How to go late game against rushers! (AKA how2eco against farmers)

Overview

Want to go late game but you’re annoyed by us rusher who’s just enjoying rushing in a battle game? Or just want to get better at eco in general? Then it’s a good choice to read this.

Notice

This guide is fairly outdated. Dating back to when fast cooldown ZOMGs didn’t exist. Proceed with caution since many things have changed since then. I myself barely play this game anymore.

Forewords

Well,hi there,I’m glad you clicked in here.

As the title suggests,this is a guide on how to efficiently use eco. It was at first to be named just simply “How to defend rush with eco” or something along that line. But since using eco means you can’t do threatening rush after round 22,it gurantees going late game if you can defend your enemies’ rushes.

Due to fact that not all people have the sufficient resources to do it or this guide’s content can make some (read : a lot) of people salty,I’ll have to tell you first that…

First,you should have most tier 4 monkeys available
Because eco relies mostly on managing abilities,or high firepower upgrades which are provided by tier 4 upgrades,it is recommended for you to stick with farm and rush until you have tier 4s.

Second,this is intended for classic assault mode and arenas
Since it was orginally intended to be a guide on effectively using eco. But this can also work in gamemodes like play with fire as well.

Third,you must be willing to throw out that wizard monkey,for an additional slot
It’s defensive capability is alright,but it is inferior to many choice,there’s many more reliable camo lead popping power out there that provides more power against rushes.

So I guess if you’re not willing to put it off,you may have to stop reading here,since it won’t be mentioned from now on or just mention it negatively. So I guess,sorry.

Now let’s move on.

The Tower Slots

Ok,now let’s see what we have.

hmmm…
3 tower slots!
Unlike flash (rip),we only have 3 tower slots here,and there’s no additional slot that you can pick yourself,so it’s RNG-based for your first tower,you can end up with a glue gunner or wizard.

So what do we do? We have to make all those slots worth it for al(most al)l situations.

But how do we do that?

The first slot : The Jack of all trade slots

There’s only 2 towers that can fit in here.
I’ll explain what are they,and why are they “jack of all trades”

And the first one is of course,no one more than….
Yep,this good ol’ dart mokey!
Why is it good? Let’s see….
Triple darts itself can survive for a good amount of time,they’re cheap enough to spam,and have camo detection. So it’s pretty much the most used upgrade for this tower.

Juggernauts are upgraded spike-o-pults,which have more range,camo detection,and it pops (camo) leads! It also deal a solid 5 damage against ceramics which have 10 HP. Each jug ball pops up to 100 bloons (currently glitched and each pop counts as 2 so when it throws into a massive rush,its pop count will go up by up to 200. But it is enough to strip off a whole layer from a whole rush,for example,a rainbow rush will turn into zebra rush with 1 shot. But even then,it can’t kill bigger rushes without being spammed (5 or more) or tower boost usage,even with triple dart spam cleanup,still powerful nonetheless.

Super Monkey Fan Club,known as Super Funky Man Club or SMFC,is an ability for dart monkey,it costs a hefty $8000,but can do an amazing job for its price. It transform 10 dart monkey (including itself,so 9 other dart monkeys) that are not spike-o-pult or juggernaut,into fake supermonkeys. It priortizes higher upgraded dart monkeys rather than closer ones. These imposters are actually even stronger than its real counterpart. It fire at the same rate as a real super monkey does,but its range upgrades also works it this. Best yet,its pierce upgrade increases all the minigun fire rate darts’ pierce! 10 of these fakers or even 6,can easy take town a whole bfb! But it isn’t as effective vs. bloons despite doing high damage to blimps,so if you got a massive blimp rush incoming,you can also spam juggernauts to clean it up. If you don’t have 10 dart monkeys by the time you activates the ability,keep placing more dart monkeys while upgrading them to 2/2 until they stop transforming into super monkey.

Powerful isn’t it? We have another choice as well.
White dots there,excuse me. It’s just an artwork of mine.
Ideal for water maps and certain maps like battle park (must have) and snowfall. This cute little guy has been nerfed so many time that he is still a powerful tower to be used. Which upgrade do we use? Let’s get into it.

