Monkey Pirates (BTDB2)

BTDB2

“	Adds 2 cannons to the ship and cannon attacks do more damage. MOAB Takedown Ability: harpoons a MOAB class Bloon and brings it down.	”
	^{~ BTDB2 description}

Pirate spray 3 bomb — Monkey Pirates shooting sprays of 3 bombs

Monkey Pirates is the 4th upgrade of the Monkey Buccaneer in Bloons TD Battles 2. It is similar to its BTD6 counterpart but has no initial cooldown, and statistics matches the pre-31.0 variant. The cost of the Monkey Pirates upgrade in this game is slightly higher to account for its powerful hook ability.

It gains the MOAB Takedown ability, which allows it to instakill the strongest MOAB-class bloon on-screen, up to a BFB or DDT, with a single hook. Cooldown for the Monkey Pirates ability is 30 seconds. The hooks naturally can hook DDTs even without gaining camo detection via Crow's Nest or external methods.

Only its cannon attack is improved for offense, tripling the number of bombs split between 75° lateral angles and increasing bomb explosion damage to 2. Burning grapes only deal 1 damage and deal 1 burn DoT damage per 1.5s for 3.0s, the 8 fragments per explosion can burst onto the same target, and the Monkey Pirates still can shoot darts. These sprays of three bombs are shot every 1.3s (0.975s with 1-4-0) in both directions simultaneously. Explosions from cannon bombs gain +7 pierce with 0-4-1, up from 28 to 35, but no extra pierce for the 1-pierce fragments.

It costs $5,250, and is unlocked with the purchase of Monkey Buccaneer.

Strategy[]

Summary[]

Packs considerably high grouped popping, plus comes with a hooking ability for hooking down BFBs and DDTs in particular. It's perfect micro against out BFB rushes or insides of a ZOMG in particular. The grouped damage pairs well with Alch buffs and can be used to survive the mid-game effectively. The hook ability can be used to dispatch minor blimp threats at ease for a relatively low cost. The Monkey Pirates ability can be bought and resold for more uses of the ability at a fast rate, although this form of instakilling is costly to pull off, even more than in Battles 1 Mobile.

Tips[]

Except if purely used for the ability, which is not affected by crosspathing, crosspath a Monkey Pirates as if it were a normal Cannon Ship. 2-4-0 for more DPS and 0-4-2 for reliable camo popping. Crosspaths are very helpful, especially given its stronger bomb attacks.
As of version 1.9.1, the total cost of a Monkey pirates is $7700. Using a monkey pirates ability and selling it loses you $2310, which is not very useful for normal BFB rushes. Placing a Favored Trades near it loses you $1540, making it efficient against BFB rushes. BFBs cost $1600 to send, so you'll be only +$360 ahead of the offender.
0-4-2 Monkey Pirates alone is insufficient against large waves of Regrow Rainbows, but adding an Alch buff should help.
It is helpful to put Monkey Pirates nearby a Favored Trades so selling and rebuying the Monkey Pirates has a reduced loss, thanks to the extra sellback of Favored Trades.
Monkey Pirates' ability can survive against one MOAB or the Monkey Pirates can be combined with additional defense to survive against multiple MOABs and only needing the hook ability for a single MOAB such as a Fortified MOAB.
If using Monkey Pirates as a mid-game excel, pair with Berserker Brew to ensure it won't be so overrun by layered R13-15 rushes.
The only instances where purely Monkey Pirates pulling BFBs is a bad idea is against a massive R22 rush, especially if it combines with a ZOMG.

Version History[]

Initial release (compared to BTD6 during Version 28.0)

Monkey Pirates ability now has no initial cooldown instead of 16.67s.
All attacks from Monkey Pirates are shot simultaneously instead of whenever it detects bloons from either side.

1.5.0

No longer requires 13,000 XP to unlock. Players who have unlocked this upgrade before the update will not receive a full refund.

1.8.1

Monkey Pirates cost increased ($4500 → $5000)

1.9.1 (?)

Monkey Pirates cost increased ($5000 → $5250)

???

Monkey Pirates' bombs now gain +7 bomb pierce and +1 fragment pierce with 0-4-1 crosspath

???

Monkey Pirates' bombs are affected by 1-4-0 crosspath
Monkey Pirates' bombs no longer gain +1 fragment pierce with 0-4-1 crosspath

3.2

Monkey Pirates ability cooldown reduced (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}

Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Trivia[]

Compared to when first released, Monkey Pirates costed $750 less.
In Battles 1 Mobile, the respective Monkey Pirates upgrade also had price nerfs to account for the efficiency of instakilling BFBs.