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> *Originally posted by **[canalpanda](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=2#posts-8709407):*** > > o thats deep

Why not drop a 2/0 ice tower to deal with leads and ninjas for the rest? ice towers can reliably freeze lock lead balloons and pop them down to nothing. The faster balloons get chewed up pretty well by the homing ninjas.

> *Originally posted by **[dantose](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=2#posts-8709765):*** > > Why not drop a 2/0 ice tower to deal with leads and ninjas for the rest? ice towers can reliably freeze lock lead balloons and pop them down to nothing. The faster balloons get chewed up pretty well by the homing ninjas. Ninjas cant pop frozen balloons making it very inneffective to combine ice and ninja towers. If you want to use ice, dont use ninjas, use boomerangs. If you want to use ninjas then you can combine them with 2/0 glue gunners or 1/1 snipers to pop leads fairly easily.

If you go to Monkey & Items and look under My Tracks you can play on any track you’ve already beaten. It makes good practice and you can figure out the best set up for the track and fine tune your strategy. I find it tricky to know when to upgrade vs. when to build a new tower at first and it’s really been helpful. Since you get a little money for winning it really helps when you’re stuck and just waiting to be able to upgrade. It also takes the pressure off a little since there’s no bloonstones at stake if you leak a few bloons. :)

> *Originally posted by **[dantose](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=2#posts-8709765):*** > > Why not drop a 2/0 ice tower to deal with leads and ninjas for the rest? ice towers can reliably freeze lock lead balloons and pop them down to nothing. The faster balloons get chewed up pretty well by the homing ninjas. because ice towers can’t hit camo. so if you see a camo lead, you = screwed lol.

> *Originally posted by **[RedeemedWahrior](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=2#posts-8709806):*** > > because ice towers can’t hit camo. so if you see a camo lead, you = screwed lol. If you see camo leads (which are rare at first) then ninja mnkeys wont help you either (unless you use x/3). For those levels your best off using apprentices or signal flare mortars. 1/2 snipers sometimes work as well but can be too slow if the camo leads come in a large clump.

I see no love for Dartling Guns? They hit camo and can pop lead at 0/2. I found those to be better than ninjas or boomerangs at the early levels. I’ve just started Ceramics but 1/2 Dartlings and 3/2 Ninjas are pretty effective. I haven’t seen any frozens yet but I assume a 0/2 Dartling can hit those as well.

> *Originally posted by **[MrSkibone](/forums/3765/topics/452437?page=2#posts-8710999):*** > > I see no love for Dartling Guns? They hit camo and can pop lead at 0/2. I found those to be better than ninjas or boomerangs at the early levels. I’ve just started Ceramics but 1/2 Dartlings and 3/2 Ninjas are pretty effective. I haven’t seen any frozens yet but I assume a 0/2 Dartling can hit those as well. I personally multi task when playing BTD games and since gatlings can’t be used without a person constantly controlling the they can be very unappealing (for me at least). In terms of strategy though I can see no reason not use them unless you do not have enough starting cash to buy a tower for round one , which should only be a problem when first starting the game or going against camo assault.

how bout this?3 lightning apprentices cutting their advance in half and killing all the leads,3/2 ninjas killing the rest,and if they actually find a way to get past em,100s of spikes screwing em(literally :P )

if moabs,just a few dragonbreath upgrades and their screwed XD

i found dartling guns to be awesome, but the fact that you can’t use them with banana farms kinda kills them. After you unlock banana farm its like.. you prettty much never use your dartlings ever again, so all the money you spent on them seems wasted. they are kinda like dart monkeys.. awesome when you first get them, then shelved away and never seen again lol. ninjas at least have distraction, so they are always useful.. as far as i can tell anyway.

I’d like to take a moment to advocate for 2/3 Boomerang Throwers. You can get high efficiency if you [position them correctly](https://imgur.com/lkdN38O), without needing to waste an upgrade on homing. (That’s what Ninjas are for, anyway.) With enhanced throwing speed, they actually end up popping way more than twice as many bloons. They’re like a cheaper version of Ring of Fire. This setup isn’t going to pop everything, but it’ll seriously thin the ranks, and the extra glaives mean the Thrower will do more damage to ceramics and MOABs.

I tend to use 2/0 Monkey Engineers for the early rounds as they cost effective and can pop many bloons, the only downside being they can’t spot camo and take out lead.

What i think that most people, when considering Ninjas vs. Boomerangs, fail to consider is the rate of fire. In my experience, Ninjas fire around 2/3 times as fast as Boomerangs and are far more accurate at even just a 2/x level. Once you get to 3/x, you may only be doing 8 per shot, but you are doing so much faster than a boomerang. Also, if the Boomerang happens to miss the first target, which happen frequently, then even with the ricochet upgrade, balloons have a tendency of falling through the cracks.

I personally prefer 3/0 engineers to 0/3 mortar any day. The foam removes camo, lead, and regen and has some very decent popping power. If I spam 2 more 1/0 engineers ($900 a piece) the turrets work amazingly at popping any non-moab bloon (helps on moab’s as well).

Another thing to consider is the +2 popping power granted by the Monkey Intelligence Bureau. (For most monkeys, that translates to +2 pierce, for splash damage towers it translates to +2 splash, and for Snipers, it translates to +2 layers popped.) This doesn’t make a whole lot of difference for towers that can pop ten or more bloons per shot. It is kind of nice with a 2/3 Sniper or 3/2 Glue Gunner. But where it really matters is with Ninjas. The +2 pierce applies to _each_ shuriken, so it’s a 50% increase overall. Instead of popping 20 bloons per throw, Bloonjutsu Masters now pop 30. And that’s how you deal with MOABs and BFBs without MOAB Maulers.

