Strategy:Bloons TD 6

Bloons TD 6 features a variety of game modes and events, such as Boss Bloon Events, Race Events, and Contested Territory Events. This article will primarily focus on the base game (i.e. playing the regular game modes on the official maps), with general tips for the variety of game modes present.

General recommendations

Progression

• Early on, focus on gaining Player XP, Tower XP, and Monkey Money to unlock more towers, upgrades, and Heroes.
  • Clearing a given difficulty mode on a given map for the first time rewards a medal and much more Monkey Money than future clears, as well as unlocking new difficulties.
  • Higher rounds give much more Player and Tower XP, making Hard Standard the ideal game mode for progression. It is relatively simple, and this article provides the tools to handle all the threats it poses.
  • Freeplay allows the player to play on into higher rounds than the difficulty requires, but XP rates are dramatically reduced while in Freeplay, and there is no further Monkey Money reward for continuing.
  • Focusing on one tower type supported by a Hero will funnel all Tower XP earned during the game into that tower type, allowing for much faster upgrade unlocks.
• Among the hardest difficulties, Impoppable and CHIMPS expect the player to already have access to many upgrades and at least one tier 5 upgrade, while Half Cash becomes far easier once the player has earned Monkey Knowledge upgrades to strengthen their towers. However, proactively working towards CHIMPS clears can earn various achievements and several Monkey Knowledge points, once the player feels prepared.
• Sandbox and Challenge Editor are good tools for experimenting with new strategies and towers. This can help with figuring out new approaches to key rounds or with understanding and iterating on strategies seen in guides. Note that Sandbox cannot send a round the player has never reached before.
• Attempt to obtain achievements, especially ones that grant Monkey Knowledge points, such as All for one and one for one.
• Heroes often form the backbone of strategies in BTD6. Every Hero can work well when used properly, but Sauda and Benjamin are both easy to use and very effective in most game modes, making them useful targets for early Monkey Money.
• Remembering what bloons appear on which round helps guide what towers and defenses to buy. Below is a table of the more dangerous/infamous rounds in the game.

