Admiral Brickell

"Command all your water-based Monkeys to decisive victory. Requires water to place."

- Admiral Brickell's description, Bloons TD 6

Admiral Brickell is a Hero in Bloons TD 6 who was added in Version 18.0. She is the first purely water-based hero in the game. She dispenses mines into nearby water and fires from her revolver. Her revolver pops one bloon at a time and initially deals 3 damage per shot. Each mine is dispensed around nearby water every 3 seconds and lasts for up to 2 rounds. Mines quickly home onto bloons once they are in close range of them. She can be unlocked with a one-off purchase of 5000.

She costs $635 on Easy, $750 on Medium, $810 on Hard and $900 on Impoppable. If Hero Favors is enabled, she will cost $570 on Easy, $675 on Medium, $730 on Hard, and $810 on Impoppable.

In the 20.0 update, Admiral Brickell was given a new skin, Dread Pirate Brickell. The skin costs 2500 to unlock.

Upgrades
Admiral Brickell requires 1.425x more experience to upgrade towards each level compared to Quincy, Gwendolin, Striker Jones, or Obyn Greenfoot, which is as fast as Ezili's leveling curve. This is shared by Pat Fusty and Sauda.


 * Level 1 - Drops powerful sea mines that seek and destroy Bloons.
 * Pistol deals 3 damage with a range of 50 and attacks every 0.8s.
 * Mines are dropped every 3.0 seconds in nearby water. They avoid being placed on other water towers unless it is the only available spot and never spawn on top of Brickell herself. They have a 120 second or 2 round lifespan.
 * The initial hit deals 1 damage to the affected bloon, then releases an explosion with 1 damage, 20 pierce and explosion damage type.
 * Level 2 - Increased attack speed.
 * Pistol attack gets ~+14.29% attack speed (0.875x attack cooldown) (every 0.7s)
 * Mines get ~+7.143% attack speed (0.933x attack cooldown) (every 2.8s)
 * Level 3 - Naval Tactics: greatly increases attack speed of Brickell and nearby water-based Monkeys for a short time.
 * For 9 seconds, all nearby water towers including Brickell gain 50% cooldown or 200% attack speed. Has a cooldown of 50 seconds.
 * Level 4 - More popping power for Sea Mines.
 * Pierce for explosion increased from 20 to 28.
 * Level 5 - Naval Tactics increases popping power and allows affected Monkeys to hit all Bloon types except Camo.
 * Naval Tactics also gives +1 pierce and normal damage type to nearby towers.
 * Level 6 - Increases the damage of Sea Mines and Pistol attacks.
 * Pistol damage increased from 3 to 5.
 * Sea Mines damage increased from 2 to 3.
 * Level 7 - Brickell gains increased attack range and Camo Bloon detection.
 * 50 range to 58 range.
 * Level 8 - Naval Tactics allows affected Monkeys to hit Camo Bloons. Water towers in radius gain extra pierce.
 * Level 9 - Sea Mines do extra damage.
 * Sea Mines damage increased from 3 to 7.
 * Level 10 - Mega Mine: deploys to any water area a devastating Mine that triggers on MOABs and stuns nearby Bloons. Mega Mines last 3 rounds.
 * Mega Mines have 4000 damage, 100 pierce, and a 5 second stun if the Bloon survives. They have a 180 second or 4 round lifespan. Has a cooldown of 60 seconds.
 * Level 11 - Faster deploy speed and deploy rate for Sea Mines.
 * Mines get ~+11.99% attack speed (0.8929x attack cooldown) (every 2.5s)
 * Level 12 - Pistol attack increased speed and damage, Sea Mines increased damage.
 * Pistol damage increased from 5 to 7
 * Pistol gets ~+75% attack speed (0.5714x attack cooldown) (every 0.4s)
 * Sea Mines damage increased from 7 to 12.
 * Level 13 - Mega Mine cooldown reduced.
 * Reduced from 60 seconds to 50 seconds.
 * Level 14 - Naval Tactics duration increased.
 * Increased from 9 seconds to 12 seconds.
 * Level 15 - Enhanced Sea Mines have larger explosion, can damage Black Bloons and remove Camo property.
 * Level 16 - Attack and Sea Mine deploy range increased slightly.
 * Range increased from 58 to 62.
 * Level 17 - Sea Mines do greatly increased damage.
 * Damage increased from 12 to 22.
 * Level 18 - Mega Mine cooldown reduced even further.
 * Mega Mine cooldown reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.
 * Level 19 - Naval Tactics affects all water based towers everywhere.
 * Level 20 - Mega Mine does massively increased damage and longer stun.
 * Damage is increased from 4000 to 15000.

