Update Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItotzXvYK1E
New Awesome
New Paragon, the Root of all Nature for our beloved Druid
Bestows a suite of primordial blessings upon its most trusted BrObyn
Generates cash based on the size of Banana Farm empire at the end of each round, the end of each BAD Bloon and the end of each Boss Skull, NATUREPROVIDES!
Basic attack unleashes a jet of Electrified Thorns that ricochet between Bloons to tear powerful groups apart, and the longer it can keep attacking the faster its attack rate will scale
The track is reclaimed by a sentient forest that tears apart Bloons passively & with wrathful storm trees that grow around the track attacking nearby Bloons to deal damage and blow them back with Vinenados (yes Vinenados - next up, Vinenados on a Plane!). These trees also count as ‘Banana Farms’ for… Paragonical reasons
Primordial Wrath ability can be toggled on or off to enter a beautifully furious wrathful nature state, draining cash over time while providing a massive damage boost to the tower until disabled - but take note: no cash can be generated from towers during this time.
New Advanced Map, Mushroom Grotto
A community competition winning map from u/Oski_01, this map utilizes new lighting functionality from Frontier Legends to apply regions of spore filled darkness that towers are unable to see through, the Mushroom patches can be interacted with to illuminate more areas.
New Pro Powers
Tech Bot Prime, has a larger radius and Ambush Tech built in
Top path will boost the damage of abilities that it triggers, and trigger additional copies of the same ability, with a pinnacle upgrade that grants additional damage to all attacks from the linked tower for a few seconds after ability activation
Middle path can link up to multiple different Monkeys, trigger abilities in radius of the Techbot as well, and gains a massive radius with an option to toggle automatic activations off and instead trigger all linked towers and towers in radius at specific times with its own Activate All ability
Bottom path can set multiple Ambush points with mini ambush drones, causes linked abilities to cooldown faster, and can activate its own ability which triggers all abilities in Techbot radius regardless of their cooldown state with a 25% chance to reset their cooldown again
Monkey Boost Pro places a Hype Boost Monkey, who activates a Monkey Boost ability
Top Path grants towers extra range, Camo Detection, Accuracy, All damage type popping & even allows towers to shoot through walls!
Middle path gains a much shorter cooldown, longer duration, and immunity to any stun or interruption mechanics as well as breaking them out of any of these mechanics
Bottom path can store up to 3 ability charges & instantly replenish these with Monkey Money, increases attack speed for all towers in radius at all times, and grants bonus damage to towers
Key New Feature - Social Seasons
We are super excited to update Teams and provide a new reason to join them and play as Teams inside the new recurring Social Seasons event. Don’t let that Seasons word worry you - there are no Battle Passes and no new IAPs related to this - just fun Goals for you to achieve with your Team, and for the first time ever in BTD6, the entire community of Team players going after epic Goals! The Seasons umbrella merely provides a timeframe for your rewards to be active, until the next Season arrives with its own new Goals and rewards. Read on!
Social Seasons
Each Social Season is a new Team-focused event where participating Team members complete individual goals to earn points and progress toward special new Team rewards. Social Seasons have 2 Phases over two weeks each, with 5 stages of rewards. Goals are balanced to require some daily effort from most of a large team, with max rewards still being possible for a small dedicated Team. Don’t worry, slower teams and late joiners can still work on any incomplete Phase 1 tasks during Phase 2.
Rewards you say? Up to 5 temporary Perks can be unlocked through Team progress, and 2 extra from Global Goals. Some examples of Perks that can be unlocked are Anti-Camo Dust which grants an ability to de-camo Bloons, and Bouncy Projectiles to enable all of your towers to rebound off obstacles and map borders. Players can individually manage their unlocked perks to enable any 3 at a time to grant powerful bonuses in non-competitive modes (excludes CHIMPS, Ranked, and submitted Maps and Challenges). Any Perks earned during the Social Season will be usable by players until the next Social Season begins, when the next set of Goals and Perks will be revealed.
In co-op games these Perks will follow MK logic so that the same Perks don’t stack but each player will apply their own Perks for all players in the game - making a well coordinated co-op game the only way to see all 7 Perks active at once for added social fun. More sweet Badges! Earn stackable Season Team Badges that celebrate your progress, plus a unique Season Ultimate Team Badge and a completionist Season Champion badge. All Badges will be braggable on your profile page, and Team-earned Badges will also appear on Team profile pages
Saving the cutest for last - an exclusive pet! Awarded to all players who earn points during the Season for reaching the all-Teams Global Goal. Once claimed, these adorable exclusives are Trophy Store (not Team Store) items that the player owns forever and can activate individually. For launch, we have a Dr Monkey Teams banner and an unstable but adorable Possum pet for the Alchemist, and more will be coming for future social seasons. Go Teams Go!
