Introduction
Introduced in the latest installment of BTD, Tier 5 upgrades are extremely powerful, but also costly. Each tower has 3 different Tier 5 upgrades, 1 for each path.
In this guide, we'll be looking at every Tier 5 upgrade so you can make your own judgement on which is good. I will explain what I believe are the best crosspaths for each upgrade. Each Tier 5 is unique and has varying purposes, so usage can become very situational. Some upgrades you can use effectively on every map, others you might only use during a certain mode. In my opinion, Tier 5 abilities, due to their cooldowns and limited use, aren't as effective as other upgrades. That doesn't mean they aren't useful however.
Because of how powerful Tier 5 upgrades are, you can't have more than one of the same Tier 5 tower, e.g. 2 Pirate Lords, on the same map. There are some exceptions, such as on co-op where each player can have a Tier 5 tower, allowing up to 4 Tier 5 towers on a single map. Other exceptions will be explained once they appear. These will be marked with a **.
Costs for towers will be based on Medium prices. These will vary for other difficulties. Upgrades will be labeled as x/x/x or top path/middle path/bottom path. Numbers=path's tier, x=no specific tier, e.g. a 2/3/0 dart monkey has Razor Sharp Shots and Triple Shot.
At the end of a guide there is a screenshot of my personal tier list of each upgrade and a basic summary containing the outstanding features of each upgrade.
Created by: DerpyPwny ♥
*Updated as of 42.0
Primary Monkeys
Includes: Dart Monkey, Boomerang Monkey, Bomb Shooter, Tack Shooter, Ice Monkey, and Glue Gunner.
Dart Monkey
Path 1: Ultra-Juggernaut
Cost: $15,000
Description: "Gigantic spiked balls split twice into 6 Juggernaut balls for even more destructive power."
A situational upgrade, the Ultra-Jugg can demolish ceramics due to the bouncing spike balls. The Ultra-Jugg is more suited to maps with walls such as Hedge or Moon Landing because the spike balls will bounce off of the walls. On other maps, the Ultra-Jugg loses its effectiveness. It's one of the cheapest Tier 5 upgrades and is useful for grouped ceramic rounds such as round 63. After round 80 however, the Ultra-Jugg loses some power due to the increased ceramic health.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. The 5/2/0 shoots really fast but has a small radius while a 5/0/2 can detect camo bloons and the increased ranged allows for more consistency. Generally 5/0/2 will be better as the purpose of the Ultra-Jugg is for more continuous damage down a lane. Which you choose will be based on your other defenses.
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Path 2: Plasma Monkey Fan Club
Cost: $45,000
Description: "Elite membership of this club grants the Dart Monkeys even more power!"
When activated, the ability turns itself and up to 19 other dart monkeys into Plasma Monkeys which shoot plasma blasts like the Super Monkey's 2/x/x upgrade. If a dart monkey is upgraded 3+/x/x or x/x/3+, then they won't turn. Although really powerful, the ability only lasts for 10 seconds. This along with the high price means the upgrade is to be used in later rounds as a sort of panic button. Somethings to note: Like the 2/x/x Super Monkey, Plasma Monkeys can't pop Purple Bloons. Also, like Super Monkey Fan Club, turned dart monkeys benefit from what upgrades they have. 2/x/x will give them more pierce while x/x/2 will give the dart monkeys camo detection.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 with 2/3+/0 dart monkeys will yield the most damage due to the increased pierce. Having some 0/3+/2 dart monkeys is recommended so that you can pop camo bloons. Otherwise a x/2+/x village will suffice.
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Path 3: Crossbow Master**
Cost: $21,500
Description: "Crossbow Master shoots really fast and devastates most Bloon types with ease."
A powerful upgrade that is relatively cheap, the Crossbow Master is a great upgrade to get for every situation. The range is massive, has a high fire rate, can pop both camo and lead bloons, and can crit. Each shot does 5 layers of damage with a crit dealing 50 layers and has a pierce of 8. Definitely one of the better Tier 5 upgrades. It crits every 5 shots which will occur frequently due to its attack rate.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. Go for 0/2/5 for the highest fire rate you can get and you aren't worried about the pierce amount. Otherwise, 2/0/5 will give you more pierce meaning more bloons can be hit in one shot.
**There is a Monkey Knowledge called Master Double Cross which allows you to have TWO Crossbow Masters on the same map.
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Rankings: The Crossbow Master is a better tower to go for compared to the other Tier 5 upgrades due to the high damage and pierce. The Ultra-Juggernaut and Plasma Monkey Fan Club are close as both are situational and limited in effectiveness; late game for the Ultra-Juggernaut, ability cooldown for Plasma Monkey Fan Club.
Boomerang Monkey
Path 1: Glaive Lord
Cost: $29,400
Description: "Glaive Lord surrounds itself in 3 special glaives that shred anything that comes near. Glaive Lord's glaives now rip through MOAB-class Bloons, slowly tearing them apart from the inside."
A powerful upgrade that destroys grouped ceramics, the price is affordable and can solo up to MOABs with the right upgrades. The Glaive Lord itself can't detect camo, but the spinning glaives can pop camo bloons. The spinning glaives will always turn counter-clockwise. Both the spinning glaives and rotating glaives deal bonus damage to ceramics. Thrown glaives can bounce multiple times. Thrown glaives also apply a damage over time effect on hit bloons which does an additional 100 damage, which can stack multiple times.
Upgrades: 5/2/0 will give better results as the Glaive Lord's damage is increased substantially. Going 5/0/2 will only give 1 extra damage which is worse than being able to attack more. However, neither upgrade will boost the spinning glaives which is its main damage.
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Path 2: Perma Charge
Cost: $35,000
Description: "Perma Charge has permanent super fast attack speed. Ability increases the lethality even more."
For the price, Perma Charge isn't a worthwhile upgrade. Its attack speed is similar to the attack speed of Turbo Charge. The ability boosts the attack speed by about 3x as well as give an increased damage of 8 layers. The ability lasts about 15 seconds. Like Plasma Monkey Fan Club, should only be used as a panic button which may or may not save you as. Unlike in BTD5, the ability can't pop camos and requires x/x/2 to pop leads.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 is generally what you want to use. The increased pierce suits the fast attack speed well, though you will need a x/3+/x Monkey Village to pop camos and leads. A 0/5/2 Perma Charge can pop leads without assistance and allows the base damage to be 10, higher than 2/5/0. However, the pierce is still weak so it's mostly based on what you use the Perma Charge for.
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Path 3: MOAB Domination
Cost: $50,000
Description: "Special knockback kylies trigger more often and do lots of extra damage."
A powerful upgrade for late game as the boomerangs can do massive damage and the knockback is quite useful for stalling, allowing more time for other towers to do damage. The kylie boomerangs themselves do 8 layers of damage, allowing a rainbow bloon to popped completely. The biggest downside of this upgrade is the price, being the most expensive Tier 5 upgrade for the boomerang monkey. The MOAB press boomerangs knockback MOABs, BFBs, DDTs, and ZOMGs for varying amounts, and actually hit at 2x the visible range. Therefore you will have blimps being knocked back without even being in the range of the MOAB Domination. The BAD can't be knocked back but will still be targeted. The MOAB press boomerangs will also explode once it expires, dealing 100 damage and setting blimps on fire for 50 damage over 4 seconds. Additionally, before blimps are knocked back, they are briefly stunned.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. One thing to note is that there are 2 different boomerangs, the kylie boomerangs at x/x/3 and the MOAB press boomerangs at x/x/4. The MOAB press boomerangs can only be upgraded by the 2/x/x upgrade which increases the blast radius and pierce of the explosion. Both upgrades affect the kylie boomerangs which will be thrown faster and fly faster with 0/2/5. The increased pierce of 2/x/x is only more beneficial against super clumped groups of blimps. Whichever you choose depends on what you want.
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Rankings: The Glaive Lord is the best for pure damage. Having a 5/0/2 Glaive Lord on a corner will be able to pop virtually endless amounts of ceramics, but does struggle against blimps. The MOAB Domination is great against blimps due to the high damage and is good for stalling, although it is quite expensive. The Perma Charge isn't a worthwhile upgrade as for $5,000 more you can get the Glaive Lord. It is a decent upgrade to get if you have trouble dealing with blimps however.
Bomb Shooter
Path 1: Bloon Crush
Cost: $55,000
Description: "Bloon shattering explosions do massive damage and can stun MOAB-Class Bloons."
A very powerful upgrade for the bomb tower, the Bloon Crush is extremely useful late game. It is able to stun not only MOABs and BFBs, but even ZOMGs and even DDTs when provided camo detection. It also can now push these blimps back. Dealing 12 damage, it can fully destroy any ceramic before round 80 in 2 hits. After round 80 its effectiveness drops, but not the usefulness. Being able to pop black bloons and the ability to stun basically every bloon type, this upgrade is worthwhile for a late game defense, especially under a 3/x/x village. The stun time is able to be refreshed allowing for infinite stall time until the bloon is popped or the tower reaches its pierce cap.
Upgrades: 5/2/0 allows the Bloon Crush to hit bloons more quickly and precisely, allowing for more stuns. The main purpose is to stun, therefore having frag bombs is pointless.
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Path 2: MOAB Eliminator
Cost: $25,500
Description: "Assassinate ability does 6x damage with a shorter cooldown."
A great ability because there is no cooldown upon upgrading. This means that you can sell the tower and rebuy the upgrades for huge burst damage against blimps. Besides that, the cooldown is relatively short and synergizes well with the hero Striker Jones' level 10 ability. One drawback of the ability is due to the massive damage, it's not effective to use against MOABs and BFBs. Although it will one shot, it is a massive overkill since the ability does 4,500 damage. It can target DDTs if granted camo detection. This is an effective upgrade to use against the BAD on maps without water.
Upgrades: 0/5/1+ is the better upgrade due to the longer range. The top path upgrade isn't a good upgrade as the bigger bombs don't add much to the tower's popping power. The added damage is negligible against blimps.
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Path 3: Bomb Blitz
Cost: $28,000
Description: "Deals much more damage and gains the passive Bomb Storm Ability - when lives are lost, the Bomb Storm automatically triggers, which destroys all but the biggest of Bloons."
A good upgrade for group popping power. Every shot now recurses and does 3 damage instead of 1. It has a passive ability which triggers upon losing a life. The Bomb Storm ability can only occur once per round or every 40 seconds, whichever is longer. This is hindered on Impoppable and CHIMPs since losing even one life is death, but the tower itself can still be good depending on your defense. Typically the Bomb Blitz is used since it is relatively inexpensive while also providing AOE damage, not for the Bomb Storm. One note is that the Bomb Storm WILL pop DDTs even without camo detection and the tower is also able to pop black and zebra bloons without assistance.
Upgrades: WIth the changes to Bomb Blitz's damage, the 0/2/5 will be the better upgrade. Having the tower shoot faster will be more beneficial due to the bombs doing 3 damage. However, this does mean hindering the tower before you upgrade as the extra damage helps the Recursive Cluster more since it does only 1 damage.
