Bloons TD Battles is the first multiplayer PVP game in the Bloons TD series. They’ve long been available on both the App Store and Google Play. In each of these games, you’re tasked with training and/or building monkeys to pop balloons, or bloons, before they reach the exit of your lane.
Bloons TD Battles is a game with a lot of depth and complexity, and has huge replay value. This particular iteration of the game, however, pits players in head-to-head combat. Based on Bloons TD 5, this game has a huge following and there are always opponents eager for a match.
Unfortunately for new players, the game assumes you’ve already played Bloons TD 5 before this, meaning that without prior experience, you’ll be going in blind. We’ve compiled this Bloons TD Battles beginner’s guide, that comes with some tips and tricks to help cushion your fall and hopefully improve your chances of winning.
Bloons TD Battles Basics
Bloons TD Battles plays similar to other tower defense games. In tower defense games, your goal is to defeat enemies before they reach the end of their path. If they get through, you lose lives. To stop them, you’ll build towers, cast spells, and other stuff.
Here’s where Bloons TD Battles changes things up – you’ll not only be playing against the AI bloons, but also go head-to-head with another player. Both of you will be protecting your own lanes from bloons while trying to disrupt each other by sending bloons of your own to their screen. The first player who runs out of lives loses.
Your Towers
Towers are the core of your defense. These towers can be placed on the area around your roads, where they’ll automatically attack enemies that come into range. Each of these towers have their own specialties, abilities, and weaknesses.
Towers can be upgraded by tapping on them and selecting which upgrade to buy on the info panel at the bottom of the screen. Upgrading a tower can change how they look and perform. You can invest in both upgrade paths of a tower, but higher level upgrades only become available with continued play.
In addition, you can change the AI of a tower in the info panel. By default, their AI is set to first – meaning they’ll attack the first thing they see that’s within their range. You can change this to last, which is essentially the opposite; close, where they attack whatever bloon is closest; strong, where they’ll engage the highest tier bloon in range.
This targeting AI change can only be applied to towers that specifically look for enemies. Tack towers, for example, fire tacks in an area around themselves when any bloon is in range, so you can’t edit their AI.
Summoning Bloons
To put pressure on your opponent, you can summon bloons to their side of the field. The selection of bloons that you can summon increases as the game goes on. You can’t configure how many bloons to send either – they come as a package. You can also edit your bloons to have the camo and regen properties.
Money Monkeys
Building towers and sending bloons costs money. You get money roughly every 6 seconds, with the amount indicated at the top middle of the screen, beside the green arrow. The white number above it is the amount of money you’re currently holding. To increase your income, you need to send bloons to your opponent.
The Power is Yours
Building towers and sending bloons costs money. You get money roughly every 6 seconds, with the amount indicated at the top middle of the screen, beside the green arrow. The white number above it is the amount of money you’re currently holding. To increase your income, you need to send bloons to your opponent.
Powers can be bought with experience points that you get after each game. While there are 5 different types of powers – Tower, Sabotage, Eco, Bloon, and Track – you can only bring 3 powers with you into a match. It’s best to play the game for a bit until you find a strategy that suits you before committing to buying new powers.
Know Your Bloons
A knowledge of what bloons you’ll be fighting and using is key to winning battles. There are a lot of bloon types that you’ll face, from humble red bloons to the dreaded MOAB class, and forewarned is forearmed. Each bloon has its own abilities and weaknesses. Knowing these inside and out will ensure that you can prepare an effective defense – and strike at weaknesses in your enemies’ setup.
Bloon Hierarchy
Red bloons are the weakest bloon in the game. They’re slow and can be popped by just about anything. Following red bloons are Blue, Green, Yellow, and Pink bloons. When popping these, they’ll explode into the color below them and continue down the path. Each tier of bloon is faster than the one below it, with Pinks zooming past your defenses very quickly.
