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 fight against a series of Boss Bloons and earn points each time they pop the boss. It uses the same boss mechanics as the Phayze One Quest and Mini Boss tiles in Rogue Legends. Each event has five stages represented by islands, each with a specific map and Boss Bloon. Each player can submit up to four high scores for the active stage per day, which all count towards the Team's total score for the boss (which is represented by a health bar). When the Team defeats an island's score requirement (represented by the Boss Bloon's health reaching zero), they move on to the next island and all contributing members earn rewards. The difficulty of the boss battles and the rewards increase with each island cleared.
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.
Mechanics
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The information in this article or section is specified server-side and can be changed by the developers at any time without warning. This information may become out-of-date at any time without notice. This information was last verified as up-to-date on: 20 June 2026 |
Islands
Each Boss Rush event has five islands. Each island is assigned a random map and Boss Bloon. Initially, players can only enter a Battle on the first island. Each time the Team completes an island, the next island becomes available. Players can Battle previously completed islands, but their scores are not recorded. Each player starts with 4 
Team Tickets and uses one each time they enter a Battle. Tickets automatically refresh every 6 hours to a total of 6 , and the player can also convert 
50 for a ticket if they run out, with no limit. Every event per week is the same across all players and Teams.
On the first island, the Team starts with one Relic and a roster of 16 tower types, both chosen at random (though the Banana Farm is never available). Each player can also choose any Hero except Geraldo. When the Team completes an island, all Team members earn rewards and the Team unlocks the next island. Additionally, the Team's roster loses two random tower types, but gains another random Relic. Only the following Relics are obtainable in this event:
Islands always use Medium difficulty, usually in Standard mode, but they have a 15% chance to be in Reverse mode instead. All Powers are disabled except Portable Lake, Pontoon, Banana Farmer, and Tech Bot, and Powers are not supplied for free. Additionally, Continues, Hero Boosters, Double Cash Mode, and Fast Track Mode are disabled. The following maps will never appear on an island:
| Island | Map difficulty odds | Score target | Sum of scores | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced | Expert | |||
| 1 | 100% | – | – | – | 850 | 850 |
| 2 | 66.67% | 33.33% | – | – | 1,175 | 2,025 |
| 3 | 40% | 40% | 20% | – | 1,850 | 3,875 |
| 4 | 16.67% | 33.33% | 33.33% | 16.67% | 2,850 | 6,725 |
| 5 | 20% | 20% | 40% | 20% | 3,350 | 10,075 |
Boss Bloons
In a Battle, the Boss Bloon spawns immediately after starting the first round. It uses the endurance round set. The player's starting cash and the boss's starting health depends on the boss. During gameplay, the player only gains 25% as much income from all sources except cash-per-pop and end-of-round cash. The player has two revives that restore their lives to the starting amount (150 by default). If the player runs out of lives, they consume a revive, all towers stop attacking, all natural Bloons disappear (without generating cash), and the boss becomes invincible and moves a short distance up the track. The Battle ends when the boss reaches the exit or the player runs out of lives after consuming both of their revives.
Each time the player pops the boss, the next round starts immediately (stacking with any rounds that are still ongoing), triggering any effects that occur at the end of a round (such as Merchantman) and granting the player end-of-round cash, and the boss fully heals and its maximum health increases. The end-of-round cash starts at $1,000 and increases by 2.3% multiplicatively every pop, capped at 90 pops. The boss's max health increases by 6.5% multiplicatively each time it pops. The boss starts at Normal tier 1 and switches to the next tier every 10 pops; it loses all mutations (e.g. Glue Strike's debuff) each time this occurs. After Normal tier 5, it becomes Elite tier 1 and continues up to Elite tier 5.[fn 1]
All Boss Bloons except Vortex can appear in this event. Each boss behaves slightly differently in Boss Rush compared to other modes. They do not have skulls, though they trigger similar abilities every 10 pops. Their speed scales with the map length, moving faster on longer maps and slower on shorter ones.
| Boss | Starting health | Starting cash | Base speed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloonarius | 400 | $1,800 | 1.25 |
| Lych | 300 | $2,500 | 1.25 |
| Dreadbloon | 130 | $4,000 | 1.25 |
| Phayze | 300 | $2,000 | 1.15625 |
| Blastapopoulos | 350 | $2,500 | 1.25 |
| Diamondback | 500 | $2,500 | 1.25 |
Bloonarius
Damaging Bloonarius sends a wave of 2 Scattered Bloons every time it loses 15% of its current health. Popping Bloonarius makes it send a stronger wave of 4 to 12 Scattered Bloons. Every 10 pops, it triggers its skull ability, sending a stronger wave of 8 Bloons.
Lych
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Lych has Regrow properties, and buff-absorbing mechanics, as well as passively reducing sellback by 35%. Lych moves 50% slower while ethereal. Every time Lych pops, it spawns a tombstone at its current location, which spawns Zombie MOABs regularly, increased to Zombie BFBs and Zombie ZOMGs at higher tiers. Every 10 pops, Lych will become ethereal and spawn three Lych-souls (five Lych-souls at 50+ pops).
