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BTD6

Drops a line of bombs when crossing the Bloon track.
~ In-game description

Bomber Ace is the third upgrade of Path 2 for the Monkey Ace in Bloons TD 6. Instead of sporadically dropping explosive pineapples, the Monkey Ace drops an array of four powerful tightly-packed bombs onto nearby track. Each bomb deals 3 damage onto up to 20 bloons per bomb (32 with 0-3-1 or 0-3-2), and each bomb has an explosion radius of 35 (just over a 0-0-0 Dart Monkey's range). This quad bomb array has 1.7s cooldown per salvo (or 1.275s with 1-3-0).

This upgrade costs $765 on Easy, $900 on Medium, $970 on Hard, and $1,080 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

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Bomber Ace

Bomber Ace upgrades from the Sopwith Camel biplane design into a metal monoplane design with an underslung propeller on each wing. The fuselage is painted green, with a light blue and black stripe lining the unpainted nose. The cockpit is also lined with black paint, as are the engines, and the wings are painted black as well.

The bombs it drops are black with red fins and a red nose. Instead of pineapples from Exploding Pineapple, Bomber Ace drops arrays of bombs onto nearby track. This replaced attack always targets on the track. Bomb arrays are produced every 1.36s (or 1.02s with 1-3-0). Bombs in the array are dropped in quick succession, roughly 0.1s between each bomb, with 4 bombs dropped total. Like Spy Plane, all its attacks deal +1 damage to Camo Bloons.

Targeting Priorities[]

Like all Monkey Aces, Spy Plane uses flight patterns as its targeting priority settings. It requires the Centered Path upgrade to access the Centered Path targeting option.

  • Circle: Flight pattern becomes a circular path around the runway.
  • Figure Infinite: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the infinite symbol (∞). As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
  • Figure Eight: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the number 8. As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
  • Wingmonkey: Instead of a fixed flight path, the Monkey Ace will attempt to fly as close to the path as possible, similarly to an Aircraft Carrier Plane. Available only via the Wingmonkey MK.
  • Reverse Flight: Shown by an icon of a reverse aircraft, the Ace will reverse direction of flight. Unlike other target priorities such as Change Hands, there is a cooldown of 5 seconds before being able to reverse flight direction again. It can be coupled with all flight options except Wingmonkey.

Costs[]

Updated as of Version 41.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.
[Module | Data] Purchase Sell
Costs Easy Medium Hard Impoppable Easy Medium Hard Impoppable
Upgrade (X-3-X) $765 $900 $970 $1,080 -
Total (0-3-0) $1,910 $2,250 $2,430 $2,700 $1,337 $1,575 $1,701 $1,890
Crosspath (1-3-0) $2,460 $2,900 $3,130 $3,480 $1,722 $2,030 $2,191 $2,436
Crosspath (2-3-0) $3,010 $3,550 $3,830 $4,260 $2,107 $2,485 $2,681 $2,982
Crosspath (0-3-1) $2,335 $2,750 $2,970 $3,300 $1,635 $1,925 $2,079 $2,310
Crosspath (0-3-2) $2,800 $3,300 $3,565 $3,960 $1,960 $2,310 $2,496 $2,772

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: MilitaryConscriptionIcon Military Conscription, AdvancedLogisticsIcon Advanced Logistics, BetterSellDealsIcon Better Sell Deals

Strategy[]

Summary[]

Bomber Ace is built as an upgrade for handling large groups of bloons within a tight region. When placed along a location where it can fly above a maximal amount of track, it becomes a good option for wiping out dense groups of regular bloons. It still requires support from other towers, as its bombs are still somewhat unreliable due to their random nature, but the increased deployment rate and explosion damage makes the Bomber Ace a far more reliable option compared to Exploding Pineapple.

Tips[]

  • Note that the bombs cannot pop Black Bloons or Zebra Bloons, so adding other towers to assist the popping of Black Bloons and Zebra Bloons will help make it easier for the Bomber Ace to finish off the other bloons.
  • The Wingmonkey Monkey Knowledge makes the Bomber Ace much more effective, as it guarantees more hits on bloons.
  • When it comes to crosspathing, 1-3-0 is more effective in most cases, as it deploys bombs at a faster rate, allowing for more opportunity to apply bombs as it crosses over paths. 0-3-1 is helpful, but Bomber Ace bomb arrays have good pierce anyway. Tier 2 crosspaths are not very effective except in special situations.
    • Arguably, a 0-3-2 Bomber Ace is better than a 2-3-0 Ace on Park Path due to it being able to bomb the whole outer curve with the centered path flight path. This is also the case in Balance as it can bomb the outer loop of the track.
  • Even after the Version 22.0 pierce nerf to the bombs, Bomber Ace is a very popular option in Race Events due to its high pierce versus cost ratio, even if it means the bombing timing can be slightly RNG.