Black bloons are one rank above Pinks. These bloons are immune to explosive attacks, meaning your rocket and bomb towers can’t do anything against them. To make things worse, they explode into 2 Pinks when they’re popped. The upside is they’re just as fast as low-tier Green bloons.
White bloons are slightly faster than Black bloons. They’re poppable by anything except freezing attacks. Like Black bloons, they’ll also explode into 2 Pinks when popped.
The Zebra bloon, as its color suggests, has the strengths of both Black and White bloons. They’re immune to both explosions and freezing. When popped, they summon one Black and one White bloon.
Lead bloons are identifiable by their dark gray color and metallic appearance. Lead bloons aren’t affected by sharp objects, so your darts and shuriken won’t work on them. The good thing about Lead bloons is that they’re very slow – just about the same speed as a basic Red bloon. On the downside, they explode into 2 Black bloons when popped.
Rainbow bloons pop into 2 Zebra bloons when defeated. By themselves, they’re not much of a threat. It’s the Zebras that they spawn that are going to cause trouble if you’re relying too much on explosives or freeze damage.
Ceramic bloons are nasty enemies. Unlike other balloons which pop when hit with one strong attack, you’ll need to break their ceramic armor first, which can take quite a few hits. After their armor is cracked, they’ll pop into their lower-tier kin, just like other bloons. When popped, Ceramic bloons release 2 Rainbow bloons.
MOAB (Massive Ornary Air Blimp) class bloons are more like zeppelins in shape. These boss-type bloons are like Ceramic bloons in that they have to be hit multiple times to break their armor, after which they’ll explode into 4 Ceramics. Letting a MOAB through usually spells instant defeat. However, MOABs take extra damage from specific towers that are specifically designed to counter them.
The BFB (Brutal Flying Behemoth) is another MOAB class bloon. This bloon, with its threatening red color and angry eyes, is highly dangerous. Not only does its armor take a lot of firepower to break, but it explodes into 4 MOABs. To compensate for this, the BFB’s move speed is horrendously slow. That doesn’t mean you can ignore it – you’re going to have to hit this monster with everything you’ve got.
Finally, the ZOMG (Zeppelin of Mighty Gargantuaness) surpasses even the BFB in terms of durability and strength. You’ll need dedicated anti-MOAB class towers to even scratch this indomitable sky fortress. Its armor is horrifically tough, and when popped, it explodes into 4 BFBs. The one saving factor here is that the ZOMG is even slower than the BFB.
Bloon Upgrades
In addition, bloons can be upgraded with camo and regen upgrades.
Camo bloons have a camouflage decal on them. They will be ignored by any tower that doesn’t have camo detection. These sneaky floaters can spell a quick defeat, so don’t slack on getting detection up.
Regen bloons take on the shape of a heart. These bloons will regenerate HP when they’re not under attack. Sturdy bloons with the regen upgrade are a major pain in the butt to take out, so prepare accordingly. A bloon can never regenerate over its original tier, but be warned that its children can. For example, a popped Black bloon becomes 2 Pinks. If those Pinks are left alone for too long, they’ll become Black bloons, which will again pop into 2 Pinks.
Know Your Monkeys
Each tower in Bloons TD Battles has its own niche to fill. Basic towers, such as the Dart Monkey and the Buccaneer, may not seem like much, but each of them has a role to play. As you can only bring 3 towers of your choice to a match, it’s best to know what role each of them has to play in your defense. There are, however, a lot of towers to choose from, so you should know each of them inside and out.
Towers have 2 upgrade trees. These upgrades are costly, but they can vastly increase a tower’s performance and even allow it to take on a different role entirely! To unlock further tiers, you’ll need to spend Medallions and have reached a certain Battle Score. The green darts at the top of the screen indicate your Battle Score. This goes up as you play, so if you want better towers, you’ll need to keep playing the game.
Medallions are the game’s premium currency. You can get a small amount from spinning the wheel and from watching ads, or you can pay real money to get them. They’re not only needed for tower upgrades, but also for entering tournaments.
