Battles 2 Update 4.2 is live now - New Hero: Bonnie the Bloonstone Miner!

New Features

• New Hero: Bonnie
  - ⛏ A hard working bloonstone miner with a whole new playstyle.
  - 💎 Starting at level 2, Bonnie causes minecarts full of bloonstones to appear on the natural bloon path.
  - 💰 Your monkeys will target the minecarts like bloons. You won’t lose lives if they escape but if you pop them, they drop cash.
  - 📈 You can upgrade the minecarts from Bonnie’s upgrade panel, making them more valuable but also tougher.
  - 🧨 Bonnie also helps your defences by throwing sticks of dynamite onto the track which explode after a delay or when a bloon touches them.
  - 💥 Bonnie’s level 3 ability, Mass Detonation, throws dynamite at all the minecarts on screen, destroying them instantly in big, bloon popping explosions.
  - 🚛 Her level 10 calls in the Bloonstone Excavation And Supply Truck, the B.E.A.S.T. This massive truck barrels down the path like a regular minecart, stunning any bloons that get in its way. The more damage you deal to it, the more cash it’ll drop.
• Arena League Changes
  - 🏆 Losing a game in Ceramic Crucible, MOAB Pit, and BFB Colosseum will incur a 1 trophy penalty.
  - 🏆 Losing a game in ZOMG Superdome or Hall of Masters will incur a 2 trophy penalty.
  - 0️⃣ Trophies still cannot fall below 0, so there is no penalty for losing in any arena if you are already at the bottom.
  - ⏲ You no longer receive 1 trophy for losing the game after round 30.
  - 📈 You no longer need to earn 20 trophies in a league to be eligible for promotion. You just need to finish in the promotion zone.
  - 📉 You will always be demoted if you end a league with 0 trophies.
  - 👑 Players will no longer be automatically demoted from Hall of Masters if they don’t participate in a league.
  - 📋 We are reviewing the feedback from the recent survey about these changes and make adjustments in the next update.
• New Lobby UI
  - 🧾 Battles 2 now features 24 playable heroes, too many to comfortably scroll in a single list.
  - 📑 The hero picker in the lobby is now split over 2 rows for easier readability.
  - 🎨 The hero screen will be redesigned in a future update to make it easier to view the full roster of heroes.

General Changes

• Jump Start Rewards
  - ➰ A quirk of the rules meant Jump Start games were giving a disproportionate amount of Hero Points and Tower XP.
  - 🌟 Hero Points and Tower XP are now based on the number of rounds played, not the starting round.
  - 👨‍🔬 The XP formula has been adjusted to account for the fact that Jump Start games often take place over fewer rounds than standard games.
• Avatar & Banner Information
  - 🔒 Locked avatars and banners now display an icon to show how to unlock them.
  - ℹ Tapping on the icon takes you to where they can be unlocked.

