Artillery Battery (BTDB2)

BTDB2

“	Significantly faster reload and bonus BAD damage. Unlocks Bombardment Ability: 7 seconds of relentless destruction.	”
	^{~ BTDB2 description}

Artillery Battery is the 4th upgrade of the Mortar Monkey in Bloons TD Battles 2. Alongside inheriting black-popping and various extra damage benefits from Heavy Shells, it gains 4x attack speed, can deal +3 Extra Damage to BADs, and receives the Bombardment ability. Bombardment further increases the Mortar's attack speed by 4x for 7 seconds with a cooldown of 60 seconds. If there is a Pop and Awe on screen, its extra BAD damage increases from +3 to +6.

It attacks much faster than Heavy Shells, creating an attack every 0.27s. With the Bombardment ability active, the attack cooldown decreases to every 0.0675s. Inheriting properties from Heavy Shells, explosions deal extra damage to Ceramics (+3), Leads (+1), Fortified (+1), MOAB-class (+1), and stunned bloons (+2), and can also pop Black and Zebra Bloons. To compensate for the impossibility to stun BADs, it deals +3 damage to all BADs, increased to +6 if a Pop and Awe is on screen.

It costs $8,000, and is unlocked with the purchase of Mortar Monkey.

Strategy[]

Summary[]

Decently fast-attacking Mortar that also comes with an ability that could help destroy rushes. High micro is required to utilize its true power, unlike Turbo Charge. Its main power comes from excelling the Ceramic and MOAB rush rounds and doing great damage to groups of blimps. The incredible damage can scale well into the late-game to deal incredible damage to various types of blimps including BADs (as it deals extra BAD damage), though best used in combination with an already decent defense.

Tips[]

Choosing the 2-4-0 crosspath is almost always the better choice to make use of the higher explosion radius and more damage to all visible bloon types. 0-4-2 has no purpose except to pinpoint explosions a little tighter, with the 2-4-0 benefits far outweighing the benefits from 0-4-2.
Despite dealing more damage to BADs, it should not be relied on for popping BADs. Merely, the +3 BAD damage is a crutch to reduce the Mortar's significant weakness to BADs. That being said, a fully spammed 2-4-0 Artillery Battery army + Pop and Awe + Level 20 Striker Jones is the most effective way of dispatching BADs with Mortars.
Artillery Battery has very few weaknesses, except against ZOMGs and above as well as Camo Bloons. It is recommended to add a Signal Flare to deal with Camo Bloons, as well as Striker Jones or Biker Bones to buff its attack speed and trigger the bonus stunned damage to blimps. Plus, both Strikers have good synergy with it from Level 10+ Artillery Command / Artillery Fire abilities.

Version History[]

This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

Artillery Battery is considered one of the Mortar's strongest upgrades, as its high DPS and group popping power allows it to excel against most types of grouped rushes and deal high damage to densely packed MOAB-class bloons. Because it performs strongly against mid-game rushes including rushes of MOABs and BFBs, Artillery Battery is more expensive in this game, and no longer gains the bonus +15% blast radius from the Bombardment ability.

Initial release (compared to BTD6 during Version 28.0)

Artillery Battery ability now has no initial cooldown

1.5.0

Artillery Battery deals +4 bonus damage to BADs
Artillery Battery now also gains a bonus
No longer requires 12,500 XP to unlock. Players who have unlocked this upgrade before the update will not receive a full refund.

1.7.0

Artillery Battery price increase $5,500 -> $6,500

1.8.2

Artillery Battery price increase $6,500 -> $7,300

2.1

Bombardment ability no longer increases blast radius by 15%
Artillery Battery price increase $7300 -> $7600

“

Mortar has quickly risen to become one of the top meta towers in the highest arenas, and we would like to tone down its strength just a little. Burny Stuff is an incredibly efficient early/mid-game option making it deserving of a small price increase, and despite previous nerfs, Artillery Battery remains to be an exceptionally effective upgrade to counter rushes. The 4x boost that the ability gives is already very significant, so we thought that the +15% blast radius boost on top of that could be removed, along with a small price increase, to slightly lower its efficiency while still ensuring it still remains a powerful ability.

”

2.1.2

$7600 -> $7800
8s -> 7s

2.1.2

x4x: $7600 -> $8000 and duration 8s -> 7s

“	Mortar still stands out as one of the strongest defensive towers, particularly excelling in mid-game defense. We have addressed this by slightly weakening both its Shell Shock stun and its tier 4 ability.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

2.2

Fixed perfect accuracy Mortar bug

“	[...] Also note that we have fixed a bug that caused mortar’s targeting to be significantly more accurate than intended.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

3.3

Artillery Battery total bonus BAD damage from Pop and Awe reduced from +10 to +8

“	Mortar is another tower that has maintained a dominant presence in the meta for a while now. [...] x5x’s buff resulted in Mortar being fantastic late game, giving Mortar too many strong points.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

4.0

Artillery Battery: Deals +4 -> +3 damage to BADs
Artillery Battery total bonus BAD damage from Pop and Awe reduced from +8 to +6

“	Mortar has still kept its spot at the top of the meta, dominating in all stages of the game. We’ve decided to limit its late game damage so that it still remains a strong tower early on but is now easier to kill in the late game.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

Gallery[]

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Trivia[]

Since 2.1.0, Artillery Battery's cost of the upgrade alone is similar to that of the BTDB1 Mobile Artillery Battery, and likewise a similar dynamic with The Big One in BTDB2 costing $7500 just like in BTDB1.