Dart Monkey
The Dart Monkey is the most basic tower in the game. It throws darts that fly forward, popping one bloon per hit. While it’s not much to look at, this tower is strong enough to serve as the core of a good defense.
Its left upgrade path starts with Long Range Darts, improving the tower’s range. Next is enhanced Eyesight, increasing its range and adding camo detection. Third comes Spike-o-Pult, which lowers the tower’s attack speed but gives changes its projectile into spiked balls capable of piercing up to 40 bloons. The last upgrade is Juggernaut, which allows the tower to pop Lead bloons and destroy ceramic armor with ease.
The right upgrade path starts with Sharp Shots, which allows each thrown dart to pop one more bloon. This is followed by Razor Sharp Shots, which allows the popping of a total of 4 balloons per dart. Triple Darts causes the Dart Monkey to fire more projectiles. Finally, Super Monkey Fan Club is an expensive ability that transforms up to 10 nearby Dart Monkeys into Super Monkeys for 11 seconds. These Super Monkeys have an insane fire rate and can take down even MOABS with ease.
Tack Shooter
This pink and gray device fires tacks all around itself when it attacks, making it great at covering intersections and curves. However, investing in Tack Shooters before you unlock the higher tier upgrades is ill-advised.
The left upgrade path begins with Faster Shooting and Even Faster Shooting, helping mitigate the Tack Shooter’s slow attack speed. Tack Sprayer doubles its projectiles from 8 to 16, while Ring of Fire gives it greater range and causes it to shoot flames instead.
On the right hand tree, Extra Range Tacks and Super Range Tacks extend the Tack Shooter’s range. Blade Shooter causes it to fire large razor blades. Blade Maelstrom, its final ability, lets you call down a storm of razor blades anywhere on your map, which will make quick work of any bloons that attempt to cross.
Ninja Monkey
This master of the stealthy arts throws razor-sharp shuriken to pop bloons. The Ninja Monkey is great at hunting down leaking bloons with its homing, multi-shot attacks and can also serve as the core of any defense.
Ninja Discipline is the first upgrade on the left hand tree, which increases both the Ninja Monkey’s range and attack speed. Sharp Shurikens cause its throwing stars to be able to pop 4 bloons in one go. Double Shot and Bloonjitsu let the ninja throw 2, then 5 shurikens at once!
Seeking Shuriken, the first node on the right upgrade tree, causes the Ninja Monkey’s attacks to seek out bloons of their own accord. To help with this, Distraction can cause bloons to move the wrong way for a while. Flash Bomb adds a randomly-occuring area stun attack to the Ninja Monkey. Its ultimate ability Sabotage Supply Lines halves th movespeed of new bloons for 15 seconds.
Bomb Tower
The Bomb Tower fires explosive projectiles at bloons to pop them. While its base form misses frequently due to the small explosion radius of its bombs, upgrading the Bomb Tower allows it to damage lots of bloons per shot!
The left hand path first gives the Bomb Tower Extra Range. Frag Bombs add 8 shrapnel projectiles to each bomb, which can pop bloons after the bomb goes off. Cluster Bombs changes the Bomb Tower’s shrapnel into more bombs, each of which has a minor area of effect. Bloon Impact adds a stunning effect to the Bomb Tower’s attacks, letting it rain fire on clusters of bloons with impunity.
Bigger Bombs is the first upgrade on the right hand tree. As its name suggests, it improves the blast area and popping power of the Bomb Tower’s projectiles. Missile Launcher changes the Bomb Tower to fire missiles instead. These missiles have a higher projectile speed, damage, and fire faster than their previous form.
The MOAB Mauler is a must-have for late game, as it causes the Bomb Tower to do 10 times more damage on MOAB class bloons. But just to be sure, they can also be armed with the powerful MOAB Assassin, an ability that fires a MOAB-seeking rocket that instantly destroys what it hits.
