Bloons TD Battles 2/Strategies/Early Unlocks

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In Bloons TD Battles 2, a new player will need to quickly rush to get the most powerful T3 upgrades as soon as possible. The purpose of this page is to guide players towards the milestone of unlocking and optimizing the "best" Tier 3 upgrades. Starting from Version 1.0.6, players in Red Bloon Camp and Yellow Stadium are restricted up to Tier 3 upgrades. Now in version 1.5, tier restrictions have been removed as you get all upgrades to tier 4 when you unlock a monkey.

General Strategy

Playing more games is key, as obvious as it sounds. This helps progress levels for upgrades faster. Preferably, you also want to win games early (like at round 11) for the best XP optimization.

The player get double XP after winning, and will also get double XP again if the player watches an advertisement (watching advertisements only applies to mobile). With VIP access, which can only be bought with in-app purchases, it gives 4x XP, to which adding a watched advertisement increments it to 5x.

Rough calculation on this Reddit link shows that there is a significant grindfest for full unlocks. For now, don't worry about getting all highest tiers; just make sure to get enough XP to reach Tier 3. Reaching Tier 3 on the majority of towers is the goal for this Early Unlocks page.

Also, importantly, no Battle Points, Monkey Money, or Trophies will be earned if losing on a super early round. So intentional death games is not a valid strategy for earning anything other than Tower XP.

Try to optimize the loadout pre-game and defenses in-game to defeat all kinds of bloons such as: regen bloons, camo bloons, moab class, fortified bloons, grouped bloons, leads, black and whites, purples, and more.

Heroes and Towers

The best strategy here for defense is to revolve the tower loadout based on the hero. Each hero has their own advantages and disadvantages that will help out as the game goes on. Offensive strength is one aspect to view, but there's also base cost and buffing potential. At this stage, assume all heroes available are just Quincy and Gwendolin.

Quincy is the cheapest hero possible and only one that can be started in a single game, except Obyn (who requires Monkey Money to unlock). He is good at cleaning up bloons, or just defending against bloons coming from the natural end. He also gains camo detection as he levels up. He best pairs with those that are effective against grouped bloons, such as Bomb. The player should also get something that is good against spaced bloons too, as he is not the best against spaced bloons, to which Tack works well here.

Gwendolin is more expensive than Quincy, has shorter range, but much stronger against grouped bloons. Still not the best against very early rushes, but much harder to get overwhelmed by such rushes. Pair with something that beats Purples, especially Tack Shooters.

Tower Loadouts

Hero	Towers	Optimization
Quincy	Bomb Tack Wizard	Decent strategy for handling grouped and spaced bloons alike. 0-2-2 Bomb is best friend for this strategy, while Wizard is for Wall of Fire, which is also great for cleanup and just general popping power. 2-0-2 Tack during the early-game works if placed at appropriate bends, and 0-0-0 for grouped Reds can be a fine temporary option without Bomb. 0-2-2 Tack also works if placed such that it covers a wide range with its tacks, although harder to optimize except on distant curve maps like Koru. With this strategy, invest on Shimmer. Otherwise Camo Purples will be problematic.
Gwendolin	Sub Tack Ninja	Gwendolin's purple weakness can be counteracted with Tack Shooters, Ninjas, and Subs, making them the ideal choices for new accounts. Her Camo weakness can also be counteracted by Ninja. Although Gwendolin's grouped popping is quite good, she is weak in the early-game. This is where Tack can play a role at stopping those early Grouped Reds and spaced bloons such as Grouped Blues and Grouped Yellows.
Gwendolin	Boat Tack Ninja	Similar to Gwen-Sub-Tack-Ninja, except taking more advantage of developing Buccaneers.

Important Towers

With the gathered Monkey Money, use it to unlock new towers. Heroes are very expensive, so it's mainly just Quincy or Gwen for heroes. Focus on buying towers first with the Monkey Money. Cosmetics should be prioritized later at all costs.

