Boss Rush

Boss Rush is a bi-weekly event in Bloons TD 6, introduced in version 43.0. In this game mode, all players in a Team battle against each Boss Bloon using Phayze One rules. There are five islands, each one containing a specific map controlled by stronger Boss Bloons. By contributing scores, the Boss Bloon loses health, and dies once it reaches zero. Defeating each island gives rewards for all contributing members.

Schedule

Boss Rush runs every other Wednesday 22:00 UTC to Monday 22:00 UTC, lasting 5 days in total. Because of this, the schedule alternates between this event and Contested Territory every week. As Boss Rush is not considered a competitive mode, updates have no impact on the schedule and updates may happen while the event is active.

Gameplay

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There are five islands in a Boss Rush event, with a Boss Bloon for every island. Boss Bloons have a large amount of HP that is reduced by participating in Boss Rush battles. As the player progresses, the HP of the island's Boss Bloon increases.

Island	HP
1	850
2	1175
3	1850
4	2850
5	3350

The player's four best scores will determine the amount of damage to the current island's boss. If a new score is better than any of the current scores, the island's Boss Bloon takes extra damage equal to the difference between the new score and the lowest score. Every 24 hours, starting from the first hour of the event (20:00 UTC by default), the leaderboards reset, and the player may submit up to four more of their best scores on the current island's boss. If the current island's boss is already destroyed, every player's leaderboards are reset and their scores do not carry over to the next island's boss. Players are still allowed to attempt previously beaten islands, but scores will not be recorded.

Each player starts with 6 Team Tickets and uses one for each attempt. Tickets automatically refresh every 6 hours, and the player can also redeem  50 for a ticket with no limit.

Upon starting the event, the player will begin on the first island with 16 tower types (excluding the Banana Farm, which is always banned), and is allowed to select any Hero except Geraldo. One of any available Boss Bloon will summon onto the island and have a set amount of HP. All battles will begin with one guaranteed Relic out of the ones available. Beating an island removes two tower types, and unlocks one additional Relic and a new Boss Bloon. Every event per week is the same across all players.

All Powers except Portable Lake, Pontoon, Banana Farmer, and Tech Bot are disabled, and all available Powers are only supplied by the player. Additionally, Continues, Hero Boosters, Double Cash Mode, and Fast Track Mode are disabled.

All Relics are randomly assigned to each island. The following Relics cannot appear in this mode:

Boss Rush mini-game

This article or section needs cleanup to improve the way it presents information and/or comply with the style guide. You can help out by editing this article. The editor who added this notice elaborates: Fix this "tiers" thing so it's clarified versus "tiers" of the Boss Event bosses

In a Boss Rush mini-game, the player must beat a Boss Bloon with endless tiers and an exponentially scaling HP. The game begins with extra starting cash ($2000 for most Bosses, $1800 for Bloonarius, and $4000 for Dreadbloon), the selected hero, all current towers, and the Relic(s) provided by the current island, plus all other default Medium settings.

During gameplay, the player only gains 25% income from all non-pop sources. Additionally, the player always begins with two bulwarks that shield and provide equivalently to the starting lives (150 lives by default). Similarly to Phayze One, the starting bounty for popping a Boss is $1000 and increases by 2.3% every round until round 100. If a bulwark loses all its lives, all naturally spawning bloons disappear and give no cash, the Boss becomes invulnerable for several seconds (the length depending on the type of boss), and moves a percentage along the track. To end the mini-game, the Boss must leak or the player must lose all of their lives including the two bulwarks.

The Boss Bloon begins with a small amount of health and weak gimmicks. Whenever the Boss pops (losing a "tier"), the player earns one score, and the Boss fully heals and gains a fixed percentage more HP than its previous tier. Every 10 tiers, the Boss is re-born into a higher-tier Boss; it loses all status effects (e.g. Glue Strike's debuff) and may have different properties. Visually, the Boss has a new appearance every 10 tiers, up to Elite Tier 5; Tiers 0-49 are Normal Bosses, and Tiers 50+ are Elite Bosses, with Elite Tier 5 at Tiers 90+.

While the Boss Bloon is active, rounds of naturally spawning bloons will progress continuously, and a new round begins every time the Boss loses a tier. Bloons have a different roundset on Boss Rush compared to standard games. Additionally, Bloons in Boss Rush follow standard cash-per-pop penalties in standard games. Popping a boss tier counts as starting a new round.

There are four Bosses available in Boss Rush. Vortex and Lych do not have Boss Rush variants yet. All of the Bosses have varying properties that may differ from standard gameplay.

• 
  Bloonarius
• 
  Dreadbloon
• 
  Phayze
• 
  Blastapopoulos

Teams

Main article: Team

Joining a team is mandatory to enter Boss Rush. Teams can contain up to 15 members including a Mayor, who acts as the leader of that team.

Contested Territory and Boss Rush are the primary ways to gain Team Trophies to spend on cosmetics. Team Trophies can be used to customize the team's island and profile with team flair, which will show up on the team's island within the event.