Airburst Darts make each shot instantly expires from a single hit,but it creates additional 3 darts which each has 3 pierce (which isn’t affected at all by barbed darts,so you’ll want to get it straight from twin guns to airburst.) in total of 10 pops per shot at the rate of roughly 3 shots per second,it can kill blue eco itself,but not green and upper ones. It can also kill round 4 spaced pinks on its own too. It used to cost $750 (then 800) and fire 4 darts per seconds,but now it is $1000. But is still a very powerful early game upgrade. I don’t recommend advanced intel unless on maps where coverage is important,like hydro dam.

Ballistic Missiles deals 3 damage to blimps and ceramics,has infinite range,homing,and pops 100 up to bloons each explosion. It does not seem to detect camo even with advanced intel. It does not deal particularly good damge to blimp though. But good for taking off mass ceramic layers like the one found on round 32.

Bloontonium Reactor,or just simply reactor,when submerged,can pop infinite amount of bloons quickly and is very effective against anything below rainbow,it should be placed to cover as much track as possible. Its poppage can hit camo,but it also has the radar to permanently remove them. It doesn’t do so well against ceramics,but pairing it if bloonchipper or arctic wind can create a very powerful combo. One of the best thing you can have on battle park.

First Strike Capability,”First Strike” or FSC is a(n extremely powerful,one of the best) ability for the submarine. It can take out a whole zomg (without remains) before round 30,and many other lower bloons like a massive BFB rush. And still do well after r30 but slightly less powerful after each round. It is mostly used as a “one time use” ability which will be detailed later. It may not be as accurate,but the next tower will solve this problem.

Woah,this is just 2 towers,but they’re jack of all trades so I think it’s fine.

Now Let’s go to the next one…

The second slot : The one and the only Ninja!

Yes,the ninja. He’s a very powerful tower,and is one of the best things you can have for a bonus tower. He only has 2 powerful upgrades,but that is more than enough.

Bloonjitsu costs a total of $5500 to get,but is very powerful against spaced (or grouped when spammed) bloons and even blimps. Its homing shuriken makes it pretty effective against many rushes. But that isn’t even his best power. Which is…

Sabotage Supply Lines! Known as SSL or Sabo,this thing can make rush goes as fast as half speed,total of $8000 to buy. All bloons are permanently slowed,and if used on blimps that already spawned,will only slow the current layer by 15 seconds,and if not spawned,any blimps that spawns within 15 seconds will be permanently slowed to the red layer. After using this you can also sell it for $6600 and build more defense as well! I usually start saving up for this when I reach $1200 eco,or $1000 or when round 20 begins. Sell other tower for this if needed,if you saved up for it,then just eco as much as possible until opponent starts rushing.

Short enough,and should make sense.

The third slot (And choices for bonus tower) : The utility/firepower slot

These tower will make defending larger rushes much more easier,depending on which one you choose.

Bloonchipper is a harder one to use.
But it provides one of the best utilities available.

First of all,its target should ALWAYS be on strong : It can make sure higher tier bloons including regrows are reduced to lower ones,making your other tower clean up easier.

A bare tower,when spammed (at least 3 of them or so) can buy a lot of time for high popping tower (juggernauts,flash bombs,etc.) to clean up.

Heavy Duty Suction can suck up ceramics and leads,its ceramic suction is extremely powerful,since it keeps up to 4 ceramics there and split out rainbows exactly where those ceramics are sucked up. A powerful thing to use when those moabs split out a horde of ceramics.

Super Wide Funnel is great against a single ZOMG or any blimps if you spam them. Normally I prefer avoiding them just because they are annoying and later on isn’t worth it. But good when you have it for round 22 rushes : It easily eat the ZOMG layer and can be sold when it splits out BFBs.

Supa-Vac is an ability for the bloonchipper,it costs $10000,when used,pulls every bloons and blimps into it and hold it there for 8 seconds,with the exception of BFB being only just 4 seconds and ZOMGs for only 2 seconds,it is effective when used against a large horde of lower bloons and gives much more time for your towers to finish them off. For example : When a zomg breaks into bfb then moabs,you can buy a supa-vac and SMFC to hold it off and destroy them.

Super Monkey is a popular choice to many players :
They are powerful and simple to use later on. But they are not going to do much if used early on or incorrectly. I would discourage using it on land maps until you are capable of defending round 13 properly. Let’s take a look at what they have.