Sniper Monkey
The Sniper Monkey combines high single target damage with infinite range. This comes at the cost of a slow attack speed. A troop of Sniper Monkeys will ensure that the biggest, baddest bloons are popped in a snap. In addition, Sniper Monkeys remove 2 layers of bloons with each attack.
Full Metal Jacket improves the Sniper Monkey’s ammo, allowing it to pop through 4 layers and even pop Lead and frozen bloons. Point Five Oh further increases their popping power to 7 layers. Deadly Precision ups this even more to 18 layers, allowing Sniper Monkeys to erase even the dreaded Ceramic bloon. Cripple MOAB, the Sniper Monkey’s last left path upgrade, causes its attacks to slow MOABs for a short period when hit.
Faster Firing helps improve the Sniper Monkey’s terrible attack speed, while Night Vision Goggles allow it to see and pop camo bloons. Equipping them with a Semi Automatic Rifle allows Sniper Monkeys to take multiple shots and fire 3 times faster. If you’re strapped for cash, they can call down a Supply Drop for a quick cash infusion.
Boomerang Thrower
The Boomerang Thrower throws an arcing projectile that returns to it. This gives it a lot of piercing power at the cost of a firing angle that players will need to adjust to. Good judgment and some practice are needed to get the most out of your boomerang throwers.
Multi-Target allows thrown boomerangs to pop 7 bloons each. Glaive Thrower increases the projectile size while transforming it into a sharper and flaster glaive. Glaive Ricochet causes thrown glaives to bounce from bloon to bloon. As if that wasn’t enough, Glaive Lord adds 2 permanent glaives that orbit the tower.
Sonic Boom speeds up boomerangs to the point that they can now shatter frozen bloons, while Red Hot Rangs allows them to melt through Lead bloons. Bionic Boomer doubles the attack speed of the Boomerang Thrower, which can be augmented even further with Turbo Charge, an ability that massively increases attack speed.
Monkey Apprentice
This magic monkey is a master of the elements, and is great at dealing with crowds. Every spell that this caster learns is treated as a separate projectile, meaning it can summon tornadoes, chain lightning, and fireballs all while using its normal attack.
Intense Magic increases this tower’s projectile size and damage. Next is a Lightning Bolt which seeks and pops multiple bloons at once. Whirlwinds blow bloons off the path, away from your exit, and can be upgraded into Tempest Tornadoes, which not only makes these cyclones faster, but also gives them the ability to pop bloons.
Fireballs can be added to the apprentice’s repertoire of skills, and its Monkey Sense will let it attack camo bloons. Dragon’s Breath changes the tower’s attack to a constant stream of fire, while still unleashing its other spells. If in dire need, you can use Summon Phoenix to assist you for 20 seconds.
Monkey Buccaneer
The Monkey Buccaneer is a good all-around tower that offers a bit of everything – but it must be placed in water.
Faster Shooting and Longer Rangeare basic, self-explanatory upgrades. Converting the ship into a Destroyer confers a massive attack speed increase. If that’s not enough, you can convert it again into an Aircraft Carrier, which launches Monkey Pilots to wreak havok on bloons.
Grape Shot adds a spray of 4 grapes per attack, which adds a small amount of crowd clearing power. The Crows Nest lets this seafaring simian detect and attack camo towers, while a Cannon Ship adds a second, independent gun to the tower. For bigger prey, agile Monkey Pirates can be deployed to pin down a MOAB and hold it still.
Spike Factory
Spike Factories don’t directly attack bloons, instead building spikes that they automatically place on nearby track. These spikes are able to attack camo bloons by default.
Bigger Stacks causes more spikes to be added to piles each time the factory “fires”. White Hot Spikes are capable of melting even Lead bloons. A Spiked Ball Factory produces traps that deal bonus damage to ceramic bloons. These balls can be refined further into Spiked Mines that explode after losing all their spikes.
Faster Production and Even Faster Production make the factory produce spikes quicker. MOAB-SHREDR Spikes are efficient at damaging MOAB class bloons. You can also call down a Spike Storm that coats the entire track with a layer of spikes.
