Alchemist (BTDB2)

BTD6

BTDB2

Alchemist
General Information
Game	Bloons TD Battles 2 (v1.0)
Release Date	November 30th 2021 (11:00am UTC)
Class	Magic Monkey
Unlocked at	750
Cost	$550
Activated Ability(s)	Transforming Tonic, Total Transformation
Targeting Options	First, Last, Close, Strong
Hotkey	Depends on loadout (W, E, R)
Other Names	Alch, Alchemist Monkey
Statistics
Damage	1 (attack potion and acid pools) 1 / 2.0s for 4.0s (corrosion DoT)
Pierce	12
Attack Speed	1.8s
Range	45
Status Effects	Red Acid
Tower Boosts	Requires upgrades
Income/Life Boosts	Requires upgrades
Camo Detection	No
Footprint	Small (6)
Default Damage Type	Acid
Related Towers
Alchemist, BTD6 counterpart

“	Harnessing powers of science and magic, splashes Bloons with acid, also brews various potions with different effects.	”
	~ In-game Description

The Alchemist is a Magic Class tower in Bloons TD Battles 2. It throws potions that slowly deal damage to Bloons over time, similar to Corrosive Glue, just without the slow effect. It throws acid potions at bloons within range, dealing 1 damage to up to 12 bloons, hitting bloons within a 12 radius, and applying acid that deals 1 damage every 2.0s for up to 4.0s. Potions are thrown every 1.8s. Note that he can reapply his acid, refreshing the damage amount. It lacks camo detection outside of Acid Pool. The Alchemist by itself is relatively weak and generally relies on other monkeys to truly utilize its power.

The Alchemist can be upgraded to generate additional income from Bloons or to support nearby monkeys, allowing them to pop Lead Bloons and do extra damage to MOAB-Class Bloonss. Due to the fact that the potions can be lobbed over obstacles, the tower is able to ignore Line of Sight, and it is currently one of five non-moving towers to do so, the others being Spike Factory, Mortar Monkey, Super Monkey (Sun Temple and above), and Wizard Monkey (Guided Magic and above).

The base price for Alchemist is $550. It is unlocked by spending 750, unlocking all upgrades up to Tier 4, plus another 1,500 to unlock all its Tier 5 upgrades.

Description

The Alchemist, like most other towers, has the appearance of a monkey, despite not having "Monkey" in the name. It wears a purple buttonless overcoat with a yellow rim and with its sleeves rolled up. It also has a pair of goggles with pink-tinted lenses and gold frames, attached by a brown strap. Strangely, the goggles are never worn directly over the Alchemist's eyes except for the Bloon Master Alchemist (x/x/5) and Unstable Concoction (x/3/x). It carries a round-bottom flask filled with red acid. In the artwork, the flask does not appear to be capped.

Path 1 focuses on buffing towers, increasing their stats. Starting at increasing potion size, then Acidic Mixture Dip to give towers lead popping and bonus damage to Ceramics and M.O.A.B Class Bloons. Then Berserker Brew which increases multiple stats, Stronger Stimulant, and finally a permanent version of stronger stimulant.

Path 2 focuses on dealing more damage. Starting at increasing acid quality, then Perishing Potions to increase the potion damage to MOAB-class bloons and strip off Fortified properties, then Unstable Concoction, which coats MOAB-class Bloons with an explosive substance, followed by Transforming Tonic, which transforms the Alchemist into a laser shooting attack monster, and finally a stronger version of transforming tonic which turns 5 other monkeys into laser shooting attack monsters.

Path 3 is quite mixed. The first two upgrades support the tower in damage efficiency and attack speed. However, starting from the third upgrade, Lead to Gold gives extra damage to Lead-property bloons and turns Lead Bloons into a considerable amount of extra money when popped. Rubber to Gold, allows the player to gain cash from popping affected Bloons. However, the final upgrade, Bloon Master Alchemist's mega-shrink potions eventually convert any non-B.A.D. Bloons to a measly Red Bloon.

Alchemist Buffs

See also: Alchemist Brewing Strategy

Starting from the Alchemist's Acidic Mixture Dip upgrade, the Alchemist can support other towers with its own special support potions, referred to as "Alch buffs". Alch buffs are a unique aspect of the Alchemist that makes it so unique in Bloons TD Battles 2, as many of the upgrades that add Alch buffs are cheap but provide effective buffs for towers it applies its potions to.

Most Alch buffs are operated on a per-shot basis, meaning that the buffs will wear out after a certain number of shots are made by the tower. "Shots" are determined by the number of separate attacks a tower makes, regardless of how many projectiles are produced from each attack. As a result, a slow but multi-projectile tower such as Tack Sprayer will retain Alch buffs much better than a fast-attacking multi-attack tower such as Robo Monkey.