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Rankings: Bloon Crush is the best Tier 5 bomb shooter since it can stun almost every bloon. A stall is always great especially late game and this one is reliable. The MOAB Eliminator, although does a lot of damage, is overkill on MOABs and BFBs and waiting on the cooldown can be your end. The instant cooldown upon buying can be useful for spamming against a BAD, but ultimately having multiple MOAB Maulers or MOAB Assassins can be just as effective. The Bomb Blitz is a decent upgrade path to get but comes with the trade-off of either improving the tower before upgrading to the 5th tier or the 5th tier tower itself.
Tack Shooter
Path 1: Inferno Ring
Cost: $45,500
Description: "Deadly inferno of flame roasts Bloons into oblivion."
A good upgrade that does good damage against all bloon types. Inferno Ring does 8 damage against bloons and 12 against blimps. One downside of the Inferno Ring is that, like other fire type damages, it can't pop purple bloons unless under a x/3/x village. It's also the most expensive tack shooter upgrade. This upgrade also adds an additional attack in the form of a meteor. This meteor makes short work of blimps since it does 700 layers of damage and, like Primary Expertise, has infinite range. The drawbacks of this meteor are its sluggish nature, with its speed and fire rate being slow. The meteor creates an explosion on impact which can hit up to 10 bloons and also applies a burning effect doing 50 damage per second for 4 seconds. The meteor will follow Target Priority
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. A 5/2/0 is good upgrade because of the longer range. It also increases the pierce amount by 20, making this useful for shredding huge groups of bloons. The meteor also gains an additional pierce allowing it to hit 1 more bloon before expiring. The x/x/2 path, on the other hand, increases the damage of the Inferno Ring. A 5/0/2 Inferno Ring will now do +1 damage which can help. The meteor will also now do 1,000 damage instead of 700, making it more useful against blimps. Whichever one you get will depend on preference most of the time.
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Path 2: Super Maelstrom
Cost: $15,000
Description: "Even more powerful Maelstrom ability and lasts longer."
A good ability to get close to the track, the big problem, like every other ability, is that there's a downtime in which it isn't at its fullest. Interestingly, this upgrade allows the blades to now pop lead bloons. The Maelstrom lasts 9 seconds with a 20 second cooldown. This is a worthwhile upgrade to get if you rely on the upgrade for damage as now it can pop lead and the ability is twice as good as the normal Maelstrom popping one more layer as well as having 2 extra sawblade spinners.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 for the faster shooting will put out more damage than adding extra tacks. The extra tacks don't compensate for the lost of fire rate.
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Path 3: The Tack Zone
Cost: $20,000
Description: "Many, many tacks."
A great upgrade to get due to its great popping power compared to its cost. This is one of the cheaper Tier 5 upgrades but its extremely powerful. The fire rate is greatly boosted with minor boosts to the range and pierce. And of course, it shoots more tacks. It excels at single-target damage, but due to its low damage, it can struggle against groups and Super Ceramics.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective upgrades. The faster shooting means greater damage output, however the range and pierce can hinder the tower's ability to deal with multiple bloons consistently. Getting a 0/2/5 Tack Zone will mean a great increase to it's range and pierce at the cost of shooting slower, hurting its damage.
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Rankings: Both The Tack Zone and Inferno Ring output a great deal of damage, however, due to its lower price, The Tack Zone is better to get on a budget. If possible, getting both will strengthen your defense greatly. The meteor attack the Inferno Ring gets can make it a better option to get over the Tack Zone in certain scenarios though it is more costly. Super Maelstrom relies heavily on the ability to deal a lot of damage making it less viable to get, despite the smaller price.
Ice Monkey
Path 1: Super Brittle
Cost: $28,000
Description: "Bloons take huge damage while frozen including MOAB-Class Bloons."
An extremely useful support upgrade to get for late game since it makes bloons take 4 extra damage. Although MOABs aren't frozen, they still receive extra damage. Faster firing towers benefit more from this extra damage due to the additive nature of the debuff. The tower itself can now pop white and zebra bloons and the debuff stacks with Cripple MOAB and Glue Storm. Some drawbacks of the upgrade however include its small radius and slow fire rate. As with most other ice towers, placing this on a bend will yield the greatest results. Due to the buffs of the 4th tier upgrade, Super Brittle also has camo detection and is able to remove both camo and regen properties off of a bloon as well.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/1 are effective. Going down the middle path will increase the fire rate of the tower while the bottom path allows the tower to have a larger radius. One thing to note is that the debuff doesn't get reapplied until after it wears off, so refreezing a debuffed bloon won't affect the bloon.
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Path 2: Absolute Zero
Cost: $19,200
Description: "Ability is so cold it freezes all regular Bloons for longer, including White, Zebra, and Camo, slows MOAB-class longer, and greatly increases the attack speed of all Ice Monkeys for the duration."
Another useful support upgrade despite being an ability. The biggest upside compared to the previous upgrade is the larger radius as well as a longer freeze time. The tower also slows bloons in its radius more and can freeze more bloons. The ability has no cooldown upon purchase so this upgrade can be a sure way to freeze or slow bloons on the screen in a panic. Both the normal freeze attack and the ability freeze 2 more layers and, while the ability is active, all Ice Monkeys gain a +50% attack speed.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. Although the ability itself can pop leads without Metal Freeze, the ice tower itself still can't, therefore the top path helps with that facet. Also, the Perma Frost applies to the bloons once they unfreeze from the ability. The benefits of a 0/5/2 is that the larger radius means a greater area of slowdown as well as being able to stall bloons by constantly refreezing them. Which you get is mostly preference.
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Path 3: Icicle Impale
Cost: $30,000
Description: "Shoots huge icicle spikes that do huge damage to MOAB-Class Bloons and freezes them."
A really powerful upgrade to destroy MOABs, this is a favored tower to use because of its efficiency in dealing with MOABs plus its stalling ability. Each shot does a massive 50 damage against blimps along with slowing them down, excluding the BAD. Although it will slow DDTs when given camo detection, it will not do damage to them without a x/3/x village or Metal Freeze. Icicle Impale can also pop white and zebra bloons. That along with the fast projectiles makes this upgrade real reliable in dishing out damage as well as stalling.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. Generally you would want to get a 0/2/5 for the greater fire rate, but a 2/0/5 will work if you don't have the tower under a x/3/x village to pop leads.
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Ranking: All 3 upgrades are great at what their purpose is. Icicle Impale's ability to shred through blimps makes it edge out over the other upgrades however. Super Brittle is a great support tower but the slow fire rate and small range can make it miss. Absolute Zero is great for slowing down but isn't consistent due to the ability cooldown.
Glue Gunner
Path 1: The Bloon Solver
Cost: $22,000
Description: "Bloons a problem? Here's the solution."
A quite cheap upgrade that is extremely powerful, especially against super-ceramics, or ceramics after round 80, as the glue corrodes bloons and blimps at 3 layers per tick. This upgrade boosts the tower in a few ways. First, it boosts the rate at which bloons take damage. Secondly, the fire rate and the splash radius is increased, being able to hit 4 bloons at once at 5/0/0. Lastly, it will now fire 2 projectiles every attack instead of one. Blimps aren't slowed when they are hit. When bloons are glued and popped, they will leave behind glue puddles. These puddles will glue more bloons and last 7.7 seconds.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. 5/0/2 is good for the slowing down bloons immensely, providing more time for either the corrosive glue to destroy it or another tower nearby. It will also make the glue puddles more effective, making them last longer and able to glue an extra bloon. However, 5/2/0 is good as well for the good boost in the splash radius, going from 4 at base to 9 at x/2/x. Whichever upgrade you go for depends on what you're using the tower for.
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Path 2: Glue Storm
Cost: $15,000
Description: "Glue Storm ability pelts the whole screen over 15 seconds with glue. Glued Bloons take extra damage while glued."
A decent upgrade and ability, the upgrade is quite cheap. The ability doesn't slow down blimps making it less effective than Snowstorm or Absolute Zero. The tower itself doesn't get buffed meaning the only reason to get this upgrade is for the ability. The ability makes all glued bloons, including blimps, to take 1 extra layer of damage which stacks with Cripple MOAB and Super Brittle.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. The top path allows the tower as well as the ability to affect blimps. The extra layer of damage can help in this regard. However, the bottom path slows down affected bloons even more which can allow your towers more time to attack the bloon.
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Path 3: Super Glue
Cost: $24,000
Description: "Glue so strong it temporarily immobilizes all affected Bloons!"
This upgrade is probably one of the best stall towers currently, along with Icicle Impale. Although it doesn't slow the BAD, it can almost permanently lock both bloons and blimps in place, even DDTs if granted camo detection. It can't glue a bloon or blimp forever as each glue splatter that hits a blimp will deal 30 layers of damage. The glue can completely stun MOABs and DDTs, however slows down BFBs to 95% speed and ZOMGs to 90% speed.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 is the best upgrade to get if you want to use this tower for pure stalling. Being able to hit multiple bloons means less bloons rushing towards the exit. A 0/2/5 glue gunner is able to hit 13 blimps at once. A 2/0/5 Super Glue isn't needed to glue blimps unlike other upgrades
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Rankings: The Bloon Solver and the Super Glue are close together due to their effectiveness. The Bloon Solver's ability to melt both bloons and blimps makes it a worthwhile upgrade for late game while the Super Glue's ability to stall is second to none. Glue Storm is also a useful upgrade to get due to its debuff ability for a cheap price. One issue is that since it is an ability, you must be cautious when activating the ability.
Military Monkeys
Includes: Sniper Monkey, Monkey Sub, Monkey Buccaneer, Monkey Ace, Heli Pilot, Mortar Monkey, Dartling Gunner.
Sniper Monkey
Path 1: Cripple MOAB
Cost: $34,000
Description: "Crippled MOABs are immobilized for longer and take extra damage from all other attacks."
A good support upgrade as it allows other towers to do more damage against blimps while also stalling them. This is a better support tower against blimps compared to Super Brittle because blimps are stunned, allowing more time for towers to do damage. One drawback is that the upgrade does increase the amount of damage the tower does against blimps which means they can pop faster than from a Maim MOAB. Therefore, if you are using this tower solely for stalling, then a 4/x/2 sniper will suffice.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are both useful upgrades. 5/0/2 is good for more focused stalling of a single blimp or a few amount of blimps. 5/2/0 is good for close groups of blimps and for more general application of the debuff. Most of the time you should go for a 5/2/0 for later rounds due to the amount of blimps that spawn. The lower firerate can be negated by Elite Sniper's buff.
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Path 2: Elite Sniper
Cost: $14,500
Description: "Supply drop gives much more cash. Grants Elite targeting prio and faster reload to all snipers."
It's not a bad idea to get this upgrade if you have some other snipers due to its low cost and buffs it provides. The Elite Sniper globally increases the attack speed of snipers by 33%, along with adding the Elite targeting option. This targeting option makes the sniper target Strong bloons first until bloons near the exit where it will start targeting First bloons. This reduces the need for microing each individual sniper. Besides the targeting and fire rate bonuses, the amount of money in the cash drop is increased to $3,000, and activating the ability will now trigger other Supply Drop abilities if they are off cooldown.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. If you're using the tower by itself, 2/5/0 is the better upgrade to get as you already get an increase in attack speed upon purchase of the Elite Sniper. More layers of damage is always useful. However, if you buff the tower, such as with an Alchemist, getting 0/5/2 will be better for damage as the shrapnel will be buffed as well. This allows the faster shooting to be better due to more shrapnel shots.