Important rounds

Round #	Bloons Spawned	Reasoning
4	Red x35 Blue x18	In Hard Mode, it is hard to avoid losing lives from the dense clump of Blues without having sufficient pierce.
10	Blue x102	Instead of just spaced out Greens, Blues, and Reds, this round contains a dense clump of Blues near the end of the round. Sufficient pierce is important on this round; many towers that defeat the previous rounds lose to the Blue clump at the end due to lacking pierce.
15	Red x20 Blue x15 Green x12 Yellow x10 Pink x5	The spaced out swarms of Yellows and Pinks are problematic; most early-game defenses attempt to chase the bloons, or simply fail to keep up with them. This round is far more difficult than all rounds preceding it, making many players come to it unprepared.
24	Camo Green x1 Blue x20	The Camo Green can only be popped by towers with camo detection.
28	Lead x6	Most common earlygame towers are unable to damage Lead Bloons, and each one costs many lives to leak.
33	Camo Red x20 Camo Yellow x13	There are many more Camo Bloons than Round 24, requiring much more proper defense against them. Make sure to buy it before-hand or save enough money for one.
36	Pink x140 Camo Regrow Green x20	The three sudden Pink rushes may overwhelm defenses that rely heavily on slow-firing or stockpiling attacks. Camo Regrow Greens may pose minor difficulty for Camo detectors to focus on them.
40	MOAB x1	The MOAB is the hardest challenge of the early game. Without the entire early-game setup being prepared to deal good single-target damage and clean up the tight, high-RBE ceramics, this round could very easily be a dead-end.
54	Ceramic x35 MOAB x2	The constant, fairly packed ceramics with the two MOABs make it arguably the toughest round in the early part of mid game.
59	Ceramic x20 Camo Lead x50 Regrow Ceramic x10	This is the first Camo Lead round. While many options exist to defeat this round, forgetting to give Camo detection to a lead-popper or put down a lead-popper that sees Camo is a common cause of defeat on round 59.
63	Lead x75 Ceramic x122	This infamous round has 3 extremely tight Ceramic waves with 40, 40, and 42 Ceramics respectively. Unless the defense has been set up very adequately to deal with very dense Bloons, this round can pose massive troubles.
64	MOAB x6 Fortified MOAB x3	Nine MOABs, including 3 Fortified MOABs, spawn rapidly and can easily overwhelm defenses. Without reliable damage to groups of MOAB-class, this round can be a struggle, especially if all abilities are on cooldown from round 63.
75	Lead x14 Fortified Lead x14 Fortified MOAB x3 BFB x6	The 6 BFBs in 3 separate packs, especially the last dense pack of 3 BFBs, the fortified MOABs, and the Leads blocking many projectiles give this round a strong case of being the hardest mid-game round.
76	Regrow Ceramic x75	This round can become a dead-end if all abilities are on cooldown after being used to beat the difficult Round 75.
78	Rainbow x150 Ceramic x75 BFB x1 Purple x80 Camo Ceramic x72	Without a solid Camo popping power or reliable decamo, the densely packed Camo Ceramics will simply pass through unscathed.
82	BFB x6 Fortified BFB x5	The latter 5 fortified BFBs are difficult to break, but it is the fortified Super Ceramics from those BFBs that pose the greatest challenge, especially for towers that fall off against them, such as Crossbow Master and Bomb Blitz.
89	Fortified MOAB x20 Fortified BFB x8	The unprecedented amount of Fortified blimps and especially the Fortified Super Ceramics underneath them can become a significant roadblock.
90	Fortified Camo Regrow Lead x500 DDT x3	With preparations, the 3 DDTs are simple, but they still pose an unprecedented challenge to defenses, due to fast-moving blimps as opposed to slow-moving ones with Super Ceramics as the main threat. They could easily brick a run if no towers that can pop Camo, Black, and Lead have been placed before-hand.
91	Fortified Ceramic x100 BFB x20	This round is usually simple, but difficult on maps with very separate Bloon and MOAB lanes, especially Cargo and Dark Dungeons. On maps containing them, the Bloons-only lane(s) are the hardest out of any pre-Freeplay CHIMPS round, due to towers falling behind the spaced Super Ceramics when placed to deal with the BFBs first.
92	Fortified MOAB x50 ZOMG x4	Defenses that struggle to non-stop Fortified MOABs and especially their Super Ceramic insides will have severe trouble against this round. The Fortified MOABs could also divert attention from the ZOMGs, making towers not focus on them until it is too late.
93	Fortified BFB x10 DDT x6	The extra DDTs can pose extra challenge to towers that can beat Round 90. The Fortified BFBs may also take a long time to break and are especially problematic when towers spend a long time to deal with DDTs and let them get far.
95	Fortified Camo Regrow Lead x500 Camo Regrow Purple x250 Fortified MOAB x50 DDT x30	The extreme amount of DDTs on this round is a monumental challenge to many strategies, making many runs a dead-end. The Fortified MOABs and their Super Ceramic insides consume the pierce of projectiles that would have damaged the DDTs, posing further challenges.
97	Fortified ZOMG x2	Defenses that lack single-target damage will often fail to pop the Fortified ZOMG layers soon enough to deal with the insides. Commonly used towers that struggle against this round specifically include Prince of Darkness and Ultra-Juggernaut.
98	Fortified BFB x30 ZOMG x8	This round has the highest RBE out of any round in pre-Freeplay CHIMPS. The high amounts of health of the fortified BFBs and ZOMGs, but especially the absurd amount of Super Ceramics (including Fortified) that they contain, make this round completely stumble many strategies.
99	MOAB x60 Fortified DDT x9	The Fortified DDTs in this round require twice as much single target damage to pop compared to the DDTs in Round 95. There is also very little time between the end of Round 98 and the DDT spawns, which can leave most abilities on cooldown, and the MOABs still consume pierce from towers aiming at DDTs.
100	BAD x1	The BAD layer requires far more single-target damage than any previous round, and it is completely immune to any form of slowdown or stalling. Many strategies lack the sheer damage required to take the BAD down on shorter maps, instead turning to dedicated single-target damage burst options like First Strike Capability.