Rewards

Island	Reward
1	100,  10,  150,  5,  "Attack" Power ×1,  Tier 1 ×1
2	150,  15,  300,  10,  "Attack" Power ×2,  Tier 2 ×1
3	200,  20,  500,  20,  "Best" Power ×2,  Tier 3 ×1
4	300,  25,  750,  35,  "Best" Power ×2,  Tier 3 ×2
5	450,  30,  1,000,  50,  "Best" Power ×3,  Tier 4 ×1

Strategy

Main article: Strategy:Boss Rush

This strategy section is empty or incomplete. See the strategy guidelines for more information on how to write strategy sections. The editor who added this notice elaborates: Move the extensive stuff to the Strategy:Boss Rush article (also, not very fleshed out strategy...), also pretty sure this section isn't really proofchecked by anyone other than Qwertyxp2000

Quickly popping the Boss is the best way to make income that will allow popping of more tiers of the Boss. During early stages, use an efficient cheap tower with good single-target damage, or the Hero if brought for that purpose. Towards the late-game, afford defenses designed with the current Boss in mind. Like with Boss Bloon Events and Contested Territory's Regular Tiles, always max out in Monkey Knowledge, and add Monkey Knowledge that focuses on maximizing single-target damage.

Keep a note of the type of Boss with the current loadout and relic(s) available on the current island; for instance, use Fighter Plane and Operation: Dart Storm if Monkey Ace is available, and if Alchemist Touch is available then dealing with natural Leads and unshielded Dreadbloon will be less of a hassle.

For Heroes, the most easy-to-use hero is Sauda, who is an excellent early-game Hero for damaging the first stages of Bosses, especially Phayze and Blastapopoulos. Just set her on Strong (or First if it's Dreadbloon, avoiding Dreadrock Bloons) and spam her Leaping Sword ability. However, some Heroes are better when seeking for late-game, though most of them should be placed after several Boss pops are beaten with other towers. Adora, Benjamin, Admiral Brickell, and Ezili become more useful going later in a boss.

An easy-to-use strategy that reliably gets at least 60 score on most Boss islands:

1. Buy Sauda, set her on Strong (First if against Dreadbloon).
2. Place an early-game defense. If Bonus Monkey! is enabled, add the free Dart Monkey if not using a Primary Monkey to start.

• 2-0-3 Tack Shooter: Place below the location where the Boss spawns. Buy another 2-0-3 Tack Sprayer. Sell other Tack Sprayers, and upgrade the next one to Overdrive.
• 1-2-0 Wizard Monkey: Place near location of Boss. Buy another Wall of Fire, and then towards $2000 sell one of them for Dragon's Breath.
• 0-0-2 Spike Factory: Set on Close near the track near (but not at) the spawning location of the Boss. With Sauda, upgrade to 0-1-2, then 0-2-2, then 0-3-2. Switch targeting to Smart once the Boss passes the Spike Factory.
• 1-3-0 Monkey Buccaneer: Cannon Ships can work as a decent starting tower on maps with little land space.

3. Approaching about 10 pops, get a support tower, if available. Otherwise, just buy more single-target damage.

• 4-x-x Ice Monkey: Place near the Boss, and Embrittlement lets other towers do more damage, and also does some grouped damage itself.
• 2-4-0 Glue Gunner: Time Glue Strike ability when lots of projectiles attack the Boss. Avoid if it's Blastapopoulos.
• 2-x-x Village: If multiple strong towers are nearby, Jungle Drums's extra attack speed is very helpful.
• 3-x-x Alchemist: On a single tower, Berserker Brew can greatly increase total damage it can do.

4. Use a cleanup tower if natural Bloons or Bloonarius's rushes start to become a problem.

   • 3-0-2 and 4-0-2 Boomerang Monkey: Glaive Ricochet can be used for small volume rushes, and M.O.A.R Glaives for dealing with large rushes.
   • x-3-x Druid: Druid of the Jungle on First deals with natural waves in the early stages. Use 1-3-0 versus Leads.
   • 2-0-4 Bomb: Sharpsplosion can make a Recursive Cluster clear all Bloons on a lane or two.
   • 4-2-0 Tack: In the event that most other towers aren't available, Ring of Fire can offer cleanup.

5. Buy some strong T4 towers.

• 0-4-2 Boomerang Monkey: Turbo Charge ability with Red Hot Rangs does plenty of single-target damage, and can damage Dreadbloon without Primary immunity.
• 2-0-4 Tack Shooter: Overdrive does high single-target damage when given buffs. Place below the Boss. Sell them once they get out of Boss range and buy them ahead of the Boss.
• 0-3-2 Spike Factory: MOAB SHREDR with Smart Spikes can quickly damage a Boss if the spikes touch it. Place them close to the Boss and target on Close. The faster the Boss pops, the more that the 4x start-of-round speed boost will keep quickly killing the Boss. Try to avoid letting other bloons touch them.
• 4-x-x Monkey Ace: Operation: Dart Storm is fairly cheap and does decent single-target damage accurately. Use 4-2-0 for Phayze.
• 1/2-0-4 Heli Pilot: Comanche Defense can fly anywhere and does lots of damage with many mini-Comanches present. Only use when the Boss is getting far (about 50% or more along the track).

