Balance change suggestions for BTDB2 4.1 (2024)

Balance change suggestions from a dev's point of view. I might write more of these ideas in the future.

Balance Changes[]

Dart Monkey[]

• Quick Shots: $100 -> $125
• Very Quick Shots: $100 -> $125
• SMFC: transformation attack cooldown (0.05s -> 0.06s)
• SMFC: duration 15s -> 11s (PMFC: duration unaffected 15s)
• PMFC: transformation attack cooldown (0.025s -> 0.03s)
• PMFC: $45,000 -> $50,000

Dart has become a very powerful option among the highest of arenas. Dart should be a dominant early-game carry by design, however, we do want to bump up the cost of the two speed upgrades for balance. SMFC stands out as extra powerful and versatile, so we've lowered its raw strength.

Boomerang Monkey[]

• 5-1-0 Glaive Lord: orbital now gains 0.9x attack cooldown (0.1s -> 0.09s)
• 5-2-0 Glaive Lord: orbital now gains 0.88x attack cooldown on top of previous upgrade (0.1s -> 0.0792s)
• Glaive Lord: orbital no longer gains +5 Fortified damage
• Glaive Lord: main glaive deals +8 Ceramic damage and +8 MOAB-class damage
• Perma Charge: cooldown 40s -> 25s
• Perma Charge base damage increased from 4 to 6
• 0-5-2 Perma Charge bonus Lead damage increased from +1 to +4
• x-x-5 MOAB Dom: special kylie pierce no longer gains free +100 pierce (0-x-5: 300 -> 200, 1-0-5: 400 -> 300, 2-0-5: 520 -> 420)
• 0-x-5 MOAB Dom: special kylie explosion pierce 40 -> 25
• 1-0-5 MOAB Dom: special kylie explosion pierce 40 -> 50
• 2-0-5 MOAB Dom: special kylie explosion pierce remains 75

Glaive Lord has no specific Fortified weakness, making it too easy to defend whether the rushes contain Fortified or not, and Glaive Lord lacks defined crosspath variety since 5-0-2 offers a very general DPS increase and DDT specialisation. Perma Charge still lacks reason to use over the other T5 Boomerangs; a significant cooldown reduction and extra damage should prove Perma Charge worth its use as a mid-cost single-target plus cleanup hybrid. MOAB Domination is extremely middle crosspath oriented, so the pierce is exchanging into top path so the explosion could see more beefy hyperdense value.

Bomb Shooter[]

• 1-0-2 Frag Bombs: fragment pierce increased from 1 to 2
• 2-0-2 Frag Bombs: fragment pierce increased from 1 to 3
• 3-0-2 Frag Bombs: fragment pierce increased from 2 to 4
• 4-0-2 Frag Bombs: fragment pierce increased from 3 to 5 (502 fragment pierce remains 20)

Frag Bombs as a crosspath fails to see use as a crosspath of the higher tiers of top path, so the pierce of fragments are increasing at T3 and T4.

Tack Shooter[]

• Long Range Tacks: $100 -> $75
• Super Range Tacks: $225 -> $250
• 0-1-4 Overdrive: pierce 2 -> 3
• 0-2-4 Overdrive: pierce 3 -> 4
• x-0-5 Tack Zone: pierce 4 -> 6
• 0-1-5 Tack Zone: pierce 4 -> 9
• 0-2-5 Tack Zone: pierce 10 -> 12
• Tack Zone: attack cooldown reduction 0.75x -> 0.5x (+33% -> +100%)
• Inferno Ring: $45,500 -> $42,500

Top crosspath Overdrive is more popular than middle crosspath due to the much higher attack speed better synergizing with buffs and offering higher grouped DPS than the actual pierce crosspath. Tack Zone has a similar problem but moreso in that it fails to see much independent purpose compared to multiple buffed Overdrives.

