Monkey Buccaneer (BTDB2)

Overview

BTD4

BTD5

BTD6

BTDB2

Monkey Buccaneer
General Information
Game	Bloons TD Battles 2 (v1.0)
Release Date	November 30th 2021 (11:00 AM UTC)
Class	Military Monkey
Unlocked at	500
Cost	$500
Activated Ability(s)	Monkey Pirates Pirate Lord
Targeting Options	First, Last, Close, Strong, Camo Prioritization with Crow's Nest
Hotkey	Depends on loadout (W, E, R)
Other Names	Buccaneer, Boat
Statistics
Damage	1
Pierce	4
Attack Speed	1.0s
Range	60
Status Effects	Requires upgrades
Tower Boosts	Requires upgrades
Income/Life Boosts	Requires upgrades
Camo Detection	Yes (x-x-2)
Footprint	Moderately Large (8)
Default Damage Type	Sharp
Related Towers
Monkey Buccaneer (BTD4), for the BTD4 counterpart Monkey Buccaneer (BTD5), for the BTD5 counterpart Monkey Buccaneer (BTD6), for the BTD6 counterpart

“	Shoots a single, heavy dart from both sides of the ship. Must be placed in water.	”
	~ In-game Description

Monkey Buccaneer is a Military-class tower in Bloons TD Battles 2.

A Monkey Buccaneer is a monkey within a wooden boat equipped with two cannons on each side that fire darts every second. The tower is a unique water-based tower that has an upgrade that proficiently provides cash, similar to a Banana Farm, but on water. It is one of the two non-hero towers that is able to instakill MOAB-Class Bloons in their entirety, with the other being Engineer Monkeys. It is also one of two non-hero water-based towers, the other being Monkey Subs.

The base price for Monkey Buccaneer is $500. It is unlocked by spending 500, unlocking all upgrades up to Tier 4, plus another 1,500 to unlock all its Tier 5 upgrades.

Description

The Buccaneer returns in BTDB2, functioning much the same as its previous incarnations. However, one key improvement is that the Buccaneer can now fire both cannons at once, allowing the tower to shoot in opposite directions and up to double its firepower.

This tower also gains special upgrades that allow it to fill more roles than just standard popping power, with Hot Shot functioning as early-game Lead Bloon popping power, and Merchantman and its further upgrades acting as aquatic-based Banana Farms.

Path 1 is based mainly off attack speed and many projectiles, ending with planes and space for land monkeys on top. The Double Shots shoots 2 darts for each cannon, Destroyer shoots about 4x quicker, and Aircraft Carrier sends mini aircraft planes that shoot shoot mini MOAB-seeking missiles that deal 8 damage to MOAB-class bloons, like a Fighter Plane but with way smaller damage. The final upgrade, Carrier Flagship, increases the tower's overall damage output, buffs all water towers and Monkey Aces on screen and adds two platforms up top where smaller land monkeys can be placed.

Path 2 is based mainly around taking on heavy and clustered bloons, with sharp or fiery grapes, cannons and finally harpoons. With Monkey Pirates (BTD6) or its upgrade, Pirate Lord, the Buccaneer can instakill MOAB-class bloons (With the exception of the BAD) with its MOAB Takedown Ability.

Path 3 is focused on money generation. It also includes the Crow's Nest upgrade for camo detection. The Merchantman and its above upgrades provide roundly income and extra popping power at the same time. Trade Empire drastically increases the amount of money a fleet of merchantmen can produce. Having up to 10 Central Markets (or 9 alongside a Monkey Wall Street) will increase their yields even more.

Target Priorities

Monkey Buccaneers use the four basic target priorities (First, Last, Close, Strong) to target at bloons. Because of its multiple targeting via attacking simultaneously in the opposite direction, it can also fire shots backwards if it detects bloons behind, within a narrow arc of its range.

The following are a list of target priorities a Buccaneer can use:

• 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.

Monkey Buccaneer's upgrades interact with target priorities in different ways:

• Aircraft Carrier and Carrier Flagship aircraft both fire frontal darts in the direction based on target priority.
• Aircraft Carrier and Carrier Flagship aircraft both target anti-MOAB missiles only at MOAB-class bloons, and locked on Close.
• Monkey Pirates and Pirate Lord abilities are locked on Strong and hook in the strongest possible targets that their hooks can take.
• Favored Trades' sellback potency buff targets all other towers within range.
• Trade Empire globally buffs all Merchantmen and Favored Trades on screen.