Please note that the Social Season #1 will not start as soon as v54 launches. We want to give the rest of the content in each update time to shine, so Social Season events will usually start a few weeks after each update. Season #1 will start in late April.
Teams 2.0!
Massive, massive overhauls to how the Team Store works, how items are now owned by players but used by Teams, the Mayor of the Day helper feature for Teams with lapsed leadership, and a gorgeously expanded 3d Team island that allows every Team member to place multiple items!
Team Store: We’ve flipped crowdsourcing Team items on its head! No more contributions - players earn Team Trophies and spend them to buy the items they want. Those items stay with them permanently if they move to a new Team. Every player has individual decoration options, and the Mayor can choose buildings, frames, and emblems from everything owned by the Team
Team Island gets an amazing upgrade, allowing up to 15 land, 15 air, and 15 water decorations, one from each Team member. It’s gorgeous chaos perfectly suited to BTD6 and we can’t wait to see what well coordinated Teams will get up to. Mayors still set key elements like central building and Team iconography
Instant Teams for Social Seasons: in order to streamline participation in Social Seasons, players will be able to quick-join Public Teams with recent activity or quick-create a team. We’ve also lowered the cost of creating a team to 200MM for more access. For Teams wishing to control your membership, we recommend you set your Team status to Private before the Event starts.
Mayor for a Day: many of us have struggled on Teams with lapsed Mayors and Assistants, which prevents key interaction with Team tools and decorations. If Mayor and Assistants have been dormant for too long a ‘Mayor For A Day’ button appears for other Team members. This temporarily assigns Assistant permissions for decorating Team island and setting Team focus only (not promotion/demotion). After filling this role 5 times total a player is upgraded to full Assistant status. If the Team Mayor has been inactive for more than 90 days their team creation fee is refunded and they are demoted to Assistant with the most recently active Assistant promoted to the Mayor position. We hope this will help with the natural lifecycle of Teams and keep active players together.
Please note that the Social Seasons event will not be live when Update 54 launches. We always have plenty of new things to explore in each update, so the Social Seasons are intended to go live a few weeks after each update. Keep your eyes on the countdown and we hope you and your Team will have fun and win that Possum Pet!
More New Awesome
New Achievements
Season Starts: Achieve Tier 1 in any Stage in a Social Season
Mid Season: Earn 7,500 Stars in any Social Season
Season Champion: Earn a perfect 15,000 Stars in any Social Season
New Trophy Store Items
Game & UI: Bringing back 4 classic avatars and Spring Banner
New Limited Time trophy items (Note: Not available until the seasonal event begins!)
Spring Avatar
New Social Seasons items
Dr Monkey banner, Alchemist Transforming Possum pet
New CT Team Store items
Building Props: Hollow Tree
Base Props: Tiered Fountain, Terrarium, Shrooms, Nana
Water Props: Lily Pad Cat
Flying Props: Butterflies, Broomba Cat
Team Banners: 1x BCS Banner
Icons: 1x Emblem icon
Frames: 1x Emblem frame
Boss Changes
Bosses now only need to be completed in Normal mode once each to permanently unlock their Elite mode for all future events featuring that boss.
Diamondback - now unwinding into the full game! Look for this dastardly Boss in base game Boss Modes, Boss Rush, Contested Territory and Rogue Legend
Lych - No longer exists as you once knew it
Dreadbloon Elite - now has 7 skulls and loops through each immunity twice
Blastapopoulos - Heat builds up slower, Fireballs are now tied to the Heat mechanic with no fireballs cast below 25% heat and 1 extra fireball cast for each 25% fill. Using abilities that don’t reduce heat will now generate extra heat with more heat generated the longer the ability cooldown. Note Heroes & Powers will not generate extra heat from this.
Lych 2.0 - now exists and can finally appear in Boss Rush & Rogue Legends!
Lych has been a source of confusion and problems over the years, so we’ve finally decided to take the time to revamp it into Lych 2.0. This is the same Boss but rebuilt in some very different ways
Here are some of the details for the new Lych 2.0
Has Regrow property, causing it to passively regenerate a small amount of health on a 9s interval. This regeneration can be blocked or removed. Attacks that deal bonus damage to Regen Bloons will also apply to Lych.
Tower sellback value is passively reduced by a flat -35% while Lych is in play, but selling towers will no longer cause additional healing.
Periodically Lych drains buffs from surrounding towers & restores Regrow Property to itself if this has been removed. Lych no longer heals from this, only removes buffs from nearby towers. Upon the Regrow Property being restored the first time, the passive health restoration instead has a one time 3s interval on the Regrow Property before any health is restored. Make sure you have lots of regen stripping towers on the field to constantly keep it at bay.