Ice Monkey[]

• Enhanced Freeze: freeze duration 2.2s -> 1.75s, Deep Freeze remains 2.2s

This might look like a nerf at first, but this change to x1x Enhanced Freeze subtly allows for Ice Monkey to attack bloons just after thawing, and also should improve some use cases between this and Deep Freeze.

Sniper Monkey[]

• Sniper: base attack cooldown 1.59s -> 1.35s (xx1: 1.11s -> 0.945s, xx2: 0.778s -> 0.662s, xx3: 0.2597s -> 0.2205s, xx4: 0.1300s -> 0.1103s, xx5: 0.06493s -> 0.05513s)
• Deadly Precision: damage 20 -> 30
• Maim MOAB: damage 30 -> 40
• Cripple MOAB: damage 280 -> 350
• Maim MOAB: ZOMG stun duration 0.45s -> 0.4s
• 3-2-0 Deadly Precision: shrapnel damage 4 -> 6
• 4-2-0 Maim: shrapnel damage 6 -> 8
• Full Auto: $3800 -> $4250
• Supply Drop: $5600 -> $5800

Sniper's early-game is rather lacklustre, and some of its later tiers don't carry much high damage value. Sniper will get about a +17.8% attack speed boost all across the board, but with a slight price increase to Full Auto and Supply Drop, which don't really need to be affected by previous buffs alongside the newly added base speed. Maim MOAB's ZOMG stun is keeping around similar uptime to also account for that speed bonus.

Monkey Sub[]

• 5-2-0 Energizer: submerged Lead bonus now gains +30
• Pre-Emptive Strike: pre-emptive missile damage 800 -> 1000

Pre-Emptive's missiles get heavily outscaled in late rounds; this change is aimed at the intention of hurting hoardes of DDTs a little harder. Likewise, Energizer doesn't see purpose with 5-2-0 since the Energizer already has insanely giant pierce, so purposing with a hefty Lead bonus should ideally give it some use cases for damaging DDTs.

Monkey Buccaneer[]

• Pirate Lord: cannon attack now gains 2x faster attack speed than normal
• Pirate Lord: cannon damage 2 -> 3
• Pirate Lord: cannon MOAB-class damage gains +3
• Pirate Lord: cannon fragment damage 1 -> 3

Pirate Lord does its job as a reliable single-target blimp takedown, but sorta lacks value as a standalone tower without the intention of buy-and-resell action.

Monkey Ace[]

• ODS: dart base pierce 9 -> 12 (dart pierce bonus +4 -> +7)
• 4-0-1 ODS: dart pierce bonus +4 -> +6
• Sky Shredder: dart base pierce 14 -> 20 (dart pierce bonus +5 -> +8)

Ace's ODS is usually bought exclusively for the improved anti-MOAB missiles, and its cleanup isn't spectacular and could do with a buff to the dart pierce

Heli Pilot[]

• Downdraft: blowback pierce 1 -> 2
• Downdraft: blowback Ceramic pierce penalty +1
• Support Chinook: crate initial cooldown 20s -> 30s
• Support Chinook: redeploy cooldown 60s -> 20s

Redeployment is one of the lesser used elements of the Chinook, and we would like to see more use of this rather than the income generation.

Mortar Monkey[]

• Signal Flare: $700 -> $750
• Signal Flare: decamo base pierce 55 -> 40
• 1-0-3 Signal Flare: decamo pierce bonus gains +40
• Shattering Shells: $8500 -> $10,500
• Shattering Shells: MOAB-class DoT gains +10 (total: 15 per tick) (xx5 MOAB-class DoT remains +100)
• 2-0-4 Shattering Shells: MOAB-class DoT gains +15 (total: 23 per tick) (205 MOAB-class DoT remains +150)
• Blooncineration: blaze base damage 4 -> 1
• 2-0-5 Blooncineration: blaze damage 5 -> 2

Mortar remains a significantly powerful damaging and support option across all stages of the game, with higher tiers of bottom path standing out as good at everything for their cost, especially without much crosspath considerations. Shattering is getting a MOAB-class DoT bonus to compensate its price increase.

