Druid (BTDB2)/Strategies/General

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This page is a general guide for Druid. For more advanced guides, see Druid (BTDB2)/Strategies/Optimization

Druid

The Druid is a flexible multi-attacking tower in Bloons TD Battles 2. Druid's various upgrades help stretch across multiple roles, ranging from offensive damage, blowback, money, and bonus lives. However, Druids have no camo detection outside of Superstorm and Spirit of the Forest, so it will need support in order to affect Camo Bloons.

The aim of this article is a general guide for using the Druid. It summarizes how to effectively use Druid without going into too much intricate detail about meta strategy.

Base Tower

• Cost: $425
• Unlock: 150

Base Druid throws 5 thorns per shot in a shotgun spray. Each thorn pops one bloon. These thorns are effective against small amounts of bloons. It is strong enough to somewhat hold off the early-game until better upgrades are afforded.

Upgrades

Hard Thorns

• Cost: $250
• Path: 1
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Hard Thorns increases thorn pierce to 2 and allows them to pop Frozen and Leads. Not only does this upgrade make thorns penetrate through more bloons, it helps let it synergize with Ice Monkeys as well as cheaply countering early Leads, in addition to dealing with visible DDTs.

Heart of Thunder

• Cost: $850
• Path: 1
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Heart of Thunder adds lightning bolts that spreads damage across multiple neighboring bloons at once. This greatly improves grouped popping power. However, lightning bolts do not pop Purple, so this Druid will need support to pop large groups of Purples.

Druid of the Storm

• Cost: $1,650
• Path: 1
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Druid of the Storm adds tornadoes that blow back bloons. This blowback effect literally sends bloons backwards, opposite the direction they came from. Tornadoes are summoned in a straight line, making positioning important for utilizing maximum pierce of each tornado.

Ball Lightning

• Cost: $4,500
• Path: 1
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

In addition to thorns, lightning bolts, and tornadoes, a Druid with the Ball Lightning upgrade hurls lightning balls that summon even more lightning bolts. Each ball lightning summons lightning bolts rapidly and deals a lot of damage, but the balls themselves are summoned slowly.

Superstorm

• Cost: $65,000
• Path: 1
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1500

Superstorm produces extremely powerful tornadoes that blow back MOAB-class bloons, excluding BADs. Unlike other Druid upgrades, Superstorm gains camo detection by default, which lets it blow away DDTs naturally. To make the most of Superstorm's blowback, particularly against DDTs, it will need to be pre-charged with attack speed buffs before then, mainly Heart of Vengeance and nearby Poplusts.

Thorn Swarm

• Cost: $250
• Path: 2
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Thorn Swarm increases the number of thorns per shot from 5 to 8. This increases the amount of potential damage if all thorns hit their targets, as well as increases density of the thorns to hit bloons better.

Heart of Oak

• Cost: $350
• Path: 2
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Regrows that are hit by a Druid with Heart of Oak (or its subsequent upgrades) will permanently lose their Regrow properties. Thorns, lightning bolts, tornadoes, and lightning balls all benefit from this upgrade. In particular, adding Heart of Thunder makes Regrows no longer an issue, provided there are reliable camo countermeasures too.

Druid of the Jungle

• Cost: $950
• Path: 2
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Druid of the Jungle produces a vine that instantly kills the strongest non-blimp bloon on screen, removing it from the screen and taking time to destroy its remains. The stronger the bloon, the more time it takes for the vine to attack again. It is most effective against single Ceramics.

Jungle's Bounty

• Cost: $3,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Jungle's Bounty's ability generates an instant $1000 each. It takes a substantial amount of time for the ability to come back and be activated once again for more income. A major advantage of Jungle's Bounty over other methods of income comes from being able to spam the same tower to generate more income without direct attachment to bloon sends from either one's own or from the opponent, as well as being able to start the snowball of income sooner than other income abilities. However, it will still need support to deal with very dense grouped rushes or MOAB-class bloons. If Jungle's Bounty is activated as soon as it is available, the cash given is functionally equivalent to 150 eco.

Spirit of the Forest

• Cost: $35,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1500

Spirit of the Forest produces on-track vines that affect an infinite number of bloons passing through, dealing constant damage as they touch those vines. The closer to the Spirit of the Forest, the more damage inflicted; these thresholds are distinguished by the types of vines on the track. In addition to this is an entirely new ability that grants $750 and 25 lives per use. The extra lives give an advantage by not losing due to having fewer lives than the opponent, particularly important after Round 40 ends. However, this ability also has a negative effect on strategies dependent on Heart of Vengeance optimization.

Druidic Reach

• Cost: $100
• Path: 3
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

This is a basic range upgrade that gives the Druid more range. This lets it reach further than it normally would.

Heart of Vengeance

• Cost: $300
• Path: 3
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Heart of Vengeance increases attack speed of the Druid by +1% for every life lost since purchasing the upgrade. By default, it starts at 20%, and this benefit maxes out at 100% by losing 80 net lives. Conversely, gaining lives reverses these attack speed benefits.

Druid of Wrath

• Cost: $750
• Path: 3
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Druid of Wrath increases attack speed of the Druid every time it deals damage to bloons. As long as it keeps attacking bloons, it will keep attacking quickly. Keeping it close to the main action lets the Druid maintain substantially high attack speed.

Poplust

• Cost: $2,500
• Path: 3
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Poplust increases attack speed and pierce of nearby Druids by +25%. This buff stacks up to 5 times, but unlike Shinobis the buff doesn't affect itself. Maximizing Poplust stacks will maximize attack speed and pierce of nearby Druids, particularly useful in combination with Avatar of Wrath and Superstorm.

Avatar of Wrath

• Cost: $45,000
• Path: 3
• Tier: 5
• Unlock 1500

Avatar of Wrath deals more damage for every certain amount of RBE on screen. Thorns deal 4 damage at base and gain +1 damage for every 3,000 RBE on screen, up to +24. If given Heart of Thunder, the lightning bolts receive a similar but smaller effect. Avatar of Wrath absolutely shreds blimps if given plenty of buffs to attack speed and pierce, including its own Heart of Vengeance benefit.

General Strategy

All towers including Druid start off with upgrades up to Tier 2. All upgrades are unlocked with Tower XP of the respective tower's type, and can be unlocked in any order provided that previous tiers on the same path are unlocked first. In order to suit the tower's varied specialties, some upgrades are better unlocked first before others. Below is a brief guide to unlocking Druid upgrades.

Druid's first two tiers of each path aren't very strong but do have some early-game and mid-game assistance. It is best to utilize Heart of Vengeance the most until achieving better Tier 3 options, especially Druid of Wrath which will advance better in the early-game. Druid of the Storm can assist at reducing progress of bloons, but it can be somewhat unreliable. Druid of the Jungle can be used to deal with early Ceramics, but this upgrade alone doesn't have much intrinsic value until Jungle's Bounty is unlocked.