Lych periodically spawns Tombstones on the track that can be targeted and attacked by towers but can also be ignored if you want to focus down the boss faster; beware though Tombstones block pierce for all projectiles passing through them and passively spawn Zombie MOABs of an increasing tier over time until the Tombstone is destroyed. Tombstones also have a higher danger priority than the Boss, so be careful when using Strong targeting!
Lych will still turn Ethereal on Skulls, but now spawns 3 weaker Lych Souls spaced out along the track that must be destroyed to return back to regular form. In Elite mode, 5 Lych Souls will spawn instead. Lych Souls no longer passively drain lives, but will spawn their own additional Zombie MOABs over time.
Frontier Update
Frontier now supports a second save slot, for players who want to keep their forever world while playing through new experiences.
Frontier now supports multiple difficulty choices when starting a campaign, it can also be changed on an existing save. If you have a Frontier save from before v54.0, it will automatically be set to “Normal”.
Story: Faster stamina regen, slower Bloons, slower Wild Bloons, no cash penalty on loss, Saloon Refresh cost reduced, easy mode pricing for towers.
Normal: Normal Stamina Regen, normal Bloon Speed, normal cash penalty on loss, normal Saloon Refresh cost, normal mode pricing for towers… Yea, normal.
Hard: Reduced passive stamina regen, Bloon Speed increased, Tower Tired penalty increased, Saloon Refresh cost increased, hard mode pricing for towers.
Extreme: No Life Regen at Campsites/Homestead, further reduced passive stamina regen, victory cash reward increased, Cash increased from Fishing & Bloon fighting, Stamina Regen from Fishing & Bloon fighting increased, Impoppable mode pricing for towers, games now restart on defeat, Towers will flee at 0 Stamina, and if you run out of lives your campaign ends immediately!
Custom: Unlocked by completing the campaign on any difficulty, allows you to mix and match difficulty modifiers, plus additional modifiers that are not available in the preset difficulties above.
New Feat for completing the campaign on Extreme without changing difficulty.
Fishing improvements, on average you should make a little more cash from fishing & also see a greater variety of fish.
At least 10 new fish, in fact 15 more than that - there’s 25 new fish!
Fish chances diversified so that you don’t always see the same few. Some fish are still rarer than others, but previously when the most common within each rarity were appearing about 25% of the time, the most common will now only appear about 10% of the time
2 new Sheriff items that can be found by fishing up the associated trash fish
Location & Time of Day based fishing changes - certain fish are more likely to appear at either day or night, and some fish will also favour certain fishing locations over others
Tower recruitment costs now scale with their traits, negative traits will lower the cost of towers while positive traits will increase their cost
Whole new Quick Draw Minigame & Overworld Wild Bloons overhaul. We heard your concerns and have expanded and reworked the Quickdraw minigame, give it a fresh try!
Completely reworked how Wild Bloons spawn in the overworld with max & min spawns per area based on day, night & Bloon types
The minigame is different and rebalanced, we’ve reduced the reliance on reaction time, and loss no longer occurs after one mistake, and you can land crits!
Introduced more balance axes to make different Bloon Types feel unique
Punishment for losing reworked and reduced to not be so punishing with reduced stamina penalty and a life cost instead of a cash cost
New Sheriff gear - 4 new hats, 4 new armours, and 4 new weapons including the 2 new items found from fishing
Random Encounters - these random events will occasionally trigger and liven up the world. An encounter will prompt a dialog box with a situation and give you choices to resolve that situation. Your Posse members can get into all sorts of wacky situations, which may result in learning a new trait, or losing one, or completely changing all its traits! Your Posse can also gain temporary traits that last a few rounds, or you may get lucky and gain free resources.. Or lose them.
Collection Screen expanded - implementation of 100% completion tracking. Added a lot of collection stat tracking with over-100% bonus for Black Borders with Final Completion Total of 110% including black bordering. This is broken down into Story, Exploration, Items, Fishing & Quickdraw and progress can be viewed per region in your homestead
Homestead overbuff, recruits left in the Homestead (ie; your Ranch Hands menu) will continue recovering stamina past 100% at a reduced rate up to a max of 200% and also receive a rested buff when above 100% stamina
New Monkey Traits that can roll for any new recruits; Burst Fire, Re-hit, HUGE Slow Projectiles, Gambler, Lucky & Teleport
Legendary Monkeys are now cheaper, and there are more to find at the Saloon (Keep your eyes peeled for Bert!)
More Homestead space upgrades, with a LOOOOT more Monkey capacity, for the completionists who want to get all of those new Legendary recruits.
