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Blastapopoulos: Demon of the Core is slow, and has a variety of strengths and weaknesses designed to deter many of the popular anti-Boss strategies. As a recurringly hot Boss Bloon, Blastapopoulos will passively decrease range and slow down ability cooldowns. Individual attacks will heat up Blastapopoulos, heating even faster if hit by anything weak to Purple properties but slower versus those weak to White properties. If too much heat is gained, Blastapopoulos will overheat, causing every tower on screen to get stunned, gain extra ability cooldowns, and shorten lifespan of all projectiles. Additionally, upon reaching skull health, Blastapopoulos will summon Pyroclastic Rocks that block off Line of Sight, and fiery meteors that produce magma pools around all towers within its radius, further decreasing range, decreasing attack speed, and freeze activated abilities. Every type of tower debuff from Blastapopoulos will prevent selling.
There are up to 40 rounds to start farming before Blastapopoulos first enters in its first tier. All tiers from Tier 1 to 5 need to be beaten in a single game in order to fully win the Blastapopoulos Boss Bloon Event. Each tier of Blastapopoulos must be beaten within 20 rounds of its appearance, or else the game is over. Losing by other means is also an obstacle to counter, so be careful.
The following article is a series of strategies to counter Blastapopoulos, mainly focusing on Elite Blastapopoulos due to its notorious difficulty of killing.
The general strategy for beating Blastapopoulos, especially Elite Blastapopoulos, is to take extremely greedy farming strategies to build a solid foundation of income prior to facing various factors in anticipation to the Blastapopoulos's arrival: the [insert the blasta strengths]. Once Blastapopoulos arrives, there are several ideal decisions that can be made, at least for earlier tiers. But at higher tiers, one must go all in at DPS with as much support as possible while still taking into account Blastapopoulos's strengths. All this needs to be made before Blastapopoulos becomes too strong to handle. Focus on making a defense that takes advantage of Blastapopoulos's weaknesses, and try to avoid relying on selling to keep up with Blastapopoulos.
For earlier tiers, choose a defense consisting of high direct base damage (not indirect; for instance, Sticky Bomb will not work). A simple strategy includes multiple MOAB Assassins, or a 2-0-5 Elite Defender. Once Blastapopoulos is nearly defeated at each tier, sell unnecessary defenses and build income. Sell once the boss is dead, as trying to sell during the battle is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. In ranked, the best option would be to anti-stall rounds, which when done right avoid the round penalty that accumulates 10 seconds after the last bloon has spawned.
At the highest tiers, make sure to prepare DPS and supports while maintaining a stable income flow. In addition, prepare in advance for saving up Paragons of multiple different categories and accumulating tower pops of their constituent towers. Super-buffed Vengeful True Sun God can work well because of its high pierce and high damage.
The best choice of hero, assuming custom hero choice is available, is either one that specializes in income, excels in early-game for cheap, or specializes in the extreme late-game as a buffing source. The most optimal choice for most situations is Benjamin, who gives a large headstart to income production and buffs Monkey Banks, or Geraldo who not only offers good income through the Rare Quincy Action Figure and Fertilizer, but also provides utility through his shop items. Both of these heroes are great for building towards much stronger Farms such as BRFs + Monkey City and Marketplaces with Discount Villages into Banana Central.
As for tower choices, choose an effective early-game strategy that also allows greed of income to the max, a strategy for countering early tiers of Blastapopoulos, and a strategy for transitioning into extreme DPS. Support is extremely helpful too in addition to massive farming. Just make sure the correct defense is used to attack Blastapopoulos.
Towers[]
Towers each have their special roles in Boss Bloon Events. The "optimal" tower choices in Blastapopoulos battles are generally those who have a cheap early-game prowess, offer income generation, or assist in damaging the boss as efficiently as possible. In the case of handling Blastapopoulos itself, the best tower options are generally those that deal direct high base damage, and not have exothermic attacks, ideally endothermic attacks.
Note: Every tower is vulnerable to Blastapopoulos' tower debuffs, except for Ice Monkey which is immune to the Overheat.
MOAB Assassins and their abilities help chip down the HP off Blastapopoulos without too much Heat gains. Despite the increased cooldowns, MOAB Assassins as the main source of damage can be used
MOAB Eliminator's ability is surprisingly effective for tier 1 Blastapopoulos due to its fast recharge with Blastapopoulos cutting ability based off percentages and said ability still recharges fast.