Placement tips

• A tower that can see more of the track has more time to pop bloons. This helps with popping down tough bloons, but rounds themselves can also last a while. In most cases, it is better for a tower to be able to target multiple disparate parts of a track, such as in the center of In The Loop, so that the tower has much more effective time to attack bloons despite seeing less total track length.
• Early on, most towers should be spread out. Do not put every tower by the entrance of the map, or what could be a fairly long map with plenty of points of overlap turns into a very short map where any Bloon that makes it past the entrance will leak. This is particularly notable with tough individual Bloons that take several hits to pop.
  • In co-op, many players will try to place all their towers by the entrance in this manner to pop Bloons before other players and maximize their own pop count. It is not worth it to try and compete with them. The goal is to win the game, not get the most pops, and the best option is still to focus defenses on how to best pop and clean up rounds, the same as any other game.
• Later on, cramming towers together can make it easier to cover a large number of towers with area buffs such as from Monkey Villages or Shinobi Tactics, and if one spot on the map is ideal for hitting Bloon lanes, then that spot should have more towers than anywhere else on the track in late game. Slowdown effects also become more potent the more towers are nearby to exploit them.
• Try to place towers according to the area their attacks cover.
  • Towers like MOAB Domination and Captain Churchill shoot down straight lines with high pierce, and like getting long straightaways to make use of their straight line attacks.
  • Low-range towers that attack in any or all directions, like Tack Shooters, Ice Monkeys, and Sauda, want to be placed in tight bends where they have more time to attack bloons.
  • Some towers can ignore obstacles or have seeking projectiles that can turn to match the track layout, like Arcane Mastery. These towers are less dependent on placement to perform well, though they still enjoy being able to see large portions of or multiple points on the track.
• Targeting options can help towers perform better in their positions. Towers facing down straightaways can use Last to ensure they always attack in that direction and maximize their pierce, while early towers on the track will usually be more effective when targeting Strong to wear down the most dangerous Bloon targets. First is most useful on towers handling cleanup, so that stragglers do not slip through.

Gameplay recommendations

General

• Early on, base towers are generally more cost-efficient than early upgrades. A Dart Monkey with Very Quick Shots, for instance, costs 2.5x as much as a basic Dart Monkey, but is only 1.5x as powerful. Placing an extra Dart Monkey instead will deal more damage for less money.
• The hero is extremely important to all game modes. Never forget to place them down, and make sure to use their abilities and tower synergies. Abilities usually only last a short time, but their effects are huge.
• Past the first couple upgrades, higher tier upgrades are usually more cost-efficient. The more expensive an upgrade, the more powerful it will be relative to its cost. A stable defense wants to save up money for a big improvement later, rather than spending now on weak towers.
  • Building off of this, most late game plans revolve around saving up for one or two strong core towers that can handle the later rounds, then supporting them. An expensive tier 5 tower can easily outperform its cost in cheap early game or even mid-game damage towers.
• Supporting towers and buffs can greatly improve a tower's performance. Jungle Drums, Berserker Brew, and Stronger Stimulant are especially pivotal across every game mode. The right support also covers for a strong tower's weaknesses. If a tower can't see Camo, then Camo support, such as Radar Scanner, Submerge and Support, Signal Flare, can cover that weakness.
• Stall and slowdown towers, such as Giant Condor, MOAB Glue, Relentless Glue, Bloon Sabotage, MOAB Press, or Symphonic Resonance, become easier to field and more valuable as the game goes on. They work just as well regardless of how long or short the map is, and give massive benefits against tough lategame rounds.

The following sections will talk about heuristics to think about through various game stages. Specific tower choices to consider are listed in the table further down.