Balance Changes

• Bloon Sends
  - 🎈 Round 3 Grouped Blues: Gives +1 -> +1.1 eco
  - 🎈 Round 10 Grouped Blacks: Gives +3 eco -> +2.9 eco
  - 🎈 Round 10 Grouped Whites: Gives +2.6 -> +2.5 eco
  - 🎈 Round 23 Tight Leads: $1400 -> $1200, gives +24 -> +22 eco, sends out 80 -> 60 bloons, and send duration remains at 1s (bloon spacing 0.0125 -> 0.0167)
  - 💭 We’ve made a few adjustment to eco bloon sends, buffing the less-used grouped blues while nerfing grouped blacks and whites since they were very efficient as well as effective at applying pressure. Tight leads have also received a noticeable nerf since a lot of tower loadouts struggle to deal with them effectively. The main difference is that they will now be a lot less densely packed.
• Boomerang Monkey
  - 💨 xx4 MOAB Press: Special kylie pushes back MOABs 2 -> 2.4 units
  - 💭 While MOAB Press is certainly a solid upgrade and incredibly useful for things such as stalling ZOMGs, it’s not quite as effective at slowing down the faster MOABs.
• Bomb Shooter
  - 💰 xx5 Bomb Blitz: $35,000 -> $38,000
  - 💭 Bomb Blitz is a great option to effectively deal with large rushes like tight MOABs and grouped DDTs. We have upped the price a bit so that it will be a bit more costly to keep on buying and selling it for its ability.
• Tack Shooter
  - 🎯 5xx Inferno Ring: Meteor’s targeting can now be selected (previously it always targeted strong)
  - 💭 A small quality of life change to offer added flexibility. It’ll default to ‘strong’ since that is what it targeted previously.
• Ice Monkey
  - 🌨 x4x/x5x Snowstorm/Absolute Zero: Ability slows down MOABs/BFBs/DDTs to 5 -> 2.25 speed (the same speed as it sets ZOMGs to)
  - 🧊 x5x Absolute Zero: Ability’s speed modifier can soak through MOAB class bloons
  - 🧊 3xx Ice Shards: $2,000 -> $1,800
  - 💭 Absolute Zero lacks utility, not offering enough for its cost. We have added another benefit of using it, as well as reducing the cost of Ice Shards, in order to encourage Ice Monkey’s usage.
• Glue Gunner
  - 💫 xx4 Relentless Glue: $2,000 -> $2,200 and on-pop splats stun ZOMGs for 0.1 -> 0.06 seconds
  - 💭 It’s nice to see that Relentless Glue finally has more use, however it has offered a bit too much for such a cheap price on a tier 4 upgrade.
• Monkey Buccaneer
  - 💰 xx3 Merchantman: $1,600 -> $1,500
  - 💰 xx4 Favored Trades: $5,400 -> $5,700 and generates $1,000 -> $1,200 per round
  - 💭 Monkey Buccaneer’s income generation is decent early on but it doesn’t quite compare to other alternatives, especially with water placement often being a major limitation. We have upped its income efficiency slightly to address this.
• Monkey Ace
  - 💰 x4x Ground Zero: $14,000 -> $15,000
  - 💥 xx5 Flying Fortress: Dart damage 4 -> 12 and MOAB class damage 10 -> 2
  - 💭 We’ve raised Ground Zero’s price because it is extremely cost effective, offering a top tier ability as well as pretty solid defense with its high-damage bombs. Flying Fortress has been changed so that it can pop Bonnie’s minecarts more easily.
• Heli Pilot
  - 🤏 Base: Footprint size reduced 23x23 -> 18x18
  - 💰 xx4 Comanche Defense: $8,500 -> $7,500
  - 💥 5xx Apache Prime: Missile damage 3 -> 15 and damage to ceramics and moab class 15 -> 3
  - 💭 Heli Pilot’s large footprint has been a major limitation on the tower’s viability on a lot of maps, so we hope to open up its viability by reducing its size. Comanche Defense has never been a popular choice so we think it’s fair to make it slightly more affordable, and Apache Prime’s damage has been altered so that it performs better against Bonnie’s minecarts.
• Mortar Monkey
  - 💥 5xx: damage 25 -> 50 and bonus ceramic and MOAB class damage +25 -> 0
  - 💭 This shouldn't have any impact other than making the Biggest One perform a little better at popping Bonnie’s minecarts.
• Dartling Gunner
  - 💰 Bloon Area Denial System: $14,500 -> $16,000 and deals 4 -> 5
  - 💰 xx5 Bloon Exclusion Zone: $53k -> $50k (damage remains at 8)
  - 💭 xx4 and xx4 are at similar price points but 4xx far outshines xx4. We’ve upped xx4’s damage and price slightly so that it can offer a stronger alternative against certain rushes.
• Wizard Monkey
  - 💀 xx4 Necromancer: As long as graveyard count is above 18, then 18 pops will consistently be deducted from the graveyard count every second. The number of spawned bloons will still randomly be between 1 and 5, however their collective pierce will always total 18. Previously, the pops deducted from the graveyard (and collective pierce of spawned bloons) was not consistent.
  - 🐔 x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix: All projectiles from the ability Phoenix now deal +15 damage to fortified bloons
  - 💭 The randomness made Necromancer very unreliable and inconsistent - sometimes it’d wipe out rushes easily, other times it’d let the rush by. The community has expressed their issues with this and so we have changed it to limit the randomness. Wizard Lord Phoenix has been buffed so that it can more effectively deal with beefy Fortified BADs or ZOMGs.
• Sniper Monkey
  - 💥 x2x Shrapnel Shot: Shrapnel pieces now deal +2 damage to camo bloons.
  - 💭 There was a bug where only the main attack was dealing additional damage to camo bloons, not the shrapnel pieces. This has now been corrected which results in a slight buff to the Sniper.
• Super Monkey
  - 💥 5xx True Sun God: Damage 30 -> 38
  - 💭 True Sun God doesn’t provide enough damage considering its massive price tag.
• Ninja Monkey
  - 💥 xx5 Master Bomber: Sticky Bomb deals 850 -> 1,000 damage
  - 💭 Ninja Monkey has been out of the limelight for a while now and so we would like improve it by targeting its late game support damage, rather than its early game which caused problems in the past.
• Alchemist
  - ⏱ x3x Unstable Concoction: attack cooldown 6s -> 4.5s
  - 🏹 1xx Larger Potions: Now increases Unstable Concoction pierce by +1 (3 -> 4)
  - 💭 Some small tweaks to Unstable Concoction, with the aim of making it more reliable against tight rushes. xx2 crosspathing affects Unstable Concoction so it makes sense for 1xx to have an effect as well.
• Druid
  - 💰 1xx Hard Thorns: $350 -> $250
  - 💰 2xx Heart of Thunder: $900 -> $1,000
  - 💭 These upgrades were nerfed in a previous update but have since been rendered unnecessary by more significant changes made to the Druid in the last update. We are therefore reverting these changes.
• Spike Factory
  - ⏱ x5x Carpet of Spikes: Attack rate 0.98s -> 0.49s
  - 💭 Carpet of Spikes’ base attack has been buffed so that there is more reason to keep it up, rather than selling it instantly after activating the ability.
• Engineer Monkey
  - 💰 1xx Sentry Gun: $450 -> $400
  - 💰 3xx Sprockets: $525 -> $500
  - 💭 A couple of minor tweaks to help out Engineer’s early game defense.

