotgun and dressed in a maroon shirt underneath of a green camo jacket, black pants, and an American flag print headband. He sports a gray stubble beard.

Dale is Farmer's second exclusive skin. He is armed with a double-barreled shotgun and dressed in a gray T-shirt with a yellow arm patch, an orange high-visibility traffic vest with yellow reflective strips, black pants with a walkie-talkie attached to the waist, and a maroon baseball cap with a yellow letter H logo. He sports some gray stubble.

He is a Star Reward, obtained for free when players collect 4 stars.

Overview

Farmer is a Shotgunner. He is fragile, slow, and takes a long time to reload his weapon. This is compensated by his courage cost and preparation time, which are quite low for a ranged unit.

Farmer uses a break action shotgun that fires 5 pellets in a cone at moderate speed, and has 2 rounds. If approached suddenly or without ammo, he does a quick melee attack. Farmer's ranged criticals have a special property: if he scores a critical hit while having 2 shells loaded, he will fire both barrels at once, effectively launching 10 pellets, and getting forced to reload.

Farmer has no perks. Some time after dying, he turns into a Tipsy.

Special Ability

Farmer's special ability locks his double shot chance at 50%. Contrary to the description, Farmer's double shot does not gain knockback or slowing effect.

This ability provides an opportunity to greatly improve Farmer's performance by turning him into a cheap source of burst damage. While it can act as a double edged sword in some scenarios, courtesy of forcing Farmer to reload more often, it easily compensates for that with sheer offensive power, as long as his crit. damage is properly buffed.

Gameplay

Main Campaign

As the very first ranged unit, Farmer is very useful in the beginning of the game. His low courage cost, average preparation time, long range and firing pattern all make him suitable as a fire support unit that works wonders to accumulate DPS, but his low health and melee damage makes him relatively defenseless against enemies that can close into him quickly or are resistant to his attacks, such as Insectoids and Armored Skeletons. Players will quickly learn his notable strengths, exploiting upgrade Items to their maximum potential and build their deck to work around his weaknesses in action through the use of melee units like Redneck or Mechanic, who can fight bullet-resistant threats and cover for his slow reload. Despite being seemingly inconsistent, Farmer can be viable even until the endgame if used well.

As a shotgunner, Farmer faces fairly significant competition with several other alternatives. He is not completely outclassed, however, and in some cases can be used alongside them in a supportive capacity.

• Policeman Diaz, who costs more and has less range, but his high health and melee resistance makes him more forgiving to use, and he can be unlocked relatively early. Diaz' lower range actually plays in their favor, as he can act as a tank and protect Farmer from melee threats.
• Ranger, who costs slightly more and has a steep unlock price, but moves faster, and has a chance to dodge.
• Lester, who is extremely difficult to unlock, but reloads and fires faster, meaning they can be used together to form massive DPS stacks.

Skirmish

In League, Farmer is a decent choice for early low-level Skirmish, as players tend not to put bullet-resistant units in their formations, and his low courage cost allows for more liberty in options. However, Farmer's slow rate of fire, low health and average range means he isn't of much use beyond that. Both Policeman Diaz and Ranger easily supersede him, especially considering their team synergies, as well as Ranger's 90% bullet resistance and higher health.

Item Sets

Like most shotgunners, Farmer benefits most from Hunter and Military. The former provides the most versatile damage buff, meanwhile the latter accentuates crowd control. Tactical is also a valid option for mid-game, as it allows Farmer to properly deal with such threats as Armored Skeleton, Lubber and Sapper. During early game, Adventurer and Startup are both valid options, with the former being more preferable thanks to its damage boost; although the latter might be more appealing due to Farmer's very low speed and its access to rare-tier items.

Gentleman set is a special case, as it's a valid option only with Farmer's SA unlocked. It can be used for builds that fully focus on double shots over regular attacks, limiting Farmer's versatility but buffing his potential as a burst damager.

Farmer greatly benefits from crit. chance books, but after unlocking his special ability they become redundant. Instead, a crit. damage book should be used, as his critical chance will be fixed at 50%. Farmer benefits most from flat boosts rather percentages, with damage and health being the most important ones. Although he recharges moderately quickly, equipping him with a prep. time watch is the best option, as it accentuates his lowkey spammability.

Skins and Synergies

Farmer, along with his respective skins, is a part of several teams: Rednecks, Patriots, and College.

Name	Farmer	Redstreak	Dale
Skin
Unlock Req.	-	300 money	300 money
Team	Rednecks	Patriots	College

In all of the above teams, Farmer is never a bad option given the simplicity of his role as a supportive ranged unit.

In the Rednecks team, he benefits from the ability to gain back health from courage pack drops, increasing his overall survivability, and since he stays in the back, he is more likely to keep the 3/3 Team Power active while the other melee units hold the fort for him.

For Patriots, Farmer can be used to easily enable the 2/2 Power to boost Molotov's damage, while keeping himself from the line of fire to ensure the 3/3 Power remains active, but as with all others, he gets little to no use of the 5/5 Power.

Farmer's utility in College is heavily limited. He does not turn into a dangerous zombie when slain, so the 2/2 barely matters. While he is a good choice for accumulating Charisma due to how disposable he is, this can only meaningfully benefit Sonya's special ability when far better alternatives exist, and the 5/5 power only activates once for every individual copy of a unit, so it ultimately is of little importance.

Trivia

• According to Redneck's deleted backstory:
  • Redneck and Private Rodriguez are his possible children.
• Farmer is likely a reference to both Dale Horvath and Hershel Greene from The Walking Dead series, as he portrays aspects of both characters.
  • This is further evidenced by Farmer's College skin being called "Dale" as a reference to the former character and noting his canonical name.
• Before update 2.7.0, Farmer had to be purchased with coins. The bus had to be level 2, and his price was 18 coins.
• Farmer used to have a different sprite in Dead Ahead: Quarantine.
• Farmer used to have a different reload animation.

Gallery

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  Farmer's DA:Q sprite