Early game (rounds 1-40)

• Early defense should focus on unupgraded towers, which are more efficient for both tough Bloons and clumps of Bloons.
• Attempt to save up for the Hero as early as possible. Towers can be sold for most of the cost they were bought for, and in some cases this can be worth it to place the Hero down faster. If using Benjamin, then he should instead only be placed when the player has a proper defense, as he cannot pop early Bloons.
• Once early defense stabilizes a bit, try to save up into a strong early game carry tower with tier 2 or 3 upgrades.
  • Make sure to consider the tower's damage type, and include some basic towers that can handle earlygame immunities if need be. Blacks first appear on round 20, whites on 22, camos on 24, purples on 25, and leads on 28. Ninja Monkeys, 1-x-x or x-1-x Sniper Monkeys, and Bomb Shooters are common additions to patch holes in a defense. These towers should usually be set on strong to actively target the problematic Bloons. The Hero's ability can also cover for these immunities in some cases, such as Obyn's Brambles ability being able to hit Camo Bloons.

A strong early tower should handle most of the rest of early game, giving time to think about plans going forward.

• Bloon threats at this stage are largely either large threatening Bloons with a lot of HP and children, or a quick, dense rush of individually weak Bloons. Some towers have great damage against single targets, but lack the pierce to handle dense groups, while other towers have massive pierce that lets them handle dense rushes well, but lack the ability to concentrate their damage into a single target.
• Because tough single target Bloons split into multiple children, a tower with good single target damage tends to be best placed near the start of the map, while crowd control is better later in the map. This becomes more relevant going into mid-game.
• In most game modes, income is available through towers such as Banana Farms, reducing money available for the current defense for more money over time. It takes anywhere from 10 to 15 rounds for most income sources to pay off their initial cost, but a stable early game defense can handle the initial cost and use the extra money generated later on to outspend late game problems. Income sources can be sold in a pinch to recuperate most of the money spent on them. They are never actually necessary to complete a normal game on any difficulty, but can make later rounds much easier.
• Camo Bloons and other immunities become more prevalent as the game goes on, with Camo in particular requiring targeted effort on camo detection or camo removal. Few towers can easily attack all Bloon types equally, but a pair of towers can collectively handle all Bloon types well, or buffs such as Acidic Mixture Dip can be used to get around specific immunities.
• The round 40 MOAB marks the end of Easy difficulty. Most Heroes have an ability that works well either on the outer layer or the Ceramics inside, and using it here will make the round much easier. Focus on single target damage early in the map, and crowd control later in the map.

Mid-game (rounds 41-80)

• Mid-game amplifies the single target vs crowd control distinction mentioned earlier. Threatening rounds can blow past defenses with either a bulky Fortified MOAB or a dense rush with a huge number of Ceramics. Defenses have to be able to deal with both.
• Focus on a small number of powerful individual towers, building support around them. Ideally, these towers should be upgraded into powerful tier 5s later on that can handle late game as well, saving money on lower tiers and the support bought around them.
  • Berserker Brew/Stronger Stimulant and Jungle Drums become much more affordable around this time, and provide massive buffs to many mid-game towers. The strongest tower on the map is always worth buffing, especially if they synergize well with the flat damage and pierce increases.
• The bottom path for Monkey Villages becomes more feasible to get around this time. The discounts from x-x-2 villages are quite valuable in CHIMPS due to it going to round 100. When using Village discounts, place down a 2-0-2 and a 0-2-2 Village near each other so that towers nearby get both Village buffs and a double discount, and so that the villages boost each other's ranges and discount each other. This double discount setup is helpful for using lots of lategame support towers, various lategame damage setups that spend a lot of money on tier 3 towers, and for allowing both Primary Training and MIB to be used simultaneously; MIB also gets a big discount from its large cost.
• The big midgame Ceramic rushes come on rounds 63, 76, and 78, and require heavy group popping power to clear effectively. 76 and 78 can be cleaned up with an ability use by most Heroes, provided they're off cooldown, but 63's rushes are too close together, requiring multiple abilities or raw popping power.
• Past round 80 and going into late game will be a big difficulty spike. If planning to play past round 80, save up money for a big purchase of a late game damage tower, most likely a tier 5. In general, the more expensive the tier 5, the more powerful it is, and most tier 5s in the $20k price range are not strong enough to carry late game. Try aiming for a tower that costs at least $35k total, as towers in this price range start holding enough power to fight against the tough lategame rounds. Win conditions should also always be buffed by an Alchemist if possible, and generally justify a Stronger Stimulant.