Dreadbloon
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Dreadbloon's Ceramic Armor Shell starts at 70 health and its Dreadrock Bloons start at 40 health, both of which scale at the same rate as Dreadbloon's health. Each time the player pops Dreadbloon, it re-shields and spawns 6 Dreadrock Bloons. It does not have any damage resistance, though it still has damage type immunities. Dreadbloon's speed is reduced by 10% while shielded. Every 10 pops, Dreadbloon's tower category immunity switches (Primary, Military, Magic, Support).
Phayze
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Phayze's Reality Shield health scales in the same way as its base health. Its speed increases by 30% while shielded. Its Radar Jam cooldown starts at 32 seconds and reduces by 0.5% each time it pops until it reaches the minimum cooldown of 3.84 seconds. Each time it pops, it generates its Reality Shield but does not warp. Every 10 pops, it creates a portal or moves it to its current position.
Blastapopoulos
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Blastapopoulos's heat meter increases by 1.5% each time it pops. Fireballs are released after reaching 25%, 50%, and 75% Heat. During Overheat, it stuns all towers for 4 seconds and increases ability cooldowns by 10 seconds (unaffected by number of pops), and Blastapopoulos cools down after 7 seconds before being heatable again. Every 10 pops, it activates Pyroclastic Rocks and gains 15% of its heat meter.
Diamondback
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Diamondback always begins with 7 segments, and has similar Rattle Tail mechanics. Starting from the 4th pop, each of its segments break off when that individual segment gets damaged enough. Every time Diamondback pops, it produces spawns of Bloons. Every 10 pops, Diamondback regenerates the Rattle Tail Shield, fully regrows all missing body segments, and produces stronger spawns, including Diamond Bloons after a certain pop amount.
Scoring
A player earns one point each time they pop the boss in a Battle. The player's score registers on their high score leaderboard after the Battle ends. A player can have up to four high scores on their leaderboard at a time; if a player has four high scores and submits a new one, it replaces a lower high score if they have one, or simply does not count otherwise.
The island's total score is the sum of all the high scores of all the Team's players' leaderboards. Every 24 hours, starting from the first hour of the event (20:00 UTC by default), the players' high scores become permanently added to the total score, then their leaderboards reset, allowing each player to contribute up to four high scores per day. The total score is represented by a health bar (separate from the health bar that the boss has during a Battle) that drains as the score increases. The Team completes an island when their total score reaches the island's score threshold (i.e., the boss's health bar reaches zero). Completing an island resets all players' high score leaderboards and their scores do not carry over to the next island. The score requirement increases with each island cleared.
Rewards
| Island | Reward |
|---|---|
| 1 | 100,  10,  150,  5,  "Attack" Power ×1,  Random tier 1 ×1
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| 2 | 150, 15, 300, 10, "Attack" Power ×2,  Random tier 2 ×1
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| 3 | 200, 20, 500, 20, "Best" Power ×2,  Random tier 3 ×1
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| 4 | 300, 25, 750, 35, "Best" Power ×2, Random tier 3 ×2
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| 5 | 450, 30, 1,000, 50, "Best" Power ×3,  Random tier 4 ×1
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Strategy
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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. If building into Paragons, it may help to disable 
Big Bloon Sabotage.
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, Ezili, and Dan D'Monke (if Heli is not available or versus Blastapopoulos) become more useful going later in a boss.
An easy-to-use strategy that reliably gets at least 60 score on most Boss islands:
- Buy Sauda, set her on Strong (First if against Dreadbloon).
- 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.
- 0-3-x Bomb Shooter: MOAB Maulers can be spammed early on, with the advantage of having more range than the above, as well as not heating Blastapopoulos as much. It is viable as a starting option against Blastapopoulos, Lych, and Diamondback.
- 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.
- 0-4-1 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.
- Use a cleanup tower if natural Bloons or a Boss'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. Use 4-2-0 when specifically handling Diamond Bloons.
- x-3-x and x-4-x Druid: Druid of the Jungle on First deals with natural waves in the early stages. Use 1-3-0 versus Leads. Jungle's Bounty, aside from income, is a higher-scale cleanup option that can be considered if the Boss pops too quickly.
- 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's high pierce makes it viable for cleanup.
- 3-x-x and 4-x-x Mermonkey: Abyss Dweller and Abyssal Warrior around a tight bend can clear out large-health spawns.
- Buy another higher-damage Boss damage tower that scales from the starter options. Most of these are T4's or specialised T3's.
- 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).
- Go for a powerful T5 that excels at single-target damage starting from about 30 pops. Some of these are cheap T5's that help transition into another more expensive T5.
- 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. Sometimes, buying multiple x-4-x and alternating buy-and-sell to use new abilities will help burst down faster, but has a heavy investment requirement.