Dartling Gunner[]

• BEZ: damage type shatter -> normal
• 2-0-5 BEZ: laser shock bonus damage +1 -> +8

BEZ is a heavily neglected T5 Dartling, mainly due to its inability to hit DDTs and relatively average damage for its cost. Now that it can hit DDTs with 0-2-5, the 2-0-5 will also get a makeover that would greatly increase the generalistic DPS without innate DDT-popping.

Wizard Monkey[]

• 2-1-0: fireball damage increased by +1
• 0-1-1: fireball pierce gains +5
• Dragon's Breath: $3000 -> $2600
• Summon Phoenix: gains Reverse Targeting button, reversing flight pattern of Phoenix
• WLP: gains Reverse Targeting button, reversing flight pattern of Phoenix and WLP Lava Phoenix

Phoenix is gaining Reverse Targeting, to counter side advantages and to get some more micro viability. Fireball is also unaffected by crosspaths, even though the base fireball attack is great.

Super Monkey[]

• Laser Blasts: $1400 -> $1200
• Plasma Blasts: $2500 -> $2000
• Sun Avatar: $11,500 -> $12,500
• Ultravision: $1200 -> $850
• Dark Knight: $4500 -> $5250

Follow-up changes to allow Plasma Blasts to be affordable as a lower-tier rather than just a crosspath, alongside Laser Blasts and Ultravision, while not so much increasing value of the Sun Avatar and Dark Knight.

Ninja Monkey[]

• Sharp Shuriken: $200 -> $150
• Double Shot: $750 -> $800

Sharp Shurikens is quite unused on most crosspaths, so some of that cost is moving into T3 Double Shot, which has good uses.

Alchemist[]

• 1-3-0 Unstable Concoction: unstable potion pierce +1 (3 -> 4)

Unstable Concoction's top path benefit is unreasonably balanced against the reliability of bottom crosspath.

Druid[]

• Ball Lightning: base lightning damage 1 -> 2
• Superstorm: base lightning damage 3 -> 10

Basic lightning attacks from the T4 up are increasing to give a respectable DPS increase to both of them.

Banana Farm[]

• EZ Collect: Farm sellback bonus +5% (xx2 unaffected at Farm sellback bonus +10%)
• EZ Collect: Nearby bananas collected immediately instead of hovering towards pointer

EZ Collect never really has purpose as a standalone upgrade, for either laziness or strategical reasoning. By adding a small sellback bonus that flows into xx2 Salvage for the full value, and improving the pickup convenience, this upgrade will be seen less as a liability.

Spike Factory[]

• Carpet of Spikes: base pierce of main spikes and ability spikes increased from 5 to 10
• 1-5-0 Carpet of Spikes: pierce of main spikes and ability spikes increased from 10 to 15
• Carpet of Spikes: main spike damage increased from 3 to 6 (total MOAB-class damage: 7 -> 10)
• Carpet of Spikes: ability spike bonus blimp damage decreased from +8 to +6

Carpet of Spikes is getting a few changes to improve its basic spike attack and not depend entirely on top crosspath, whereas the T4 has good use cases on both crosspaths.

Monkey Village[]

• Bigger Radius: $400 -> $250
• Grow Blocker: $250 -> $400
• Radar Scanner: $1700 -> $1450

Village's Grow Blocker is an extremely cost-efficient anti-Regrow countermeasure on some map formats, so swapping the price with Bigger Radius, but as the Village is not so popular as the main source of camo detection, the Radar Scanner price is going down too.

Engineer Monkey[]

• Sentry Champion: plasma sentry damage 2 -> 3
• 5-0-1 Sentry Champion: sentry pierce bonus +1 -> +2
• 5-0-1 Sentry Champion: sentry explosion pierce bonus +1 -> +50%

Reducing dependency on the middle crosspath Sentry Champion and allowing bottom crosspath to occupy more roles in extra pierce.