Cactose

[Stern]

I think that the Cactose could lurch forward, pull one of its branches back like a balled up fist, and then throw a powerful wide swinging punch (also known as a "haymaker"). My vision is that the Cactose fights like a boxer by landing blows with its upper branches and blocking with them. I don't think that other units would like to get punched by a Cactose due to the damage from the impact and the pointy spines.

If you wanted a ranged attack, you could have the Cactose fire its spines at its enemies.
One last thought... Would a Cactose be resistant to fire damage due to it's hot arid climate and because of it's moisture storing properties?
If so, then the Cactose could also have a small weakness to cold damage due to being unused to the cold and freezing.

[Devas]

For the poison attack, you could make the cactose shake (or just the flower) and then it would drop spores that would move towards the defender. The spores could be shown as a poison gas.

[Kerth]

Here's a first attempt at a melee attack. (I'm aware of the appearing/disappearing thorns, just seeing if this is going down the right path before fixing that)

[fmunoz]

Not bad, but lack of force and if you put it in the game will look as sliding while attacking (you need to move those roots).

[thespaceinvader]

Needs much, MUCH mre movement. That's a reasonably sound punch, but at this scale you really need to exaggerate movement to make things pop - look at other punch type animations in the main game - the Wose, the Troll Shaman, that sort of thing. You're doing well here, though - keep it up.

[Peter the Great]

I don't think that would be the most efficient way to attack someone. He would probably use the farther hand to he can get force from the moving of his body (I think woses use the hand closer but that's because they have all the force they need in one hand) and they would probably use their hands more like a club than a jabbing tool so that all the spikes would get a chance to scratch the enemy. In other words try and make his movement as if he were slapping someone. Do it in real life and see how in order to get a good hard hit in you need to use your entire body.

p.s. I don't do art so maybe I'm wrong maybe someone who knows more could come by and correct me.

[Kerth]

Uh... I'll save the melee and ranged for last. Working with multiple frames is scary D: I'm going to sidetrack and do an attempt at a defense. The face is the least thorny part of the Cactose, so he protects his face as a defense.

I think I'll try to do a slamming animation for the melee, like a club. I remember seeing a thug with a clubbing animation as a gif somewhere on these forums... anybody mind linking me to it or posting it here so I have something to work from?

[thespaceinvader]

It'll be in the big thread about team colouring in the closed dev section, probably a page or two back.

EDIT: found it. Might not be ideal for your purposes, however - you'd probably be better off copying the Wose animation, or the Troll Shaman animation - they don't use weapons either.