Tack Shooters are reliant on high projectile counts, so they are not advised to be used unless there is a nearby Embrittlement to offset some of the excessive heat gains.
Ice Monkeys help cool off Blastapopoulos if they can target this super hot Boss Bloon. A minimum of Embrittlement, Snowstorm ability, and Icicles are required to target MOAB-class, including Boss Bloons.
Uniquely, Ice Monkeys cannot be affected by Blastapopoulos' Overheat, but can still be affected and targeted by the meteors.
[insert more strategies of how to use ice to advantage]
They play more of a supportive role. However, thanks to Blastapopoulos's ability to instantly purge off any damage-over-time effect on it, Glue Gunners are not advised. They can still be used to deal with the natural bloon spawn.
Wizard Monkeys are inferior against Blastapopoulos itself, even when supported with Purple-popping by any means. It has a few attacks that are not exothermic, including Undead Bloons from Necromancer: Unpopped Army and Prince of Darkness.
Ninja Monkeys are rather weak against Blastapopoulos. Its DPS relies heavily on bunching up Shinobi Tactics, single-target damage via Sticky Bomb and Master Bomber, and large quantities of rapid-firing projectiles.
Notably, Blastapopoulos will burn off sticky bombs faster than they can detonate, dealing no practical damage.
When Monkey Knowledge is enabled, the IMF Loan's income potential is the highest in Tier 1. See Income Farming for more details.
Transition into any suitable early-to-mid-game farming strategy and later go quickly into 4-2-0 BRF spam near a Monkey City or into discounted Marketplace spam, place some more 4-2-0 BRFs to catch up on income, and quickly afford a boosted 5-2-0 Banana Central.
Banana Central buffs Banana Research Facilities, which help make maximum money.
Central Market spam is effective in combination with Merchantmen spam.
Due to the immense scale of farming necessary in this game mode, Monkey Wall Street can act as an autocollector of important high-income options like Monkeyopolis, Banana Central, and XXXL Traps, just like a Banana Farmer.
Spike Factories rely on stockpiling to maximize its damage to Blastapopoulos. Note that the reduced projectile lifespan upon Overheat will be the most harmful aspect to Spike Factory.
Spamming Spike Storm remains incredibly powerful against Blastapopoulos because of its lack of minions, but proper timing is required to account for Blastapopoulos' timegating on Skull, and the Overheat.
Super Mines has an interesting use case against Blastapopoulos. If the spikes don't end up touching Blastapopoulos and the round ends, all mines will detonate at once, which does lots of damage with less of a gain of Heat; with 5-0-2 crosspath, the mines can be focused on a specific area.
Perma-Spike starting on the round that Blastapopoulos begins at (not before the Boss begins; all projectiles disappear before the Boss enters) can be a viable way to beat earlier tiers of Blastapopoulos (including Normal Tier 1-2 and Elite Tier 1), but immense stockpiling and stalling is required, and any pierce-buffing synergies need to avoid damaging bloons.
Village-oriented strategies will need to be careful against Blastapopoulos, as the range debuffs will hurt its capability to influence many towers within range.
Monkey Village does offer a variety of supports. Among these, the usual supports Homeland Defense and Call To Arms will be incredibly helpful.
Monkey City not only gives extra income for nearby towers, it gives free Dart Monkeys, which can be used as decoys against Blastapopoulos' meteors.
Many of its upgrades lack Boss damage, and don't really serve efficiently enough as part of a "throw everything at the Boss" tower. However, there are a few towers specifically helpful for stalling, mainly Horned Owl's Ceramic stall.
Giganotosaurus is a good late-game tower to use for Tiers 4 and 5, but should not be the first option the player pursues. It is best to place merged Tyrannosaurus Rex far away from the boss spawn and away from the True Sun God buff, to maximize the benefit of merging with minimal drawbacks of occupying space.
Heroes offer super valuable roles at supporting a defense with their own special utility through their self-leveling upgrades. For Blastapopoulos, it is usually best to choose a hero that extrapolates the best leading into late-game. Such a hero choice is usually an income generator, an early-game breezer into an early income saver, or a late-game dominator.
Mid-ranged cost hero who doesn't scale very well as a grouped counter. Gwendolin is actively worse against Blastapopoulos until she reaches Level 16+, when all her attacks gain the Normal damage type.
Striker Jones is mainly for buffs to Bomb Shooters and Mortar Monkeys, primarily MOAB Maulers and Artillery Batteries.
His early-game performance is subpar, but his buffing options compensate this downside, if opting for a purely Bomb and Mortar strategy.