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Path 3: Elite Defender
Cost: $14,700
Description: "A lost life gives this Sniper 4x attack speed for a short time in retaliation. Also attacks faster the further the Bloons are along the track."
In some ways, a worse Bomb Blitz, this upgrade also has a quirk where it powers up if you lose a life. Although the fire rate becomes extremely fast upon losing a life, the sniper still has to shoot and pop the bloons, whereas Bomb Blitz instantly pops mostly everything on the screen. Like the Bomb Blitz, this "ability" has a cooldown before it can be reactivated. Besides that, the sniper also shoots twice as fast as Full Auto Rifle at 4x. This upgrade also has another ability where the further bloons progress along the track, the faster this tower will shoot, up to 100% faster. This stacks with the increased fire rate of losing a life. Since the upgrade is so cheap, it is reasonable to purchase this upgrade for the high fire rate.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 is the better upgrade to get. Although losing out on initial popping power from the top path, the shrapnel will more than make up for this. This becomes even better if positioned properly to maximize shrapnel pops, usually along straight paths. 2/0/5 is still a good upgrade if you don't trust the shrapnel or the track isn't as good for it. Additionally, it'll be able to pop lead bloons.
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Rankings: All 3 snipers are useful for separate purposes. Cripple MOAB is probably the most useful in terms of utility due to its ability to stall as well as making blimps take more damage. The Elite Sniper's global fire rate increase can be quite helpful if you have a few snipers. Otherwise it won't be as effective. The ability, although buffed compared to the x/4/x sniper, doesn't provide much. The Elite Defender's biggest advantage is its extreme fire rate which can shred through certain rounds. Due to the low cost of both the Elite Sniper and Elite Defender, both are viable Tier 5 towers to get.
Monkey Sub
Path 1: Energizer
Cost: $32,000
Description: "Reduces ability cooldown everywhere by 20%. While in range, Heroes earn XP 50% faster and water Monkeys ability cooldowns are halved."
A pricey update compared to the other sub paths that provides great utility in certain situations. Because of the ability cooldown reduction, this upgrade is maximized if you have a lot of abilities who have long cooldowns. Most of the time you won't be using the extra XP gain heroes get, unless your strategy revolves around having a high leveled hero early. The faster water monkey cooldowns is extremely helpful if you rely on boat pulling or firing a large missile to deal with blimps. Besides that, the main radiation attack is improved with the damage increasing to 3 pops and being able to pop 1,000 bloons at once. Its dart attack when it is not submerged is also boosted, dealing 5 damage, making it viable to switch between submerging it and not when bloons aren't in range of its radiation.
Upgrades: 5/0/2 as this will increase the damage pulse rate of the reactor. Upgrading to a 5/2/0 will only increase the amount of bloons that can be popped at once which is useful in a handful of situations.
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Path 2: Pre-Emptive Strike
Cost: $29,000
Description: "Automatically triggers MOAB Assassin effect whenever MOAB-Class Bloons spawns from the Bloon entrance."
A great upgrade to get as it instantly does 750 damage to EVERY blimp that enters the screen, including DDTs even without camo detection. There is no limit as to how fast the missile shoots, therefore, no matter what, every blimp you fight will be damaged. A couple things to note, if it does kill the blimp, the children underneath aren't damaged, and the missile doesn't damage children blimps. If a BFB is popped, the MOABs inside won't be hurt from the missile at all. Besides that, this tower fires ballistic missiles faster which also deal more damage. The cooldown for the ability is also reduced to 45 seconds.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. The main reason to get this upgrade is for its missiles which have infinite range, therefore making Advanced Intel non-essential. The missiles also aren't boosted by the Twin Guns upgrade. Therefore, whichever upgrade you go for depends on what you want, whether the sub is able to fire its main dart at anywhere on the map or have airburst darts.
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Path 3: Sub Commander
Cost: $25,000
Description: "Adds extra pierce and damage to Commander and all Subs in its radius."
A powerful upgrade especially if paired with other subs. To maximize its effectiveness, place this tower in the middle of a large body of water so that the max amount of subs can surround it. One thing to note is that there is a monkey knowledge that makes the bonuses apply to every sub on the map, increasing this upgrade's usefulness. The additional pierce and damage is also applied to the tower itself, and it also receives an additional increase in fire rate, firing 2x faster than Triple Guns. However, it is still recommended to only buy this upgrade if you have a few other subs that can be buffed, including Energizer or Pre-Emptive Strike, doubling the damage of both the reactor damage and blimp missile respectively.
Upgrades: 2/0/5 should be the only upgrades you get as being able to fire at basically anywhere on the map if provided sight far outweighs being able to pop a few more bloons per dart and being able to pop leads. It also doesn't need a x/2/x village to detect camos if it has Advanced Intel as long as the camo bloon is in range of a camo detecting tower, such as a ninja.
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Rankings: All three upgrades are viable to use, granted used properly. The Sub Commander allows subs to becoming extremely deadly due to the extra damage and pierce. However on maps with small bodies of water, this upgrade isn't necessarily worth getting. Energizer is only worth getting if you have a bunch of abilities, otherwise the normal Bloontonium Reactor will suffice. Pre-Emptive Strike is useful for damaging blimps in the beginning but is otherwise not that effective in dealing with children bloons. The faster firing and more damaging ballistic missiles can help with this issue though.
Monkey Buccaneer
Path 1: Carrier Flagship
Cost: $24,500
Description: "Does extra damage. Can place other Monkeys on the upper decks of the ship and increases attack speed of all water based Monkeys and Monkey Aces."
A powerful upgrade with a lot of small details. To start, both the tower and the planes can now pop lead while the planes have increased pierce and damage. They will also aim towards bloons similarly to the Spectre. As for the attack speed buff, this obviously includes other Monkey Buccaneers and Monkey Subs, but it also affects the Carrier Flagship itself, towers placed on the Pontoon power, ice platforms created by the Arctic Wind, or the Monkey Temple if it was on an ice platform, and even the Monkey Ace. Additionally, Monkeys placed on the ship gain an increase in attack speed as well as having no obstacle obstructions. It is possible to fit up to 4 towers if each is placed perfectly on the ship. The planes are also upgraded from the 4/x/x upgrade. The projectiles fly faster, deal more ceramic damage, and the homing MOAB missiles shoot faster, hit more, and do more damage.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. The main ship still fires its main dart and, if upgraded to 5/1+/0, the grapes as well. This increases the main ship's popping power, however a 5/0/2 Carrier Flagship can be useful as well if you have limited camo detection as your damage will mainly come from the planes.
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Path 2: Pirate Lord
Cost: $26,000
Description: "Greatly increased attack speed for all attacks and can shoot 3 grappling hooks at once, plundering extra cash from each MOAB-class Bloon taken down."
A really powerful ability mainly because it can now takedown multiple blimps at once. There is no initial cooldown so upon purchase of the upgrade, you can immediately hook blimps. On top of that, you can now hook ZOMGs. Doing so will use up 2 hooks meaning you can hook a ZOMG and a MOAB at once. The ability can also hook DDTs without camo detection. The extra money from hooking blimps is welcomed but not significant especially later on when hooking blimps give little amounts of cash. Besides that, every attack does increased damage. The Grapes attack does more damage, with bonus damage to ceramics, and does more burn damage. The Cannonball attack also does more damage with bonus damage to blimps.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 will make the ship pop more. The Faster Shooting upgrade applies to Grape Shot and the cannon making the ship dish out lots of damage when firing. Because the ship can hook DDTs without camo detection, Crow's Nest becomes almost useless unless you want the ship to be attacking camo bloons at which case you should have other forms of camo detection.
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Path 3: Trade Empire
Cost: $23,000
Description: "Generates more cash per round, Increases cash earned by up to 20 other Merchantmen by the number of Merchantmen, and boosts all Merchantmen damage."
The biggest use you can get out of this upgrade is if you have other Merchantmen. The extra cash generated is a mere $300 making the total cash generated at the end of the round be $800. Other ships gain an extra $10 for every other Merchantman, or $20 for Favored Trades. To receive the highest amount of money from this interaction, you will have 1 Trade Empire and 20 Favored Trades which will generate $18,300 at the end of a round. Once past 20 Merchantmen, each subsequent Merchantman won't get a bonus. Besides increasing cash output, this upgrade also increase the damage of other Merchantmen by 1 as well as another +1 damage to Ceramics and blimps.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 Trade Empire will be able to help your defense more as the grapes will do more damage than having two darts that fire slightly faster. On top of that, having Hot Shot allows leads to be popped and apply fire, dealing damage over time.
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Rankings: Both Carrier Flagship and Pirate Lord are useful towers to get as they are relatively cheap and both provide decent firepower. The main purpose of the Carrier Flagship is support, allowing water towers to fire faster and providing additional space on top, while the Pirate Lord is utility in that the ability is able to destroy more blimps and can even hook ZOMGs and DDTs. Trade Empire can be useful for farming large amounts of money, but can take a while to reach a point where you make a profit. Its popping power isn't the best and shouldn't be your main defense.
Monkey Ace
Path 1: Sky Shredder
Cost: $42,500
Description: "The Bloons will wish they had never come."
A great upgrade to get as it's effective against both bloons and blimps. Every aspect of the tower is an upgrade from the 4th tier upgrade. To start, the MOAB missiles deal even more damage and can hit more blimps. More darts are fired out at a faster rate and can pop lead bloons without help. The plane itself moves faster than before. A solid upgrade to get, the only problem will be the amount of projectiles which can make it difficult to see the map. Each dart does an extra layer of damage with an additional +2 damage to ceramics.
Upgrades: 5/0/2 will yield better results and is in general more useful. Being able to pop more bloons per dart is always helpful and the centered path can be useful if your tower is placed near the edge of the map.
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Path 2: Tsar Bomba
Cost: $30,000
Description: "A very, very large bomb. Someone put a stop to craziness!"
One of the best abilities for the job. This is a worthwhile upgrade to get if you want a safe way to destroy to screen as, besides doing a lot of damage, 3,000 to be exact, every bloon that manages to survive the explosion will be stunned, except BADs. Being an ability, it does require good timing as there's a cooldown which might save you one round but leave you dead the next. The bomb also takes a few seconds to drop after being pressed, so use it earlier than when you need to.
Upgrades: 0/5/0 is the recommended upgrade as the main damage of this upgrade is the ability. The darts shouldn't be relied on as there are few amounts of darts and fly randomly. The bomb will always be dropped in the center of the screen no matter where the monkey ace is. If you were to go for an upgrade, 2/5/0 will give you more darts which means a better chance to hit bloons as well as an increase at which the plane while drop bombs.
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Path 3: Flying Fortress
Cost: $85,000
Description: "This is a BIG plane."
A very expensive upgrade that isn't that effective compared to its price. There are now three streams of darts and bombs fired which are fired at twice the speed, the potential problem is that each stream fires at separate targets. One stream targets first bloons, another targets last bloons, and the last stream fires at the closest bloons. Unlike the Spectre, this upgrade can pop DDTs if given camo detection. Fast bloons will be able to bypass the streams due to the somewhat weak targeting, though the darts slightly home in on bloons. It does bonus damage to blimps as well. Although this upgrade is more powerful than the normal Spectres, its price makes it a severely weak option to go for anytime but late game.