Late game (rounds 81+)

• Past round 80, all Ceramic Bloons from blimps are now Super Ceramics, with a total of 68 HP (128 if Fortified), but never splitting into multiple children. This drastically increases the amount of single target damage needed to deal with normal Bloons, and most mid-game crowd control towers drop in value dramatically as they lack the ability to handle Super Ceramics quickly, such as Recursive Cluster and The Big One.
• With each individual Bloon and blimp having so much HP, slowdown and stall towers become incredibly powerful. Both blimp stall and regular Bloon stall can drastically improve the performance of the Hero and any win conditions at this point. Money also comes flowing in with the sheer number of blimps in these rounds, making them much more affordable, particularly when discounted.
• Starting on round 90, DDTs will start spawning. They have fairly low HP, but the speed of a Pink Bloon and camo, lead, and black properties. Stalls are at their strongest against these blimps, due to their lower density. Make sure to equip your win condition so that they can bypass all of these immunities at once; mid-game camo detection and de-camo methods work for the camo portion, and there are numerous different options to allow towers to pop lead, then MIB is a somewhat expensive option that can guarantee that any tower in range can damage DDTs.
• All the money during this stage can potentially be used to buy a second win condition, which can help deal with all the threats in the 90s. This second win condition should cover for any weaknesses of the first - for instance, a Sky Shredder has great blimp damage, but struggles to pick off Super Ceramics, so a Bloon Solver or The Biggest One can cover for that weakness.
• Ability timing becomes very important in the 90s, as every round is a threat and bad ability timing can easily leave them on cooldown when they're needed. Stalling at the end of a round can help refresh ability cooldowns, and try to avoid ending a round while all abilities are on cooldown.
• Late game rounds tend to alternate between speed/single target tests with DDT rushes and hyperdense rounds featuring large clumps of ZOMGs and BFBs.
• In many cases, round 100 can require specific towers to solve, which can deal huge amounts of single target damage to punch through the BAD layer. The Blazing Sun, First Strike Capability, or Spike Storm are particularly notable towers here for handling the round.

Towers suited for most game modes and maps

Early game

Name	Portrait	Reasoning & how to use
Base Dart Monkey		The base dart is a staple of the early-game, even being required to defeat CHIMPS on many difficult maps. Three of them passes the first few rounds with ease and saves up to the hero (if not obtainable at the start), except in Alternate Bloons Rounds. Note that three darts are not affordable at the start of Impoppable or Half Cash without Monkey Knowledge, but the dart remains strong there nonetheless.
Grape Shot		Grape Shot excels on nearly all maps with water, especially if placed so that the track surrounds it on 2 opposing sides and both of its guns can trigger.
Sentry Gun		Sentry Gun fills in the same role as Grape Shot, being a good early-game tower for slightly below $1,000 that performs well.
Barracuda		The Power 3 Barracuda is decent for its cost, but it is the Power 6 Barracuda that shines, wiping out the entire early-game with the exception of Camos and Leads.
Adasaurus		Adasaurus is an extremely strong early-game tower. Like Barracuda, it wipes out the entire early-game, with Adasaurus having the upside of Lead popping and the downside of smaller range. Repositioning the beast when needed mitigates the issues caused by the low range.
Wall of Fire		Wall of Fire reliably pops all early-game Bloons that passes through its fire, except for Purples and Camos without 0-2-2. 1-2-0 is preferred if stopping at Wall of Fire, due to its reliability, but 0-2-2 is better if going for Dragon's Breath.
Druid of the Jungle		1-3-0 Druid of the Jungle is immensely powerful on maps with one lane per round, breezing through the entire early game except for Camos. However, it falls off on maps with more than 1 simultaneously active lane per round.