The +25% pierce and +5% range buff at Level 8+ can be helpful for a variety of different towers against Blastapopoulos, including lumping more spikes into Spike Factories.
He is expensive and can do a huge amount of DPS, but his extreme late-game DPS is outclassed by other hero options, mainly Ben and Geraldo for their income.
Undoubtably a solid choice as an early-game income source that can snowball income quickly later on in the game. Less potential in the lategame than Geraldo in exchange for simplicity.
Benjamin makes Monkey Banks more effective due to his buff to them.
Benjamin's Biohack let towers deal extra damage at the cost of potentially causing downtime for them. Syphon Funding can make rounds go faster, but will also take away potential pops for a Paragon.
It is a net income loss to use Syphon Funding on MOABs, as the reduced RBE is a larger income loss than the income multiplier. Similarly, Bloon Trojan is a net income loss on MOABs and DDTs until r101, and always reduces cash gained from BFBs. Furthermore, both reduce potential pops for Paragons. Thus, some players opt to either sell Benjamin or hide him where his Trojan cannot target bloons.
Her extreme late-game potential is weakened in this scenario. Her early-game and mid-game is not very useful in Boss Events either, so her main offering is the Sacrificial Totem. Heartstopper has purpose for temporarily stopping Purple properties, to allow exothermic attacks to damage Blastapopoulos and not become liabilities.
Ezili has a Purple weakness outside of her own Heartstopper ability, but fortunately she attacks rather slowly and does singular attacks.
Adora is an ideal option for buffing Temples and (V)TSG in the late-game, or dealing great damage herself. However, Adora herself has a major Purple weakness.
Adora's incredible buffing power can be utilized to massively empower Temples and (V)TSG.
Space is not normally a problem, so his free camo (which removes need of Radar Scanner) and UCAV (counter against mid-game rushes, and saves money in mid-game) aren't nearly as superior as his CHIMPS expertise does. His early-game is rather lackluster and his late-game doesn't scale very well, especially in Boss Event scenarios.
Excels in the early-game but doesn't scale very well in the late-game. She is more helpful than Quincy in both regards, but still outclassed by Benjamin for income.
She does have a redeeming window in saving plenty of money earlygame, which can be a good choice for events where both Benjamin and Geraldo are banned.
Generally not useful as they are really subpar against BADs and Boss Bloons, and the relatively low amount of grouped bloons makes Psionic Scream obsolete.
Psi's abilities and main attack have no effect against Blastapopoulos, even at level 20, and they are too expensive for what they provide in defense. They also interfere with Bloon Trap and Lead/Rubber to Gold Farming by popping bloons too early.
Geraldo comes with lots of special items that can be bought for special benefit. His indirect offense (e.g. Shooty Turret) can be very strong in the early-game, mid-game, and late-game. The tower buffs and special items he provides can be really strong when optimized, although they have a learning curve before one can get full value out of them.
Particularly useful items for going against Blastapopoulos include: Rejuv Potion (resets abilities, especially First Strike and Homeland Defense), Paragon Power Totem (higher Paragon degrees).
Investment in his Rare Quincy Action Figure can be helpful for amassing a huge income gain in the long-term, but provides no immediate payoff. Optimally, sell the action figure on Round 31, as its value generation decreases beyond that point. Try to get Geraldo and his action figure as early as possible without harming long-term farming.
Geraldo can make a lot of money indirectly through the Rejuv Potion, which resets all ability cooldowns excluding Paragons, including money-generating abilities such as Supply Drop. The Rejuv Potion can also be extremely helpful for salvaging enough damage to Blastapopoulos by allowing ability chains, notably involving First Strike.
Geraldo's only direct income-generating options are Rare Quincy Action Figure and Fertilizer, and can indirectly make money via his Rejuv Potion in combination with money-generating abilities. If Banana Farms are available, Fertilizer is his secondary income source, which is best placed on the highest-tier Farms, and actually results in his lategame income exceeding that of Benjamin.
Geraldo's strongest item in raw value is the Paragon Power Totem, which can increase degrees of Paragons by granting 2,000 Power per totem for only the cost of $26k on Medium. Paragon Power Totems should be used as supplements to already large-scale defenses consisted on a single tower type, which paired with excess cash should sum to a quite high Paragon degree.
Geraldo has a variety of exothermic attacks that would be ineffective or actively worse against Blastapopoulos. In particular, his main attacks, Gerry's Fire, and Genie Bottle, fail to damage Blastapopoulos without support.
