| “ | Reduces ability cooldowns everywhere by 20%. While in radius, heroes earn XP 50% faster and water Monkey ability cooldowns are halved. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Energizer is the final upgrade of Path 1 for the Monkey Sub in Bloons TD 6. It makes Heroes earn XP 50% faster while in the radius, reduces ability cooldowns of all nearby water monkeys by 50% (doesn't stack with Bloontonium Reactor), as well as reducing ability cooldowns for ALL other towers on screen by 20%. It also increases the pierce of the Bloontonium Reactor attack from 50 to 1000 and the damage from 1 to 5, plus another +5 versus Ceramics.
It costs $27,200 on Easy, $32,000 on Medium, $34,560 on Hard and $38,400 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Appearance[]
Energizer is a much larger sub than its predecessor, sporting several neon green-tinted glass windows on its top, as well as Bloontonium-green paint on its fins. The radiation symbol on its front now glows green.
Notably, it possesses a red radiation pulse when given Heat-Tipped Darts, and it sports two guns either side with Twin Guns.
Mechanics[]
Energizer is a significant improvement over Bloontonium Reactor, dealing 5 damage, 10 to Ceramics, as opposed to only 1, and with 1000 pierce, along with all the unique crosspathing interactions possessed by Reactor, save the +1 lead damage from Heat-Tipped Darts. It retains the ability to decamo Bloons on hit while submerged.
Additionally, Energizer provides several unique buffs, those being 50% faster ability cooldowns for water towers in range, (does not stack with Reactor's similar buff) 50% faster XP gain for Heroes in range, and 20% faster ability cooldowns for all towers on screen (as well as water towers not in range)
Targeting Priorities[]
Energizer targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities, but also receives the Submerge targeting option. Its main attack while unsubmerged shoots straight movement projectiles that can moderately seek at bloons.
- Submerge: Submerges the submarine, letting it create only submersible attacks instead of its other attacks. Initially gains only decamo, but can also gain additional benefits upon upgrading. When given Bloontonium Reactor or Energizer, the submarine gains an AoE effect that decamos and pops bloons.
- First: Targets the first bloon visible within its range.
- Last: Targets the last bloon visible within its range.
- Close: Targets the closest bloon visible within its range.
- Strong: Targets the strongest bloon visible within its range.
The radioactive attack is considered a zone-based attack, and pierce calculations default on Close. The local buff targets towers that are on water, and is considered a tower buff. The global buff targets all towers on screen, and also considered a tower buff.
Strategy[]
Summary[]
Energizer has the exclusive benefit to grant both additional Hero XP and faster ability cooldowns to all towers on screen. Although quite expensive, it is highly effective in combination with slow-leveling heroes, water-based towers and heroes, and ability-dominant defenses.
It shines mostly in epic late-game, where much of the main power comes from the various abilities in the player's arsenal, most specifically Grand Saboteur, Homeland Defense, multiple Call To Arms, and Overclocks.
However, outside of custom challenges such as 2MPC, "Axis of Subs", and Level 20 Churchill CHIMPS challenges, its limited niche makes Energizer a less popular option on CHIMPS Mode compared to simply affording additional defense for a similar cost. Energizer is still fairly usable otherwise, and it can greatly enhance the player's defenses if relying heavily on activated abilities, especially water-based abilities, while also being providing decent Super Ceramic clean up.
Tips[]
- Just as with its previous upgrade, crosspath with Path 3 to increase its overall damage output. While crosspathing 5-2-0 does allow the sub to damage lead, Path 2 upgrades are not required in order to decamo DDTs, and the 20% pierce increase from 1000 to 1200 is redundant most of time.
- However, leaving the Energizer as 5-0-0 does not really hurt since the tower benefits more from a supporting role in the late game.
- It is notable that since 18.0, Admiral Brickell's Naval Tactics and Sub Commander can buff Energizer's DPS and this may combo better with the bottom crosspath.
- This upgrade is very useful when defenses are ability-heavy, particularly with income-related abilities such as Jungle's Bounty, Supply Drop, and Support Chinook's Crate Drop Ability.
- It is worth noting that the Energizer also affects the life-loss passive abilities of Bomb Blitz, Elite Defender and Legend of the Night.
- The water heroes Pat Fusty and Admiral Brickell both synergise well with Energizer, as they benefit from both the increased Hero XP and the reduced cooldown on their abilities, especially since their abilities are extremely powerful buffs.
- Admiral Brickell is arguably the best hero to pair with the Energizer, as her abilities are highly effective for water-based terrain. Similar to Pat, her buff has a much higher uptime.
- Additionally, with the "Ability Mastery" Monkey Knowledge, it is possible for Brickell in range of an Energizer to provide near-permanent buffs with her Naval Tactics ability.