Upgrades 2/0/5 will provide more damage to the Flying Fortress compared to 0/2/5 as the only bonus damage from the middle path are the Exploding Pineapples which are unreliable. Although camo detection is useful for popping DDTs, another form is recommended either with a x/2/x village or otherwise.
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Rankings: Sky Shredder has a huge damage output due to the amount of darts fired and the rate at which they are fired. The MOAB missiles are also an effective way to deal with blimps. The Tsar Bomba is a good ability to have as a backup due to the immense damage and stun. The Flying Fortress is too expensive to warrant practical use and the problems the Spectre has with hitting fast bloons is carried over.
Heli Pilot
Path 1: Apache Prime
Cost: $45,000
Description: "The Apache Prime leaves most Bloons wishing they'd never been inflated."
An effective upgrade to get as its damage is greatly increased. The darts are replaced with lasers and plasma and therefore have better pierce and also strip multiple layers. The homing missiles launched also deal extra damage to blimps. Razor Rotors does more damage and has more pierce as well.. The heli also flies faster which is boosted with Bigger Jets. The downside of having the laser and plasma attacks however is that they can't pop purple bloons. The Razor Rotors and homing missiles can though so this drawback isn't big.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. 5/2/0 makes the tower able to detect camo without help, but the biggest reason to upgrade to this is because the Bigger Jets upgrades allows the Apache Prime to be incredibly fast, the fastest aircraft in the game in fact. This will allow it to keep up with bloons on later rounds if on pursuit. The faster shooting of the bottom path increases the damage output of the tower greatly at the cost of slower maneuverability. Whichever you use is down to preference.
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Path 2: Special Poperations
Cost: $30,000
Description: "Deploys a powerful special Monkey Marine with machine gun."
An often overlooked ability, the Marine deployed has insane popping power. The Marine lasts for quite a while an has a relatively short cooldown. It can pop 5 layers a shot and shoots incredibly fast. It can also pop camo and lead bloons without assistance. This makes it an extremely potent tower. It does have limited range and can't be placed on the track. Other than that, the crate will give more cash and lives when dropped. There's also a Monkey Knowledge that allows this upgrade to get another ability, acting similarly to Redeploy ability, but also allow the tower to still attack bloons while still inside the heli.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. 2/5/0 will be better suited for when you don't want to micro the heli as Pursuit allows the heli to follow bloons. When in a tough situation you can deploy the Marine and it'll be placed as close to the heli as possible. On top of that, it still has the Downdraft ability so bloons will be blown back. The heli isn't the main source of damage so the faster darts isn't that important. However, the attack speed buff DOES buff the Marine, allowing for incredible DPS.
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Path 3: Comanche Commander
Cost: $35,000
Description: "Upgraded weapons. Also automatically calls in 3 more Comanches. Permanently."
A decent upgrade that can get the job done. It's an effective way to deal with bloons and an affordable cost. The three mini helicopters called do insane damage. The biggest reason for its power is because the amount of fire power within one tower as there is the main heli which shoots darts and missiles, and then the three mini Comanches which have the same weapon set. That along with the heli's ability to slow down blimps makes it an extremely strong and safe choice for all difficulties.
Upgrades: 2/0/5 will be the best choice no matter what as the quad darts just adds to the damage and Pursuit allows no micro so blimps will always be slowed. The tower doesn't need faster flying due to the insane power, so it will rarely have to chase bloons, and camo detection should be given with other towers.
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Rankings: Apache Prime is arguably one of the best Tier 5 tower in the game currently because of its popping power. This is one of the safest options to get to deal with bloons. Comanche Commander is a robust upgrade to get, however, it is outshine by Apache Prime's better damage output. Special Poperations is a great ability to get, but there is still an ability cooldown meaning there isn't a 100% uptime.
Mortar Monkey
Path 1: The Biggest One
Cost: $36,000
Description: "Smashes deeply through Bloons and layers over a huge area."
A good upgrade to get early on as being able to pop 20 layers decimates ceramic rushes. You will rarely be able to reach to pop limit as the upgrade can pop 200 bloons at once. The giant explosion radius also means there's less of a need to retarget the mortar. The shockwave produced by the impact deal additional damage to ceramics. The mortar is now able to stun blimps briefly.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. Going the faster reload will launch more mortars at an area while going for Burny Stuff will give the upgrade a big damage over time increase. The effect of Burny Stuff can be more helpful for when there aren't that many towers past the mortar's radius that will clean up stragglers.
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Path 2: Pop and Awe
Cost: $32,000
Description: "Pop and Awe ability: rains explosions over the whole screen, damaging and immobilizing all bloons for a few seconds. Main attack gains additional bonus damage to stunned Bloons."
One of the best ways to stall bloons as blimps are affected as well. Besides the new ability, this upgrade also does extra damage to ceramics, leads, fortified bloons, and blimps. The ability is a worthwhile upgrade though as it stuns every bloon and blimp, except BADs, for a long time. During this time bloons and blimps move for short distances while the ability goes off. Besides stunning, the ability does damage as well at 20 damage per second. The tower also does an additional 10 damage to bloons that are stunned. The only downside to relying on this upgrade for stalling is that you can only have one so you are vulnerable during the cooldown. Aside from its ability, the mortar does extra damage to BADs and Boss Bloons. It also makes x/4/x mortars deal bonus damage to BADs and Boss Bloons.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 is an effective way to pop bloons as because of the extremely fast fire rate, the double layer of damage can shred bloons quickly. You don't need increased accuracy most of the time and Burny Stuff's damage isn't that great.
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Path 3: Blooncineration
Cost: $40,000
Description: "Superhot burny stuff burns through 5 layers of bloon each time, burns up MOAB class bloons for extra damage, and strips DDT camo."
This is a good upgrade to get to pop blimps due to the incredible damage over time at 100 per second. This isn't a good upgrade for general bloon popping as although burny stuff burns through 5 layers, its over time. This upgrade can affect DDTs if under a x/3/x village. Because of this tower's ability to remove fortification on bloons, blimps will disintegrate. One thing to note is that the fire doesn't stack. Therefore it is best to have the mortar shoot away from towers with fire attacks. This upgrade can also damage all bloon types and also leaves a wall of fire effect at the impact location, which removes the camo layer of bloons, even on DDTs. This makes the tower a powerful upgrade to get to deal with grouped bloons as the stacking wall of fires can make short work of waves.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 basically guarantees that you hit every bloon and apply burny stuff, your main source of damage. The mortars fired end up being less effective so doing two layers of damage doesn't help, also since it doesn't affect burny stuff. As of update 9.0, the benefits of 2/x/x, radius, pierce, and damage, now affect the wall of fire effect as well. Therefore, it may be more worthwhile to get a 2/0/5 mortar instead and have a secondary x/x/4 mortar to help remove fortification.
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Rankings: The Biggest One does high damage over a large explosion and can destroy bloon rushes and because of its lower cost, is a good way to boost your defense. Pop and Awe is a great stalling ability but the upgrade doesn't add much to the main mortar attack. The extra layer damage against blimps can help your defense slightly. Blooncineration is a good way to deal with blimps but is a costly upgrade and once a bloon is on fire, the upgrade becomes less effective. The wall of fire effect can be extremely deadly since multiple can be placed, especially on intersections.
Dartling Gunner
Path 1: Ray of Doom
Cost: $80,000
Description: "Creates a solid line of annihilation. You can erase most Bloons at your leisure."
Literally a giant, continuous beam of death. Keep in mind that it is affected by line of sight so if it's behind a building, the laser won't go through it. Unlike the previous upgrade, the whole laser does the same amount of damage and applies the Laser Shock debuff. The laser doesn't continuously do damage, instead the bloon has to be in the laser for a short duration. The first bloon or blimp hit will take an additional 55 damage from the laser. Afterwards, the laser does 25 damage and continuously reapplies the Laser Shock debuff, though it doesn't stack. Each tick of the Laser Shock does 20 damage and once the bloon stops being lasered, will last for 5 more ticks before expiring. Unlike its previous upgrades, the Ray of Doom can pop purple bloons.
Upgrades: 5/2/0 will increase the rate at which the laser hits the bloon at the cost of damage. Instead of doing 40 damage, the laser will now do 25, but will hit faster. In the end, this results in more overall DPS of the laser itself. The Laser Shock debuff isn't affected in any way. Plus, being able to hit camo bloons without aid is nice. The laser has a very high pierce, if not an infinite amount, so getting the x/x/2 upgrade is pointless since the laser won't travel faster either. The x/x/1 upgrade also isn't as helpful compared to the DPS increase of x/2/x.
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Path 2: M.A.D
Cost: $60,000
Description: "MOAB Assured Destroyer. Slower firing mega missiles deal extreme damage to MOAB-class Bloons."
This upgrade makes the dartling gunner into a giant robot that shoots out a giant rocket from each hand. Each rocket causes an explosion when it passes through bloons that does 3 damage and has 8 pierce. A single rocket can explode multiple times on a bloon as it passes through it. Against blimps, a rocket will do an additional 750 damage. Each rocket is able to hit 4 bloons or blimps before expiring. The ability continuously shoots out 20 waves of 9 rockets in a random arc in the direction the dartling gunner is facing. The rockets do more damage to blimps, although not as much as the main missiles.
Upgrades: Both 1+/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. 1+/5/0 makes your rockets and ability more accurate allowing you to hit bloons better, especially if they're farther away from the tower. The Laser Shock debuff isn't affected at all so compared to the damage of the rockets, it barely helps. 0/5/2 will allow the rockets to hit more bloons before expiring meaning more damage to grouped bloons per rocket. The faster swivel can also help in catching up to the more faster bloons as well.
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Path 3: Bloon Exclusion Zone
Cost: $54,000
Description: "Upgraded to 6 barrels and massively increased damage. Bloons are excluded from existence."
Compared to the previous upgrade, the Bloon Exclusion Zone now has 2 more barrels, a faster firerate, more buckshot, and does more damage. The range is the same so make sure to keep this tower closer to the track. When set to Target Independent, the 6 barrels will switch to their own targeting instead of following the cursor. 2 of them will be set to First, another 2 will be set to Strong, 1 will be set to Last, and the final is set to Close. Keep in mind that each barrel shoots once before it cycles again so if there's a bunch of bloons or blimps at various distances and strength, sometimes some of them may not be popped. It is unable to pop lead bloons. The small knockback to bloons granted by the x/x/3 upgrade allows this tower to have great bloon stalling potential.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 allows the Bloon Exclusion Zone the ability to shoot camo bloons, but also increases its firerate, allowing for it to cycle through the barrels faster. The 1/x/x upgrade does allow the buckshot spread to tighten quite a bit, but it isn't as useful as being able to put more buckshot out. The Laser Shock isn't buffed at all, making its damage boost quite minimal.
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Rankings: M.A.D is an extremely powerful upgrade, especially against blimps. Its power rivals that of the True Sun God in terms of blimp popping power. Its group popping power is also better due to the explosions the rockets produce. The Ray of Doom is a great upgrade for hitting numerous amount of bloons at once due to its near infinite piercing power. The Bloon Exclusion Zone is a good upgrade but is outshined by the other two. However, it is good for cleaning up bloons that make it past your main defense.