Sun God shoots triple ray and each pierces 15 bloons. Pretty powerful combined with sabotage supply lines. Good for cleaning large hordes of moabs

Robo Monkey is similar to sun god,but it does more damage and has less pierce. Good when used against lone zomgs.

Temple of the monkey godI’d rather avoid having more than one of these : They aren’t worth it unless you have enough sacrifices. Wizard tornado sacrifices barely make a difference. The only reason I place multiple is if I have bomb/mortar sacrifices which are very powerful. Otherwise,place only one of them to clean up non-blimps with their unlimited pierce.

Technological Terror fires slightly faster and has more pierce than robo monkey,laser blasts/plasma blasts also increase its pierce even further. Its ability does 1000 damage which instantly destroy any BFBs within a small radius if used early on. Can be used as a “one time use” as well.

The monkey ace is one of the easiest one to use. It only has 3 commonly used upgrades,but they barely requires anything other than “just place it somewhere near map center”. You may want to put it on circle path. Let’s take a look at what they do.

Operation : Dart Storm just wanders around and spraying 16 darts per volley rapidly in every direction. Great against mass rushes like round 13. But they are weak against leads,blimps and ceramics.

Spectre rapidly shoots darts and powerful bombs at a target. Yep,this thing can aim. It is extremely powerful against bloons. So you can place one and just build more defense against blimps. It costs a total of 22k cash to use but is pretty worth it. I personally have 2 of them near the same place,but with each being opposite side of the other’s orbit to ensure no bloons leak.

Ground zero deals massive damage to the whole screen. It deals 350 damage if you want to know. This amount is capable of wiping off a screen full off moabs in one go,and requires 2 or more hits against BFBs and is considerably weak against ZOMGs,It is very commonly used as a “one use” abilitys along with many other ones.

The bomb tower,known as cannon,is a quite underrated tower for what is does. It explodes in a significantly smaller radius compared to its flash counterpart. While that is true,it can still pull out some amazing work,early or late game. All its tier 3 and 4 upgrades are fairly powerful and its only problem is just the lack of camo detection.

Put these cannons on : Close target
This allows it to utlilize its blast radius than it usually do.

Cluster Bombs makes each main shot splits into 8 more bombs after exploding,this allows high poppage in a wide area. Having two or even one of these can make pink bloons or lower pose no threats at all.

Bloon Impact Briefly stuns the bloons hit by the explosion,while this is a powerful feature,its another very powerful feature is that it allows the cannon to pop black and zebra bloons,thing thing can thin down many big rushes found on round 13,combined with other regular cluster bomb towers,can clean up ceramic bloons from the blimps very easily.

Put these cannons on : Strong
This make them more likely to hit blimps.

Moab Maulers Are good against blimps,as it deals 10 damage per explosion to them. It is especially effective when spammed,and even better when combined with sabotage since that makes moabs moves slower and stick closer to each other. Pretty powerful against moabs and BFBs,but can be outshined by the bloonjitsu against lone or spaced zomgs.

Moab Assassins‘s ability deals 750 damage to the highest tier blimp on the screen. One use can break down a BFB into moabs. I consider it as a “one time use” ability. It can be used against ZOMGs to quickly take off the ZOMG layer and let moab mauler finish the rest.

Ice tower,while doesn’t provide as much raw firepower as other towers,it can provide powerful support early on and later on into the late game or against rushes. It only has 3 powerful upgrades against rushes later on,but they’re powerful enough to get the work done.

Arctic Wind slows down all bloons in its radius significantly,even if not frozen. It can keep lower but fast bloons like pinks away from your exit,while your other towers like juggernaut finish them off. And can also be placed next to the reactor to create an area of effect that can kill everything beside blimps.

Ice shards can make you feel better if you feel annoyed seeing bloons being frozen instead of destroying them. With snap freeze,this thing will send out many sharp shards for each bloons frozen in its radius,enough to wipe out any bloons nearby or even blimps. Can also be placed next to the arctic wind to ensure that it hits due to its slow attack speed.

Absolute Zero is similar to sabotage supply lines against moabs. It permanently slows down 2 layers of all bloons on the screen by half. (Example,using it on a ZOMG will slow the ZOMG layer and the BFB layer,once they break down into moabs,they will return to normal speed and needs to be slowed again.) This thing also stack with the sabotage,so you can slow down those pesky rushes to a pitiful x0.25 speed. Nice isn’t it.