Tip: rack up on dart monkeys as fast as you can. no srs they’ve saved my life many times

This technique is mainly to get through early rounds while building up banana farms. By the time I deal with bigger bloons, I have the income to afford more powerful towers. (moab maulers up front and whatever I feel like in the back)

A.B.U Always Buy Upgrades

might wanna invest in a sniper or two

I never use anything but spike factories and snipers(and occasionally super monkeys and bucaneers.

First off, I want to thank Nealn for taking the time to write this post. It’s awesome when people use their free time to help others. I do, however, want to chime in on some things I feel are inaccurate. I’ve logged countless hours on BTD5 and have played BMC for the last 4 days straight (probably sunk way more time in it than I should have!). First off, I’m not a huge fan of boomerang monkeys. I’d go as far as to say I avoid them. Their biggest fault is their horrible arc pattering when they throw their boomerangs. Ricochet is OK for popping bloons, but you have to deal with that arc throw until you get to 3/x. I’ll take ninja’s over them any day. The fact that they come with camo detection innately is a huge bonus. A tactic people should be using is putting them on the end of a straightaway (or even a shallow arc), and setting target to “Last”. It tears through the lines of baddies and doesn’t cause the monkey to aim slightly left or right when a bloon gets close. This means you get the full popping power of every throwing star from that monkey. If you have a nice straightaway, don’t bother with the x/1 upgrade. Just let those shurikens tear through the lines of bloons and then stick a spike factory (why didn’t they name it a tacktory??), another ninja monkey, or even a regular dart monkey at the end to pick up any stragglers. Please note that the “straightaway/set monkey to last” tactic works on many monkeys, including apprentices, engineers, and even regular dart monkeys. Abuse it. Engineers haven’t been getting a lot of love in this thread either. Their turret ability should not be underestimated. It’s incredibly powerful, especially with 2/x. I’ve cleared levels with just 3/2 engineers. The ONLY downside to them is you don’t get to pick where the turrets spawn. That’s why I tend to put them in path circles or try to position them close to the edge of the screen (reduces your spawning circle by half and gives you more control over where they’ll spawn). Snipers are fantastic for popping lead bloons when you’re using ninjas or engineers. Just make sure you set them to strong. If you can afford it, 1/1 is the way to go. or 1/2 if you’re expecting camo leads. If using glue gunners, I tend to avoid snipers (explained in glue gunner part). As for ice towers, these are another one I almost always avoid. Why? Because glue gunners are SOOOOOOO much better. You’ll want 2/1 and they’re not very expensive. The trick is to set them to strong and put 1 at the beginning of the course and 1 in the middle, preferably somewhere that can cover multiple lanes. It’s job isn’t to destroy the bulk. That’s your ninjas/engineer/boomerangers jobs. The glue’s job is to hit the strongest, and slowly dissolve them along the way. Consider the fact that 1 shot from a 2/1 glue gunner can dissolve rainbow bloons and lead bloons and will keep them slowed the entire time it does it. The only thing it won’t fully dissolve is ceramics. Please note that glue does work on regen bloons, though it takes quite a bit longer because they will regenerate layers as they’re popping. If the regen bloon is too high of a level, the glue will wear off before it pops it. That being said, I’ve completed MANY levels using just 2/1 glue gunners and 1/1 spike factories. The only problem you might hit is camo lead bloons, in which case you’ll just have to drop a 1/2 sniper set to strong. And, speaking of which, if at all possible avoid snipers and glue gunners. Why? Because snipers have no hit limit and are almost always set to strong target. So as soon as a strong bloon is on the screen, it’s gonna get popped by them. Now your glue gunner has 2 bloons to glue instead of 1. Apprentices are incredible at 2/2. I’d go as far as to say over powered. Get them as soon as you can, and use/abuse them. Glue gunners up front and mid, apprentices mid, and tacktories at the end is how I’ve played the bulk of my games so far in BMC. If you haven’t used apprentices, you’re missing out. Their lightning bolt and ability to hit camo is incredible. One other notable tower is the buccaneer. If you’re on a level that’s predominantly water based, or if you’re on a level where there’s a nice straightaway that ends in water, buccaneers are fantastic, especially if you can get them to 3/2. They become a little stronger than a level 1 super monkey, can hit camo’s, have a large range, and grapeshot is great at tagging bloons on either side of the main stream. Remember, aim it down a straight path and set target to last. Hope this helps some people. There’s no one way to play this game, but I do feel that there’s better, easier ways to play. And this is what I’ve found to be the best so far.

A 2/3 boomer can be superior to a 3/2 boomer if placed correctly. I wouldn’t rule out ninjas completely because they have one advantage compared to boomers: they are useful from the moment you build them. Boomers need to be 3/0 or 0/3 to become useful. When I had no lv4 updates I used a single ninja to catch stray bloons and dealt with the bulk of the force with boomers. Wizards are mostly junk, but they’re the easiest way to deal with camo leads if you don’t have engineers. Also I’m not really getting what you mean by “early” game guide while you mention ceramics, and you should be having at least engineers by then unless you’re rushing for territories.