Magic Monkeys
Includes: Wizard Monkey, Super Monkey, Ninja Monkey, Alchemist, and Druid.
Wizard Monkey
Path 1: Archmage
Cost: $32,000
Description: "A true master of magical wizardry"
A decent upgrade to get due to its cost and high damage. The tower fires extremely fast and has higher pierce. The upgrade also gives the wizard Dragon's Breath and Shimmer which boosts its power. Besides these attacks, the tower does extra damage against ceramics and blimps. Due to this and the fast attack, blimps will pop quickly and ceramic rushes are dealt with swiftly early on. This tower also doesn't require precise positioning because the tower isn't affected by obstacles. One downside is that late game, its power to shred through blimps can leave a bunch of super ceramics which can cause some issues without other towers.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. If the Archmage is being used as a blimp destroyer, the faster bolt movement and more pierce of the bottom path can be helpful. The camo detection isn't necessary due to Shimmer, but can be helpful to ensure no camos sneak past. The fireball and wall of fire of the middle path will get the increased attack rate as well as increased damage against blimps. The fireball itself also does more damage to bloons. This allows the Archmage to better handle clumps of bloons and blimps alike.
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Path 2: Wizard Lord Phoenix
Cost: $50,000
Description: "Wizard Lord becomes a master of the flame, turning into a super powerful Lava Phoenix for a short time."
An upgrade that is 3 times more powerful than previous paths with a powerful ability. The wizard has its fireball damage increased up to 27 while its Dragon's Breath ability does 6 times the damage as normal. Upon use of the ability,the wizard becomes the phoenix. The good thing about this upgrade is that the phoenix does great damage. Not only does it have increased popping power, it can pop purple bloons despite having a fire attack. The main fire breath attack is supported with fireballs that shoot out from the phoenix. Besides the ability, a now permanent phoenix spawns as well, increasing popping power.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. Going the top path will allow the wizard to be able to ignore obstacles and do two layers of damage making it not as necessary to have good positioning. Going the bottom path allows you to pop camo bloons without assistance while having the wizard's attack have more pierce and move faster. However, none of these upgrades, except Monkey Sense, affects the phoenix ability which is your main source of damage, so whichever you choose depends on the situation.
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Path 3: Prince of Darkness
Cost: $26,500
Description: "Reanimate even more powerful Bloon servants to obliterate the enemy and enhances all other Necromancers."
A great upgrade to get due to its low price, buffs to undead bloons in the form of undead MOABs and BFBs which do greatly more damage, and having the main wizard be able to shoot faster. The biggest downside of this upgrade is that bloons need to be popped within the tower's radius for it to summon undead bloons. This means this tower is severely weaker on rounds with a small amount of bloons, although the bloons stored in its graveyard do carry over for 3 rounds. The undead bloons can pop lead and purple bloons giving them a strong advantage. This tower will also buff the zombie bloons from other x/x/4 Wizards, allowing the zombie bloons to deal 1 more layer of damage and last 50% longer than normal.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. 2/0/5 will arguably give the wizard better popping power since its main attack has an increased fire rate. Being able to pop two layers is hard to pass up. It will also allow zombie bloons to travel farther before expiring. However, the increased fire rate also affects its fireball attack meaning going for 0/2/5 can be better of groups of bloons. Plus, there is the Wall of Fire upgrade which is great for dealing with lots of bloons.
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Rankings: Prince of Darkness is one of the best Tier 5 upgrades because it can devastate both bloons and blimps. It's cheap and the attacks come out faster and with a bigger punch. It's also good for camo due to its Shimmer effect. Archmage is a good upgrade to get to fight against blimps and occasionally bloons. Since its pierce isn't that high, popping a bunch of blimps into ceramics can leave to some trouble. Wizard Lord Phoenix is a great source of popping power which is boosted by its ability. It's a pricey upgrade that may hurt more than help, however.
Super Monkey
Path 1: True Sun God
Cost: $500,000
Description: "Tremble before the AWESOME power of the TRUE Sun God!!"
The best Tier 5 upgrade in terms of pure power, this is necessary to reach extremely late rounds. The tower itself will pop 15 layers no matter what is sacrificed. The biggest problem is the amount of money that is needed to do so. It's also confusing as to how to upgrade to the best temple as not only what you sacrifice to the Tier 5 temple matters, you need to think about what you sacrifice to the Tier 4 temple. Either way, to get the most power out of your sacrifices for either temples, you need to have $50,000 worth of appropriate towers. There are some guides out there which explain the upgrades for the True Sun God as it's quite extensive. One thing to note, there is a Monkey Knowledge which allows you to buy a more powerful version of the True Sun God.
Upgrades: 5/2/0 will give you extreme range, being able to see over half the map. Especially if sacrificed with max upgrades, you won't need Knockback as you'll be able to send bloons back to the start instead. Camo detection can be given through other means.
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Path 2: The Anti-Bloon**
Cost: $80,000
Description: "<Program Directive> <Eradicate Bloons> <INITIATE>"
This upgrade superboosts everything about the tower- its ability and its attack. To start, the tower itself shoots faster, does 5 damage, and has 2 extra pierce. It's also able to pop purple bloons. Additionally, its critical damage on hits is improved, occuring every 17 shots. It still increases the damage done by 10x, meaning instead of 5 damage, crits do 50 damage. The ability now does way more damage and has a larger radius. This is useful upgrade to get even if you don't want to use the ability because of how much more powerful it is compared to the previous upgrades. The biggest problem is the cost of the upgrade, making it unrealistic to get in certain situations.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 will greatly boost your damage so you should get camo detection from other means. The only benefit of the bottom path is the Knockback which only affects bloons which isn't that helpful since the tower shreds bloons.
**Can't be rebought if Vengeful True Sun God is bought.
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Path 3: Legend of the Night**
Cost: $200,000
Description: "We turn to him, when all hope is lost..."
An often overlooked upgrade due to its price, this is a great tower to get if you have excess money because of its ability to destroy blimps. The tower has a longer range, 3 extra pierce, does 4 extra damage against camo bloons, and does 13 extra damage against blimps. This allows it to solo the BAD on some tracks. Besides that, the tower also unlocks a hidden ability that activates when you're about to leak a bloon. The ability creates a black hole at the end of the track which prevents any lives lost for 7.5 seconds. This pairs extremely well with Bomb Blitz and the Elite Defender since you don't lose any lives but it still activates their ability. The black hole does have cooldown of 180 seconds however. From the 4th tier upgrade, this upgrade also gets the ability to teleport anywhere on the map.
Upgrades: 2/0/5 will yield the greatest damage since it increases your damage and pierce. Although the range might seem better, the main purpose of this tower is to pop blimps and get them down to bloons. The tower itself already gets extra range and blimps have an bigger hitbox, so the extra range doesn't help as much compared to the plasma blasts.
**Can't be rebought if Vengeful True Sun God is bought.
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Rankings: True Sun God is the single best upgrade in the game for damage and is important to reach really late rounds. The Anti-Bloon is able to destroy rounds especially with the help of its ability. Legend of the Night is a strong choice to fight blimps and its ability can literally save your life. However, its price makes it difficult to get in a game.
Ninja Monkey
Path 1: Grandmaster Ninja
Cost: $35,000
Description: "Throws incredibly fast, 8 shurikens per shot!"
A solid upgrade to get as the increase of damage from Bloonjitsu is noticeable. Besides throwing out 3 more shurikens, this tower has a longer range and shoots faster. When paired with some x/3/x ninjas, this tower is able to shred through bloons and blimps alike. Even more so with the Monkey Knowledge which adds one extra shuriken. The big downside of this upgrade is that it still can't pop lead bloons which can be problematic on DDT rounds if you don't give this tower lead popping power.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. Whichever upgrades you get depends on what you want the ninja to excel at. Getting a 5/2/0 ninja will allow almost every bloon to be stripped of camo and sent backwards due to the incredible fire rate and large amount of shurikens. If you want the ninja to excel at popping blimps, getting 5/0/2 will be more useful as the Seeking Shurikens allows a better chance of a shuriken hitting the blimp. The caltrops thrown out are also helpful as they add some additional damage. Either way, a few x/3/x ninjas will greatly boost your ninja's power.
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Path 2: Grand Saboteur
Cost: $22,000
Description: "Ability duration is longer, and MOAB-Class Bloons spawn with less health during the sabotage."
A worthwhile upgrade to get especially for later rounds as blimps are damaged by 25%, increasing its power for later rounds due to the increased blimp health. The ability has to be active when the blimp spawns, otherwise the blimp will be undamaged. The slow effect is the same as Bloon Sabotage so the only reason to get this upgrade is to damage blimps. One advantage of this is that it is able to carry over through rounds if activated near the end of the previous round. Besides that, while active, any x/3/x or x/4/x Ninjas will get extra range and deal one extra damage against blimps.
Upgrades: 1/5/0 for the extra range will give this tower a better chance to boost nearby ninja's attack rate. Since this tower is mostly support, upgrading the shurikens won't be that helpful. You could reason to get caltrops as they act like spike factory spikes, but you lose the chance to boost the attack rate of nearby ninjas.
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Path 3: Master Bomber
Cost: $40,000
Description: "One Monkey MOAB demolition Machine."
A great upgrade to deal with blimps as the sticky bombs now do 1,000 damage, allowing it to pop MOABs, DDTs, and BFBs pre-scaling. The bombs can be thrown at any range meaning its blimp popping power isn't hindered. Any boosts to the ninja's attack speed also affects the rate at which sticky bombs are thrown. Eventually, with enough fire rate buffs, every blimp and subsequent blimp children will be destroyed. The disadvantages of this upgrade is that the bombs take a while to explode and they don't damage the children. However, the sticky bombs do have an explosion which deal 300 damage to surrounding bloons. Blimps hit by the sticky bomb are stunned for 1 second, and the flash bombs thrown can now stun blimps briefly as well as do 5x more damage, making this upgrade useful for the slight stalling potential.
Upgrades: 1/0/5 will allow the ninja to throw sticky bombs faster which is its main way of damage, so boosting the shurikens isn't worth it. Distraction and Counter-Espionage don't affect the sticky bombs so they are pointless to get.
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Rankings: Grandmaster Ninja is the best at general popping power because of the fast fire rate and amount of shurikens it throws. The only downside are lead bloons which can be negated with a x/3/x village, Gwen's Heat It Up ability, or Alchemist's Acidic Mixture Dip. Grand Saboteur is a cheap and helpful upgrade to get due to its slow along with damaging blimps. The only problem is the ability cooldown. Master Bomber is a great way to deal with blimps but is a little too expensive to get early on where it excels due to blimps not having extra health. It can serve as an alternative way to stall blimps due to the sticky bombs stunning on impact and the flash bomb's ability to stun as well.
Alchemist
Path 1: Permanent Brew
Cost: $60,000
Description: "Berserker brew becomes PERMANENT on Monkeys who drink it."