The below table is a recommendations table, ordered by recommended priority to start focusing on unlocking with Tower XP:

Tower	Optimization and Focus
Tack Shooter	Tack Shooter is extremely versatile, being the go-to choice for almost any map, especially for beginners. It's got various options for early-game popping power, and its later upgrades will come with superior grouped and spaced popping power. It can be used for almost any match with great results, which when combined properly with other towers makes for an easy win condition. There are plenty of loops and sharp corners where Tacks would excel at. Utilize loops for the best results.
Monkey Sub	In itself, does decent cleanup, working well against spaced bloons well. But more importantly, better upgrades such as Airburst Darts unlock by default. When unlocking Sub for the first time, try focus on Submerge and Support as soon as possible. This is important when going out of Red Bloon Camp.
Monkey Buccaneer	Grapes are a powerful asset, especially 2-1-0 for the big popping power. 2-2-0 offers respectable lead-popping too. 0-2-2 offers decent camo lead-popping. If going for Buccaneer investments, Cannon Ship will offer better grouped popping, but Destroyer will be better if going more into the semi-late-game as an alternative to Tack's Overdrive. Merchantman is quite risky for new players, but if mastered correctly against passive opponents, this upgrade can profit pretty well.
Wizard Monkey	0-2-2 Wall of Fire for Camo Leads. Cheap and efficient against grouped rushes. Just add a Purple popper and all set. Wall of Fire is important for the Wizard. It is pretty cost-effective against grouped bloons. Aim to unlock Shimmer if favoring Wizards.
Ice Monkey	Ice Monkey helps slow down the progress of bloons by freezing them, and can work very well in the early-game against grouped sends. For upgrades up to Tier 3, the best upgrades are Cryo Cannon and Ice Shards, which both excel against grouped bloons in different ways, consistent high damage and dense high damage, respectively.
Dartling Gunner	Dartling Gunner has an extraordinary amount of pierce, popping up to 3 bloons per shot. Having a decent number of them with upgrades can make quick work off earlier rounds provided they are aimed optimally. The best upgrades up to Tier 3 include Hydra Rocket Pods.

Important Upgrades

Applies to upgrades up to Tier 3. Mostly focusing on Primary, Military, and Magic categories.

Note that Tier 2 upgrades are unlocked by default. These tables will cover the best upgrades, for Tier 1, 2, and 3.

Tier 1

Upgrade	Optimization
Grape Shot	Great popping power for countering early rushes and popping spaced bloons for a rather decent price.

Tier 2

Upgrade	Optimization
Crow's Nest	Desirable camo detection for countering those camo bloons. Pairs well with Hot Shot for countering Camo Leads.
Wall of Fire	Strong in the early-game, and can be crosspathed with Monkey Sense for Camo Lead countermeasures.
Monkey Sense	Monkey Sense gives the Wizard Monkey with camo detection. Pairing with Wall of Fire makes for reliable lead-popping and camo-popping.

Tier 3

The following Tier 3 upgrades are the recommended options, and are ordered by recommendation of unlock order.