You can also use dart and submarine in the same time.

Now that we know what our towers do,we’ll also need to know what we’ll do ourselves.

About the maps

I’ll be mentioning dart monkeys on land maps and submarines on water maps.

Here I’ll be classifying which map is land and which map is water.

Water maps,to me means any map with an effective bloontonium reactor spot(s).

-Bloontonium Mines
-Park
-Temple
-Yin Yang
-Battle River
-Battle Sands/Pyramid Steps
-Yellow Brick Road
-Swamp
-Patch
-A-Game
-Indoor Pools* (Different and weird strategies are used here. Which won’t be mentioned)
-Offside
-Card

-Hydro Dam
-Temple
-Snowfall
-Water Hazard
-Ice Flow
-Snowy Castle
-Ink Blot
-Rally/Race Track* (recommended to use both dart and sub with ninja)

Starting Off

Start by placing a dart monkey,upgrade it straight it to triple dart without any range upgrades. For water maps,place a sub and upgrade it to twin guns then airburst darts. Ignore barbed darts at all costs. Now you can start pumping up eco. Use the top row bloons,they are grouped and send much faster.. If your opponent sends eco as well,build a triple-dart dartmonkey on round 4,6,and 8. Otherwise,build your second one at the 7th round. For submarine,an airburst dart holds off until round 6. But you won’t want to build a second airburst darts in most case. Build another submarine on the reactor spot,upgrade it straight to “submerge and support”,save up $1400 then sell that airburst dart and upgrade this thing to reactor. These information will hold you off for now.

Eco : Least and Max

While building eco,you may want to stop building too much that it drains all your current money.

Here I will approximate the least and the maximum eco you should have by certain rounds.

Round 1-8: Keep ecoing as much as you can while maintaining your defense.

Round 9-13 : You should have at least 500 eco,and not more than 620. If you’re new,550 is a good place to stop.

Round 14-16 : This would be a grace period for doing as much eco as possible.

Round 17-20 : You should have at least 850 eco,and not more than 1200.

Once you reach 1200 eco or round 20 starts,you should now start saving up for a ninja with sabotage ability. It helps out later on which I’ll explain why.

Once you got it,eco as much as you can before stopping and build a defense when rushed/needed.

round 10-12 : A small threat that can be dangerous.

On round 10,regrow leads are now available,with submarine,you have a reactor to pop them all off without problem,if you are concerned,you can place a 0/0 chipper and put it on strong,or an airburst dart on strong. This will hold off for a while.

For dart monkeys,it depends on what you chose for your third tower. If you use chipper,bomb or ice. They can be used to pop leads. If you don’t,you should have a juggernaut for that instead.

You may need additional defense if the enemy send you grouped whites if you use dart monkey. A second juggernaut or 2-3 triple dart does the job.

Round 13-17 : Rough Rushes

This is the worst part of defending. Even worse than BFBs and those things.

A reactor will hold off anything lower than ceramics on battle park,for other water map that isn’t hydro dam,you’ll need 2-3 0/0 bloonchippers on strong to hold them off.

Once round 15 strikes,whether land or water,if you use chipper,get a heavy duty suction chipper to take off the ceramic layer and let your towers do the rest.

For land maps,it is very hard to defend these. 1-2 juggernauts and some triple darts with boost can wipe it off. But if your opponent goes for secondary rush after your boost wears off,sell everything and buy sabotage,use it and sell it before buying your defense again.

It also depends on your third towers.

Cluster bomb will help the remainings of the rush if you have it. Same thing for ice shards.

Juggernaut + Operation dart storm will demolish most rushes here easily. But they may need backup like a few triple darts to catch small leaks.

Spamming more bloonchippers while using juggernaut(s) also shred them down.

Bloonjitsu + Juggernaut can also worth trying.

I’ll repeat,this is the hardest rush you’ll face. From now on,it should be easy.

18-21 : Light blimp rushes

These are the easiest rush to defend once you got the hang out of it.

On water maps,simple place 2-3 airburst darts (use boost if needed,sabotage if you can’t but still need it) and put some of them targeting strong,they will take the moab down into ceramics which your round 15 defense should take care off.