Upgrades

Path 1

	Faster Shooting COST: $350 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: All weapons on board shoot faster. Ability cooldowns are reduced. Effect: Attacks +33% faster (0.75x attack cooldown). Decreases Monkey Pirates ability cooldown from 30s to 20s.

	Double Shot COST: $550 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Double ship weapons fired. Effect: Doubles the numbers of darts and grapes per shot, from 1 to 2 and 5 to 10, respectively.

	Destroyer COST: $2,200 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Attacks super duper fast! Effect: Attacks 5x faster for dart attacks, and 3x faster for grapes.

	Aircraft Carrier COST: $6,400 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Launches waves of fighter planes that strafe their targets and fire missiles at MOAB class Bloons. Effect: Carrier planes continuously attack with fast front-shooting twin darts, radial darts, and anti-MOAB missiles.

Carrier Flagship COST: $25,000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (T5 Buccaneer Unlocks)

Description: Does extra damage. Can place other Monkeys on the upper decks of the ship and increases attack speed of all water based Monkeys and Monkey Aces. Effect: All its attacks can pop any bloon type and deal even more damage. Towers placed on its upper decks will partially ignore Line of Sight. Attack speed of all water-based towers, Monkey Aces, and Etienne's UCAV increased by +18% (0.85x attack cooldown).

Path 2

	Grape Shot COST: $550 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Adds a spray of 5 sharpened grapes to the ship. Effect: Regularly shoots 5 grapes alongside its dart attack. Grapes pop up to 1 bloon each. Can shoot from both sides.

	Hot Shot COST: $500 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Burning hot grape shot can pop Lead Bloons and set Bloons on fire. Effect: Converts grapes into hot grapes of fire, popping Frozen and Lead Bloons and applying napalm. Hot grapes cannot pop Purples.

	Cannon Ship COST: $900 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Adds a powerful cannon that shoots out powerful bombs. Effect: Shoots bombs with an explosion radius of 40, 28 pierce, and emits eight frags, similar to the 1-0-2 Bomb Shooter. Can shoot from both sides.

Monkey Pirates COST: $5,250 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer

Description: Adds 2 cannons to the ship and cannon attacks do more damage. MOAB Takedown Ability: harpoons a MOAB class Bloon and brings it down. Effect: Ability immediately pulls down the strongest blimp on screen other than ZOMGs or BADs, instantly destroying them. Ready for usage when bought and has a 30 second cooldown (20s with 1-4-0). Main attack shoots 3 bombs per shot and deal 2 damage each.

	Pirate Lord COST: $21,000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (T5 Buccaneer Unlocks)
	Description: Greatly increased attack speed for all attacks and can shoot 3 grappling hooks at once. Effect: Ability now shoots 3 grappling hooks at once, and can pull ZOMGs down with 2 hooks. 30 second cooldown (20s with 1-5-0). Darts and grapes are shot 2x faster, and grapes deal 5 damage with +5 damage to Ceramics.

Path 3

	Long Range COST: $300 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Much longer range and projectiles fly faster. Effect: Gains +11 range (60 to 71), darts gain +1 pierce (4 to 5), grapes gain +1 pierce (1 to 2), cannon explosions gain +7 pierce (28 to 35), and increases projectile speed of all projectiles by +25%.

	Crow's Nest COST: $400 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Allows the ship to hit, and deal extra damage to, Camo bloons. Effect: Gains camo detection. All attacks deal +2 damage to Camo bloons.

	Merchantman COST: $1,500 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Generates cash each round automatically. Effect: At the end of each round, generates $300.

	Favored Trades COST: $5,700 UNLOCK: Unlock Monkey Buccaneer
	Description: Attacks faster and generates lots of money per round. Monkeys in radius have increased sell value. Effect: 2x faster attack speed, generates $1200 at the end of each round, and increases sell value of nearby towers by 10%. Does not stack with other Favored Trades.

Trade Empire COST: $19,000 UNLOCK: 1,500 (T5 Buccaneer Unlocks)

Description: Generates more cash per round, increases cash earned by up to 20 other Merchantmen by the number of Merchantmen, and boosts all Merchantmen damage. Effect: Boosts income of up to 10 Merchantmen or Favored Trades by 10% for every Merchantman or Favored Trades on screen. All Buccaneers with at least the Merchantman upgrade gain +1 damage and another +1 damage to MOAB-class and Ceramic. Generates $3000 per round.

Strategy

Summary

The Monkey Buccaneer is a mid-cost moderate-pierce tower with the unique capability to shoot from both sides simultaneously, allowing it to be quite a versatile unit throughout all stages of the game. It comes with the benefit of an income-generating path in addition to cheap lead-popping and camo detection, as well as a unique buff that benefits attack speeds of all water towers and Monkey Aces.