Acidic Mixture Dip allows all towers to deal +1 damage to Ceramics and MOAB-class and deal damage to Lead Bloons. While cheap, the Acidic Mixture Dip buff can greatly improve the potential for towers to handle Ceramics and MOAB-class bloons more reliably and deal with Leads effectively. Acidic Mixture Dip can stack as many times as possible to increase the numbers of shots required for a tower to wear off the Acidic Mixture Dip effect. Even if Acidic Mixture Dip wears off, it will come back again at any time provided that any Alchemist capable of this type of buff can re-apply again to that tower.

Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant are two separate brews that work independently from Acidic Mixture Dip. The brew from Berserker Brew is a type of buff that increases the affected tower's damage, attack speed, range, and pierce for a limited time. The brew will last for up to 5 seconds (6 with Perishing Potions) or 25 shots (35 with Perishing Potions), whichever comes first. If the tower completely wears off the buff before the buff timer expires, the tower cannot get any brew buff again for a maximum of 5 seconds from the start of gaining the brew buff. Stronger Stimulant is simply a stronger version of Berserker Brew that lasts longer, lasts more shots, and adds even more attack speed, range, and pierce.

Permanent Brew is the ultimate Alch buff, which improves the Stronger Stimulant's brew and acid buffs to become permanent for as long as the Permanent Brew Alchemist is on screen. While it does not sound powerful on first glance, it is very strong but quite expensive. In fact, the most powerful aspect of this Alchemist is that its buffs essentially act as a permanent +1 damage and +1 Ceramic and MOAB-class damage, on top of other bonus basic stats, and the Permanent Brew Alchemist can affect as many towers as possible within range, given enough time.

Upgrades

Path 1

	Larger Potions COST: $250 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Larger potions splash in a larger area. Effect: Acid potion's splash radius increased from 12 to 18 and pops up to 18 bloons per shot instead of 12. Also increases Unstable Concoction pierce by +1.

	Acidic Mixture Dip COST: $350 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Throws a potion at nearby Monkeys that allows them to pop Leads and do extra damage to Ceramic and MOAB-Class Bloons until it wears off. Effect: Regularly throws helpful acidic mixture dip potions at monkeys, boosting their damage to Ceramics and MOAB-class by +1 and allows them to pop Leads. Lasts for 10 shots, and can stack extra shots additively.

	Berserker Brew COST: $1650 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Special brew gives Monkeys extra damage, range and attack speed. Lasts longer. Effect: Gives special brew to nearby Monkeys that temporarily provide +1 damage, +10% range, +11.1% attack speed, and +2 pierce. Wears off after many attacks or for the duration of the brew, whichever comes first. Always targets closest buffable tower.

	Stronger Stimulant COST: $2800 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Extra strong berserker brew has even more powerful effect on the target. Lasts even longer. Effect: Improves brew to now provide +17.8% attack speed, +3 pierce, and +15% range. Lasts even longer, and lasts for more shots.

	Permanent Brew COST: $55000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (Alchemist T5 Unlocks)
	Description: Berserker brew becomes PERMANENT on Monkeys who drink it. Effect: Brew and acidic mixture dips now last indefinitely provided that the Permanent Brew is still on screen.

Path 2

	Stronger Acid COST: $250 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Acid potions dissolve Bloons faster. Effect: Improves red acid into a stronger purple acid. Acid damage-over-time tick rate now increases from every 2.0s to every 1.33s, while still lasting for 4.0s.

	Perishing Potions COST: $475 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Attack potions deal more damage to MOAB-class Bloons and strip Fortified off smaller Bloons. Also strengthens Brews and Stimulants. Effect: Acid now can strip Fortified off non-blimp bloons, main damage increase to 2 and attacks deals 5 damage to MOAB-class, 12 damage to Fortified MOAB-class. Also increases duration and max shots of Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant.

	Unstable Concoction COST: $4000 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Coats MOAB bloons in an explosive substance that causes a large explosion when they are popped. Effect: Coats MOAB-class bloons with an explosive substance. MOAB-class bloons affected by them will produce explosions with damage equivalent to 10% of its base health.

	Transforming Tonic COST: $4500 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Transformation ability: turns Alchemist into powerful attack Monster for 20 seconds. Effect: Ability stops the Alchemist's main attacks and transforms it into a laser-shooting monster that pops lead, attacks very quickly, and deals 2 damage per laser. Lasts for 17.5s (not 20s unlike the description), cooldown of 60s.

