The Dart Monkey, as per tradition, is an early game tower with upgrades that focus on specific on specific attributes of a tower, whether that be pirece, Attack Speed/projectiles, or Range/Damge. Becuase of this, Dart Monkey can be a really flexible tower that can make up a specfic attribute or attributes that the defense is lacking.
Dart Monkey serves as cheap early game popping power with upper upgrades offering extremely specialized roles possibly more so than any other tower.
Attack Speed
Path 2 primarily focuses on this attribute with upgrades like Very Quick Shots and Super Monkey Moneky Fan Club being notable examples of this.
Damage
Although Dart Monkeys do generally gain more damage with all its paths, path 3 primarily focuses on this attribute with upgrades like Crossbow and Sharp Shooter, being notable examples
Sharp Shooter allows the dart monkey to deal Critical Hits albeit randomly that deal 50 damage each.
Pierce
Path 1 primarily focuses on this attribute with Spike-o-pult and Ultra-Juggernaut being notable examples of this.
Range
Path 3 primarily focuses on this attribute with upgrades like Long Range Darts and Crossbow Master being notable examples of this.
Support
Dart Monkeys have no support capabilities as it pure-damage tower. Dart Monkeys support the defense by cheaply defending off rounds in the early game.
Power
Overall, a Dart Monkey is powerful in the early game with its triple shot upgrade or Spike-o-pult. It has a good mid-game with Crossbow Master being an alternative to Sun Avatar. Dart Monkey, for the first time in the BTD series, has an extremely competitive late game, with Plasma Monkey Fan Club being one of the few upgrades that can destroy Fortified BADs even with high health ramping with proper preparations.
Increases Pierce of the Dart Monkey by +2 on top of the previous upgrade for a total of 5 pierce or +7 for a total of 23 pierce for Crossbow master only.
One of the cheapest Tier 5 towers in the game, while having monstrous damage to regular bloons and with the added benefit of splitting into 6 juggernaut balls into a multitude of directions and extra damage to ceramics.
However, it still has abysmal damage to MOAB class bloons with it dealing only 2 damage to them per shot. And the Multi-juggernauts don't help that much in that department.
Increases the attack speed of the to approximately 67% attack cooldown. Note the words used to describe this upgrade. This is because it's actually a +27.5% attack speed increase and the total attack speed cooldown with the previous upgrade in mind is about 67% attack speed cooldown, which is where the 33% attack speed increase from the official description comes from.
For this Dart Monkey only, gains a permanent attack speed increase (attacks about ~33% faster than Very Quick Shots)
Gains an ability that converts himself, and 9 closest Dart Monkeys (that aren't Spike-o-pult or higher, Plasma Monkey Fan Club (the one that holds that upgrade), and Crossbow or higher) into Super Monkeys 15 seconds, with no initial cooldown and ability cooldown of 50 seconds.
Even though this upgrade is extremely expensive in comparison to its other upgrades (especially for a Tier 4 tower in general), it's really cost-efficient to the tower it imitates, as 5 regular 0-0-0 Super Monkeys cost $860 more than this and its preceding upgrades and base cost of the Dart Monkey and 9 other 0-0-0 Dart Monkeys.
Destroys MOABs and everything below the Bloon Hierarchy and because it's ten super monkeys for the price of slightly less than 5, it's also good at cleanup.
The tower the ability transforms is now 2-0-0 Super Monkeys with the difference between them is that projectile lifespan and size are significantly decreased in exchange for double damage, having much cheaper camo detection and being able to be buffed with Primary Training and above.
Even more efficient than 6 2-0-0 Super Monkeys since even if PMFC + 19 0-0-0 Dart Monkeys cost $3040 more than 6 of them, it affects more than triple the number of Dart Monkeys and it does double damage.
If properly buffed and prepared, that is with Primary Expertise with the Super Brittle Debuff, it's one of few upgrades that can fully take on Fortified BADs with insane Health Ramping.
Wields a crossbow that deals 3 damage, 3 pierce, and increased projectile speed. Spaced Whites will be ineffective at overwhelming this tower with sufficient attack speed.
Sharp Shooter now deals double damage from Crossbow, to 6, has increased projectile speed and attack speed, and crits every so often, though specifics are still unknown about how Crits work in this game.
Increases attack speed again, increases Crit Frequency (?), increases range to 240% of 0-0-0 Dart Monkey, and increases projectile speed yet again.
Most likely the opponent will use this upgrade in order to save up for expensive towers in the game, as it struggles with the High Health ramping of the 30s and decimates bloons otherwise.
Crosspath-specific[]
WIP This section or article is currently a work in progress (WIP), and therefore under construction. Please bear with us while our editors improve the page.
Crosspath
Dart Monkey countermeasures
X-4-X
This crosspath is more for the Monkeys that are going to be transformed by PMFC as this upgrade is best for when Money is no longer a concern and wants the highest DPS with the option of prioritizing single target damage with Bottom Path or Bloons Rushes with Top Path.
The Sheer Number of projectiles produced by PMFC means that all of those projectiles are going to be amplified by the +4 damage debuff onto bloons by Super Brittle.
Also consider the fact that these two towers are both Primary Monkeys, which means that they can be both buffed by Primary Expertise, greatly increasing the power of this combo greatly.
Other Advice[]
If you see the opponent's Dart Monkeys having their respective unique cosmetics, the opponent has unlocked all upgrades for Dart Monkey. In that case, prepare for all possible upgrades.
When choosing upgrades of the dart monkeys to be transformed in to PMFC, here is a rough rank of most to least useful crosspaths.
0-4-2 will offer the highest DPS and largest range, which is good for single target damage.
2-4-0 will offer the highest DPS and highest pierce, which is good for dealing with large bloon rushes.
X-3-X, X-2-X, X-1-X, (essentially any middle path crosspath) will offer the most cost efficient boost in attack speed to the transforms.
2-0-2, 2-0-1, 2-0-0... (any crosspath of paths 1 and 3) are generally not advised as they do not contribute to single-target damage. However, getting an x-x-2 may be necessary in absence of other camo detection methods.
0-0-0 offers no buff to the transforms, but is the cheapest option, allowing for quicker filling of the transformation limit.
0-0-1 is the worst crosspath as Long Range Darts contributes no range to the transformed monkey.