Tips

• TBA

Further Strategies

• Strategies
  • General Strategy
  • Optimization Strategy
  • Countermeasures Strategy

Monkey Mastery

Monkey Mastery is unlocked once all of its upgrades are unlocked. Monkey Mastery gives customization which is purchased using XP and Monkey Money. Has a total of 9 customizations available.

Item	Type	Description	Cost	Notes
Captain's Hat	Placement Animation	It's how you know they're the boss.	600 75,000	Captain puts on their hat when placed.
Yarr!	Emote	Avast me hearties!	450 60,000	Pirate Monkey intimidatingly showing off the hook hand.
Bloon Pirates	Bloon Decal	Pop that pirate!	200 30,000	Bloons wear eyepatch.
Harpoon Darts	Weapon Skin	We hooked a big one!	300 40,000	Replaces darts with harpoons.
Pirate Peep	Avatar Icon	Pretty short for a captain.	300 40,000	Avatar of Buccaneer Monkey, with only upper half of their face visible.
Feathered Friend	Idle Animation	All self respecting sea-farer's have one.	450 60,000	Parrot appears and sits on captain's hand.
Named Monkey Buccaneers	Custom Names	Name your Monkey Buccaneers!	300 40,000	Default name is Brady.
Down with the Ship	Sell Animation	Good thing they can swim!	240 30,000	Ship sinks, and its captain emerges with a lifebuoy.
Doubloons Trail	Trail Effect	Flashing the cash.	450 60,000	Projectiles leave coin trail.

Version History

Balance Changes

In a similar fashion to its Battles 1 counterpart, the Buccaneer is considered to be one of the best towers in the entire game. It is especially popular on short maps, where it can be used as alt eco while easily dealing with MOAB-class bloons with middle path boat pulls (when other towers might not due to track length). Its bottom path also provides extra sellback when microing boat pulls. On longer maps, the Buccaneer is used less often, unless on maps when completing Trade Empire is possible, like Star and Docks. Furthermore, his middle path is used for its a good starting upgrades and can lead into a very micro-intensive game with its pirates. Lastly, its top path upgrades are rarely used except to deal with early MOABS, only being used when Debuffs are available. Popular Buccaneer loadouts include Boat-Tack-Mortar, Boat-Ninja-Alc, Boat-Ice-Village, and Boat-Ice-Super. In terms of Hero choice, any Hero can be used effectively due to every single one pairing up quite well with it. The most popular Buccaneer loadout, Boat-Alc-Spac, opts to use Quincy for extra cleanup early-game.

Initial release (compared to BTD6 Version 28.0)

• Merchantman generates more money per round ($200 → $300)
• Merchantman costs less ($2,300 → $2,000)
• Favored Trades costs more ($5,500 → $7,000)
• Favored Trades sellback bonus only stacks once
• Favored Trades generates more money per round ($500 → $1,000)
• Pirate Lord now has a cap of one ZOMG hook-in per round, even with sell-and-rebuying
• Trade Empire generates more money per round ($800 → $2,000)
• Trade Empire money generation increase per merchantman decreased (+$20 → +$15)
• Possibly more?

1.0.6

• Destroyer price reduced ($2,950 → $2,850)
• Pirate Lord initial ability cooldown removed (??? → none)
• Merchantman price reduced ($2,000 → $1,800)
• Favored Trades price reduced ($7,000 → $6,000)
• Trade Empire cash per round increased (+$2,000 → +$3,000)

1.1.0

• Carrier Flagship plane missile MOAB damage increased (30 → 50)

1.1.1

• Long Range now additionally gives darts and grapes a pierce bonus (+0 → +1)

1.2.0

• Merchantman price reduced ($1,800 → $1,600)
• Trade Empire price reduced ($23k → $19k)

1.3.0

• Favored Trades price reduced ($6,000 → $5,400)

1.7.0

• Crow's Nest gains the new Camo Prioritization option

1.8.1

• Monkey Pirates price increased ($4,500 → $5,000)

1.9

• x4x Monkey Pirates: $5,000 → $5,250

1.9.1

• xx1 Long Range: $180 → $300

1.10.0

• 4xx Aircraft Carrier: Missile damage 15 → 20 and damage type changed to Normal.
• 5xx Carrier Flagship: Missile damage 50 → 60

