Monkey Buccaneer (BTDB2)/Strategies/General

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

Monkey Buccaneer

The Monkey Buccaneer is a water-based tower in Bloons TD Battles 2. Monkey Buccaneer's various upgrades and respectable early-to-mid-game make it quite strong for both offense and support. The main advantage of Buccaneer is its flanking attacks, which allows it to shoot from both sides simultaneously. Much of its upgrades are moderately priced for their value.

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

Base Tower

• Cost: $500
• Unlock: 500

Base Monkey Buccaneer shoots heavy darts that pop up to 4 bloons. Monkey Buccaneer can also shoot backwards simultaneously if there are bloons directly behind at the time of the forward shot. Monkey Buccaneer can only be placed on water.

Upgrades

Faster Shooting

• Cost: $350
• Path: 1
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Faster Shooting increases attack speed of all Buccaneer attacks by +33%. This increases its DPS by a fair amount.

Double Shot

• Cost: $550
• Path: 1
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Double Shot doubles the number of darts and grapes per shot. In essence, this doubled number of projectiles can result in doubling the amount of potential damage that each shot can inflict, particularly noticeable with Grape Shot.

Destroyer

• Cost: $2,850
• Path: 1
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Destroyer shoots much faster than a normal Buccaneer, including its grapes when crosspathed with Path 2. Its main use is for inflicting high single-target DPS, especially against MOABs.

Aircraft Carrier

• Cost: $7,200
• Path: 1
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Aircraft Carrier adds multiple aircraft that fly anywhere on screen, producing lots of projectiles for widespread damage across any range. Each plane shoots frontal darts, circular sprays of darts, and anti-MOAB missiles that only target MOAB-class bloons. The darts help clear out a lot of the bloons on screen, while the anti-MOAB missiles deal substantial chunks of damage to MOAB-class bloons.

Carrier Flagship

• Cost: $25,000
• Path: 1
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1,000 (?) (T5 unlocks)

Carrier Flagship is a much stronger Aircraft Carrier that deals much more damage, pops any bloon type it can detect, increases attack speed of all water towers on screen, and gains two landing bases that other towers can be placed on. Landing bases are tall, and hence can allow partial evasion of Line of Sight.

Grape Shot

• Cost: $550
• Path: 2
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Grape Shot lets the Buccaneer shoot sprays of grapes alongside darts. Grapes are shot in groups of 5 in an angular spray, which can deal some serious damage against both grouped and spaced bloons. Grapes individually are weak but are most powerful when affecting the same target.

Hot Shot

• Cost: $500
• Path: 2
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Hot Shot produces balls of flames that ignite bloons, burning them slowly and popping Frozen and Lead. The napalm helps chip down bloon health down even while bloons are not directly attacked, while the Frozen and Lead popping help synergize with Ice Monkeys and deal with Lead Bloons.

Cannon Ship

• Cost: $900
• Path: 2
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Cannon Ship gives a large amount of grouped popping for the Buccaneer by shooting bombs alongside darts and grapes. The bombs do produce fragments, which noticeably shows value against spaced rushes such as Spaced Whites. Combined with darts and flame balls, the Cannon Ship excels in the early-game.

Monkey Pirates

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

Monkey Pirates gains much stronger triple cannons that deal more damage, and also gains an ability to hook down a MOAB, BFB, or DDT. It has uses in the 10's rounds for reducing the threat of stronger grouped bloons, as well as in early blimp rounds to get rid of spaced MOABs and BFBs. However, it takes a huge investment to sell-and-rebuy a Monkey Pirates just to use its ability, and it takes some skill to micro the ability for hooking multiple MOAB-class bloons down in quick succession.

Pirate Lord

• Cost: $21,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1,000 (?) (T5 unlocks)

Pirate Lord can hook up to 3 MOAB-class bloons at once and can use 2 hooks to pull a ZOMG. It is easier to micromanage a Pirate Lord, since it hooks more blimps per ability use, but it costs a lot of money to do a lot of hooking action. However, it is quite cheap for its cost at instantly reducing the threat of ZOMGs. The main attacks from the Pirate Lord are quite weak, however, making most of its value come from its abilities.

Long Range

• Cost: $180
• Path: 3
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Long Range increases range, projectile speed, and pierce of all darts and grapes. The range increase is rather minor, but the pierce increase is hugely beneficial for surviving early rounds with Grape Shot for a low cost.

Crow's Nest

• Cost: $400
• Path: 3
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Crow's Nest allows the Buccaneer to detect Camo Bloons. It is usually best used in conjunction with Cannon Ship and Monkey Pirates for their high raw grouped popping power.

Merchantman

• Cost: $1,600
• Path: 3
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Merchantman gives $300 at the end of each round. It is not a very strong income generation compared to other methods of alt-eco, especially compared to Farms, but has the benefit of being a water tower that also attack the bloons too. Merchantman doubles up as defense and income, in addition to extra benefits from other Buccaneer upgrades.

Favored Trades

• Cost: $5,400
• Path: 3
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Favored Trades increases its end-of-round income from $300 to $1000, and grants 10% extra sellback for all nearby towers. The biggest perk is its extra sellback, which can be used for multiple different activities involving selling, gaining more money to use for any purpose, usually sending rushes and for defense.

Trade Empire

• Cost: $23,000
• Path: 3
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1,000 (?) (T5 unlocks)

Trade Empire gives $3000 at the end of each round and increases income of all Merchantmen and Favored Trades by +5% per Merchantman or Favored Trades, up to +100% with 20 stacks. Not only that, but it also gives all Upper Path 3 Buccaneers with bonus damage to all bloons.

General Strategy

All towers including Monkey Buccaneer 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 Buccaneer upgrades.