	Total Transformation COST: $45000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (Alchemist T5 Unlocks)
	Description: Transforms five Monkeys nearby into crazy attack monsters for 17.5 seconds. Effect: Ability now affects up to 5 nearby monkeys up to Tier 3 into laser-shooting monsters. Ability cooldown is decreased. Most transformed monkeys can inherit tower-exclusive buffs on top.

Path 3

	Faster Throwing COST: $550 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Throws potions and attacks faster. Effect: Attacks faster. Most attacks become +67% faster (0.60x attack cooldown).

	Acid Pool COST: $450 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: If no Bloons are nearby Alchemist can drench nearby track with acid. Effect: Produces pools of acid on nearby bloon track if there are no bloons within range. Can also produce acid pools if its main potion misses bloons. Pools can pop camo bloons even if not visible to the alchemist.

	Lead To Gold COST: $1000 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Converts Lead Bloons to GOLD! Special solvents do extra damage to Lead Bloons, destroying them in one shot and generating cash. Effect: Deals extra damage to lead properties and rewards $50 every time a Lead Bloon is popped.

	Rubber to Gold COST: $2500 UNLOCK: Requires Alchemist
	Description: Converts all Bloons partially into gold, giving you cash for each pop from affected bloons. Effect: Regularly produces a goldify potion that partially converts bloons into gold. Affected bloons give $1.5 per layer.

	Bloon Master Alchemist COST: $40000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (Alchemist T5 Unlocks)
	Description: Secret shrink potion converts all affected Bloons to Red Bloons. Effect: Throws a shrink potion that converts up to 200 bloons into Red Bloons, including MOAB-class, although MOAB-class bloons consume more pierce. Does not reward extra money for converted bloons.

Total Costs

		Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5
Path 1
	Base Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Base Sell	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Sell	???	???	???	???	???
Path 2
	Base Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Base Sell	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Sell	???	???	???	???	???
Path 3
	Base Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Cost	???	???	???	???	???
	Base Sell	???	???	???	???	???
	Cumulative Sell	???	???	???	???	???

Strategy

Summary

Alchemist's role in the game is to support other towers, offering a limited amount of popping power in addition to special supports such as brews and concoctions to boost towers and dismantle blimps.

Tips

• It may be worth bringing Alchemist for some supportative damage, buffing supports, and income generation per pop.

Further Strategies

• Strategies
  • General Strategy
  • Optimization Strategy
  • Countermeasures Strategy

Monkey Mastery

Monkey Mastery is unlocked once all of its upgrades are unlocked. Monkey Mastery gives customization which is purchased using XP and Monkey Money. Has a total of 9 customizations available.

Item	Type	Description	Cost	Notes
Smash Landing	Placement Animation	Alchemist MAD!	600 75,000	TBA
Cheers!	Emote	I'll drink to that!	160 20,000	TBA
Bloon Goggles	Bloon Decal	Eyes not included.	200 30,000	TBA
Soda Can Potions	Weapon Skin	Potions with no added sugar.	450 60,000	TBA
Cauldron Bubble	Avatar Icon	Alchemy in Action.	300 40,000	TBA
Take a Swig	Idle Animation	That's the stuff!	450 60,000	TBA
Named Alchemists	Custom Names	Name your Alchemists!	300 40,000	Default name is ???.
Rage Quit	Sell Animation	He needs to cool off.	240 30,000	TBA
Clumsy	Idle Animation	Oops! Butter Fingers!	450 60,000	TBA

Version History

Balance Changes

Making its grand debut in the Battles series, the Alchemist has made a name for itself as a reasonably popular tower. While it was one of the least used towers on release and after the 1.0.4 Balance changes, it has quickly gained popularity thanks to several buffs making it a viable starting tower. It’s buffing capabilities are the most cherished attributes of it, and is the main reason why it is used, although it’s other paths are viable in a late-game setting. Popular Alchemist strats include Ninja-Alc-Farm/Heli/Boat/Sniper. Heros most paired up with Alchemist include Ocean Obyn for his buff to all magic monkeys, including Ninja, who is most popularly paired with Alchemist, Captain Churchill, who can be pivoted to on round 2 if you start with an Alchemist, and Quincy, for his surprising synergy with Stronger Stimulant.