With the Alchemist nerf to Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant, this upgrade's effectiveness increased exponentially. The only downside of the tower's buffing brew is that there isn't as great as a buff to the range as Stronger Stimulant. However that isn't a big issue because the buffs to damage, attack speed, and pierce outweighs the lower range buff. Selling this tower will remove the buffs on all affected towers so to best utilize the brew, you can use a x/4/x heli to move the alchemist around. This tower is simply a must have for late game defense because of how much power the brew adds.
Upgrades: 5/0/2 will most likely be the path you go for as you wouldn't upgrade an alchemist straight to 5/x/x right away. Otherwise, a 5/2/0 will provide more damage, albeit a small amount, to blimps.
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Path 2: Total Transformation
Cost: $45,000
Description: "Transforms five Monkeys nearby into crazy attack monsters for 20 seconds."
A strong ability with interesting interactions, this is a solid upgrade to get if you have a good setup. The upgrade itself doesn't affect the alchemist besides changing its appearance. The biggest reason to get this upgrade is for the ability to transform other monkeys which allows them to deal massive damage at the cost of not being able to pop purple bloons. This tower doesn't affect Tier 4 or Tier 5 towers and doesn't transform inorganic towers, such as the Tack Shooter and Spike Factory, water towers, or flying towers. In regards to 'interesting interactions', affected towers still gain their abilities upon transformation. For example, Druids that have increased attack speed due to Poplust will keep this increased attack speed which further increases your damage.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 alchemist allows you to hit more bloons at once with potions and giving nearby monkeys Acidic Mixture Dip can help with defense. This isn't necessary though since your main damage will be through the ability, which isn't boosted by any of the upgrades.
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Path 3: Bloon Master Alchemist
Cost: $40,000
Description: "Secret shrink potion converts all affected Bloons into Red Bloons."
A powerful upgrade to get since it can render groups of bloons and blimps entirely useless. These potions have infinite range and can hit multiple bloons at once, even camo bloons. It can hit 10 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 4 DDTs, or 2 ZOMGs with one potion. The biggest downside of this upgrade is that you don't get extra damage from affected bloons. You only get the $1 from popping the red bloon. Therefore this upgrade is only beneficial for when you have an excess of money.
Upgrades: 2/0/5 will be better since stripping off fortification isn't needed as red bloons can't have fortification and you don't need potion to deal more damage. Having your potion affect more bloons boosts its power and being able to give nearby towers the Acidic Mixture Dip can be helpful.
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Rankings: Total Transformation allows huge damage output especially if certain monkeys are transformed. The price is also affordable and worth getting for a boost to your defense. However this upgrade shouldn't be relied on for consistent defense due to the cooldown. Permanent Brew is great paired with powerful towers to allow them to do even more damage. It's a pricey upgrade though and if you don't have very many towers, a few 4/0/2 alchemists will be cheaper and serve just as well. Bloon Master Alchemist is able to make difficult rounds a piece of cake but you will lose out on tons of money, so only buy this upgrade for later rounds.
Druid
Path 1: Superstorm
Cost: $60,000
Description: "Superstorm blasts all Bloon types for massive damage and blows them away from the exit."
This upgrade gives the tower a new attack in the form of a super-tornado which is able to blow back more bloons and even blimps. The tower itself still keeps the normal Tier 3 tornado, not replace it. The super-tornado is able to blow back either 10 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 4 DDTs, or 1 ZOMG. The super-tornado can only hit a certain amount of bloons at once, about 200, so during giant rushes some bloons won't be blown back. It also spawns Ball Lightnings in an arc in front of it every second, dealing some more damage. Besides gaining this super-tornado, the tower itself can detect camo bloons without help so having a x/2/x village next to this isn't needed.
Upgrades: 5/0/2 is the better upgrade to go for because the increased range means more time to deal damage. And if you lose lives, the increased attack speed can greatly benefit the tower. The upgrade's main form of attacks are the tornadoes and lightning so having more thorns isn't that important. Converting regrow bloons into normal bloons can be helpful as to not cause a regen farm, however bloons can be quickly popped with the numerous amount of attacks the druid has.
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Path 2: Spirit of the Forest
Cost: $35,000
Description: "Grows thorned vines along the path that deal constant damage plus bonus damage to ceramics. Vines nearest the Spirit of the Forest do more damage. Activated ability generates lives and more cash."
A great upgrade to get because of the power of the vines that grow, the additional lives and money generated is just a bonus. The ability works like previous upgrade except you gain 25 lives as well. At the end of a round, you also get a flat $1,000. The grown vines don't initially fill up the entire map, instead slowly grow over time from the druid. Afterwards, they last permanently unless the tower is sold or its ability is used. The vines themselves have infinite popping power, pops 2 layers at once, and can pop camo without camo detection. Vines that are closer to the druid will do more damage to bloons. It can't pop lead bloons without help though. It does, however, do extra damage to ceramics.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. 0/5/2 is generally the path you'll be getting to increase the tower range, allowing more farms in its range for the cash ability. The additional attack speed is also nice. Since the tower generates lives, the bonus attack speed from lost lives will be pointless most of the time. Going 2/5/0 will allow the grown vines to be able to pop lead as well. This can be useful when the ranged vines reach its pierce cap, making them unable to pop more bloons. The additional lightning can also be helpful.
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Path 3: Avatar of Wrath
Cost: $45,000
Description: "The more Bloons there are, the more damage it does!"
An extremely powerful upgrade especially when paired with 5 Poplust druids. The upgrade itself gives the base tower a faster fire rate and more damage, however the damage is exponentially boosted for the amount of bloons on screen. The damage boost is based on the 'RBE' and not necessarily the amount of bloons. For example, although the BAD is a single bloon, due to its RBE, the tower will gain max bonus damage. The downside of this upgrade is that it can't pop lead bloons or camo bloons without help.
Upgrades: 0/2/5 will yield way better results as having extra thorns which deal extra damage is better than having chain lightning, as the extra damage the chain lightning gets is only a portion. Having extra pierce will rarely benefit this tower.
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Rankings: Avatar of Wrath is a solid Tier 5 tower to get and when paired with Poplust druids, the tower's power becomes giant. Spirit of the Forest is a great tower to have since the vines are powerful. The bonus cash and lives granted is another plus. Superstorm is one of the best stalling towers due to being able to blow back blimps, but due to its high cost, isn't a tower to get for main defense.
Support Towers
Includes: Banana Farm, Spike Factory, Monkey Village, Engineer Monkey, and Beast Handler.
Banana Farm
Path 1: Banana Central
Cost: $115,000
Description: "You want Banana? We have Banana!"
A valuable upgrade to get to farm thousands of money, the Banana Central produces 5 crates that give $900 (more with Valuable Bananas) per round. Additionally, every other 4/x/x farm gives $320 (more with Valuable Bananas) per crate instead of $300 per crate.
Upgrades: 5/2/0 for the greater money amount per crate. The bottom path is pointless to get unless you don't have the Banana Farmer power and you are lazy to hover over the farm.
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Path 2: Monkey-Nomics
Cost: $100,000
Description: "For when you're too big to fail..."
Another valuable upgrade to get to farm money over a few rounds. Like other x/3+/x farms, it is best to only collect the money once it's full to be the most efficient. The capacity is the same as the IMF Loan at $10,000. The biggest advantage to this upgrade over the IMF Loan is that using the ability gives $10,000 without going into debt.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 generates more money per round meaning you can collect sooner. The only advantage of the bottom path is knowing when your bank is full at the cost of it taking longer to do so.
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Path 3: Monkey Wall Street
Cost: $60,000
Description: "Hub of Monkey trades earns colossal income each round."
The cheapest Tier 5 upgrade out of the farms, the money generated isn't greater than that of the other upgrades. Its usefulness extends to not requiring manual pickup as well as boosting x/x/3+ buccaneers' cash gain. It also generates $4,900 per round which doesn't include the bananas it generates. It also generates 10 lives every round if allowed, and can now collect nearby bananas and crates as if it's a Monkey Farmer.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 will give the same amount of money, $5400 to be exact, per round. The upgrade cost of each crosspath is also the same, so choose whichever you like. However, if you have the Monkey Knowledge "More Valuable Bananas", 0/2/5 will give you slightly more money.
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Rankings: Banana Central and Monkey-Nomics are close in terms of best money gain. Banana Central generates huge amounts per round while giving other 4/x/x farms extra money, while Monkey-Nomics can have huge profits by using the ability. The Monkey Wall Street doesn't generate as much money, though it is cheaper. Ultimately, for the most farming possible, you would have all 3 of the Tier 5 upgrades with the rest of the farms being 4/2/0.
Spike Factory
Path 1: Super Mines
Cost: $150,000
Description: "Creates gigantic exploding spiked mines that can wipe out almost anything."
This upgrade is the 3rd most expensive upgrade in the game, behind the Super Monkey's True Sun God and Legend of the Night upgrades. Despite this, the Super Mines isn't a worthwhile investment compared to other Tier 5 upgrades. It's able to pop all bloon types, however, has a slower production than a 4/x/x one. One benefit is that besides the giant explosion triggered once a mine is used up, each spike also triggers an explosion, albeit one that isn't as powerful
Upgrades: 5/2/0 gives the highest production rate. The Super Mines needs as much production as it can get due to its slow rate. If you were to get this upgrade, place it near the middle of the track because the explosions have a giant radius, damaging a bunch of bloons at once.
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Path 2: Carpet of Spikes
Cost: $40,000
Description: "Regularly sets a carpet of spikes over the whole track."
A decent upgrade, upon purchase and round start, then about every 15 seconds afterwards, the Carpet of Spikes sends out a Spike Storm without triggering the ability. One problem with the upgrade include the ability itself having a long cooldown of 45 seconds, meaning using it too early can cause death. Also, as with other spike factories, maps with multiple lanes/exits lessens the effectiveness as some if not all of the spikes gathered won't be hit.
Upgrades: 2/5/0 allows bigger spike piles and the ability to pop lead bloons. Being able to direct where the spikes go is pointless since you can't control where the Spike Storm spikes land. Being able to pop lead means you won't have stacks of lead bloons eating up your spikes.
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Path 3: Perma-Spike
Cost: $30,000
Description: "Spikes become almost permanent."
One of the more popular Tier 5 upgrades with good reason. It's relatively cheap and has potential to solo rounds. Many strats rely on this upgrade despite having a slow production rate. Because of this slow rate, stalling as much as possible or preventing bloons from reaching the pile is vital. This upgrade is the last chance you have before you lose.
Upgrades: A 0/2/5 will output more spikes meaning you will be able to keep your spike pile topped off much more quickly. Although the spikes can't pop lead, a simple 2/x/x alchemist will fix this issue, which you should have by the tower anyways. Only go for the 2/0/5 if you can't have an alchemist buffing the tower.
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Rankings: Perma-Spike is by far one of the most helpful upgrade as the spikes being able to carry through rounds means you won't have to hope that your pile is big enough for when a DDT leaks. Buffing it with a 4/0/x alchemist and a 2/x/x village will increase its power as well. Both Super Mines and Carpet of Spikes aren't as good of upgrades and are difficult to rank one over the other. Super Mines is powerful but really expensive while Carpet of Spikes is unreliable.
Monkey Village
Path 1: Primary Expertise
Cost: $25,000
Description: "Adds Mega Ballista attack, plus all Primary Monkeys in radius get more popping power and tier 1 and 2 upgrades for free."