Glue Gunner
This chimp lobs hot, sticky glue at passing bloons, slowing them down by 50%.
Glue Soak causes the slowing effect to persist through a bloon’s layers, while Corrosive Glue pops layers over time. Even stronger Bloon Dissolver melts 2 layers over time and sticks to MOABs. Bloon Liquefiers accelerate this process even further while adding an instant pop effect to the gunner’s attacks.
Stickier Glue slows enemies down for longer, and is great when paired with Glue Splatter that hits 6 bloons at once. The Glue Hose triples attack speed and lets the gunner target MOABs. You can make it rain glue with Glue Striker, which applies the glue effect to everything temporarily.
Ice Tower
The Ice Tower has a unique freezing attack that stops bloons for a short while. These frozen bloons can’t be popped by sharp objects (without upgrades) and need to be blasted apart through some other means. If left unupgraded, the Ice Tower is incapable of popping bloons by itself.
Enhanced Freeze increases freezing range and freeze time while Snap Freeze pops one layer off of any bloons that get frozen. Arctic Wind adds an aura to the Ice Tower that passively slows bloons down. Viral Frost not only gives the tower camo detection but also causes frozen bloons to freeze other bloons that touch them.
Permafrost causes bloons to move slowly even after they’ve thawed out. Deep Freeze freezes 2 layers of each bloon for a longer effect. Ice Shards make sharp ice spikes fly out from each bloon that was popped while frozen. The tower’s ultimate ability, Absolute Zero, does what you’d expect – every bloon is frozen for a while.
Monkey Ace
This aerial ape comes with a biplane and an airfield. Unlike most towers, the Monkey Ace is mobile and will engage bloons that enter its flight path. You can change the flight pattern of the ace by changing the targeting settings on the airfield. Its attacks are innacurate, but effective against bunched-up bloons.
Rapid Fire simply increases atttack speed. When paired with Sharper Darts, aces can pop 8 bloons at once. Neva-Miss Targeting compensates for the ace’s reckless attacks by giving darts a homing ability. The plane itself can be upgraded into a Spectre, a flying fortress of bloon doom.
Pineapple Present adds an explosive attack that’s dropped every 3 seconds. Spy Planes provide reconnaisance and let aces attack camo bloons. Operation: Dart Storm increases attack speed and doubles projectiles shot. Ground Zero commands the ace to drop a huge bomb that instantly destroys all bloons and damages MOAB class bloons.
Mortar Tower
The Mortar Tower is unique in that it requests for a position to attack instead of automatically fighting bloons that get near it. Once a target has been designated, the tower will keep shelling that area. This makes it effective at bombarding the bloons’ entry point, weakening their ranks while designated damage dealers do their job.
Increased Accuracy reduces the variance of mortar shells, causing them to land at the target point more often. Bigger Blast increases the area of explosion, and Bloon Buster causes mortar shells to pop 2 layers at once. When armed with The Big One, Mortar Towers can pop 5 layers in one go!
Rapid Reload increases the mortar’s ponderous attack speed. Burny Stuff adds an extra fire effect to the point of impact, popping bloons 2 seconds after explosion. Signal Flare causes camo bloons that have been popped by the mortar to permanently lose their camo upgrade. The Mortar Tower can call for assistance from an offscreen Artillery Battery, immobilizing bloons and saturating the entire screen with explosions.
Banana Farm
The Banana Farm is an unconventional tower that doesn’t fire. Instead, it produces bananas that can be picked up for extra money. Banana Farms see a lot of use with players due to their predictable nature and ease of use. Banana Farms also use unique, purchaseable upgrades – the Monkey Farmer automatically gathers bananas in its radius so you don’t have to, while the Robo Farmer does the same, but for the whole screen. These upgrades can be bought with medallions or real money, and each purchase gives you a limited supply of them.