Activated Abilities
Naval Tactics: Greatly increases attack speed of nearby water-based Monkeys for a short time.
 * Level 3: Half attack cooldown or double attack speed for 9 seconds. 50 second ability cooldown.
 * Level 5: Also gives +1 pierce and normal damage type.
 * Level 8: Also gives camo detection to affected Monkeys.
 * Level 14: Duration increased to 12 seconds.
 * Level 19: Now affects all water towers on screen.

Mega Mine: Deploys a huge Sea Mine capable of destroying big Bloons.
 * Level 10: Mega Mines have 4000 damage, 100 pierce and a 5 seconds stun if the bloon survives. Note that the damage does not soak through layers. 180 seconds or 4 round lifespan. 60 second cooldown.
 * Level 13: 50 second cooldown.
 * Level 18: 40 second cooldown.
 * Level 20: 15000 damage.

Admiral Brickell
When Selected in the Heroes Menu:
 * "Admiral on deck."

When Placed:
 * "Admiral on deck." (In slightly different tone)
 * "Full speed ahead!"

When Selected:
 * "At the helm."
 * "At the helm." (Different tone)
 * "Orders?"
 * "Target?"
 * "What's next?"
 * "What's next?" (Different tone)
 * "Careful, XO." (when annoyed)
 * "Alright, that's the brig for you." (when annoyed further)

When Leveling Up:
 * "Excellent work!"
 * "Excellent work!" (Different tone)
 * "Increase power!"
 * "Increase power!" (Different tone)
 * "Add another stripe."
 * "Add another stripe." (Different tone)
 * "Add another stripe." (Another different tone)
 * "I look good in dress whites." (Level 20)

When MOAB-Class Bloons Appear:
 * "Target sighted!" - MOAB Appears
 * "Fire when ready!" - BFB or DDT Appears
 * "Prepare the mines!" - ZOMG or BAD Appears

When Using an Activated Ability:
 * "Commence fire!" - When activating Naval Tactics
 * "Mega Mine deployed!" - When activating Mega Mine.

When a MOAB-Class Bloon is Destroyed:
 * "Target destroyed."
 * "I have not yet begun to fight."

When Bloons Leak:
 * "Battlestations!"
 * "Battlestations!" (Different tone)

Dread Pirate Brickell
When Selected on the Heroes menu:
 * "Dread Pirate Brickell at your service!"

When Placed:
 * "Dread Pirate Brickell at your service!"
 * "I see you've heard of me."

When Selected:
 * "Orders?"
 * "Aye."
 * "Yo-ho!"
 * "What's our heading?"
 * "You keep doing that as if you expect something to happen!" (when annoyed)
 * "Good work! I'll most likely kill you in the morning!" (when annoyed further)

When Leveling Up:
 * "Treasure!"
 * "Treasure!" (Different tone)
 * "A toast! To me!"
 * "A toast! To me!" (Different tone)
 * "Drinks all around!"
 * "Treasure."
 * "Drinks all around!" (Different tone)
 * "Pirate Admiral! Or is it Admiral Pirate?" (Level 20)

When MOAB-Class Bloons Appear:
 * "There she blows!" - MOAB Appears
 * "Look to the horizon!" - BFB or DDT Appears
 * "We're gonna need a bigger boat." - ZOMG or BAD Appears

When Using an Activated Ability:
 * "Attack, Me hearties!" - When activating Naval Tactics
 * "Light the fuse!" - When activating Mega Mine.