On ground maps,spam some more triple darts (to a total of 6-10) will take down the blimp,then juggernauts,chippers and these things will take them off. Sell towers for sabotage if needed as usual.

You should have a sabotage ninja available by the time this thing is sent out.

For land maps,use it,sell it as always,build a super monkey fan club and build dart monkeys,upgrading them to razor sharp darts,repeat until the new one stops transforming,the BFB should go down fast enough,but if not,sell the fan club,buy a new ninja saboteur,use it then sell it,use Fan Club,repeat until it is over.

For water maps,use the sabotage,sell it,buy a bloonjitsu,a few airburst darts if you haven’t got them yet,and some heavy duty suction chippers to take ceramic layers off. This one may require boost. But it isn’t as difficult if you compare it to round 13 land rushes.

22 and beyond : The Heavy Blimp Rushes

For water maps,it is extremely simple until round 31 where blimps’ health starts to increase naturally.

1)If they send a zomg or large clusters of BFBs,sabotage as usual,sell (almost) everything until you have $24,000 or so,buy a first strike capability sub. Use it and sell it,sabotage again then go back to your old defense again. Do not sell anything other than the ninja yet if you don’t think you have enough money.

2)If they spam fast,grouped moabs,use the sabotage then then spam bloonjitsu ninjas,even 3-4 of them will hold it off without boosts.

After round 30,first strike will break those things down to moabs,so I’ll have to do 1) followed by 2). But you should have MUCH more eco than you have on round 22,right,right?

For land maps,use sabotage followed by super monkey fan club like round 20 ones,but now if there’s a lot of them,place juggernauts to help with bloons,if they speed up,sabotage again.
If you have Monkey Ace use ground zero whenever there’s not a single ZOMG on the screen. Sell and rebuy. Use it,repeat.
If you have super monkey,build a sun god with a few juggernauts. Use Fan Club for support if needed.
If you have bomb towers,Fan Club or moab assassin to take off the ZOMG layer,spam moab maulers to bring BFBs and MOABs down to ceramics and use bloon impact and juggernauts to clean off the rest.
With Ice,use absolute zero to further slow them down and Fan Club,artic wind at the end wih some juggernauts will be awesome.
With Chipper,use a super wide funnel on strong to eat the ZOMG layer,buy a fan club once it’s down to BFBs,spam either heavy duty suction chippers on strong or juggernauts while using the fan club,but if you can also afford supavac and fan club together,it will make your life easier.

You can feel free to use the remaining tower boosts here. It won’t hurt to do it just to survive.

Now,be proud,you’ve just defeated round 40 and beyond’s difficulty before round 30!

If you’re not rushed,build eco with grouped pink bloons until you are. It is the fastest eco available.

You may also want to stop a bit at 4000 eco and build more sabotage ninja until you have 4 or 5. This will allow you to use them without selling them. Now get back to your eco.

Later on,you should know what to do to survive late game. Bloonjitsu Spam

Video Demonstration

More to come. Since videos are easier.
These video contain “subtitle” if you’re confused on what’s happening. I put it like that so it won’t annoy people who’s just watching it.

Round 22 All-Out Rush : ZOMG and a few BFB,NLL rush (excluding leaks earlier)
Dart Ninja Ace. Rush starts at 1:35

<To Be Done> : Juggernaut and reactor spots

–Insert Pictures Of those sweet spots Here—

Final Words

Thanks for reading this guide. I hope it taught you something valuable.

You may not always defend them. But if you are concerned,you can comment down here on what you struggle against,and I may demonstrate it in a private match or even a video.

I am hoping to see more people that are capable of defending rushes somewhere.

For now,I’ll end it here. Again,Thanks for reading through this whole thing.

All questions are welcome,including if you want me to correct something. Same for suggestions.

Have a popping day!

Thanks to…

-LYBRTY,who helped me out with video(s)
[link] << Profile
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXHHaKrVHU3Jry-vKAa3Nlw <<His youtube Channel

-Asian Sensation,the Legendary Bloon players who inspired me to eco. He sadly Quit 🙁
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDxfRwPvQX4p-JGFfr2z_Cg << His youtube Channel,containing old and memorable videos.

-Ceramic Cruciblers,Moab Pit-ers and BFB Colloseum-er
For being my test subject,hosting my victories and defeats.

And lastly,you. Who put your time into reading this whole bloody thing.