A really good upgrade to get especially if you surround the village in Primary monkeys. This upgrade combos well with the x/x/4 village upgrade because every round you get a free dart monkey, and then 4 free upgrades. The increase in defense isn't much but can be fun to play around with. This upgrade also furthers boosts Primary towers in range. Besides the free upgrades, the Ballista attack does huge damage, up to 200 to blimps and ceramics. It can destroy blimps almost instantly, and it can also bounce between bloons. The Ballista attack itself has infinite range and can pop camo and lead bloons without any other upgrades.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. A 5/2/0 village will be better in situations when you only want a single village in range of your towers, therefore needing camo detection as only the dart monkey has a camo detection upgrade out of all the primary towers. A 5/0/2 village will be better when coupled with a 0/2+/2 village due to the stacking discounts. This setup isn't recommended if you're going to be using mostly primary towers under the village as only Tier 3 and lower upgrades get discounts, meaning primary towers will only have a single upgrade discounted.
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Path 2: Homeland Defense
Cost: $40,000
Description: "Ability now increases attack speed and pops by 100% for all Monkeys for 20 seconds"
A direct upgrade to the Call to Arms upgrade, this is a powerful ability to have due to affecting every tower on the screen. Both the duration and buffs it provides are twice that of the previous upgrade, 20 seconds duration and a 100% increase in attack speed and popping power. As always the problem comes with the cooldown of the ability. It can be a good idea to have some x/4/x villages active during the Homeland Defense's downtime.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. Get a 2/5/0 village if you want towers in the radius to have more attack speed or pair a 0/5/2 village with another x/x/2 village to give nearby towers discounts.
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Path 3: Monkeyopolis
Cost: $5,000/farm
Description: "Absorbs all nearby Banana Farms and their income, freeing up space for new Monkeys."
An interesting upgrade in that the amount it costs varies depending on the amount of farms in the village radius. Can be useful if you have a lot of farms near it as instead of selling the farms and losing some money, the Monkeyopolis will absorb it. Afterwards, it will drop 10 crates a round with the amount of cash the crates are worth depending on how many banana farms are sacrificed and their worth, ultimately producing more income than the farms themselves. This upgrade can't absorb Tier 5 banana farms.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. You should be getting at least another x/x/2 village near this one to increase the discount amount and by doing so, can split the top and middle upgrades between the two villages. Theoretically, to get the most out of this upgrade, having a 1/0/4 village then upgrading to a 1/0/5 will be better as the bigger radius can reach more farms.
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Rankings: Primary Expertise is the best upgrade to get for damage and is suited for more open areas so you can fit more primary monkeys. The Homeland Defense isn't necessary unless you're tight on space or have a lot of monkeys spread out. You can use the Monkeyopolis to generate a lot of cash for pricey upgrades such as Paragon towers.
Engineer Monkey
Path 1: Sentry Champion
Cost: $32,000
Description: "Creates super-powerful but highly unstable sentries."
Instead of creating normal green sentries or various colored sentries, the Sentry Champion now creates up to 4 purple Champion sentries. These sentries now shoot plasma blasts allowing the sentry to pop both lead and frozen bloons. Because of the plasma blasts, the sentry can't pop purple bloons. If the engineer is given camo detection, the sentries will be able to pop camo bloons as well. The new Champion sentries also now explode, dealing damage to nearby bloons. The explosion can instantly kill up to 50 ceramics and does 100 damage to blimps. The explosion radius is the same as the sentry's radius. The explosions trigger automatically either once the sentry despawns or by manually selling the sentry. Manually selling the sentry instantly triggers the explosion.
Upgrades: 5/0/2 will help increase the amount of damage both the sentry and engineer can do. Being able to pop more bloons with a single nail is a plus, but the biggest reason to go on the bottom path is the Pin upgrade which essentially freezes affected bloons, allowing more time to damage the bloon. Since most of the damage will be from sentries, the larger range and extra blimp damage the middle path provides aren't as helpful.
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Path 2: Ultraboost
Cost: $105,000
Description: "Ultra-Overclocked Monkeys gain a small but permanent boost every time they are overclocked."
With this upgrade, Overclock now gives the monkey a permanent boost speed boost upon activation. The permanent boost is a 8% increase in attack speed and can stack up to 10 times for a permanent 80% increase in attack speed. This boost stacks with Overclock itself. When paired with other attack speed boosters, a single tower can attack extremely fast. Besides that, Overclock itself is the same as the previous upgrade. Note that you can Overclock Banana Farms and Monkey Villages as well. Overclocking Banana Farms will increase the amount of money they make each round while Overclocking Monkey Villages will increase its effective radius. Besides all that, the Engineer itself has more pierce on its nailgun
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are worthwhile upgrades. The top path allows the engineer to create sentries which can help provide some firepower while the bottom path stalls bloons the engineer hits. The biggest use of this upgrade is the Overclock ability which boosts other towers.
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Path 3: XXXL Trap
Cost: $48,000
Description: "Huge Bloon traps can trap some of the largest of Bloons in them..."
New bloons traps are significantly buffed now.Besides the obvious of being able to trap any blimp except the BAD, the bloon trap can now hold more bloons before it's full. As for blimps, it can trap 17 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 1 ZOMG, or if the engineer is given camo detection, 13 DDTs, before it fills up. These numbers are only if the trap is empty. Otherwise the amount it sucks up will vary. One thing to note is that, like the normal bloon trap, XXXL traps will remain on the track even if the engineer is sold. There can only be one XXXL trap on the track.
Upgrades: 2/0/5 is the most ideal upgrade to go for as the biggest star of the path is the trap. You would want to maximize the amount of bloons the trap absorbs to gather cash quickly, and get a new trap out as soon as possible. Going 0/2/5 will allow the trap the de-fortify bloons it consumes, allowing it to not use it up with fortified bloons.
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Rankings: Ultraboost is arguably the best Engineer upgrade because of the ability to quadruple a tower's attack speed, making it a must-have for late game runs. However, the biggest problem will be its hefty price and relatively slow time to build up the 10 miniboosts. XXXL Trap is a great upgrade due to the ability to just suck up most blimps and giving extra cash. It is slightly pricey but due to the fact that most blimps appear on the later rounds, isn't a big issue. Sentry Paragon is a cool upgrade at first but is relatively weak. The sentries, the big star of the top path, take a while to deploy when you first buy the upgrade, which can hurt your defense. They also don't do as much damage as other towers of similar price. The explosion is hard to time and ultimately not that useful.
Beast Handler
Path 1: Megalodon
Cost: $45,000
Description: "A truly colossal shark with a taste for Bloon. Requires 3 additional Orca Handlers to control."
A giant shark that does massive damage, the main downside is requiring water, which is not on every track. Because there needs to be 3 other Orca Handlers merged, it will cost an additional $60,705 before you can upgrade. After, it will need at least another 3 Orca Handlers to have the Megalodon at max energy. The Megalodon will drag any bloon, including blimps and even the BAD, into the water to instantly destroy it. It will only grab 1 bloon at a time, and will take longer to drag blimps. While it drags the bloon to the water, it will constantly flail and cause damage in an area around its mouth. This will cause any bloons hit to be knocked back slightly, while blimps will be slowed down. Increasing the energy of the Megalodon will increase the damage of its area attack.
Upgrades: Both 5/2/0 and 5/0/2 are effective. Due to how Beast Handler works, neither crosspath will boost the Megalodon's power. Because of the massive damage of the Megalodon, and even the ability to instantly destory BADs, the other creatures act more as backup. Going 5/0/2 can be beneficial since the Horned Owl will be able to carry some bloons back to the entrance. The other beast can also be used for a small amount of energy for other Beast Handlers.
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Path 2: Giganotosaurus
Cost: $60,000
Description: "The biggest and most fierce dinosaur of them all, Giganotosaurus can shred almost any Bloon instantly and with ease. Stomp ability hits the whole map and lasts longer. Requires 3 additional Tyrannosaurus Handlers to control."
A giant dinosaur that has a decent range and can't be blocked, it will chomp on passing bloons. Needing 3 other Tyrannosaurus Handlers requires an additional $40,470. At least another 3, for a total of 6, is needed for max energy. The Giganotosaurus is fairly simple as it snaps at bloons, dealing high damage. Along with its high pierce, it can destroy groups of bloons instantly. Because of its slow biting speed, and that the bites won't damage the children bloons, ceramics can run past the Giganotosaurus. The track-wide stomp is a good ability to help, as the Giganotosaurus does extra damage to stunned bloons. Like the chomp however, children bloon won't be affected by the stomp's stun. Increasing its energy will make the stun and chomp deal more damage and pierce more.
Upgrades: Both 2/5/0 and 0/5/2 are effective. Since the other paths don't boost the Giganotosaurus itself, which crosspath used isn't that important. However, 0/5/2 will help the Gianotosaurus catch bloons that run by it since the Horned Owl can pick it up and bring it back closer to the entrance. Otherwise, you can use the other beasts for merging.
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Path 3: Pouākai
Cost: $30,000
Description: "The legendary Pouākai, a bird so large that it can pick up, carry off and destroy almost any number of Bloons of almost any size. Requires 3 additional Condor Handlers to control."
A giant bird that will attack with its wings or carry groups of bloons backwards. The 3 additional Condor Handlers will require an additional $37,035. Having a total of 6 Condor Handlers will give the Pouākai max energy. The Pouākai will attack bloons with its wings, dealing a decent amount of damage to a group. The biggest draw of the Pouākai is that once bloons reach past the bird marking on the path, which you can designate, the Pouākai will pick up the groups of bloons and carry them back to the marked part. Doing so will deal damage to the picked up bloons and also stagger them. It's able to carry any bloon or blimp except BADs. Having the marking as close to the entrance as possible will allow the Pouākai the most time to carry bloons backwards while also dealing damage. Increasing the energy of the Pouākai increases the damage it does and makes it faster.
Upgrades: Both 2/0/5 and 0/2/5 are effective. Compared to the damage of the Pouākai, the other beasts will only help out slightly. If you're by water, then go 2/0/5, otherwise 0/2/5 is the only other option. The beasts can be used for merging on to other Beast Handlers if needed.
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Rankings: The Megalodon is a powerful beast due to its ability to instantly destroy any bloon. However, it requires water, making it not available on some tracks. If there's water though, it is a worthy investment. The Giganotosaurus is great at dealing large chunks of damage to bloons, and its ability can add some stalling when needed. Its slow chomp speed will make slowing towers great friends with the beast. The Pouākai doesn't have the high damage of the other 2 beasts, but it more than makes up for it by being able to drag large groups of bloons back towards the entrance. Each beast requires a large amount of money to buy and then get to max energy, so good farming is needed.