A bunch of general balance tweaks across the frontier
Rogue Update
Modified a number of existing maps, removing many standard Bloon encounters and adding more optional short paths to reduce the total length of many of the longer maps. Please continue to pass on any feedback about specific maps, as we plan to do more passes over this and it helps us out a ton narrowing down the fun/problem maps!
Added 9 new maps that can appear, with new biomes! Explore desert, lava & snowy rogue maps all with optional fast paths of roughly 5-7 standard Bloon tiles as well as long paths allowing you to choose your own pace.
As noted in the boss section, Diamondback & Lych will now appear in Rogue, along with their own unique Boss Artifacts!
More artifact support for Hero & Power builds
Bug Fixes & General Changes
Double Cash again works in Sandbox mode
Resolved an issue with UI Transition stutter on some devices
Resolved a crash that could occur backing out of Odysseys too quickly after starting a journey with an empty crew
Diamondback visual fx should now scale correctly with boss size changes
Resolved a crash that could occur when opening the mailbox with Monklish language
Paths & Areas can now be placed in Drop and Lock mode within Map Editor
Resolved some inconsistencies with how Powers counted towards tower limits
Heroes no longer gain experience in Sandbox
Map Specific changes
[Spa Pits] Ninja Paragon should now correctly apply its Grand Sabotage effect
[Sanctuary] Monkey Ace should now fly correctly when platforms move
[Ancient Portal] Sauda & Corvus track wipe abilities should no longer affect only 1 path
[Ancient Portal] has been moved from Advanced to Intermediate. Please note that we will not move maps up in difficulty, however as it seems appropriate we have decided that it is ok to move some down
Legends changes
[Rogue] CHIMPS Mini Games should correctly be harder on CHIMPS instead of easier
[Rogue] Resolved a crash from selecting rest tile before Rogue Monkey loads in
[Rogue] Corrosive Torp-E-Darts should now correctly work with Sticky Situation
[Frontier] Resolved some issues with certain Feats progress tracking
[Frontier] Beast Handlers should no longer inherit the traits of all Monkeys in the Posse
[Frontier] 4xx Glue Gunners can now attack Retribution & Diamond Bloons
[Frontier] Bloons that spawn from Aura Bloons should now produce Children
[Frontier] Now displays the correct price when discounted
[Frontier] Frontier Bloons can now have their HP scaled
Tower Specific Fixes
Boomerang Monkey Paragon no longer loses ability stacks between rounds
Boomerang Monkey Paragon now correctly saves ability duration
Ice Monkey x5x Absolute Zero should no longer delete all towers on its frozen platform when upgraded into the Paragon
Ice Monkey, fixed a crash with total transformation sitting on its platform and transforming the host, yikes.
Ice Monkey paragon should no longer effect Dreadbloon during Primary immunity
Glue Gunner 203 can now correctly re-apply its glue on MOABs
Desperado xx1 Wanderer buff should correctly display 3 stacks again
Desperado should no longer benefit from certain Dart Monkey knowledge
Monkey Buccaneer xx4 Resolved an order of operations issue giving inconsistent cash values when buffed
Alchemist x5x Transformed Towers should now play a sell effect when sold
Alchemist x5x should no longer be able to permanently delete the info button from transformed towers, can you please stop deleting things?
Druid x4x Vine Crush ability starting cooldown has been fixed
Banana Farm x5x Monkey Nomics is now buffed by xx4 Village
Engineer x4x "Can Buff Indicator" removed
Engineer 014 Bloontrap now correctly moves on target point set after loading a save
Engineer xx5 XXXL Trap should now count cash generated correctly
Admiral Brickell should no longer buff Etienne’s Drones
Admiral Brickell’s Mega Mine can now be placed on top of 5xx Mermonkey
Platform Specific fixes
[Netflix] Resolved a crash that could occur on changing profile
[Netflix] Resolved an issue with incorrect medal rewards
Balance Changes
Boomerang Monkey
Ricochet struggles to find targets to bounce to due to its low range and projectile speed, this was a balancing factor for the upgrade’s low cost however we’ve decided to shift toward higher reliability in exchange for lower pierce. Since Boomerang Paragon’s new ability was ‘capping’ well before degree 100 we have adjusted the ability to be refreshable.
3xx Glaive Ricochet projectile speed 175 > 220
320 Glaive Ricochet speed 227.5 > 286
3xx Glaive Ricochet bounce distance 60 > 80
3xx Glaive Ricochet pierce 30 > 15
4xx M.O.A.R Glaives speed 297.5 > 300
Paragon Overcharge can be used again before expiring to refresh stacks
Bomb Shooter
MOAB Assassin has traded the small ceramic bonus for MOAB-Mauling frag synergy, and to make things more frag-tastic the ability now also synergizes with frags for added flair.