More Bananas make farms grow 3 big bunches of bananas. Upgrading the farm to a Banana Plantation makes it grow 7 big bunches each round. A Banana Republic increases this to a whopping 15 bunches, and a Banana Research Facility produces 6 boxes of bananas for maximum profit.
Long Life Bananas extend the life of bananas to 25 seconds so you have more time to pick them up. Valuable Bananas gives a 50% increase to the value of bananas. The Monkey Bank no longer grows bananas, but gives you 10% interest on your money per round and can hold up to $5000. The Banana Investments Advisory has a 20% interest rate and has space for $20,000.
Super Monkey
The Super Monkey is an expensive tower that throws darts at great speed.
Laser Blasts cause the monkey to fire lasers that can pop frozen bloons and also increases their piercing tower. Plasma Blasts increase attack speed and can pop any bloon, as well as increasing pierce even more. Sun God pushes piercing even higher and adds more attack speed. The Temple of the Monkey God will consume all towers within its attack radius when built, taking on their traits and adding their strength to its own.
Super Range and Epic Rangeare self-explanatory but important upgrades. Turning the tower into a Robo Monkey gives it two independently firing arm cannons. This monster can become a Technological Terror, destroying all bloons within its radius instantly and damaging MOAB bloons.
Monkey Village
This support tower increases the range and lowers the costs of towers built within its radius. While it offers powerful buffs to your other towers, the village can’t attack on its own.
The Monkey Beacon further increases the range of buffed towers while Jungle Drums make them attack faster. Monkey Townmakes buffed towers give 50% extra cash per pop. The High Energy Beacon reduces ability cooldowns of nearby towers by 20% and adds an energy beam attack to the village.
Monkey Forts increase the popping power of nearby towers. Radar Scanners allows buffed towers to see and attack camo bloons. The Monkey Intelligence Bureau allows all buffed towers to pop all bloon types. The M.I.B Call to Arms is the village’s active ability, which doubles attack speed and increases popping power for all towers within its radius.
Dartling Gun
The Dartling Gun is special in that it follows your finger, firing where you point. Its high rate of fire is offset by its relative inaccuracy. This machine of bloon destruction is often seen as a niche pick due to its high cost and very small window of efficiency during a match.
Focused Firing reduces the Dartling Gun’s spread and you can get Faster Barrel Spin to boost attack speed. Upgrading the tower to a Laser Cannon allows it to pop 13 bloons per blast and makes it able to pop frozen bloons. The Ray of Doom is an unrelenting beam that incinerates all bloons in its wake.
Powerful Darts make darts fly faster and pop 4 bloons each. Depleted Bloontonium darts ignore armor and can pop any kind of bloon. Hydra Rocket Pods causes the tower to fire missiles in lieu of darts. The Bloon Area Denial System fires these missiles at the closest 100 bloons.
Heli Pilot
Like the Dartling Gun, the Heli Pilot is dependent on the player’s movement. By tapping an area with the Heli Pilot selected, it’ll move to that spot and automatically shoot at any bloons it sees. This versatility is offset by its high cost. You can change this tower’s targeting system to determine how it reacts to your touch. And yes, you can make it patrol between 2 points.
Quad Darts increases the tower’s volley size to 4 darts from 2. Pursuit unlocks a targeting option that will set the tower to search and destroy bloons across the track. Razor Rotors deal damage to bloons near the chopper, and can damage Lead and frozen bloons. The Apache Dartship increases its firepower with missiles and a new machine gun.
Bigger Jets on the other upgrade tree let the heli move faster. Enhanced IFR Instruments reveal camo bloons and make them targetable. Downdraft pushes bloons away from the heli. Its ability, the Support Chinook, can either drop money and supplies for you or reposition a tower.
Monkey Engineer
The Monkey Engineer is armed with a nailgun that it uses to pop bloons.