- Admiral Brickell is arguably the best hero to pair with the Energizer, as her abilities are highly effective for water-based terrain. Similar to Pat, her buff has a much higher uptime.
- The hero who benefits the most out of the Energizer's Hero XP boost is Psi. This is because Psi's earlier levels are quite weak; Energizer allows them to scale better for the later rounds, where MOAB-class bloons are dominant. Captain Churchill is another valuable hero to pair with Energizer because of how slowly he naturally levels up and because of how strong he plays as a pure offense hero. Although Adora levels just as slowly, she has her Blood Sacrifice ability to speed up leveling at a lower cost.
- On Expert maps, even without Monkey Knowledge, Energizer makes it possible for any hero to naturally hit Level 20 by Round 100. Ezili and other heroes who level at a similar rate can reach this same feat on Intermediate maps.
Bugs[]
- The visual indicator in the buffs section above a tower inconsistently displays the submerged and unsubmerged buffs. Additionally, sometimes, the bug shows both sprites indicating a submerged and unsubmerged buff. This bug has been known since 12.0 and occurs as of 14.0.
- When upgraded to 5-2-0, submerged radiation does not increase its damage against leads or DDTs unlike the previous upgrade.
Version History[]
Overall, Energizer is a lot stronger at both popping power and utility compared to when it was first released. It had also gained a sizeable price cut, which is significant in relation to its niche support roles.
Bear in mind that the nerf to no longer applying local bonus cooldown to nearby non-water towers is considered a bug-fix, but is significant enough to be constitute as a balance change and therefore is considered a nerf.
- 2.0
Energizer now pops more bloons (30 → 1,000)- Energizer also reduces ability cooldowns of all other towers on screen by 20%.
- 7.0
- Energizer radiation deals more damage per pop (1 → 3)
- 9.0
- Now (correctly) applies bonus XP to Heroes.
- 10.0
- Energizer no longer applies 50% ability cooldown for nearby non-water towers.
- 12.0
- Energizer price reduced from $40,000 to $32,000.
- 18.0
- Unsubmerged Energizer has more range (50 → 52). Submerged Energizer's range remains as 50.
- 5-1-0 Energizer gains 20% increased pierce from 1000 → 1200
- 5-2-0 Energizer deals +1 damage to Leads
- Note: This is not actually implemented, and likely is a bug
- 5-0-1 Energizer gains increased damage pulse rate (0.3s → 0.255s)
- 5-0-2 Energizer gains increased damage pulse rate (0.3s → 0.19125s)
- Energizer submerge attack deals 2x damage if nearby Sub Commander, including crosspath benefits.
- 23.0
- [Undocumented] 5-1-0 and 5-2-0 Energizer has less pierce (1200 → 1020 for 5-1-0, 1200 → 1050 for 5-2-0)
- 29.0
| “ | The logic on a Lead crosspath not being required to give Lead popping to an attack based on something weak against Lead has never sat right, so we're finally sorting that out and making sub a little angrier. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Reactor |
- Affected by Reactor damage type without x-2-0
- 31.0
| “ | Energizer upgrade offers nothing extra to the reactor sub aside from niche utility buffs, so we have increased the lategame cleanup potential by a large amount to help deal with Super Ceramics. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Energizer damage increased (3 → 5)
- Energizer now deals +5 bonus damage to ceramics
Sounds[]
When changing to Submerge target priority:
- [Sonar pulse]
When switching from Submerge to other priorities:
- [Wave sound]
Gallery[]
Official artwork[]
Trivia[]
- The description used to be "Hero earns XP 50% faster while in Energizer's radius. Cooldowns for abilities of water Monkeys in the radius are halved." but has changed due to the changes in Version 2.0.0.
- The XP boost only works for Heroes in the radius, as verified by Challenge Editor.
- When crosspathed with upgrades on the bottom path, two guns appear on the bottom of the Energizer.
- Since Pat Fusty can be placed on water or land, he can benefit from either 50% ability cooldown or 20% depending on where he is placed.
- Energizer was used to complete the first ever 2 Towers CHIMPS with The Anti-Bloon.
- The Version 2.0 buff was likely inspired by the High Energy Beacon from BTD5, which grants 20% decreased ability cooldowns for nearby towers, although the Energizer's buff in Version 2.0 affects on a global range.
- Before the version 10.0 nerf, this used to be very powerful with towers such as Grand Saboteur which has 50% uptime, as it could allow these towers to be active 100% of the time.
- In Version 23.0, there is a strange interaction where the pierce reworks for Bloontonium Reactor do not equate the same ratio when compared to Energizer, so somehow the Energizer only had an additive +20 pierce and +30 pierce on top for Energizer with Path 2 upgrades.
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