032 MOAB Mauler Frags gain bonus MOAB Damage +4
042 MOAB Assassin Frags gain bonus MOAB Damage +9
042 MOAB Assassin ability now creates Frags as well x16
x4x MOAB Assassin path no longer deals bonus Ceramic damage
x5x MOAB Elim Frags gain bonus MOAB Damage +29
x5x MOAB Elim price reduced $28,000 > $26,000
Ice Monkey
Much player concern has been voiced on Icicles performance. Since this issue stems from the projectile count we’re experimenting with fewer icicles that pack a stronger punch, making each individual projectile much stronger.
xx4 Icicles pierce 3 > 6
xx4 Icicles damage 3 > 6
xx4 Icicles occurrence chance 100% > 25%
Glue Gunner
Glue Gunner's 240 crosspath has merely shifted the crosspath balance problem instead of truly solving it. To make things more intuitive, Glue Soak crosspath will now grant this ability the much requested persistence through MOAB layers. Additionally, we're doubling the potency of MOAB Glue’s acid crosspath to provide more niche value on less dense track lanes.
140 Glue Strike ability now soaks through MOAB layers
240 Glue Strike ability no longer improves crosspath debuff
050 Glue Storm ability re-application duration 10s > 20s
052 Glue Storm ability re-application duration remains 20s
203 MOAB Glue MOAB-Class damage bonus for DoT +4 > +9
204 Relentless Glue MOAB-Class damage bonus for DoT +9 > +19
205 Super Glue MOAB-Class damage bonus for DoT +19 > +39
xx4 Relentless Glue stun duration for DDT 0.25s > 0.2s
Desperado
Desperado’s middle path did too many things, so we’re streamlining its kit. The base stat improvements have been removed, instead ramping up its passive Bloon Marking debuff which refocuses the path on its bounty hunting identity and interactions.
x4x Bounty Hunter price reduced $6500 > $6000
x4x Bounty Hunter Mark Bloons attack pierce 1 > 2
x4x Bounty Hunter bonus damage to Fortified also applies to Ceramic
x4x Bounty Hunter pistol damage 16 > 6
x4x Bounty Hunter pistol ceramic damage +16 > +6
x4x Bounty Hunter rifle attack damage 24 > 10
x4x Bounty Hunter main attack fortified damage +24 > +10
x4x Bounty Hunter Mark Bloons attack cooldown 9s > 6s
x5x Golden Justice Mark Bloons attack cooldown 9s > 3s
x5x Golden Justice Mark Bloons attack minimum attack cooldown 3s > 1s
Sniper Monkey
Shrapnel defender has been doing too good a carry job early on across too many maps, so the flat damage has been reduced back to a ceramic bonus, keeping it quite good but not overstaying its welcome.
025 Elite Defender shrapnel damage 2 > 1
025 Elite Defender shrapnel gains Ceramic bonus damage 0 > 1
Monkey Buccaneer
The Aircraft Carrier has been both overpowered and unreliable, so we're tweaking plane movement for better consistency with a fire rate tradeoff. We’ve also improved the Flagship's Aircraft buff to give a more rewarding final payoff. Pirate Lord is seeing a stat reduction as it deals area damage too effectively to many targets.
4xx Aircraft Carrier minimum flyover distance 90 > 75
4xx Aircraft Carrier plane turn rate 0.025 > 0.035
4xx Aircraft Carrier forward darts attack cooldown 0.18s > 0.21s
5xx Carrier Flagship forward darts attack cooldown remains 0.18s
500 Carrier Flagship upgrade cost $24500 > $26000
500 Carrier Flagship attack speed buff 0.85x > 0.8x
040 Monkey Pirates grapes damage 5 > 4
050 Pirate Lord grapes bonus Ceramic damage 8 > 4
050 Pirate Lord attack rate bonus 50% > 35%
Monkey Ace
Pineapple radius is scaling up to match x3x Bomber Ace’s explosion size, since there are virtually no recorded instances of these actually hitting a Bloon yet (Fingers crossed!)
x1x Exploding Pineapple explosion radius 25 > 35
Heli Pilot
Downdraft’s blowback rate is being increased to improve consistency and, while Support Chinook’s fire rate remains unchanged, to save you some clicks the cash and life generation will now trigger all instances at once. I just love pasta. Since players have noted the irony of a Marine being in the Chinook path but unmovable and awkward to place, so the Marine is now fully redeployable, enjoy! Finally, MOAB Shove’s flexible stalling still stands out as particularly powerful through the whole game, we still want to take our time slowly nerfing this but to reduce single-target lockout we’re increasing the missile damage.
x3x Downdraft blow rate 0.2s > 0.18s
x4x and x5x heli Cash Drop ability triggers all of them
x5x Special Poperations Marine is now a valid redeploy target
xx3 MOAB Shove missile MOAB damage 2 > 5
Dartling Gunner
For such an expensive tower we wanted to add a little more niche synergy so Ray of Doom’s DoT duration is increasing significantly. To better align with synergy cooldowns Rocket Storm’s ability will take slightly longer, though it receives small compensation buffs for this as well so it isn't hit hard on its own. Buckshot is statted high in theory but in practice requires far too much babysitting, since higher tiers are already heavy hitters we’re boosting up the base rate for the path with a damage tradeoff to make it less of a chore to use.
