Lead-Popping Power

Lead-Popping Power (also referred as lead-popping power, and sometimes referred to as lead detection) is the capability for a tower to affect Lead Bloons. This first appears in Bloons TD 2, where the Lead Bloon first appears. Explosives such as Bomb Shooters are a typical example of lead-popping power, although certain other damage types can pop lead too. Bloons Wiki depicts attacks that can affect lead with this icon:, depicted as a Lead Bloon from Bloons TD 6.

Most towers have some method of affecting Lead Bloons. Most will require an upgrade to pop Leads, although some towers, such as Glue Gunners, can affect Leads without applying damage to them. Some already pop Lead by default, with examples being the Bomb Shooter, Mortar Monkey, Gwendolin, Striker Jones, Obyn Greenfoot, Ezili, Pat Fusty, Adora, and Admiral Brickell (mines only).

Table of Damage Types

 * See Damage Types .

Lead-Popping in Bloons TD 2
Only Bomb Tower can pop Leads. Ice Tower can freeze but not damage them. Monkey Glue can affect Leads but only slow them down.

Lead-Popping in Bloons TD 3
The following towers and upgrades allow the tower to affect Lead Bloons:

Lead-Popping in Bloons TD 4
The following towers and upgrades allow the tower to affect Lead Bloons:

Lead-Popping in Bloons TD 5
The following towers and upgrades allow the tower and/or nearby towers to affect Lead Bloons:

Lead-Popping in Bloons TD 6
The following towers and upgrades allow the tower and/or nearby towers to affect Lead Bloons, plus information about dealing with DDTs:

Lead-Popping in Bloons Adventure Time TD
TBA

Lead-Popping in Bloons Pop!
Only explosives, freezing, magic, fire, and bullets can pop Leads. There are no "special" exceptions to this rule. The following is a list of those that can pop Leads:


 * Monkeys and Mega Monkeys
 * Bomb Shooter (and Mega counterpart)
 * Ice Monkey (and Mega counterpart)
 * Acid Gunner (and Mega counterpart)
 * Sniper Monkey (and Mega counterpart, but not its shrapnel)
 * Mortar Monkey (and Mega counterpart)
 * Wizard Monkey (and Mega counterpart)


 * Heroes
 * Gwendolin
 * Striker Jones
 * Obyn Greenfoot
 * Captain Churchill
 * Adora


 * Powers
 * Ballistic Missile
 * Lightning Storm
 * Monkey Ace
 * Phoenix
 * Pop and Awe
 * Super Monkey Storm
 * The Anti-Bloon

Bloons Tower Defense 2
The only tower that can pop lead in this game is the Bomb Tower. Ice Ball can affect Lead, but only freezes it. Monkey Glue can also affect lead.

Bloons Tower Defense 3
Many more upgrades can pop lead. This includes Thermite and Plasma Vision. Exploding Pineapples can also pop lead.

Bloons TD 4
Additional towers and upgrades have been added that can pop lead. This game features the following lead-affecting sources:


 * Tack Shooters with Ring of Fire
 * Boomerang Throwers with Lightsabre Thrower
 * Bomb Towers
 * Ice Towers (Snap Freeze can pop lead)
 * Glue Gunners (Corrosive Glue can pop lead)
 * Mortar Monkeys
 * Monkey Apprentices with Fireball
 * Super Monkeys with Plasma Vision
 * Dartling Guns with Laser Cannon (they can in BTD4, but not BTD5)
 * Spike Factories with White Hot Spikes
 * Monkey Glue
 * Exploding Pineapples

Bloons TD 5
TBA

Bloons TD 6
Many sources of lead-popping power have been added. Acidic Mixture Dip and Gwendolin's Heat It Up can grant affected towers with lead-popping power. Glue Strike and Glue Storm abilities have become additional options since Version 29.0.

Lead-popping power was stripped from various towers, normally by downgrading from Normal to Sharp, and some now require a lead-popping crosspath to regain lead-popping. The towers and upgrades that lost innate lead-popping in updates includes:


 * Icicle Impale blast damage (2.0)
 * Icicle Impale freezing effects (25.0)
 * Arctic Wind's slowdown without Metal Freeze (25.0, old name for Cold Snap)
 * Snowstorm's ability without Metal Freeze (25.0, old name for Cold Snap)
 * Apache Prime's lasers (25.0)
 * The Tack Zone (25.0)
 * Glaive Lord (26.0)
 * Full Auto Rifle and Elite Defender (28.0)
 * Bloontonium Reactor and Energizer (29.0)

Some towers, however, gained lead-popping, including:
 * Shrapnel Shot with Full Metal Jacket (21.0)
 * Icicles' icicles with Metal Freeze (25.0)
 * Hard Thorns (28.0)
 * Spirit of the Forest on-track vines with Hard Thorns (28.1)

Trivia

 * The fan term "lead detection" is a bit of a misnomer. While all towers have at least one possible way to target non-camo Lead Bloons, the towers that don't pop Leads simply cannot break the layers of them no matter the number of hits. The only reason why the term exists is due to the term "camo detection" for the countermeasure of Camo Bloons, and the term "lead detection" uses a similar principle, albeit misleading.