Bug Fixes

• 🌍 Fixed combined rules games having names that don’t make sense in non-english languages.
• 👨‍👧‍👦 Fixed buff icons not appearing on child towers when they are affected via their parent.
• ⚠ Fixed crash when using shortcuts on Gwen’s hero showcase carts
• ⛔ Fixed issue where players that lose their first game after fast tracking are not entered into a league.
• 🔥 Fixed losing win streaks if your opponent quits while in the lobby.
• 🐌 Fixed slow launch times on some desktop devices.
• 🖊 Fixed incorrect text colour displaying on Hero Packs in the store.
• 🔍 Fixed x2x sniper not dealing additional damage to camo - see balance changes
• 🛸 Fixed Etienne’s weapon skins not displaying on the main menu.
• 🛸 Fixed Etienne’s drones disappearing if they upgrade while Etienne is down the Bot Factory elevator.
• 🏆 Fixed incorrect trophy display for players with more than 1000 trophies.
• 👊 Fixed battle button not displaying on the league screen if you are not in a league yet.
• 👷‍♂️ Fixed missing animation on Engineer Monkey’s second gun.
• 😴 Fixed animated banners and avatars of inactive clan members not appearing greyed out.
• 🛒 Fixed missing animation on notification icon in the shop.
• 🔙 Fixed Esc/Back button working incorrectly on the leaderboard screen (Android/Desktop only)
• 💬 Fixed not being able to scroll through all the players who reacted to a clan chat message.
• 👾 Fixed low resolution casual game icon in post game screen.
• 🏖 Fixed overlapping banners in the clan screen for clans in vacation mode.
• 😎 Fixed Adora’s sunglasses not appearing in previews for other animations when equipped.
• 📑 Fixed the list of profile banners displaying incorrectly on some devices.

UPDATE VIDEO: https://youtu.be/3g52RTXjelg

As always, we welcome your feedback in the comments and happy gaming! :D