Overview
This is a guide to help you survive anything. I won’t be going through the specifics of what to place down when, but I will be going through what makes these strategies so good.
Basic Description
This strategy is good for almost all maps, except for ice flow, indoor pools and hydro dam. These maps have things that make this strategy not work, for example you can only place one farm on ice flow, and you usually won’t be going late enough on indoor pools and hydro dam to make the ace or bloonchipper useful enough. Note that you need 4th tier towers unlocked for these towers.
The towers in this loadout will be Dart Monkey, Banana Farm and either Monkey Ace or Bloonchipper, depending on your playstyle or what you prefer. I’ll now be going over what each specific tower does.
PS: If you want me to make more of these types of guides, leave it in the comments! 😀
Please note: Some of this may be outdated.
Dart Monkey
One of the BEST overall towers in the entire game. Can be used throughout the entire game, early, mid and late game. It has a power spike in the mid game, and falls off a bit late game.
In the early game, this is usually what you use to get farms. Even then, these are still great early game towers and can defend a lot with just a few x/3 dart monkeys.
Mid game, this is where they come into play. 4/0 juggernauts can take out up to 100 bloons with one shot, and these are what a lot of decent players use to defend Regrow Rainbows or Zebras on round 13. These are also great for ceramics, as 2 shots from a juggernaut will bring it down to rainbows, where usually a normal tower would take 10 shots instead.
Mid-Late game. Super Monkey Fan Club. One of the best active abilities in the entire game. It turns up to 10 dart monkeys (except for catapults and juggernauts) on the screen to super monkeys for 10 seconds. This can take down up to ZOMGs, although you will probably have to use battle energy for ZOMGs without any outside help. Also, upgrading all your dart monkeys to 2/2 will also help during the SMFC, as this increases both their range and their pierce.
Late game, they fall off quite a bit, simply because the ZOMGs health is just too great for them to handle. This is usually where outside towers, such as bloonchippers come in to help, as they can help stall, or Monkey Aces with their powerful Ground Zero nuke, which does tons of damage to everything on the screen.
Banana Farm
Banana Farms. Used by a lot of players, ranging from newbies to pros. The difference is that most people don’t know how to use this tower. I see a lot of people selling all their farms on round 13 for a huge regrow rainbow rush. In a lot of cases, this can work. But when playing skilled and experienced players, this rush can fail. If this rush fails, you’ve almost certainly lost already. I’ll go over how to use it properly. Banana Farms can make or break a player’s skill.
You usually want to start off with a 0/0 banana farm, then get your 0/0 dart monkey, then upgrade your banana farm to 1/0, but it’s your choice. Try to get the minimum defense to survive both natural and sent bloons, eg. 2 0/3 dart monkeys on round 4, 3 0/3 dart monkeys on round 6, 4-5 or a catapult on round 8, etc.
A good amount of farms to have on round 13 is 3-4 2/0 farms. What I do is I get up 3 1/0 farms, then upgrade them all to 2/0, but you can also get up 2/0 farms straight away.
Once you have 5 2/0 farms, try getting one of them to 3/0, then save up until you have $4500~. Sell all 4 of your 2/0 farms, then upgrade your 3/0 farm to 4/0. Try to get up the 4/2 farm ASAP, but be careful, as you usually get your 4/0 at around round 18-20, and this is where the MOABs and BFBs start coming out. You may have to sell your farm if your opponent sends you FC MOABs or a BFB to get up a Super Monkey Fan Club. This isn’t ideal though, as you’ve just lost a lot of money from selling your farm. Usually you want to wait a few seconds before getting another farm or upgrading to valuable bananas, just in case your opponent does decide to send a rush.
When you get 4 4/2 farms, you can send infinite ZOMGs. This is usually what you want to do, unless your opponent is ahead of you in farms. In that case, either go for an early rush or try to defend (nearly impossible without bloonchipper past round 50-60).
Monkey Ace
One of the best late game towers, but can also be used quite effectively mid game, via the Operation Dart Storm. You usually never want to go the left side path past 2/x, unless you plan on getting the spectre. Either this or the bloonchipper is used as the third tower.
The Ace isn’t really useful until round 13, but it can be used before then. Some good maps to use the ace for round 13 rushes is cards, pumpkin patch, A Game and maps where the bloons go around either in circles or where they go near the same place a couple times on their way out.
The Ace’s real job is around round 22 or higher, where the real big bloons start coming out. FC BFB’s and ZOMGs are taken down quite easily by the Monkey Ace. A strategy I use for taking down ZOMGs is to pop the ZOMG layer down to BFBs, then use the Ground Zero ability twice. Once for the BFB layers, and another for the MOABs and ceramics.
If you have good micro ability, then you can use the ace quite effectively. Sell and re-buy the Ground Zero constantly and you can defend a lot of bloons and blimps.
Bloonchipper
The Bloonchipper. A decent overall tower, for all stages of the game, although it is mainly used for stalling blimps late game using the 4/2 and x/4 ability. Either this or the Ace is used for the third tower.
Early game, it can be used quite effectively to chip off the pink and black layer for the early rounds, instead of getting up another dart monkey. It can also be used for round 10 leads if you don’t want to get up the juggernaut.
Mid game, it can effectively stall regrow rainbow rushes and chip off ceramic layers with the 2/x upgrade.
The real power comes late game though. The x/4 ability can stall MOABs and other bloons for up to 8 seconds, BFBs up to 4 seconds, and ZOMGs for up to 2 seconds. If you get enough bloonchipper abilities, you could technically last forever. The 4/x upgrade is also powerful. It can, on some maps, turn a ZOMG down to ceramics without any outside help, except maybe a Sabotage Supply Lines or something along those lines.
A very solid overall tower. Good throughout all stages of the game, early mid and late. If you’re going late game, probably the best tower for it, even better than the super monkey. Without the bloonchipper, there’s no way you’d survive for very long.
Recap
So, a recap of this strategy.
The loadout consists of the Dart Monkey, Banana Farm, and either the Monkey Ace or Bloonchipper. I personally like the ace better, as usually I never go late game enough to make full use of the bloonchipper.
The Dart Monkey is what you will need to survive through the early and mid-late game. A very good overall tower for defeating all types of bloons.
Banana Farms are arguably better than bloon income, even late game. You can also sell these if you’re in a clutch situation.
The Monkey Ace’s Operation: Dart Storm and Ground Zero active ability is what makes it useful. The ODS can immensely help pop the bloons all throughout the mid-late game. The Ground Zero can insta-kill many things like a BFB and bring down the ZOMG to BFBs, which can be proven very useful.
The Bloonchipper is great throughout the whole entire game, from chipping pinks and leads, to stopping regrow rushes and ceramics, and even stalling blimps such as MOABs, BFBs and even for a short duration, ZOMGs.
This is what many of the decent players use, so I highly recommend it if your Apprentice-Farm-Ninja tower strategy isn’t working, and you think you’re a decent enough player. Remember, you need tier 4 towers unlocked if you want to use this strategy. Happy popping!
A little bit about me
Hi, I’m 106462910. My current in game name is ‘hacking op imo’, but that’s bound to change soon. I’ve been playing BTD Battles since around mid 2015, right before it blew up on the app store. I’ve moved to steam, as I’ve always like doing things on the computer better.
My current record is 153-15, so I’m a solid player. Of course, I’m nowhere near the skill level of people like Candys0n or any of the good MKOTH players, but I think I’ll get there soon. My playstyle is pretty similar to ISAB’s, and I enjoy his videos a lot (If I’m in your video ty :D).
If you have any questions, just leave them below. Other than that, have a good day!