Version History[]

Balance Changes[]

Bomber Ace has overall been buffed since it was first released. The blast radius buff, deployment rate buff, and damage buff had allowed it to become more reliable as the Monkey Ace's primary lead-popping power as well as for countering grouped bloons. However, it has been nerfed slightly over later updates to make it less overpowered in Race Event situations.

7.0
  • BUFF Bomber Ace bombing run blast radius increased (25 → 35)
  • BUFF Bomber Ace bombing run attack cooldown reduced (3s → 1.5s)
  • BUFF Bomber Ace bombing run damage increased from (2 → 4)
  • NERF Bomber Ace costs more ($500 → $900)
10.0
  • NERF Bomber Ace bomb damage reduced (4 → 3)
  • NERF Bomber Ace bombing run attack cooldown increased (1.5s → 1.7s)
  • BUFF Bomber Ace bombs will now benefit from the Rapid Fire crosspath.
22.0
While Pineapples are never the star of the show, the amount of pierce they have is completely unnecessary for their usage window and has only led to balance problems for Bombing Run, specifically in races. This high amount of pierce has been more evenly spread through higher tiers & crosspath. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to direct attention to nerfing Bomber Ace
  • NERF Base Bomber Ace bomb pierce decreased (40 → 20)
  • NERF 0-3-1 Bomber Ace bomb pierce decreased (40 → 32)
23.0
Monkey Ace was never intended to be a great starting tower and instead come into power at mid- and high-tier upgrades, but since the base tower feels lacking to new players (and some of us old timers) we decided to rework low tier power into the base tower. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to base Monkey Ace attack speed rework
  • BUFF Bomber Ace bomb attack cooldown reduced (1.7s → 1.36s). No overall attack speed changes for 1-3-0 Bomber Ace
  • BUFF Monkey Ace base attack cooldown reduced (2.1s → 1.68s)
  • BUFF Monkey Ace dart projectile size increased (2 → 3)
30.0
More of a straight quality of life, Ace has gained a new special toggle button to allow it to turn back and fly in reverse on any selected flight pattern. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Reverse Flight
  • BUFF Monkey Ace can now toggle flight direction for any pattern.
31.0
Spy Plane is always a lesser crosspath aside from specific challenges that call for camo detection. It has a similar vibe to Night Vision sniper so we have given it a similar buff.
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Spy Plane
  • BUFF Affected by Spy Plane +1 camo damage buff
41.0
[...] Exploding pineapples gained a larger rate bonus from crosspathing than the main attack did to make up for its base rate being so poor, so we're fixing that poor base rate while keeping the crosspath bonus the same. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Exploding Pineapple
  • NERF 1-3-0 Bomber Ace attack cooldown increased from 1.02s to 1.275s

Bug Fixes and General Changes[]


Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Trivia[]

  • Bomber Ace was one the few Tier 3 upgrades in BTD6 that was cheaper than the base tower. This was no longer the case after Bomber Ace received mechanics buffs followed by a price nerf both on the Version 7.0 update.
  • In the Version 7.0 patch notes, there was no mention of a price nerf to Bomber Ace in spite of it gaining a significant damage output rework.
  • In BTD6, Bomber Ace is the only Tier 3 Monkey Ace to lose its front propeller.
  • Before Bomber Ace was secretly nerfed from $500 to $900 and Ground Zero was $14,000, both assuming Medium prices, the price gap between the Tier 3 and 4 upgrades was 28x. Bomber Ace upgrade had the highest percentage price gap between its Tier 3 and Tier 4 upgrades, as Ground Zero got nerfed in price.
    • Starting from Version 30.0, the Bomber Ace upgrade holds among the highest percentage price gaps between its Tier 3 and Tier 4 upgrades, as Ground Zero got nerfed in price. Before then, that reign belonged to Triple Shot and Super Monkey Fan Club, at 20x cost difference ($400 versus $8000), and now it's shared.
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