Upgrade	Reason for Unlock
Submerge and Support	Very useful against Camos, as its decamo will render camo properties useless. Necessary once going out of Red Bloon Camp. Unlock it as soon as possible.
Tack Sprayer	Superior at catching spaced bloons thanks to its 16 tacks per shot, and comes with some extra attack speed on its own even without Path 1. Pairs very well with Gwen while Heat It Up is active.
Blade Shooter	Blade Shooter comes with superior grouped popping power by gaining a substantial pierce increase. With this upgrade, it will be easier to hold off stronger grouped rushes sent by the opponent.
Cluster Bombs	Extra explosive popping power for handling grouped bloons efficiently. Cluster Bombs do pop Black Bloons, excelling against various types of ordinary bloons.
Glaive Ricochet	Glaive Ricochet's bouncy glaives make them strong against moderate groups of bloons, making them desirable for shredding out groups of bloons into weaker groups. Glaive Ricochet is a decent counter to the notorious Grouped Purple rushes, especially when paired with a Wall of Fire for cleanup. While the Glaive Ricochet lacks camo detection, a source of camo detection or decamo should cover it nicely.
Hydra Rocket Pods	Hydra Rocket Pods is extremely effective against regular bloons including Blacks and Zebras but is quite expensive. It still takes effort to get Dartling XP, so until then use Gwen or Glaive Ricochet for handling grouped bloons.
Hot Shots	Compared to Tack Sprayer, a 3-0-2 Hot Shots is not too behind with its higher-tier bloon destruction. It deals well against Spaced Blacks and Spaced Whites. Hot Shots pops Lead and Frozen, making it better than Tack Sprayer for a Quincy strategy or when pairing with Ice. Until this upgrade for Tack, the player will need to continue using Bomb as reliable lead-popping.
Cannon Ship	Lots of early-game popping power for a rather low cost, and quite long solo in the early-game. Does good grouped damage, and pairs well with Tier 2 upgrades. Cannon Ship's grouped popping power mixed with the potential to fire from both sides makes it handy on maps that have water spots that allow for shooting from multiple sides. Examples of such maps include Docks and Basalt Columns.
Dark Knight	At some point of the battle journey, games will end up getting later and later. With Dark Knight, it is much easier to survive an opponent's waves of DDTs, particularly with 2-0-3 crosspath for the double attack speed and lead-popping. Before then, just use the 2-0-2 unlocks and spam those and hope for the best.
Spiked Balls	It takes a lot of Monkey Money to unlock Spike Factory, but it's worth having Spiked Balls to make it less likely to die from early MOABs and early DDTs. Until unlocking Spiked Balls, use the default Spike Factory unlocks to protect exits in the early-game. Early Spike Factory and Spiked Balls are both especially helpful on Dino Graveyard.
Druid of Wrath	Druid of Wrath attacks faster if it can damage bloons. At full speed, it becomes very strong. It is recommended to try out a Heart of Vengeance strategy to further improve its attack speed.

Rushes

The best defense is described in terms of offense. The spirit of the game is a battle. The player should fight against the opponent, not befriend them. Go hard on them. Find their weak spots. In most cases though, it is better to stay quiet and surprise your opponent later on.

Most players will start off with a very small subset of towers and heroes. Dart, Tack, and Bomb will be the first towers to unlock. And for heroes, expect either Quincy or Gwen. Certain other towers, usually of Primary, Military, or Magic, will be the selection of towers unlocked by players. The aim here is to find a weakness around the limited selection of towers and their upgrades.

There are two different types of rushes, grouped and spaced. Grouped rushes are marked with multiple bloons next to each other. Spaced rushes are marked with just a single bloon. Grouped rushes consist of multiple weak bloons, but spaced rushes consist of stronger but more spaced out bloons. Grouped rushes also send quicker than spaced rushes and generally give more eco overall. To optimize choosing between types of rushes, look for what the opponent's side feels like. Is it too vulnerable? Rush with strong rushes. Is it too safe? Spend more on defense or just send weak grouped bloons.

The first rush available that will also be quite effective is Reds, which both boosts eco very early quite efficiently while also forcing the opponent to buy extra defenses, usually either a Bomb or multiple Tacks. Also make sure to have a defense against Reds. Save some money. Spaced Blues are also decent if the player opts for Bomb, as the opponent may get too used to grouped rushes that they'd possibly miss out on fighting off early grouped rushes.

Spaced Yellows can be used to overwhelm an opponent who is bad against spaced bloons. Other spaced bloon options can be used to harass the opponent against certain weak spots, such as White weaknesses against Ice Monkeys, Black weaknesses against Bomb Shooters, and so on.

As more and more rushes get unlocked the further the rounds go, the player will need to adjust to the heat of the battle. Look for the list of rushes on the opposite side of the screen to explore these rushes. As a general rule of thumb, Blacks and Zebras beat Bombs, Whites and Zebras beat Ice, Purples beat Gwendolin, and Leads beat Quincy. However, some players may have additional defenses that specifically counteract these principles. Use proper judgement to determine what occasions rushing specific bloon types is appropriate, and try to form a solid pattern based on what succeeds. Also bear in mind that some players may have bought Tier 3 upgrades already, so be careful, especially Crossbow, Hot Shots (Tack), Cluster Bombs, Cannon Ship, Dragon's Breath, and Berserker Brew.

