Super Ceramic Bloon

Super Ceramic Bloons are a special type of Ceramic Bloon that appear in later rounds, starting in Bloons TD 5. Their shells have significantly increased health but spawn only one Rainbow Bloon. Additionally, that Rainbow Bloon and its subsequent children will only spawn one child each instead of two (with the Zebra spawning only one White). The purpose of Super Ceramics is to reduce lag in freeplay mode while still providing as much challenge and cash as normal ceramics do.

They appear in Rounds 86+ in BTD5, anytime you reach Freeplay Mode in BTD5 Mobile (as well as Apopalypse and Deflation, since they don't have goal rounds outside of Random Missions in these modes), Rounds 30+ in BMC Flash (but not Mobile) in Contested Territory (this also applies to Boss Fights for the Flash version past boss level 30, although bugged to give less cash than normal), Rounds 35+ in BTDB Flash, Rounds 43+ in BTDB Mobile (player-sent Bloons appear to be unaffected), Rounds 81+ in BTD6, and Rounds 30+ in BTDB2.

In the BTD5 generation, Super Ceramics have 38 health. In BTD6, Super Ceramics have 60 health, while its Fortified variants have 120 health.

Strategies
Due to their high health of their shells but the lack of splitting children, towers with relatively low pierce but high stalling power or high damage are recommended. In Bloons TD 5, the Temples necessary to survive in Freeplay Mode easily defeat Super Ceramics on their own.

In BTD6, Super Ceramics appear in rounds 81+ and must be encountered when attempting to complete Impoppable or C.H.I.M.P.S.. Because of this, special strategies must be handled in preparation for these greatly reinforced bloons.

Effective countermeasures

 * Ice Monkeys in general are more efficient against Super Ceramics, since Super Ceramics' children no longer exponentially exhaust their pierce. It will take a considerably long time before the extra hard shells crack into weakened versions of Rainbow Bloons. This is not a disadvantage however, since this longer time to pop gives a considerable amount of extra time to recharge abilities to use for the next round.
 * Super Ceramics are also easier to blow back from x/3/x Downdraft Heli Pilots.
 * The Bloon Solver easily and quickly dissolves swarms of Super Ceramics.
 * Spiked Balls are more efficient against Super Ceramics for similar reasons to the Ice Monkey, and are also cheaper to place than other stockpile options.
 * The Biggest One stuns and also can pop large amounts of Super Ceramics with just a few shells.
 * Prince of Darkness, especially their zombie BFBs, is effective against both Super Ceramics and lower-health blimps like MOABs and DDTs.
 * Perma-Spike does well against both Super Ceramics and blimps, especially when buffed with Acidic Mixture Dip and further upgrades along the Alchemist's top path.
 * Ezili's MOAB Hex, Psi's vibration attacks, Benjamin's Bloon Trojan, and Bloon Master Alchemist's Red Bloon Transform bypass blimps' Super Ceramic descendants entirely.
 * Ground Zero and Tsar Bomba instantly kill Super Ceramics, and can also effectively instakill large numbers of lower-level blimps containing them.
 * Primary Expertise instakills tighter packs of Super Ceramics with its Mega Ballista.

Towers to be wary of against Super Ceramics
Many towers struggle against Super Ceramics. Either sell them for better options (if not on CHIMPS) or add something to cover for this weakness.


 * Archmage deals good damage to blimps but lackluster damage to Super Ceramics.
 * M.O.A.R. Glaives, whose gimmick is to rip through crowds of bloons layer by layer, struggle badly. Glaive Lord, the succeeding Tier 5 upgrade, doesn't do much better either.
 * Ring of Fire is designed to be more effective against Rainbow Bloons and below, and it shows. It struggles already against regular ceramics due to their high health, and it proves itself useless against Super Ceramics. Either purchase the succeeding Inferno Ring upgrade as soon as possible, or find another option for Round 81 onwards.
 * Summon Phoenix falls in the late-game due to doing too little damage against Super Ceramics to be worthy as a cleanup option, but otherwise does a mediocre supporting DPS role against MOAB-class.
 * The M.A.D's rockets are very slow-moving compared to Super Ceramics, making it a sitting duck against them without the Rocket Storm ability.
 * Ultra-Juggernaut, despite its high anti-ceramic damage fares very poorly against Super Ceramics due to its relatively slow and clunky attack speed. An exception can be made with maps where the Ultra-Juggernaut advances in, such as Encrypted or Cornfield.
 * Elite Defender will waste too much time fighting off one super ceramic and unable to fight off the other super ceramics behind it.

Additional Tips

 * Try using stall-based towers and/or anti-Ceramic options for beating Super Ceramics. They will benefit out of these modified Ceramics better than those specifically used for mid-game.
 * Towers whose attacks only inflict a straightforward damage without any status effects or bonus damage to Ceramics would likely be poor. An example of this would be Really Big Bombs but not BTD6 Bloon Impact, or lower-level Spike Factory spam but not Spiked Balls or Spiked Ball Factory.

History
Super Ceramics in BTD5 generation were significantly weaker than their regular counterpart in terms of RBE however they make up with their resistance to slowdown and their slightly faster speed than Rainbow Bloon (like its normal variant).

In BTD6, they received a massive buff in comparison to BTD5. They now replace normal ceramic bloons in rounds 81+ (including when released from MOABs). While still having less RBE (68), their Fortified versions have a higher RBE of 128.

Trivia

 * The name "Super Ceramic" is yet to be found, but was confirmed to be mentioned by Ninja Kiwi.