2.0

• 3xx Destroyer: Reduces the x1x Grapeshot attack cooldown by 60% → 66.7%

2.0.4

• 4xx Aircraft Carrier: $7,200 → $6,800
• 5xx Carrier Flagship: Mini-plane missile damage 60 → 80 and dart damage 2 → 3

2.1.2

• 4xx Aircraft Carrier: $6,800 → $6,400

“	Just a small price decrease to an upgrade that could do with a little buff.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

2.2

• 0-3-1 Cannon Ship: cannonball pierce 28 → 35
• 0-3-1 Cannon Ship: frags pierce 1 → 2

“	We’re bringing over some changes from BTD6 that felt reasonable for this game too, buffing the rarely-used Cannonship upgrade.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

3.1

• 0-3-1 Cannon Ship: frags pierce 2 → 1
• 1-3-0 Cannon Ship: now reduces cannon's attack cooldown by a 0.75x cooldown multiplier.

“	In hindsight, the previous change to 031 Buccaneers was a bit too much, as Cannon Ship was already a decent upgrade. We have kept the pierce increase that xx1 provides to the explosion but removed the pierce increase to the frags so that the xx1 buff isn’t quite as impactful. Furthermore, we have allowed 1xx to buff the attack cooldown of the cannons, as it makes sense for both crosspaths to have an effect.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

3.2

• Monkey Pirates: ability cooldown 50s → 30s

“	The x4x ability cooldown now matches the x5x ability cooldown. Monkey Pirates almost always gets sold after the ability is activated, so this felt like a harmless buff. However, the intention of this change is more so to deal with a bug that affects towers with differing tier 4 and 5 ability cooldown lengths, causing the tier 5 ability to have an initial cooldown if the tower was upgraded too quickly. This is still an issue for other tier 5s that we hope to fix in the future, but in the meantime, this balance change indirectly fixes the issue for Buccaneer by avoiding the bug.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.0

• Aircraft Carrier: Aircraft darts pierce 9 → 13
• Carrier Flagship: Aircraft darts pierce 14 → 18
• Aircraft Carrier: Aircraft darts deal 0 → +3 bonus damage to ceramics
• Carrier Flagship: Aircraft darts deal +3 → +6 bonus damage to ceramics
• Carrier Flagship: now also buffs Etienne’s UCAV with -15% attack rate

“	Top path Buccaneer does not see a lot of use and Buccaneer in general does not have a good answer to the new tight sends, so we’ve added some decent pierce and cleanup buffs to Aircraft Carrier and Carrier Flagship.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.1

• Destroyer: $2,850 → $2,700
• Aircraft Carrier: mini ace dart pierce 13 → 20 but MOAB-class bloons use up 2 pierce
• Carrier Flagship: mini ace dart pierce 18 → 72 but MOAB class bloons use up 4 pierce

“	We would like Aircraft Carrier and Carrier Flagship to be more effective in bloon cleanup, which we have done by increasing the pierce that the darts have against regular bloons but not against MOAB class bloons. For example, Carrier Flagship’s darts remain unchanged when hitting all MOAB class bloons, but they have the potential to hit 4x as many regular bloons now.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.2

• Merchantman: $1,600 → $1,500
• Favored Trades: $5,400 → $5,700
• Favored Trades: generates $1,000 → $1,200 per round

“	Monkey Buccaneer’s income generation is decent early on but it doesn’t quite compare to other alternatives, especially with water placement often being a major limitation. We have upped its income efficiency slightly to address this.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

4.3

• Faster Shooting: now decreases Monkey Pirates and Pirate Lord abilities cooldown from 30s to 20s
• Destroyer: $2,700 → $2,200
• Crow's Nest: now gives +2 damage to Camo bloons
• Trade Empire: income boost per Merchantman increased from +5% to +10%
• Trade Empire: maximum Merchantman buff cap 20 → 10
  • Maximum income boost remains at 100%
  • Can be considered a buff as it allows to snowball faster and lets Trade Empire function more effectively on maps with small water area

“	The top path buccaneer does not currently see a lot of use, either as a crosspath or as a main upgrade, so we want to add some buffs to make it a more appealing option. The xx5 Trade Empire’s limit of 20 Merchantmen came from BTD6 and is very difficult to reach in the smaller maps of Battles 2. We are therefore increasing the buff while lowering the cap to make it easier to get the full value of the upgrade in a smaller space.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

Bug Fixes and General Changes

1.0.2

• TBA

Gallery

Buccaneer and its corresponding upgrade HUD

Base Buccaneer

Official artwork

Tower portrait

Trivia

• Monkey Buccaneer is the largest in terms of aquatic footprints in this game.