When a MOAB-Class Bloon is Destroyed:
 * "Back where ya came from!"
 * "She's sunk!"

When Bloons Leak:
 * "We're hit!"

Sounds
Other sound effects related to Admiral Brickell that are not specifically her voicelines are shown here.

When firing pistol:
 * [pistol shot]
 * [pistol shot]
 * [pistol shot]
 * [pistol shot]

When activating Naval Tactics with Hero Voicelines off:
 * [enhanced sonar]

When activating Dread Pirate's Naval Tactics with Hero Voicelines off:
 * [ship's bells]

When activating Mega Mine with Hero Voicelines off:
 * [deployed time bomb]

When Mega Mine explodes:
 * [mega explosion]
 * [mega explosion]
 * [mega explosion]
 * [mega explosion]
 * [mega explosion]

Summary
Admiral Brickell is a very powerful Hero who can greatly empower nearby water towers (Monkey Subs and Monkey Buccaneers in particular) and can stockpile mines similar to a Spike Factory with Long Life Spikes or higher. When paired with Sub Commander and 2-0-3 Triple Guns or 0-3-2 Ballistic Missile spam, this becomes a mighty force whenever her Level 3+ ability is activated. Pairing her with a nearby Energizer or Bloontonium Reactor is also very useful, because it makes her level much faster, further improving her abilities and her main attacks.

Her pistol is useful earlygame as an immediate attack, meaning she can quickly hit fast bloons such as spaced Yellows and Pinks on early rounds such as 14 or 15. As it does not improve much later on, this becomes one of the less relevant aspects of Admiral Brickell.

Her mines serve as stockpiles when a large number of bloons begin to reach a certain section. As of v27.0, when bloons are in range of the mines, only one mine will explode at a time, with a short delay between mines. This prevents all the mines from being wasted on a couple of leaking bloons, but lowers the overall DPS when high-RBE bloons enter the range of the mines.

Her Level 3+ ability, Naval Tactics becomes especially powerful on higher levels, and such an activated ability at higher levels can even eliminate the need to add a Monkey Intelligence Bureau or even a Radar Scanner nearby neighboring water towers. Level 14+ is especially powerful, as her buffs last far longer, which in turn has a significantly higher uptime overall. Additionally, this ability can buff Vengeful True Sun God and Sun Temples if they are placed on water surface, effectively doubling their firepower, making her very useful in Freeplay Mode, although she's outclassed in that aspect by Adora. This buff does not apply to any other land tower standing on ice or a pontoon.

Her Level 10+ ability, Mega Mine, is great for stopping hordes of MOAB-class bloons and break down larger blimps into more manageable chunks. However, the Mega Mine will only damage the top layer and not pop through layers, thus huge numbers of Ceramics may spawn if this ability is not used carefully. Because Mega Mines only target MOAB-class bloons, although they can damage non-MOAB-class bloons, it is most useful when the Mega Mine is manually placed where the explosions can optimize their maximum range and maximum pierce. Mega Mines are especially useful for dealing damage to BADs, especially at Level 20 when her Mega Mines deal 15,000 damage instead of 4000.

Tips

 * Admiral Brickell is specially powerful on maps with a lot of water, such as Spice Islands, Off The Coast, Peninsula, and Flooded Valley, as her Naval Tactics ability can be utilized to affect many more water-based towers within her range. However, she loses a lot of the support potential on maps with limited water placement.
 * To optimize her pistol attack and mine attack, try placing Brickell somewhat close to the end of the map, but not too far such that there is less room for nearby water towers.
 * Mega Mine's damage doesn't transfer to other layers (unlike First Strike). It is best used on blimp clusters to deal a lot of damage on total.
 * It is important to add Bloontonium Reactor or Energizer nearby Brickell for decreased ability cooldowns. In this way, her uptime for her abilities become much faster.
 * Brickell serves incredibly useful on water-heavy maps, especially on Spice Islands, Peninsula, and Flooded Valley, as her Naval Tactics ability can be utilized to affect many more water-based towers within her range.
 * Take care when using her Mega Mines ability, as it is capable of spawning large magnitudes of Ceramics and/or lower-level MOAB-class bloons if it explodes many blimps at once. Be sure to have effective Ceramic damage to compensate. The best examples of this are Perma-Spike and Ground Zero, as they do well with both large hordes of Ceramics and weaker blimps.