Early game and mid-game

Name	Portrait	Reasoning & how to use
Destroyer		The plain 3-2-0 Destroyer easily wipes out the early game, with the exception of Camos. With a 3-2-0 Berserker Brew and given Camo support, Destroyer performs exceptionally in the mid-game as well, wiping out most rounds in the early mid-game with ease. Admiral Brickell's Naval Tactics ability and Level 8 +1 pierce buff both greatly benefit Destroyer.
Dragon's Breath		0-3-2 Dragon's Breath reliably pops all non-hyper-clumped Bloons except for Purples, in addition to dealing some MOAB damage. It cruises through the early-game and early mid-game, saving up for more expensive towers like Bloon Area Denial System. 3-2-0 Berserker Brew improves its MOAB damage, allowing it to carry on further into the mid-game.
Airburst Darts, Triple Guns		2-0-2 Airburst Darts does good all-around damage to all Bloons and blimps, including Camos when using 0-0-2 Dart Monkeys as Intel and Leads with Acidic Mixture Dip, which can be upgraded to Berserker Brew to greatly boost Airburst Darts's power. Triple Guns improves on Airburst Darts with a 50% attack speed boost, carrying power further into the mid-game.
Monkey Bank		Monkey Bank generates by far the most amount of cash out of the money-making towers in its price range, even without Bigger Banks. It is usually obtained in the 30s and 40s, and collecting it when full generates large amounts of cash. After collecting it, either a stronger defense or Monkeyopolis can be purchased, the latter by selling the Monkey Bank and having some extra cash on hand. It is recommended to obtain Monkeyopolis if playing on Impoppable, but keeping it and spending the collected cash on defense is simpler for other game modes.

Mid-game

Name	Portrait	Reasoning & how to use
Aircraft Carrier		Aircraft Carrier transitions well from Destroyer, wits its planes and main attack doing solid damage to Bloons and blimps. It carries Destroyer's power further into the mid-game, and likewise pairs well with Admiral Brickell.
Bloon Area Denial System		BADS easily wipes out most mid-game rounds, especially when given Berserker Brew. It saves up well to its powerful Tier 5, Bloon Exclusion Zone, in which case the 2-0-4 crosspath is the best option. However, if not going for its Tier 5, 0-2-4 is more optimal due to its increased amount of Buckshot knockback and innate Camo detection.
Artillery Battery		Artillery Battery easily clears nearly all Bloons that pass through its target, in addition to doing some blimp damage. With its Bombardment ability, it wipes out hyper-dense clumps of Bloons (such as those on Round 63) and blimps. When significant amounts of Bloons or blimps get past its target, re-target it to focus on them.
Comanche Defense		Comanche Defense can take out most of the mid-game with ease, particularly excelling on maps with one lane per round (where most towers decline in usability), such as Infernal. It also transitions well into its Tier 5, Comanche Commander.
Spectre		Spectre easily solos the first 80 rounds on nearly all maps with a 2-2-0 Monkey Village, thus making it optimal to simplify Hard mode and Alternate Bloons Rounds. It still holds up relatively well in the 80s, but falls off in the 90s while requiring MIB for DDTs. It also transitions well into its Tier 5, Flying Fortress, which is a simple guaranteed win in Impoppable (and affordable with farming) but generally unaffordable in CHIMPS.
Monkeyopolis		The Monkey Commerce discounts, Monkey Town increase to cash per pop, Monkey City buffs to surrounding money-makers, and production of $1200 per round when absorbing one 0-0-0 Banana Farm make Monkeyopolis the most efficient money-maker and allows for a trivial late-game. It is especially useful in Impoppable, and is useful in game modes that end in Round 80 as well. Attempt to place all towers in Monkeyopolis's range, and the 2-0-5 crosspath is optimal to increase its range and grant Jungle Drums. The best way to obtain Monkeyopolis is to buy 3 0-0-2 Monkey Commerces close together, buy a Monkey City discounted by all 3, sell one Monkey Commerce, get a 0-0-0 Banana Farm discounted all 3 villages left, sell the other two Monkey Commerces, and finally upgrade the Monkey City into Monkeyopolis.