5xx Ray of Doom DoT duration 5s > 30s
x4x Rocket Storm ability cooldown 40s > 45s
x4x Rocket Storm price reduced $5850 > $5000
042 Rocket Storm ability missile explosion pierce 10 > 12
xx3 Buckshot upgrade cost $3400 > 3000
xx3 Buckshot damage 4 > 3
xx3 Buckshot attack cooldown 1.5s > 1.2s
203 Buckshot shocked debuff strength +3 > +2
xx4 Bads fully affected by these changes
xx5 Bloon Exclusion Zone damage 8 > 6
xx5 Bloon Exclusion Zone attack cooldown 1.5s > 1.2s
205 Bloon Exclusion Zone shock debuff +6 > +4
Wizard Monkey
Since its addition this synergy has been a problem for Paragon balance, so we’re implementing a special-case to make Overclock less effective on the Wizard Paragon; this allows us to buff that lost power back into the Powerglove Overclock. Since these changes are "magically" linked, we’re mentioning the Engineer buff here too—also to cast Confusion on anyone who skips this section and only reads the Engineer notes!
Wizard Paragon’s Metamorphosis will now deplete Mana faster when Overclocked
Engineer Paragon overclock duration penalty on Paragons reduced -85% > -75%
Druid
Storm Druid’s pierce is being increased past a key breakpoint that allows the tornado to sweep up every Ceramic from a BFB. Also expanding on the support capabilities of this path, we’ve given Ball Lightning’s freeze more than 0 radius so it can hit things, and have pulled Monarch’s Camo detection down to Tier 4 to allow early Camo assistance outside of Obyn strategies. Monarch’s superstorm now features re-hit capability so it can tear through strong targets faster, in particular round 100. Spirit of the Forest’s upgrade for Vine Crush wasn't particularly impactful, so instead we’re changing this to drop track brambles like true vine grabs.
3xx Druid of the Storm pierce 24 > 35
4xx Ball Lightning freeze radius from 0 > 8
4xx Ball Lightning freeze type Cold > Frigid
4xx Ball Lightning can now see Camo Bloons
5xx Monarch of Storms superstorm attack can re-hit targets again every 1s
5xx Monarch of Storms superstorm damage 120 > 150
5xx Monarch of Storms superstorm Ball Lightning spawn rate 1s > 3s
x5x Spirit of the Forest Vine Crush pierce 60 > 20
x5x Spirit of the Forest Vine Crush drops track brambles from popped targets
Mermonkey
Mermonkey ended up somewhat underrated and overbuffed, mid tiers for top and middle paths have really stood out here lately and need to be reigned back in line.
000 Mermonkey price $275 > 300
000 Mermonkey AoE radius 6 > 3
000 Mermonkey minimum trident AoE time difference 0.0375 > 0.05
3xx Abyss Dweller upgrade cost $1600 > $1800
3xx Abyss Dweller tentacle damage 9 > 8
3xx Abyss Dweller tentacle pierce 20 > 15
4xx Abyssal Warrior tentacle damage 18 > 12
4xx Abyssal Warrior tentacle ceramic bonus damage +6
x3x Riptide Champion upgrade cost $1400 > $2000
x3x Riptide Champion attack cooldown 1.2s > 1.5s
x3x Riptide Champion freeze duration 0.8s > 1.0s
x3x Riptide Champion freeze ceramic duration penalty -50%
x3x Riptide Champion trident speed 110 > 130
x4x Arctic Knight projectile distance 2600 > 1950
Spike Factory
Regrettably we have no funny joke about Permaspike being unchanged this update as Permaspike was caught writing "67" on the tracks using spikes and is currently in time out.
xx6 Permaspike unsevened
Engineer
Overclock’s duration on level 20 heroes has been excessive; we’re cutting the jank and standardizing to a consistent 30s duration for heroes, with Ultraboost still providing the full 60s.
x4x Overclock now applies to Heroes regardless of level for 30s
x5x Ultraboost increases this up to 60s
Engineer Paragon overclock duration on Paragons 9 > 15s
Beast Handler
Beast Handler’s top path is smoothing out to +5 range per level improving early tiers. Middle Path handler has been a powerful carry that scales too well, we’ve decided to shift a portion of its damage into ceramic bonus to hit down its lategame MOAB dps while leaving its power against super ceramics.