Corvus has a variety of different spells in his Spellbook that can be used to produce various effects on himself and his Spirit companion. Combining his spells wisely in combination with managing his Spirit and his own haunting attack will maximize his true power.
Note that Corvus has almost entirely magic attacks, with several exceptions. Note that Frostbound does not affect Blastapopoulos' Heat meter.
Rosalia offers a mix of generalistic damage and high "positional range", and separately attacks with either her high straightline damage lasergun or high grouped damage grenades. She can be placed anywhere within her workshop's range but cannot move anywhere else outside of her Flight Boost ability. Her abilities deal a boost of extra damage but at a long cooldown.
Rosalia's discounts to Aces and Helis is beneficial in Least Cash Bosses that center around these tower types, although most Least Cash strategies outclass strategies centered on either of these towers. Either way, a cheaper Support Chinook is beneficial if the more powerful heroes are banned.
Level 20 Anti-Bloon discount is relatively useless, unless specifically wanting The Anti-Bloon for a Least Cash Boss challenge.
Avoid using Rosalia's laser, even if she can pop Purple, as the laser will heat up Blastapopoulos faster than her grenades. Fortunately, she shoots at only moderate speed with fewer projectiles.
Paragons[]
Paragons are major powerhouses for handling bosses. To ensure the highest-level Paragons, make sure to accumulate enough pops early on by using the same tower type as much as possible, mainly damage to the boss and its swarms. Avoid selling towers of the desired type(s) unless necessary for higher income growth.
In general, accumulation of pops in Blastapopoulos battles is fairly hard compared to battles against other Boss Bloons except Bloonarius, mainly due to Blastapopoulos lacking minions and actively targeting and weakening towers.
Note: Paragons can still be affected by Blastapopoulos' passive debuffs (decreased range and slower ability cooldowns), the meteor debuffs (decreased range and attack speed, and frozen activated abilities), and Overheat (stunned, increased ability cooldowns)
Apex Plasma Master deals decent damage against Blastapopoulos on maps with lots of obstacles. Because of its cheap price, it is a decent supporting Paragon to other defenses, especially due to how its ultra-juggernauts bounce all over the map alongside access to an extra tier 5 Crossbow Master for higher degrees.
Apex Plasma Master's ultra-juggernauts can take advantage of Blastapopoulos' Pyroclastic Rocks, but only if inside of the range of Blastapopoulos.
Glaive Dominus is a good choice for Blastapopoulos on more open maps, because it does not get weaker or stronger depending on the presence of obstacles. That being said, it still has the usual weakness against Blastapopoulos' Pyroclastic Rocks.
Dominus is around the same price point as the Apex Plasma Master, so choose wisely depending on the map. To get a cheap degree 20 Dominus, build 25 0-2-2 boomerang monkeys to fulfill the 100 tier requirement.
One additional benefit of Glaive Dominus is that it buffs all primary towers' attack speed by 11.1% (*0.9 cd), including primary paragons, making it even better for strategies utilizing lots of primary towers.
Navarch of the Seas does huge damage to Blastapopoulos but has an expensive price tag. It is relentless at hooking in blimps fairly quickly.
Navarch's deals heavy damage in close range and can also double as a farming tower to provide an extra trade empire buff to Merchantmen. It can also benefit from being set to last with Flanking Maneuvers. Amassing degrees with the Navarch is also fairly easy because of Trade Empire farming.
The main downside with Navarch is that it takes a bunch of water to be a strong option for bosses. For instance, a map like Cracked is generally not too viable except if you use enhancements such Geraldo or a lot of Portable Lakes.
Navarch's Carrier Flagship buff affects the Goliath Doomship's attack speed, resulting in the Doomship attacking ~17.6% faster. This does not affect its carpet bomb ability, so Navarch should still only be used on maps with lots of water.
Master Builder is a very expensive Paragon in terms of upgrade cost and collective T5 costs. Like Navarch of the Seas, Master Builder is relatively easy to get high Paragon degrees thanks to the benefit of extra income.
In terms of its role, it is a pure DPS role that greatly benefits from building its own power in the long-term, which come primarily from its stacking self-ultraboost and placement of Mega Sentries.
Note that the Red and Green Mega Sentries have a Purple weakness, as do the mini Paragon Sentries, and can't be mitigated by Monkey Intelligence Bureau, only by Ezili's Heartstopper.
Each Mega Sentry can be placed on any land spot, have a unique attacking style, and produce Mini Sentries.