Mid-game and late game

Name	Portrait	Reasoning & how to use
Carrier Flagship		Flagship easily wipes out with the entire mid-game and early late-game, while remaining strong into the 90s. In addition, its ~17% buff to water towers is very useful for water-based strategies. Use 5-2-0 if the main Destroyer attack can be utilized, and use 5-0-2 otherwise. Admiral Brickell is recommended for Flagship, as her Naval Tactics and Mega Mine abilities both help greatly.
The Bloon Solver		Solver easily wipes out all Bloons and low-tier blimps in the mid-game, and remains extremely powerful for its cost during the late-game. It wipes out Ceramics and Super Ceramics with ease, with its puddles dealing massive damage to everything else. Pair it with Carpet of Spikes, which pops high-health blimps and DDTs and spawns their insides that Solver can take out and trigger its puddles. 5-2-0 is the optimal crosspath for Solver, as it grants extra pierce for the puddles to take down more blimps.
Pirate Lord		Pirate Lord easily clears the latter part of mid-game, in addition to doing good overall damage in the late-game for its cost. Its power somewhat declines in the 90s due to its relatively low single-target damage, but it remains powerful due to its hook ability that can hook to 6 DDTs or 6 BFBs or 2 ZOMGs. Pair it with Admiral Brickell for her Naval Tactics and Mega Mines abilities.
Glaive Lord		Glaive Lord is a simple yet powerful and versatile tower. It completely wipes out the mid-game, retaining great power into the late-game. On easier maps, the rotating glaives wipe out low-tier blimps in tandem with the ricocheting glaives, while on harder maps, the long distance between tracks allow the ricocheting glaives to repeatedly bounce around the map and wipe out everything in sight. Glaive Lord is best placed near a bend for its rotating glaives, but it can still prove powerful without bends when placed near the track, thanks to its ricocheting glaives. Crosspath with 5-2-0 if other towers also need de-leading or MIB and use 5-0-2 if de-leading and MIB are not needed for anything else.

