Lead to Gold (BTDB2)

BTD6

BTDB2

“	Converts Lead bloons to GOLD! Special solvents do extra damage to Lead bloons, destroying them in one shot and generating cash.	”
	~ BTDB2 description

Lead to Gold is the 3rd upgrade on Path 3 of the Alchemist in Bloons TD Battles 2. It is similar to its BTD6 counterpart, giving $50 per popped Lead, but it now deals much more Lead damage and attacks much faster. It doesn't matter whether the Lead has already regrown or not, unlike in BTD6; a popped Lead nets $50. Lead damage is +18 instead of +9 from BTD6. It attacks every 1.08s. Pools of acid also detect Camo Bloons, including DDTs.

It costs $1000, and is unlocked with the purchase of Alchemist.

Strategy

Summary

Lead to Gold returns money by instakilling Leads and turning them into $50 per Lead. Lead to Gold's offensive power renders Lead rushes useless in this way, especially Tight Lead rushes without the Camo property. In the later rounds, it can serve as anti-DDT defense provided the Camo property is countered with external Camo detection or decamo.

Tips

• In this game, 0-2-3 is generally better than 1-0-3, as the offensive power is more desirable, though 1-0-3 is generally more useful for income generation due to the extra splash radius. 2-0-3 can help accumulate AMDs, but you'll need a very low-range tower like Tack so that there is less backfire.
• Lead to Gold has more purpose on Play With Fire due to the capability for any sent Leads to come on both players' sides, which can allow self-sending of Leads to deliberately generate lots of money.
• Following the version 1.7 buff, you can now use Lead to Gold as cheap DDT defense. It is recommended to get at least 6 of them and place them in a corner where they won’t attack bloons, as the bonus lead damage is also amplified on acid pools, which is what really does the majority of the damage.
• Version 3.2's buffs to Acid Pools to detect camo naturally means that Lead to Gold no longer requires decamo (e.g. Counter-Espionage) to let the pools hit DDTs, which is very helpful for decamoless loadouts like Boat-Alch-Spactory.
• Save some money on Round 13 to afford a Lead to Gold in preparation for Round 14's 6 Leads. In addition to earning $300 from that round, you will have some selling power like a Banana Farm and discourage Lead rushes, while also transitioning into Rubber to Gold to syphon out an opponent's eco sends.
  • Even with a Farm strategy, it may be wise to go for a R13 Lead to Gold instead of another Farm upgrade or extra eco bloons, especially if the opponent has a pure-eco strategy.

Version History

Initial release (compared to BTD6 during Version 28.0)

• [bug] Lead to Gold can still give money when it pops a regrowed Lead bloon, unlike in BTD6 Where it gives zero money

1.1.0

• Attack cooldown decreased (1.6s → 1.44s)

1.1.1

• Attack cooldown decreased (1.44s → 1.08s)

1.5.0

• No longer requires 2000 XP to unlock. Players who have unlocked this upgrade before the update will not receive a full refund.

1.7.0

• Lead to Gold bonus Lead damage increased (+9 → +18)

3.2

• Lead to Gold's acid pools now detects Camo Bloons

“	Acid Pool gets very little attention, so we thought that it’d be an interesting and logical addition to allow the pools to hit camo bloons passing over them. [...]	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

Gallery

Accumulating enough money from Lead to Gold farming to purchase a Round 13 Temple

Trivia

• At one point before Lead to Gold’s damage got buffed, it could not one-shot the increased health of Fortified Leads, which at an update received increased health.