Talk:Mortar Tower

The "Bigger Blast" upgradge icon was so cute! :D Sparker03 10:53, May 4, 2012 (UTC)

The mortar tower is highly under-rated. The mortar tower will carry your team and allow you to survive rounds where you would otherwise need a Village with camo detection. This means you don't need to get a Village as soon as possible (you can even beat several maps without the Village at all), and you have more flexibility with your money.

I would recommend having a Specialty Building like Boomerang Dojo or Wizard's Spire; one that can augment towers that are reliable and can be bought within the 2nd round. In my opinion, the Mortar Emplacement can be useful (it stuns all bloons caught in its blast radius for a short time), but the problem is that you only need one mortar, and having your Specialty Building dedicated to one tower seems like kind of a waste. I personally use the Boomerang Dojo, for the double-throw.

Once you've built 2 to 4 towers that can hold their ground until about round 18 to 20, build a mortar. Immediately upgrade the right tech path (Rapid Reload, Burny Stuff, then Signal Flare).

At this point you must assess whether to spend on your other towers, build new ones, or upgrade the left tech path of your mortar. If your defense is getting stretched thin, buy new/upgrade your other towers. If your defense is sufficient for the time being, upgrade Increased Accuracy and Bigger Blast.

With the Bigger Blast upgrade, you are now prepared for virtually any camo round. Aim the mortar at the entrance, or the first junction if the bloon path splits or converges. While your mortar blast can hit off-screen bloons if you aim it right at the entrance point on the edge of the map, there are usually better places to target. The Bigger Blast zone can often hit bloons twice if aimed correctly (ie once on entering the blast zone, and once again upon re-entering the blast zone from a pathway on the map that loops tightly together).

If it isn't clear why the mortar can handle any camo round, it's because it doesn't just detect camo, it REMOVES the camo. As in, once hit by a mortar with Signal Flare, the camoflauged ceramic bloon is now just a regular ceramic bloon that is caught on fire.

If you play co-op, people might think you're crazy for using a mortar, but if you play your cards right, you can run a low-budget solid defense and either farm up or build an airtight defense.

75.175.67.87 20:55, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

Findings
I've discovered that it takes 8 Big Ones pointing at the same spot near the beginning on Monkey Lane to obliterate a MOAB and 15 to completely destroy a BFB. I do not plan to test its power against a ZOMG, since that would take too long. This was tested with a 4-1 mortar, but Burny Stuff shouldn't increase efficiency by more than 1 or 2 towers. The Artillery Battery seems to be significantly less efficient alone.