1xx Piranha range 25 > 30
2xx Barracuda range 30 > 35
3xx Great White range remains 40
x2x Adasaurus damage 3 > 2d +1 to Ceramic
x2x Adasaurus damage scale 3 > 2
x3x Velociraptor damage 8 > 4d +4 to Ceramic
x3x Velociraptor damage range 16 > 8
x3x Velociraptor pierce 12 > 9
x3x Velociraptor pierce range 18 > 14
x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex damage 26 > 20d +5 to Ceramic
x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex damage range 52 > 40
x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex pierce 22 > 18
x4x Tyrannosaurus Rex pierce range 33 > 27
Hero Balance
Striker Jones
Players have requested to have more control over Concussive Shell, so here it is
Lv3 Concussive Shell now follows target priority
Captain Churchill
Churchill is receiving a firepower boost for higher tiers, specifically with his MOAB Barrage ability scaling up more. Since Level 17 is tough to reach outside of freeplay, we’ve swapped it with Level 16 to ensure this upgraded MOAB Barrage can be relied on for tankier late-game threats.
Lv13 MOAB Barrage damage 250 > 300
Lv17 MOAB Barrage damage 500 > 600
Lv16 attack speed & Lv17 MOAB Barrage damage swapped
Lv18 machine-gun damage 10 > 12
Lv20 MOAB Barrage damage 1000 > 1200
Lv20 Cannon damage 20 > 25
Lv20 machine-gun damage 10 > 16
Ezili
Ezili is seeing a slight price reduction, and following a series of strongly worded letters mentioning curses (and a suspicious number of voodoo dolls appearing around the office) we’ve decided to stop 'slandering' Ezili’s figure and have updated her footprint to accurately reflect her true, more 'slender' figure, hopefully bringing out other enticing considerations in early hero selection and preventing our coffee machine from filling up with graveyard dirt. We’ve also simplified some of Ezili’s later levels, combining 2 small range increases and 2 other DoT focus levels to add in a dedicated Heartstopper improvement level to deal with late game purples.
Price reduced $600 > 550
Size <del>reduced</del> ‘corrected’ 7 > 6
Lv11 Range bonus increased 45 > 47
Lv14 Heartstopper duration 15s > 30s
Lv14 faster damage over time removed
Lv15 now grants the faster damage over time
Lv15 no longer grants range (remains 47)
Pat Fusty
Pat’s Rallying Roar buff radius has been a separate radius from his range, which has caused him to miss out on fun synergies like Desperado’s Take Aim buff. With this now matching and scaling from his range that should really give him something to really shout about.
Lv3 Rallying Roar will now always match Pat Fusty’s actual tower radius
Admiral Brickell
Brickell’s Mega Mine has had a MOAB Pierce penalty added to reduce dominant MOAB destruction without also filling up on Ceramics. Additionally she's received small Bloon cleanup buffs with her high powered revolver attack now piercing Bloons in the area, and Blast Chain reducing Sea Mine targeting delay even further.
Revolver attack gains pierce of 3
Lv7 Blast Chain ability duration 10 > 15
Lv7 Blast Chain sea mines seeking rate modifier improved 0.5 > 0.25
Lv10 Mega Mine gains MOAB pierce penalty +1
Rosalia
Rosalia’s Scatter Missile did far too much right away from level 3 and pierce has been reduced
Lv3 Scatter Missile pierce 40 > 30
Silas
Silas' offensive power brought too much heat for the supportively built hero, his Frozen damage bonuses have been cut to reduce damage, but his true support focus is also being improved with Ice Walls now able to hit DDTs and improved MOAB slow for Rime debuff at Lv11.
Lv4 Ice Walls can now hit Lead, including DDTs
Lv7 Frozen Cascade damage 20 > 12
Lv7 Frozen Cascade bonus damage to Frozen 15 > 8
Lv9 Ice Fragments bonus Frozen damage 3 > 2
Lv10 Frozen Burial bonus Frozen damage 60 > 40
Lv11 Now slows MOABs more (5% > 30,20,20,5% MOAB,DDT,BFB,ZOMG)
Lv15 Frozen Cascade bonus damage to Frozen 30 > 23
Lv15 Frozen Burial bonus Frozen damage 200 > 120
Lv16 Ice Fragments bonus Frozen damage 6 > 4
Lv19 Ice Fragments bonus Frozen damage 8 > 6
Boss Balance
Blastapopoulos
The full change was mentioned earlier, but we are also supporting the small Blastapopoulos rework with these numerical balance changes. A larger heat gauge makes it more lenient, passive range reduction on towers will be smaller, overall Heat generation from attacks has been reduced, and heat reduction from Ice attacks is now larger and scales up with higher tiers.