6. Go for a powerful T5 that excels at single-target damage starting from about 30 pops.

• x-5-x Bomb Shooter: MOAB Eliminator is extremely cheap but relies on its ability to deal most of its damage.
• x-5-x Dartling Gunner: M.A.D and its ability do lots of Boss damage if pointing towards the Boss.
• 5-x-x Monkey Ace: Sky Shredder is accurate and not too expensive for single-target damage, and has decent synergy with buffs.
• 5-x-x Beast Handler: Megalodon is extremely powerful against Bosses for its cost, but has low range. Set on Strong and reposition the beast once the Boss gets past its range.

7. If possible, buy some expensive supports

• 2-4-0 and 2-5-0 Village: Call to Arms and Homeland Defense multiply attack speed and pierce, which is essential if Village is enabled, unless it's Blastapopoulos. Choose 2-x-x crosspath for long-term Villages, or 0-5-0 if selling and re-buying for ability.
• 5-0-1 Alchemist: Permanent Brew greatly assists high-projectile, high rate towers by offering equivalent to +2 damage, plus extra attack speed and more. Use Faster Throwing, as this is a time-sensitive event.

8. If over $150,000 is available, it's possible to buy very expensive T5's (e.g. Super Mines), and cheap Paragons (e.g. Apex Plasma Master). Support Temple is also viable.

Optionally, add some income-generating towers. Bucc's Merchantman, Alch's Lead to Gold and Rubber to Gold, and Engi's 2-0-4 Bloon Trap are some examples of viable picks. Also Spirit of the Forest for both income and large scale cleanup.

Powers are limited to ones that merely provide Quality of Life and as such are completely optional, and none except Portable Lake and Pontoon give a meaningful advantage. On maps with poor locations for Beast Handler's Megalodon, one or two Portable Lakes can assist reaching a few more boss pops than normal, but avoid them if the score gain is insignificant and the team is uncooperative.

Specific Boss strategy

• Bloonarius: Reliable cleanup is important alongside high single-target damage.
• Dreadbloon: Always have at least two tower categories available to attack the Boss at a time, avoid setting on Strong, and watch out for Dreadrock Bloons.
• Phayze: Favor innate camo detection. Only a few towers have cheap anti-Boss camo detection, such as 0-x-2 Spike Factory, x-2-0 Monkey Ace, and 0-1-2 Monkey Buccaneer. Towards the late-game, watch out for the portal's natural bloons.
• Blastapopoulos: Tower spam of weak individual towers are favorable. Have several cheap towers for meteor fodder. Account for the tower limit. If Beast Handler is enabled, Megalodon carries the late boss pops of this Boss and easily exceeds 70 score for about 90 score at best. If there's enough track length and income generation, an Apex Plasma Master is the only helpful Paragon for this, as it excels against the rocks.

Time management during Boss Rush

Regarding the Boss islands themselves, set up and co-ordinate with a dedicated team that is prepared to beat stages. Use third-party communication to discuss the strengths and limitations of each team member, and share a plan to beat each island.

Update history

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Version 43.2

• Added ‘replay’ functionality to previous islands of Boss Rush. Any island can be replayed as much as desired for practice & fun, these have normal entry cost but will not contribute any further to the team score

• Added an in-game alert for the current milestone being defeated by a team member

Version 45.0

“

Previously we scaled Rock Bloon HP in Boss Rush faster than Dreadbloon in order to keep them relevant from start to finish within a rough 100 tier expectation. Players pushing beyond this expected range were finding obvious annoyance with this as the Rock Bloons would eventually outscale the Boss, so we’re reducing their scale to match in line with Dreadbloon but increasing the number of Rock Bloons that spawn. — Update notes

”

•  Dreadrock Bloon (Boss Rush): Health scaling reduced ― ×1.07 → ×1.055
•  Dreadrock Bloon (Boss Rush): Dreadrock Bloons per spawn increased ― 3 → 6

Version 46.0

“

Blast has been quite unforgiving in Boss Rush events, so we’re squeezing in a reduction to both health and heat gain within this mode. — Update notes

”

•  Blastapopoulos (Boss Rush): Heat gain on each 'pop' reduced ― 0.02 → 0.015
•  Blastapopoulos (Boss Rush): Starting health reduced ― 400 → 350
•  Elite Blastapopoulos should now take extra damage from paragons (bug fix)

Version 49.0

•  Boss position should no longer reset on Castle Revenge and Balance (bug fix)

Version 53.0

“

Blastapopoulos’ Rocks too often end up landing on a tower which takes it out of the game for a long time and hurts the intention of favouring closer range towers over long ones, to alleviate this we are cutting the rock duration in half and also increasing the radius of this rock circle so it becomes less likely to cover closeby towers. — Update notes

”

•  Resolved an issue where Blastapopoulos' Fireball spawn was doubled in Boss Rush (bug fix)

Gallery

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• 
  End-of-event rewards with 0 island bosses popped