Late game

Name	Portrait	Reasoning & how to use
Late-game support towers		The support towers listed in the Gameplay Recommendations section's General subsection are all incredibly cost-efficient. It is not needed to get all of them every game, but they all greatly aid the defense, while costing many times less than another win condition does.
Perma-Spike		Perma-Spike is extremely versatile on nearly all maps and is simple to use. When put near the exit, it tanks tremendous amounts of leaks, and effectively guarantees victory in most runs. The 1-0-5 crosspath with Jungle Drums and 3-0-1 Berserker Brew (in combination giving it over 40% more tanking power) is the optimal setup. On multi-lane maps where the lanes are distant enough to prevent Perma-Spike from reaching all lanes, its power is reduced, but can still be utilized (but with more difficulty) using Support Chinook. Perma-Spike works best with towers that have solid grouped popping power, such as Glaive Lord and Orca, to reduce its stress under high-RBE rounds such as Round 98.
Comanche Commander		Comanche does both solid damage and some support with its shoving capabilities. It especially shines on single-lane, alternating maps such as Bazaar, where many towers fall off. Geraldo and Glue Storm work well with Comanche, as the former covers aids against dense rounds with Sharpening Stone, Genie Bottle, and Blade Trap, while the latter gives a powerful +2 debuff to all ability-glued Bloons and blimps, puts solid slowdown on Super Ceramics, and de-leads DDTs. Use the 2-0-5 crosspath, as Quad Darts greatly improves Comanche's damage and Pursuit reduces the need to micro.
Bloon Exclusion Zone		The 2-0-5 crosspath BEZ with Camo detection, Stronger Stimulant, and Lead popping, clears the late-game with absolute ease on nearly all maps. The high cost of BEZ is not a massive issues, as when given Berserker Brew and Camo detection with the 2-0-4 crosspath, Bloon Area Denial System is a solid Tier 4 that saves up well to BEZ with the help of a few solid mid-game towers, such as Dragon's Breath.
Pop and Awe		When used with stuns such as Relentless Glue, Super Glue, and Striker Jones's Concussive Shell ability, Pop and Awe trivializes the late-game. If needed, retarget occasionally to catch leaking Bloons and clumps of blimps that get far. Striker Jones, with his buffs to Mortars, Concussive Shell, Artillery Command ability resetting Pop and Awe's ability and granting it double damage at Level 20, and Target Command ability easing micro, is the optimal hero for Pop and Awe. Perma-Spike complements Pop and Awe well, covering its slight weakness against DDTs and catching any leaks that micro mishaps create. Solid BAD damage options, such as Spike Storm, should be obtained to cover Pop and Awe's BAD weakness.
Super Glue		Super Glue is an extremely effective stalling tower on almost all maps. It stuns massive amounts of Bloons and blimps at once with its splats, effectively locking many rounds in place. It pairs especially well with Sauda and Pop and Awe, both dealing massively increased damage to Bloons and blimps stunned by Super Glue.
Avatar of Wrath		On most maps, Avatar of Wrath can wipe out most rounds in the late-game. Generally, the 0-1-5 crosspath with 5 Poplusts and a Stronger Stimulant maximizes its power. The best heroes for Avatar of Wrath are Geraldo and Obyn, as both grant solid buffs and Geraldo's Gerry's Fire can be buffed by Poplusts. For DDT rounds, use MIB or Embrittlement or Glue Storm. Perma-Spike pairs well with Avatar of Wrath, due to the latter struggling against DDT rounds and the end of rounds (due to few Bloons on the screen) and Perma-Spike being well-suited for these situations.
Sky Shredder		Sky Shredder is unimpeded by line-of-sight blockers on many difficult maps, thus it retains its power on practically all maps, from Beginner to Expert. Its missiles do good damage to the outer layers of high-health blimps, and its darts can clean up the insides. Sky Shredder fits well within a wide variety of strategies, and cleanup towers such as Perma-Spike complement Sky Shredder well, as they tank the leaks that Sky Shredder's somewhat unreliable darts can leave. Stronger Stimulant maximizes Sky Shredder's damage.
Orca		At Power 64, Orca one-shots ZOMGs and DDTs, while dealing massive damage to everything else surrounding it with its thrash. It wipes out the vast majority of most rounds, especially when paired with Overclock, which has full uptime on it thanks to Orca being Tier 4. Set Orca on Strong so that it gets the most amount of thrash time, switch to First if many Bloons/blimps are to its front, and reposition it if many Bloons/blimps exit its range. The best way to obtain a Power 64 Orca is to get two Power 24 Great Whites (which are far more cost efficient than additional Orcas) for the mid-game to get a smooth save-up, and then merge them into Orca on Round 80. Orca's tendency to leak stray Bloons makes towers such as Perma-Spike and Prince of Darkness great pairings.

Strategies for each game mode

Each game mode differs from one another, and the most challenging game modes require specific strategies tailored to defeat them. The strategy articles for game modes that require unique strategies are listed below.

• Primary Only: Strategy:Primary Only
• Deflation: Strategy:Deflation
• Military Only: Strategy:Military Only
• Reverse: Reverse (BTD6)#Strategy
• Apopalypse: Strategy:Apopalypse
• Magic Monkeys Only: Strategy:Magic Monkeys Only
• Half Cash: Strategy:Half Cash
• Alternate Bloons Rounds: Strategy:Alternate Bloons Rounds
• Impoppable: Strategy:Impoppable
• CHIMPS: Strategy:CHIMPS