Summary Of Outstanding Features Pt.1 (Primary+Military)
Ultra-Juggernaut Spiked balls split into more spiked ballsPlasma Monkey Fan Club Converts itself and 19 other dart monkeys
Can't convert 3/x/x or x/x/3 dart monkeys
Converted monkeys benefit from whichever upgrades they haveCrossbow Master Can pierce multiple bloons and pops multiple layers. Crits do 10x damage
Can pop leads bloons
Can place two on one map with Monkey KnowledgeGlaive Lord Spinning glaives always spin counter-clockwise
Spinning glaives can pop camo bloons
Spinning glaives can pop lead and DDTs
Spinning glaives have infinite popping powerPerma-Charge Fire rate is the same as x/4/x ability
x/5/x ability boosts fire rate by about 3x
Ability length can be boosted with Monkey KnowledgeMOAB Domination Has two separate boomerangs, the kylie boomerangs and the MOAB press boomerangs
MOAB press boomerangs aren't affected by upgrades
MOAB press boomerangs are thrown at about 2x the visible range
Can't affect the BADBloon Crush Can stun both bloons and blimps except the BAD
Can pop black and zebra bloons
Stun time can be boosted with Monkey KnowledgeMOAB Eliminator Ability has no initial cooldown
Ability does 4,500 damageBomb Blitz Destroys every bloon on screen except ZOMG and BAD which does 2,000 damage instead
Every shot produces additional bomb clusters instead of every other
Can pop black and zebra bloons
Bomb storm can only happen once per round or every 40 seconds, whichever is longerInferno Ring Can't pop purple bloons
Does 4 damage against bloons, 10 against blimps.
Meteor attack which does 700 damage against 1 targetSuper Maelstrom Can pop lead bloons
More Tacks upgrade boosts number of blade rings ability releasesTack Zone Can pop lead bloons
Tacks have a pierce of 3 and does 2 damageBloon Solver Gains a Glue Splatter effect even without upgrade
Shoots 4x fasterGlue Storm Bloons will be glued every few seconds if not already glued
Glue is permanent and slows more than usual
Glue Storm ability applies a debuff that makes the bloon take extra damage
Potentially stacks with Super Brittle/Cripple MOABSuper Glue Does small amounts of damage to glue target even without Corrosive Glue
Does impact damage against blimpsSuper Brittle Applies a debuff that makes the bloon take extra damage
Extra damage debuff doesn't stack and lasts a certain amount of time
Can affect the BAD
Small range and slow fire rate
Potentially stacks with Cripple MOAB/Glue StormAbsolute Zero Has no initial cooldown
Completely freezes every bloon and blimp except the BADIcicle Impale Does 50 damage to blimps
Slows down every blimp to a flat amount except the BADCripple MOAB Applies a debuff that makes the bloon take extra damage
Extra damage debuff lasts as long as the blimp is crippled
Can affect the BAD
Potentially stacks with Super Brittle/Glue StormElite Sniper Supply drop gives more money
Gives "Elite" targeting option, targeting strong then first if bloons are near the exit
Increases attack speed of all snipers by 30%Elite Defender Shoots 4x faster
Shoots faster as bloons progress through the track
Shoots an additional 4x faster with ability
Ability has a short cooldown
Ability can have no cooldown with Monkey KnowledgeEnergizer Pops more layers and has more piercePre-Emptive Strike Pre-emptive missile does a flat 700 damage to blimps
Missile can pop DDTs
Ballistic missiles are shot fasterSub Commander Shoots 2x faster
Can buff every sub on screen with Monkey KnowledgeCarrier Flagship Increases attack speed of all water towers, Monkey Aces, and towers on Pontoons or Arctic Wind's ice platform
Towers placed on Carrier Flagship have increased attack speed and aren't affected by obstacles
Planes can pop lead bloonsPirate Lord Has no initial cooldown
Receive double cash from hooked blimps
Can hook ZOMGs with 2 hooks
Can hook DDTs without camo detectionTrade Empire Produces $800 at round end
Merchantman/Favored Trades earn $20 more for every other Merchantman/Favored Trades
Maxes at 20, including Trade Empire
Doesn't benefit from extra money
Boosts Merchantmen damageSky Shredder Missiles do 100 damage
Missiles can pop DDTs
Can pop camo and lead bloons
Shoots 32 darts, each deals 3 damageTsar Bomba Bomb does 3,000 damage
Stuns any bloon left except the BADFlying Fortress Shoots 3 streams of darts/bombs, one targets first, one targets close, one targets last
Can pop DDTs with camo detectionApache Prime Dart weapons become laser and plasma-based
Homing missiles deal 11x more damage to blimps
Can only pop purple bloons through Razor Rotors or missilesSpecial Poperations Crate gives 3x more cash and 50% more lives
Dropped Marine pops 5 layers per shot
Marine can pop camo and lead bloons
Marine never drops on the trackComanche Commander Mini-Comanches aren't affected by Commander's targetingThe Biggest One Can pop 200 bloons at once
Shockwave does extra damage to ceramicsPop and Awe Ability can stun every bloon except the BAD
Bloons are popped at 10 damage per secondBlooncineration Burny Stuff does 100 damage every two seconds
Burny Stuff does 100 damage per second with Monkey Knowledge
Leaves a Wall of Fire at impact
Decamos DDTs without Monkey KnowledgeRay of DoomBlocked by line of sight
Laser Shock debuff does 60 extra damage after bloon isn't being hitM.A.DFires rockets which alternate between each hand
Explosions can hit bloons multiple timesBloon Exclusion ZoneTarget Independent has 2 barrels on First, 2 on Strong, 1 on Close, and 1 on Last
Shoots out 12 buckshot that have limited range
Summary Of Outstanding Features Pt.2 (Magic+Support)
Archmage Adds a Dragon's Breath attack
Adds a Shimmer effectWizard Lord Phoenix Wizard itself isn't buffed
Ability can pop purple bloons
While ability is on cooldown, a phoenix is summonedPrince of Darkness Summons undead MOABs and BFBs
Wizard's main attack speed and range is buffed
Only needs bloons to be popped in its radius to summon undead bloons
Buffs zombie bloons from other NecromancersTrue Sun God Shots pop 15 layers
Requires $50,000 worth of sacrifices for max benefits
Can turn into the Vengeful True Sun God with Monkey KnowledgeThe Anti-Bloon Ability does 3,000 damage
Can pop purple bloonsLegend of the Night Hidden ability where a black hole appears at the exit if bloons near it
Black hole lasts for 7.5 seconds and prevents any life lost
Will still activate Bomb Blitz and Elite Defender's ability
Cooldown of 2 minutesGrandmaster Ninja Can throw 9 shurikens with Monkey Knowledge
Attack speed increased by 3-4xGrand Saboteur Ability damages incoming blimps by 25%
Can affect the BAD
Can carry over through roundsMaster Bomber Sticky bombs deal 1,000 damage and stun blimps on impact
Sticky bombs can be thrown at any range
Sticky bombs can be thrown faster if ninja is given attack speed buffs
Sticky bombs can pop DDTs
Flash bombs deal 5 damage and can stun blimpsPermanent Brew Brew doesn't give affected tower as much range as Stronger Stimulant
Affected towers lose brew effect if Permanent Brew is soldTotal Transformation Ability is overwritten by other transformation abilities
Doesn't affect inorganic towers, water towers, or air towersBloon Master Alchemist Special potion can be thrown at any range
Special potion can convert groups of bloons
Special potion can convert 10 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 4 DDTs if given camo, or 2 ZOMGs at once
Doesn't reward extra cash
Removes camo and regen properties from affected bloonsSuperstorm Can pop camo bloons
Upgrade gives a new super-tornado attack
Super-tornado can blow back 10 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 4 DDTs, or 1 ZOMG at once
Super-tornado can only blow back up to 200 bloons Spirit of the Forest Gives $1,000 and 25 lives with each ability activation
Vines slowly grow outwards from the druid
Vines can pop camo bloons
Vines have infinite popping powerAvatar of Wrath Increased damage is based on round RBE
Has different stages of damage increaseBanana Central Crates give $900
All Banana Research Facility crates give 25% more cashMonkey-Nomics Ability gives $10,000 with no debt, $12,000 with Monkey Knowledge
Max capacity is $10,000, $12,500 with Monkey KnowledgeMonkey Wall Street Gives $4,900 each round along with generated bananasSuper Mines Decreases production rate of minesCarpet of Spikes Does Spike Storm ability at start of each round then every 20 seconds afterPerma-Spike Spikes disappear after 3 rounds or 300 seconds, whichever is firstPrimary Expertise Ballista has infinite range
Ballista blades can ricochet
Ballista does 10 damage and pierces 100 bloons, 200 damage and pierces 10 blimps/ceramics
Ballista can pop camo and lead bloons
Provides increased pierceHomeland Defense Doesn't stack with Call to Arms
Provides 100% bonusesMonkeyopolis Cost varies based on number of farms nearby
Produces 10 crates, the cash amount depending on the farms sacrificedSentry Paragon Sentries fire plasma blasts
Sentries can't pop purple bloons
Sentries explode after despawning
Increasing fire rate of engineer increase number of sentries at onceUltraboost Overclocked tower gains permanent 8% attack speed increase after Overclock expires
Permanent attack speed stacks 10 times for 80% increase
Permanent attack speed stacks with OverclockXXXL Trap XXXL Trap now holds more bloons
XXXL Trap can trap 17 MOABs, 4 BFBs, 13 DDTs, or 1 ZOMG
XXXL Trap can't trap BADMegalodon Can drag a BAD into the water
Area damage causes slight knockback on bloons or slows down blimps
Does more damage with more energyGiganotosaurus Chomp and stun ability don't affect children bloons
Does more damage with chomp and stun with more energyPouākai Can't carry BADs
Does more damage and moves faster with more energy
Personal Tier List
S | Archmage, Grandmaster Ninja, Perma-Spike, Apache Prime
A | True Sun God, Permanent Brew, The Tack Zone, Avatar of Wrath, Icicle Impale, Bloon Solver
B+ | Sub Commander, XXXL Trap, Super Glue, The Biggest One, Bloon Crush, Inferno Ring
B | Super Brittle, Comanche Commander, Primary Expertise, MOAB Elimnator, Absolute Zero, Sky Shredder, Energizer, Ultraboost
B- | Monkey-Nomics, Cripple MOAB, Crossbow Master, Pre-Emptive Strike, Homeland Defense, Carrier Flagship, Grand Saboteur, Master Bomber
C+ | Monkeyopolis, Banana Central, Glaive Lord, Super Maelstrom, Glue STorm, Tsar Bomba, Pirate Lord, Prince of Darkness, Special Poperations
C | Bomb Blitz, Elite Defender, Blooncineration, Bloon Master Alchemist, Sentry Paragon, Carpet of Spikes, Pop and Awe, The Anti-Bloon
C- | Trade Empire, Monkey Wall Street, Superstorm, Wizard Lord Phoenix, Total Transformation, Plasma Monkey Fan Club, Legend of the Night
D | MOAB Domination, Elite Sniper, Ultra-Juggernaut, Spirit of the Forest
F | Flying Fortress, Super Mines, PermaCharge
*May be out of date
BEAST HANDLER: Megalodon = A, Giganotosaurus = A, Pouākai = A
Closing Thoughts
Did I mess something up or you are still confused? Let me know so I can help clear it. The guide will be updated whenever possible.
Special thanks to Rohan for providing some hidden knowledge about the upgrades through his YouTube videos.
Other Guides
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2536456970
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2542343537
Changelog
Changes will now be uploaded on pastebin for those interested:
https://pastebin.com/FinDARpb
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1616170689
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