Unlike other bosses, thanks to Blastapopoulos' purple property, it is immune to the Mega Sentries' explosion and both the Red and Green Sentries' main attack, with only the Blue Sentry's main attack being able to hurt it.
Goliath Doomship is a very expensive Paragon in terms of upgrade cost and collective T5 costs. While the Goliath Doomship lacks income generation as an alternative to earn pops, the Flying Fortress possesses high damage and pierce that can accrue lots of pops while also antistalling rounds effectively for Ranked Bosses.
In terms of its role, it is a pure DPS role that greatly benefits from high degrees for a stronger ability that can be used more frequently.
Its carpet bomb ability is the strongest aspect of this paragon. With a high enough degree and proper positioning, the full bomb barrage can demolish significant health off Blastapopoulos.
When its ability is on cooldown, a lot of damage for the Goliath Doomship comes from its forward gunner attack. Thus if possible, maintaining as much time facing Blastapopoulos with the Goliath Doomship is very beneficial.
Magus Perfectus is quite an expensive Paragon in terms of upgrade cost alone, although the required T5's aren't too expensive. However, unlike Goliath Doomship, accumulating high degrees is difficult and tedious, much like many of the cheaper Paragons.
In terms of its role, it is a pure DPS role that is heavily micro-dependent for the maximum DPS. Juggle between its two togglable modes and its two activated abilities to achieve a careful balance of its optimal DPS.
Without the Arcane Metamorphosis ability active, the Magus Perfectus is very weak at quick DPS, particularly with its very slow ability cooldown. Compared to other Paragons, Magus is best used for sustained DPS.
The Wizard Monkey's lack of Purple-popping throughtout all tiers except Magus Perfectus, Necromancer: Unpopped Army, and Prince of Darkness makes it extremely difficult to build pops without causing trouble, making Magus Perfectus difficult to justify.
Nautic Siege Core is one of the cheaper Military Monkey Paragons, in fact the cheapest at the moment. It mostly fulfills a support role, doing decent damage while also having the option to submerge for various buffs or to produce a massive strike on bloons.
In terms of its role, it depends a lot on the situation. Choose the option that best fits the scenario.
Ability-dependent Paragons such as the Goliath Doomship and Magus Perfectus may benefit greatly from a submerged Nautic. Also, a submerged Nautic has better group-popping power.
Its pure DPS when unsubmerged is relatively similar to a Glaive Dominus, but with the activity of a Sub Commander plus a Pre-Emptive Strike.
When preparing for the Final Strike Ability, it can be used to pull off some immense burst damage to the Boss.
Powers[]
Sometimes, Blastapopoulos may be too difficult to beat that bailing out with Powers and Insta-Monkeys may be necessary. Use them wisely, and ideally prepare use of Powers before defenses begin to overwhelm. For efficiency, they should not be consumed on useless endeavours, because Powers and Instas are single-use, Powers cost Monkey Money, and Instas are limited resources. Powers (including Instas) cannot be used on Ranked Mode, as they add unnecessary advantage over players who don't use them.
In general when playing on Blastapopoulos events, the best Powers are the ones directly related to income, for extrapolating cash gain faster and therefore affording the necessary defenses sooner. Micromanagement supporters such as Banana Farmer and Tech Bot are also worth adding for convenience purposes. Tower boosts such as Monkey Boost and Time Stop are useful when needing to destroy the boss better with a beefy defense, but direct damage Powers such as Super Monkey Storm will generally be useless because of their little potential for dynamic empowerment.
Helpful when needing the non-Paragon defense to deal more damage. Particularly useful on Tier 5 if there isn't enough firepower from non-Paragon towers.
Note that Monkey Boost cannot affect Paragons, as they are immune to all buffs.
Unlike Cash Drop, Thrive strives for long-term income gain at a much lower purchase price. To make the most of Thrive's income generation, prepare use beforehand and have plenty of pre-existing income sources available around.
For the best results, use it if there are lots of income generators and/or on rounds with lots of naturally spawning bloons.
An active Time Stop causes almost everything to slow down. Most bloons will be reduced by 10% but most towers will attack at 30% speed, and BADs and Bosses (including Blastapopoulos) to move at 30% speed. In most cases, this is basically a second Monkey Boost.
Time Stop is also used as a saving grace for reducing stressful situations, giving more time to react accordingly for the defense. Plus, abilities still recharge at the same speed, giving more time to activate important abilities sooner.
Paragons are immune to being slowed down, essentially making them attack much faster, especially versus BADs and Bosses.