Heat gauge size per tier about +15%
Immune heat damage 3 > 2
passive range reduction 15% > 8%
Ice Base heat reduction 5 > (15,30,60,90,120)
Silas Lv7 Frozen Cascade heat reduction vs Blast 200 > 500
Silas Lv10 Frozen Burial heat reduction vs Blast 2000 > 8000
Ice x4x ability -1000 > -2000
Ice x5x ability -3000 > -6000
Ice xx4 reduction -2 > -50
Ice xx5 reduction -30 > -500
Mermonkey x4x ability -10 > -50
Mermonkey x5x ability -30 > -100
Looking Forward
We’re psyched to have pushed so many additional features into Frontier and we hope you find the replay value much improved. We’ve also made good on our prior notes about focusing our quality of life improvements, so if there’s a positive reaction to the multiple Boss tweaks, the Teams 2.0 changes, and the Frontier improvements in this update, we’ll look to repeat that approach with future updates. We’ve also made great progress in a couple of key areas that have been quite difficult to push forward, so we’re happy to share news of what’s ahead! We hope this update and Social Season #1, due to start in late April, will help you enjoy the start of Spring in the sunny north, or a cozy start to Autumn for those of us south of the equator.
Switch and Console
Switch is in testing with Nintendo! We have bugs to fix but we’re cranking through them and we’re feeling optimistic about releasing Switch in the next couple of months! The team is super excited about this and have been having fun testing this super flexible platform.
Do note that Switch entered submission and will launch with v53 content. Once released we’ll report back with our plans for the frequency of updates.
While going through the LotCheck process with Nintendo, we are also updating Xbox and PlayStation to the main branch so we can pick up all of the improvements and features available on Switch. We don’t have an update estimate yet on either platform but we will relay any updates on Discord and Reddit, and please stay tuned to these Looking Forward notes for Update 55.
Mod System
Also great progress on the Mod System! The technical features, version awareness, and data stability work are feature complete and into testing. The UI and making the incredible complexity of these systems navigable on multiple platforms and especially phones is our next big hurdle.
We have to make the UI navigable for internal testing, then share with some experienced modders, and see what the result is. We remain hopeful this major expansion of player-made content systems can land in v55, but past experience means we can’t be optimistic about it. We’ll do everything we can to deliver it, and at least work with our awesome Bloonstubers to create some prelaunch videos of the Mod System capabilities so that all of you who have been curious about what it does can get some answers.
Update 55
Double double Heroes - we’re excited to extend our partnership with Mattel and the Masters of the Universe with the launch of a full He-Man Hero, but since He-Man is also Prince Adam, we have a unique Hero experience where players can choose to transform between He-Man and Prince Adam for damage or support based play, with unique abilities and synergies based on which persona you choose at the time. The He-Man Hero will be an IAP, but we have also developed a second completely original Hero who shares a similar split personality that will allow players to experience this transformative gameplay via a Monkey Money unlock, after a short exclusive period for He-Man. As a bonus for players who buy the He-Man Hero during the exclusive window (roughly a month) they will also immediately unlock this new Monkey Hero in addition to He-Man and be the first to check out both of these double double Heroes.
Skull Peak returns! As a tribute to the oft-requested community designed maps from BTD5, we are updating Skull Peak with a sinister twist. But that’s such a long easy map, you say? Not if you do the thing, we say. Thanks again for the awesome design inspiration, Adriano!
Multiplayer coordination unlocked! We can’t share all of the details right at this moment but we are working on something that will make it way easier to coordinate in co-op games and events.
Update 56, 57, 58
Please leave us some room to adjust our plans in the last half of the year, but below we present our intentions and confirm things already mentioned in previous Looking Forward notes
Corvus skin! Amazing concept already in development, and yes a few people have guessed along the right lines.
New Tower. Archer or an evolution of the idea - we’re still working through the design discussions. Stay tuned!
Paragon - at least one more, probably of Military persuasion
One more new Hero, no hints for now
Powers Pros - we’re really enjoying designing and visualizing these, so 2-4 more
Possibly one more new Tower by end of year
Legends - no new ones this year. The next one will be sizeable, so we want to take a good long time with it, and continue to make improvements to Rogue and Frontier where we can
Quality of Life - we have a number of possibilities and won’t likely do all of these but top contenders are: co-op lobby 2.0, proper controller support, custom maps enabled for challenges, updated and new game modes, updated Insta Monkey collection and display, victory and defeat screen polish and comm options
As always, we appreciate you reading this far and giving your feedback about anything in these update notes! We hope you enjoy the heaps of awesome in update 54, and please do keep your eyes on the Socials Seasons event icon as that counts down to Social Season #1 starting in late April. Happy popping!