Initial release (compared to BTD6 Version 28.0)

• Unstable Concoction costs more: $3000 → $4000

1.0.2

• Unstable Concoction explosions do more damage if MOAB affected was fortified

1.1.0

• Base potion attack cooldown reduced (2 → 1.8)

1.1.1

• Larger Potions pierce bonus increased (+5 → +8)
• Perishing Potions impact damage increased (1 → 2)
• Faster Throwing price reduced ($650 → $550)
• Faster Throwing attack speed bonus increased (+20% → +40%)
• Stronger Acid duration reduced (4.5s → 2.25s), but tick rate also improved (1.5s → 0.75s)

1.7.0

• Lead to Gold bonus Lead/DDT damage increased (+9 → +18)

1.7.2

• Rubber to Gold: attack cooldown reduced 5s → 3.8s

1.8.0

• 1-4-0 Transforming Tonic ability pierce increased (6 → 9)
• 0-4-1 Transforming Tonic ability attack cooldown reduced (0.03 → 0.024)
• Bloon Master Alchemist red potion attack cooldown reduced (10 → 8.5)

1.9.0

• Rubber to Gold: $2750 → $2500

1.9.1

• Perishing Potions: DoT damage interval 0.75s → 1s
• Perishing Potions: duration 2.25s → 3s
• Base pierce 15 → 14
• Larger Potions: pierce bonus +8 → +6

1.9.3

• Stronger Acid: DoT damage interval 0.75s → 1s
• Stronger Acid: duration 2.25s → 3s
• x4x & x5x Transformation ability duration 20s → 17.5s

1.10.0

• Permanent Brew: range 55 → 45

1.10.3

• Stronger Stimulant: $2500 → $2800

2.0.0

• Perishing Potions: damage to fortified MOAB class 20 → 12

2.0.4

• Berserker Brew: $1500 → $1650

3.2

• Acid Pool: acid can now hit camo bloons
• 3-2-0 Berserker Brew: maximum number of buffed projectiles: 40 → 30
• 4-2-0 Berserker Brew: maximum number of buffed projectiles: 55 → 50
• Bloon Master Alchemist: rate 8.5 → 7.5

“	Acid Pool gets very little attention, so we thought that it’d be an interesting and logical addition to allow the pools to hit camo bloons passing over them. On the other hand, Alchemist’s top path upgrades have always been appealing, usually serving as the primary incentive for Alchemist’s usage. We noticed that x2x is the preferred crosspath for 3xx/4xx Alchemists, being utilised 3 to 4 times more than xx1/xx2 in the highest arenas, so we decided to take the route of slightly weakening 3xx and 4xx by lowering the crosspath’s benefits. Lastly, Bloon Master Alchemist is far from a bad tower as it scales incredibly well with the late game MOAB ramping, however it is still the least used of Alchemist’s tier 5s. Its rate is incredibly slow which can make it unreliable for certain situations, so that has been buffed slightly.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

3.3.2

• Base Alchemist pierce: 14 → 12
• Base Alchemist splash radius: 14 → 12
• Larger Potions pierce: 20 → 18
• Larger Potions splash radius: 21 → 18
• Stronger Acid's acid damage-over-time tick cooldown: 1 → 1.33s
• Stronger Acid's acid duration: 3s → 4s.
  • Overall DoT is unchanged
• Rubber to Gold cash per pop: $2 → $1.5

“	As previously mentioned, Ninja and Alchemist have become too dominant recently. Alchemist is super effective in providing solid early game DPS despite its primary role being a support tower. Its strengths in early game DPS, buffing support, and cash generation gives Alchemist too many strong points. Therefore, we’ve decided to lower its early game DPS and money generation.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.0

• Bloon Master Alchemist: MOABs use up 20 → 10 pierce and BFBs use up 50 → 30. Total pierce remains at 200.

“	Just a small buff for Bloon Master Alchemist, letting it pop more MOABs and BFBs which gives it more potential to be a reliable option against the new tight rushes.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.2

• Unstable Concoction: concoction cooldown 6s → 4.5s
• Large Potions: now increases Unstable Concoction pierce by +1 (3 → 4)

“	Some small tweaks to Unstable Concoction, with the aim of making it more reliable against tight rushes. xx2 crosspathing affects Unstable Concoction so it makes sense for 1xx to have an effect as well	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

Bug Fixes and General Changes

1.0.2

• TBA

2.0.2

• Fixed 020 Alchemist’s pools not dealing the reduced damage from 2.0’s balance change to fortified moab class bloons. It now deals 12 damage rather than 20.

Gallery

An Alchemist with splashed potion and an Alchemist throwing a potion

Alchemist Mastery page

Alchemist dropping with Alch mastery drop animation

"Mixed Up" Placement Animation (Season 16)

Official Artwork

Tower portrait

Trivia

• The Alchemist has been effectively nerfed in 6 balance patches in a row, from 1.9.1 to 2.0.4, which is more than any other tower.