With the help of a Sentry Gun, the engineer can engage multiple enemies – this increases even further with Fast Engineering, reducing the build time of sentries. Cleansing Foam removes camo and regen upgrades from bloons and allows projectiles to pop Lead bloons. A state-of-the-art Bloon Trap can be set on the path, which instantly destroys bloons before being destroyed itself. If emptied manually though, the bloons will net you some extra money.
9-inch Nails allow the engineer’s projectiles to pop 8 bloons at once – including frozen ones. Larger Service Area increases range and deployment area for sentries, while upgraded Sprockets let sentries fire faster. An engineer can also Overclock a tower, giving it massive bonuses for a short period.
Bloonchipper
The Bloonchipper is an unorthodox tower that attacks by sucking bloons in and shredding them before spitting them back out. When bloons are shredded, they lose one layer of armor, and if they’re too slow, they can get pulled in again. The Bloonchipper’s main purpose is to group bloons together in an area, making it easier for your other towers to do their jobs.
Suckier increases the Bloonchipper’s rate of suction, and Heavy Duty Suction allows its motors to pull in even Lead and Ceramic bloons. Powerful Dual Layer Blades shred 2 layers instead of one, improving the Bloonchipper’s performance against tough bloons. Finally, a Super Wide Funnel can draw in even MOABs and BFBs and shred them for 3 seconds. Even if this doesn’t pop MOAB class bloons, it’ll delay and damage them for quite a bit.
Long Range Suck improves the Bloonchipper’s suction range. Faster Shred causes caught bloons to be shredded more quickly. Triple Barrel improve suction power, shred damage rate, and how many bloons can be held at once. For emergency crowd control, you can turn on the Supa-Vac, an ability that pulls all non-MOAB balloons within range towards the Bloonchipper and holds them there for 8 seconds.
Monkey Sub
This vehicle fires homing torp-e-darts at bloons, which have good popping power. The sub is also cheap to build, and is recommended for water maps. Therein lies its weakness: the Monkey Sub can only be placed in water.
Barbed Darts allow the sub’s homing shots to pop up to 4 bloons and Advanced Intel allows the sub to engage bloons that are within the range of any other tower. Submerge and Support adds a new targeting option to the Monkey Sub – while submerged, it can’t fire, but it will strip camouflage from bloons in its radius. Reactor improves the sub’s support abilities – as long as it’s submerged, it will continue to remove camo, but it will also deal damage to passing bloons and will also reduce the cooldowns of other water towers by 15%.
Twin Guns adds another gun to the sub for double the attack speed, while Airburst Darts cause 3 darts to spawn on impact for group popping power. When armed with a Ballistic Missile, subs can do extra damage to Ceramic bloons and MOABs. But for when things get really bad, subs can fire an incredibly deadly missile with their First Strike Capability online – which will seek and destroy the biggest bloon in range, even if it’s a ZOMG.
COBRA
The COBRA (Covert Ops Battles Response Agent)is a special tower that must be purchased either with 5000 medallions or real-life money. This suave simian is equipped with a handgun and can affect the game in ways that other towers cannot. However, it lacks area damage and camo detection, so it must be supported.
Wired Funds is the first left upgrade node, and simply gives you 80 extra money at the start of each round. Bloon Adjustment causes every 5th bloon on your opponent’s side to be given either a rank up, regen, or camo – but this will only work on bloons that don’t already have any special abilities. Monkey Stim reduces Tower Power cooldown by 5 seconds to a minimum of 15 seconds. Offensive Push reduces the round requirement for all bloons by 1, meaning you can send tougher waves at your opponent when they don’t expect it.
Double Tap doubles the COBRA’s attack speed for that extra oomph. Attrition causes the COBRA to either steal 2 lives from your opponent or give you 2 lives, depending on the game mode you’re playing. Finish Him! decreases your Bloon Power cooldown by 10 seconds to a minimum of 10 seconds, for that last push. Finally, Misdirection causes the highest-tier bloon within the ability’s range to switch to your opponent’s side instead. This ability’s cooldown depends on the tier of the bloon affected, and can affect up to BFBs.