- 5-x-x Monkey Ace: Sky Shredder is accurate and not too expensive for single-target damage, and has decent synergy with buffs.
- 5-2-0 Desperado: The Blazing Sun is a cheap T5 that does significant damage and transitions well from other cheap Tier 4's, and should be paired with Bounty Hunter to debuff the Boss and give more range if the Boss moves out of range. Bullseye is important because the crit damage is more useful than the conditional attack speed bonuses.
- 2-5-0 Desperado: Golden Justice transitions well from a Bounty Hunter focused support as well as via Blazing Sun. 2-5-0 is important especially when the Boss is separated from natural spawns.
- 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.
- Support Temple: Sun Temple with Support Sacrifices can discount and buff towers. It's very expensive support, at a cost about the amount of a cheap Paragon, but can leeway towards improving pre-existing non-Paragons before getting future Paragons.
- 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.
Income generating options should be placed after making a stable rate of Boss damage. These include:
- Monkey Buccaneer: Merchantman provides guaranteed cash, and Favored Trades improves effectiveness of selling expensive defenses around it. Trade Empire can be considered once enough Merchantmen are placed and are constantly making income.
- Alchemist: Lead to Gold and Rubber to Gold should be placed near the start to catch Leads and make more money from natural Bloons.
- Engineer Monkey: Place near the start to catch natural Bloons, defending against rushes and gain income. Their income is only affected by cash-per-pop penalties in later rounds.
- 2-0-4 Bloon Trap should be placed early on at about 20 Pops once there's a large rush of natural Bloons. Use 0-1-4 versus Phayze or there's otherwise poor spots for traps.
- 2-0-5 XXXL Trap can be bought after natural MOABs come out, which should be at about 50 Pops. Use 0-2-5 versus Phayze or there's otherwise poor spots for traps.
- x-5-x Druid: Spirit of the Forest provides both income and large scale cleanup, but avoid it with Alchemists and Bloon Traps unless there's XXXL Trap.
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 Ice Monkey is enabled, cooling the Boss is worth it. Otherwise, account for when the Boss will reach specific heat thresholds (to account for meteors) or hit Overheat. Avoid relying on non-Hero abilities when the Heat bar is nearly full. Dan D'Monke can be considered instead of other Heroes, but only if he can reach levels 7 and 10 on time. If there's enough track length and income generation, an Apex Plasma Master is the only helpful Paragon for this, excelling against the rocks and being the cheapest Paragon.
- Lych: Nerfed sellback makes it important to keep the towers on screen, and Paragons are not recommended due to the need to sell much defense to afford it. Early on, have towers that consistently hit the tombstones so that the Zombie MOABs don't leak and lose all lives.
- Diamondback: For cleanup, use towers that do many individual hits and have sufficient pierce, to ensure Diamond Bloons and Fortified Ceramics don't overwhelm the defense. The Fortified tail is weak enough that the double damage is actually significant at popping the Boss faster before the tail heals again.
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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- 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
— Update notes
| Boss | Changes |
|---|---|
| Dreadbloon |
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— Update notes
| Boss | Changes |
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| Blastapopoulos |
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Boss position should no longer reset on Castle Revenge and Balance (bug fix)
Resolved an issue where Blastapopoulos' Fireball spawn was doubled in Boss Rush (bug fix)
| Boss | Changes |
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| Bloonarius |
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| Lych |
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| Blastapopoulos |
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| Diamondback |
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Gallery
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This section needs more screenshots. See the screenshot guidelines for more information on what screenshots are needed and how to add them. |
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Main menu after completing the event -
Menu that appears after clearing all islands -
End-of-event menu with all islands cleared -
End-of-event menu with no islands cleared
In other languages
| Language | Text | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic | اندفاع الزعامة | — |
| Danish | Boss-sværm | — |
| German | Boss-Rush | — |
| Spanish | Carrera de jefes | — |
| Spanish (Latin America) | Avalancha de jefes | — |
| Finnish | Pomoryntäys | — |
| French | Ruée de boss | — |
| Italian | Assalto ai boss | — |
| Japanese | ボスラッシュ | — |
| Korean | 보스 러시 | — |
| Dutch | Baasaanval | — |
| Norwegian | Sjefsrush | — |
| Polish | Napływ bossów | — |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | Desafio de Chefes | — |
| Russian | Набег на боссов | — |
| Swedish | Bossrusning | — |
| Thai | บอสรัช | — |
| Turkish | Patron Hücumu | — |
| Chinese (simplified) | Boss冲击 | — |
| Chinese (traditional) | 頭目突襲 | — |
Footnotes
- ↑ The boss has a maximum of 300 tiers, and the maximum HP is actually the 32-bit signed max. Both are impossible in practice for Boss Rush, but not for Rogue Legends Mini Bosses, which use the same mechanics as Boss Rush. If the HP exceeds the 32-bit signed max, the Boss instead has negative HP, and can get one-shot by a single hit.
Navigation
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