Remember to make sure that you know can stack up bloons on top of each other. If you have read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card before, then you'll know that you can kind of make a shield out of the other bloons. This is weak against splash damage right next to your bloon spawn, but if it's far from spawn, you are more likely to pull it off, allowing for many successful rushes.

Note that bloon modifiers are not yet unlocked in Red Bloon Camp, the default arena. The player will not need to worry about Regrows, Camos, or Fortified until going above Red Bloon Camp. If the player does surpass it, make sure to unlock the important camo upgrades. Enhanced Eyesight is unlocked by default but very inefficient. Find more versatile options that can handle varieties of bloon types. More importantly, find the decamo options, which includes Submerge and Support, Shimmer, and Signal Flare. 0-2-2 Wall of Fire (Wizard) works well against Camo Leads but not Camo Purples. Advanced Intel is decent when paired with Quincy if stuck at Tier 2, making 2-0-2 and 2-2-0 work well against all bloon types.

Popular rushes effective at killing opponents often include:

• R11 Grouped Purples/Zebras Send zebras first since they have a lot of RBE, follow up with purple which are faster, to break wall of fire and generally stack more bloons in the same area.
• R12 Camo Grouped Purple/Zebra. A good followup to a round 11 rush if the opponent does not have good camo detection.
• R14 Grouped Rainbows
• R16 Grouped Ceramics

Towards the end-game, just go for Grouped Ceramics and go all in. Surviving till MOAB-class bloons is too risky. BFBs almost certainly are death; go immediately send a BFB if surpassing the unlock for BFBs. But, proceed with caution: the more you have not been upgrading your defense too much, the greater the odds that you WILL lose, meaning that you can get rushed by a BFB if not careful.

If the battle somehow gets to Round 25 and neither player has sent each other a fatal BFB or ZOMG rush, then the first person to send a boosted DDT on Round 26 wins basically automatically, as neither player will have any reasonable way to pop it in time. Make sure to activate the boost just before Round 25 ends to ensure the DDT is boosted as soon as it spawns. Prepare to send the DDT, which will replace the slot previously occupied by grouped MOAB sends. If the player has Super Monkeys, place a 0-0-2 (0-0-1 if the player can reliably and permanently decamo the DDT, such as with Shimmer or Counter-Espionage) as Knockback can slow the DDT and make it easier for the DDT to get through before the opponent's does, even if the Super Monkey cannot damage it. If the opponent appears to try to defend the DDT's before round 26 hits, such as methods described below, save up $5,200 to send a fortified one, which requires about twice the firepower to take down, something the opponent will not have even with a boost.

If the player intends to defend the DDT, only Super Monkey can viably defend it at 2-2-2 unlocks, requiring 3 2-0-2 Supers with a Monkey Boost to defend standard DDTs and twice that number if the opponent fortifies them. DBreath Wizards can also do it (6 0-3-2 Wizards) if the player unlocked it before Shimmer, though unlocking in this order is not recommended.

Later on however, only some of this may be relevant, as players in higher arenas have more smarts, more skill, more experience, and don't think they'll not as aggressive too. You'll have to beat them at their own game later on, but what were we talking about here, again? Right, learning how to rush others. Make sure to keep tabs on your opponent, as well as yourself, keep your enemies on your toes if they are getting too far ahead, and rush, rush, rush, RUSH. You'll get more eco for your towers and for more eco, as well as bloons. One last thing, in later arenas, players have more towers and XP for those towers, as well as heroes/hero XP/hero alts. Make sure to get some towers and heroes as well, and read through the upgrade descriptions to figure out how the towers work.

Specific Rush Weaknesses

Quincy strategies are usually weak against grouped rushes. For early-game, be super aggressive with grouped rushes until confident that the opponent can counter those early grouped rushes, and then try opt for spaced rushes if it also looks like they are weak on spaced rushes, like Spaced Yellows. For mid-game, opt for Grouped Zebras, Grouped Rainbows, and Grouped Ceramics.

Gwendolin strategies tend to be grouped bloon advantageous, but still vulnerable to Purples. Here, it is best to just send eco bloons until there is the option to send Grouped Purples. Go all in with sending Grouped Purples once the round comes. Grouped Ceramics can work too, but less effective than against Quincy strategies.