Each Mode Plays Differently
There are several game modes in Bloons TD Battles, each with its own restrictions and quirks. You can tap the question mark for a quick rundown on what changes each arena makes to gameplay.
In almost every mode, you’ll be asked which 3 of your towers you want to bring into battle, with a 4th random tower assigned to you. If you don’t like the random tower you got, you can reroll it at the cost of some energy. You’ll also be asked which powers you want to take into battle. You can change your powers by tapping their icons.
Assault Mode
Assault Mode is the classic Bloons TD Battles experience. You and your opponent split a screen, where you can buy towers or bloons to send at your opponent. Each time you send bloons, your passive money gain increases. To switch between sending bloons or building towers, tap the icon on the lower left or lower right – depending on which side of the screen you’re on. The game ends when one player runs out of lives due to bloons leaking.
There are three kinds of Assault Mode games.
- Classic rules, which plays as described above.
- Speed Battle, where bloons are unlocked faster and move quicker while money generates faster.
- Old School, where you only have 3 tower choices and can’t use powers.
Defense Mode
Defense Mode plays similarly to Assault Mode except for the switch to sending bloons. Neither player can send bloons at their opponent. The bloon panel is replaced by a dedicated economics panel where you can pay increasing amounts of money to improve how much money you get per delivery.
Card Battle
Card Battlegames give you and your opponent a 5 card hand. These cards can be used of offense or defense. If you play a card on your side of the field, it becomes a tower. If played on your opponent’s field however, it becomes bloons. You can see what tower or bloon a card on the upper and lower parts of a card.
Unwanted cards can be trashed by dragging them to the trash can in the middle of the screen. This isn’t free though – each discarded card costs you $50.
Practice Mode
Practice Mode is a single player game mode. The rules are similar to Defense Mode, but you have no opponent. This mode is great for honing your strategies and developing your builds. It’s also worth noting that changing stages or rerolling your bonus tower is absolutely free in Practice Mode, so that you can get accustomed to how each of these play out.
Tower Defense Basics
Bloons TD Battles take place over multiple battlefields, but there are some tips that apply to all Tower Defense games. Here we’ll go over some of them, as well as some strategies for getting the most out of your towers in a battle.
Pre-Battle Analytics
Where the battle takes place is one of the first factors you’ll have to consider – and influence. At the beginning of a match, a stage is randomly selected. If you don’t like the stage, you can spend some energy to reroll it. You can also choose to reroll the one bonus tower you get at the cost of additional energy.
Build To Your Advantage
Getting the most out of your towers first requires an understanding of how they function. Second comes a good idea of where to place your towers.
Have a look at the map’s features. Does it feature lots of straight paths? Piercing towers would do well. Is there water? Maybe you’d be better off adding a Monkey Sub or a Buccaneer. Lots of curves? Splash damage towers might like that.
Compress Towers
While it may not seem like it, you can actually build towers very, very close to each other. If you’re lacking for space, you can smoosh towers together. This is great if you’re formulating a strategy that focuses on a single point.
Think Ahead
While “making towers to fit the current round” may seem like an okay plan, you should be planning ahead. At around the 10th level, you’ll start running into camo and regrowth bloons which can win the game on their own if you aren’t prepared. After these will come special bloons: Leads, Ceramics, and even MOABs. Having a long-term game plan in your head when you select your loadout will work wonders and help you survive the initial horde of bloons.
Watch Battles TV
If you’d like to see how other players tackle the game, you have the option of watching their replays through Battles TV. This is a great way to get some new ideas if you’re stumped on how to beat certain rounds or maps.
Practice Makes Perfect
Any competitive game needs a lot of practice before players can regularly win, and Bloons TD Battles is no different. While we’ve done our best to arm you with vital information and some tips to help you get started, nothing can beat good old practice. If there are any tips you wish you knew when you were just starting out, or have some other suggestions for new players, let us know in the comments below!