Collection of bananas and crates can be tiresome for the hand or finger, so a Farmer can be added to collect nearby bananas from Banana Farms without Monkey Bank or Marketplace upgrades, or to collect Monkeyopolis crates.
If there is enough money to afford Special Poperations and there is the Door Gunner MK active, one can use Door Gunner on a Banana Farmer to rake up money across many different points, saving space and potentially saving use of a second or third Banana Farmer.
Generally not necessary because Arctic Wind can fulfill a similar role, unless on a map such as Spice Islands where Banana Farm space is very limited but water is plentiful.
Tanks a few bloons for very cheap, but it is extremely ineffective at damaging blimps and requires too much micro if wanting to rush with spamming it out.
While Glue Trap cannot slow down BADs or Bosses, Glue Trap could be used to slow down blimps, but the Supersize Glue Trap MK must be unlocked for this to work. Note that Glue Trap will consume more pierce upon consuming a blimp.
Not usually are additional MOAB-class bloons a concern in lower-tier Blastapopoulos battles, and MOAB Mine gets outscaled in later tiers to matter much at higher-tier Blastapopoulos.
Also, while MOAB Mine can damage Bosses, it does very little damage to them.
Insta-Monkeys are one-use and highly limited. If needed, use an offensive tower that excels for a long time (e.g. Tier 3 Super Monkey) or a pure income generator.
Boss Strengths and Weaknesses[]
Blastapopoulos
Strategy
Strengths
Blastapopoulos passively reduces range and increases ability cooldowns, which will harm local-ranged attacks and makes it harder to cool off abilities to keep hitting Blastapopoulos.
Blastapopoulos has Purple properties, and will always heat up faster with any "exothermic" attack (i.e. weak to Purple) regardless if Purple properties are countered or not.
Multi-projectile strategies are weak to Blastapopoulos, because individual projectiles count for extra Heat.
While infinite-ranged, hitscan attacks are ideal against Blastapopoulos, Blastapopoulos will partially counter them with its Pyroclastic Rocks, which block off Line of Sight.
If Blastapopoulos triggers Overheat, all towers on screen will be stunned, add extra cooldowns to all activated abilities, and temporarily shorten projectile lifespan. This is actively problematic, even if Blastapopoulos briefly stops moving.
Towers that densely congregate near other towers, especially Village-oriented strategies, will be harmed greatly from the debuffing meteors. The decreased range and increased attack cooldowns will negate many local-ranged buffing benefits.
Blastapopoulos' abilities can still harm income-farming. For income-generators in particular, the inability to sell towers during Overheat or when targeted by meteors will prevent the exchange of income for extra defense or more farming.
Monkey City's buffs for bonus cash generation and Overclock's uptime onto high-income Farms will also be hindered while Blastapopoulos is on screen.
Blastapopoulos is completely unhittable for about 2 seconds while triggering Pyroclastic Rocks upon Skull. It won't eradicate all projectiles that try to hit it, such as the spikes of a gigantic stockpile, but will hinder Ranked Timed Boss runs.
[insert more strengths of blasta that will hinder]
Weaknesses
Blastapopoulos is specifically weak to "endothermic" attacks, and even weaker against attacks that would normally freeze non-Boss MOAB-class bloons. Spamming Snowstorms and their abilities may be a viable strategy to minimize heat, in addition to Absolute Zero and Icicle Impale.
Blastapopoulos' meteors aren't foolproof; they can be suceptible to decoys. Examples include a faraway Benjamin, and multiple free Dart Monkeys.
Dealing high direct damage doesn't add much heat, which M.A.D excels at avoiding, not to mention the lack of reliance on activated abilities.
Beating Blastapopoulos slow and steady with hardly any defense except blimp-specific damage that is high individual damage will often be the best method of popping Blastapopoulos with less opportunities to undergo Blastapopopoulos' Overheat.
Take advantage of the cumulative prices of towers to attempt to divert the "expensive" fireball.
For instance, if excluding discounts, a 5-2-0 Banana Central ($140,300) is a little less expensive than a 5-2-0 Super Mines ($139,350). However, with a bit of tweaking, Blastapopoulos would prefer targeting the Banana Central instead of the Super Mines.
Towers with a local-ranged sacrifice (but not Adora or Paragons) will absorb all the costs of the sacrificed towers, making them appear more expensive. High-sacrifice Monkeyopolis is one example of this.
[insert more ways to take advantage of weaknesses of blasta]