Trivia

 * The flags that she carries changes as she levels up:
 * From level 3 to level 9, she holds a yellow and blue flag in her hand, which means alphabetically 'Kilo' or "I wish to communicate with you".
 * From level 10 to level 19, the flag is moved to the mast on the back of her ship and becomes 2 triangular shaped flags, one yellow and one blue, there is a set on both sides.
 * Coincidentally, when reaching level 20, both flags now become gold colored. This does not translate to any official meaning, other than to accommodate Admiral Brickell's black and gold color scheme.
 * Admiral Brickell is the fourth female hero to appear in the game, with the first three being Gwendolin, Ezili, and Adora.
 * As of update 24.0 Sauda is the fifth female monkey in the game.
 * On both Small Monkey Towers Option and Big Monkey Towers Option, when using Mega Mines, the preview of the mine will either be small or big depending on the option. However, when deployed, they are of normal size. Her Sea Mines also remains normal size on these modes.
 * She is comparable to Commander Cassie, due to both being water heroes with military related powers

Balance changes

 * Prior to Version 18.1, Admiral Brickell required as much experience to upgrade towards each level compared to Quincy, Gwendolin, Striker Jones, or Obyn Greenfoot, meaning she could get Level 20 far before Round 100 on most maps. Rohan from Ninja Kiwi addressed that she was meant to level as fast as Ezili.
 * Before Version 21.0, her Naval Tactics can boost Sun Temples and Vengeful True Sun Gods, even if they are not on water. In Version 21.0, these towers have to be on water surface to receive this buff.

Community achievements

 * Jajajosh used Admiral Brickell to beat 20x HP MOABs on Dark Castle. Link. He even used her to beat 200x HP MOABs on Dark Castle. Link. Even more surprisingly is that this was done after her XP leveling nerf in Version 18.1.
 * Because Mega Mines has a time-based expiry as of Version 19.0, this is no longer possible to do as of Version 19.0, as it required excessive stalling while massively stockpiling with Admiral Brickell's Mega Mines ability.

Blog posts

 * According to Ninja Kiwi's September 3rd 2021 blog, Brickell likes budgerigars.
 * According to Ninja Kiwi's Novemeber 19th 2021 blog, out of all heroes, Brickell would like clowns.
 * According to Ninja Kiwi's December 10th 2021 blog, Brickell is ranked higher than Navarch of the Seas in terms of naval hierarchy.

Cultural references

 * The Dread Pirate Brickell Alternate skin could be a reference to the movie The Princess Bride 's Dread Pirate Roberts, as both are very similar in name.
 * Furthermore, the quote "Good work! I'll most likely kill you in the morning!" when she is very annoyed is very similar to what the male protagonist (Westley) quoted from the Dread Pirate Roberts when he took Wesley in as part of his crew.
 * The quote "I have not yet begun to fight." is a reference to the same famous words said from the eighteenth-century naval hero, Captain John Paul Jones.
 * When annoyed, she will address the player as "XO". This is second highest title in the chain of command for naval ships.
 * While the player does take charge of everyone in game, the captain, or CO, has the upmost authority of their ship and its crew. This can explain why Admiral Brickell might outrank the player as her title is the highest ranking officer that can oversee an entire naval fleet and assumed command of her ship.
 * Similarly, this happens in game when having the Monkey Knowledge Sub Admiral enabled that affects a Sub Commander, which benefits every Monkey Sub on screen.
 * The quote "We're gonna need a bigger boat." is most likely a reference to the iconic line from the film Jaws.