Mortar Monkey (BTDB2)/Strategies/General

Strategy Page

This article is a strategy page, where players may share their ideas on how to optimize the subject in question. Feel free to add new strategies on this page! However, make sure the content you add is clearly formatted, unambiguous, and informative.

Note for all contributors: If you're planning to add a new strategy section about your specific strategy, please make sure to add version numbers and dates to each new section, especially for the latest games.

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

The Mortar Monkey is an explosive global-ranged tower in Bloons TD Battles 2, shooting mortar shells at any fixed location on screen. It can be upgraded to fit a variety of supporting roles. It offers stun support, removal of many special properties, and other roles for supplementing a defense with ranged grouped popping power. Its damage role mostly shines in the mid-game against Round 11-16 rushes, alongside some later mid-game Round 19-25 rushes.

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

Base Tower[]

Cost: $700
Unlock: 500

The base Mortar regularly shoots mortar shells at any specified location on screen, creating explosions on impact. It is quite inaccurate and very slow, but has an incredible 40 pierce at base. To make the most of its explosive power, try targeting it on a location where bloons congregate a lot, such as the wide loop on Mayan. In this game, it has two targeting options: Set Target and Follow Touch (or Follow Mouse on desktop versions). Set Target locks the reticle in a specific position. Follow Touch allows the reticle to be moved to wherever the screen was last tapped (or the position of the mouse on desktop versions).

Upgrades[]

Bigger Blast[]

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

Bigger Blast increases the blast radius size of each explosion and slightly increases pierce. It improves the coverage of each individual blast and can let more bloons pop per blast.

Bloon Buster[]

Cost: $500
Path: 1
Tier: 2
Unlock: Default

Bloon Buster increases the damage of each explosion from 1 to 2. It can penetrate more layers, making each individual hit more deadly against higher-tier bloons, needing fewer hits to fully pop entirely.

Shell Shock[]

Cost: $950
Path: 1
Tier: 3
Unlock: Default

Shell Shock adds a secondary explosion that stuns bloons near the center of the main explosion and deals damage further out. Combined, it deals more overall damage per shot and also reduces progress of affected bloons. Burny Stuff with Shell Shock burns twice as quickly but half as long, which lets the damage-over-time come into effect sooner, in addition to 2 damage per tick instead of 1; this exchanges the potential for a faster rate of explosive stuns for potentially higher damage.

The Big One[]

Cost: $7,500
Path: 1
Tier: 4
Unlock: Default

The Big One creates huge explosions that deal 7 damage, pops many more bloons per shot, and further increases Burny Stuff damage. An expensive grouped bloon upgrade that specializes at high direct damage to ordinary bloons, and one that does not require other towers (aside from camo detection) to optimize that specialty.

The Biggest One[]

Cost: $28,000
Path: 1
Tier: 5
Unlock: 2500 (T5 unlocks)

The Biggest One creates enormous explosions that deal 25 damage, even more to Ceramics and MOAB-class, pops yet more bloons per shot, further increases Burny Stuff damage, and can briefly stun MOAB-class bloons. The regular stunning of MOAB-class bloons can allow it to be a cheaper version of Bloon Crush, albeit less reliable at the act of stunning and more of a mobile stunner.

Faster Reload[]

Cost: $300
Path: 2
Tier: 1
Unlock: Default

Faster Reload increases attack speed of the Mortar, enough to hit the same bloon a little more reliably.

Rapid Reload[]

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

Rapid Reload further increases attack speed of the Mortar, giving an optimal amount of attack speed for all crosspaths.

Heavy Shells[]

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

Heavy Shells allows the Mortar to pop Black Bloon properties by default, and gains extra damage to Ceramics, MOAB-class, Fortified, Lead, and stunned bloons. In practice, a Heavy Shells is mostly used for handling Round 6 Black rushes, dealing extra Ceramic damage, and synergizing with stuns (especially Shell Shock) to shut down mid-game rushes.

Artillery Battery[]

Cost: $8,000
Path: 2
Tier: 4
Unlock: Default

Artillery Battery attacks 4x faster than Heavy Shells, can pop any non-camo bloon type, and gains an ability to attack another 4x faster. It is an incredible source of general group-popping power, and on top of damage bonuses from Heavy Shells it becomes respectable MOAB-class damage. Artillery Battery can also specifically deal extra damage to BADs in this game, allowing it to have some use at popping BADs. Since its ability lacks an initial cooldown, a properly micromanaged act of buying and immediately using an Artillery Battery can quickly wipe out a dense rush.

Pop and Awe[]

Cost: $27,000
Path: 2
Tier: 5
Unlock: 2500 (T5 unlocks)

Pop and Awe changes the rapid speed ability with an ability that stuns all non-BAD bloons on screen, dealing a lot of damage throughout. Pop and Awe also receives significant specialized damage bonuses, including a global buff to all Artillery Batteries that let them deal even more damage to BADs. Its ability mostly used for the late-game for dealing with DDTs.

Increased Accuracy[]

Cost: $200
Path: 3
Tier: 1
Unlock: Default

Increased Accuracy reduces the deviation of the Mortar shells, increasing accuracy of each shot. It allows the Mortar to focus better at a single spot.

Burny Stuff[]

Cost: $600
Path: 3
Tier: 2
Unlock: Default

Burny Stuff causes all bloons damaged by blasts to become set on fire. It can be used to add some further popping power on bloons already hit. Note that takes some time for the burning damage to take into effect. Note that Burny Stuff does apply napalm on Black Bloons, making it a usable counter against Round 6 Spaced Blacks, yet still has some weakness to Black properties.

Signal Flare[]

Cost: $700
Path: 3
Tier: 3
Unlock: Default

Signal Flare allows the Mortar to detect camo and strip camo properties off any bloon including DDTs. The blast radius for the decamo is very generous, about 50% larger than the main explosion. Signal Flare can be a reliable camo countermeasure, provided it can hit the same spot quick enough.

Shattering Shells[]

Cost: $8,500
Path: 3
Tier: 4
Unlock: Default

Shattering Shells removes all Camo and Regrow, and Fortified properties up to BFB, in addition to a stronger burn that is fairly insignificant in most cases. In practice, its high cost mostly restricts its purpose to defortifying MOABs and BFBs, rendering Fortified blimp rushes much less threatening. Its explosions also strip Lead properties, making it viable as a partial counter to DDT properties.

Blooncineration[]

Cost: $40,000
Path: 3
Tier: 5
Unlock: 2500 (T5 unlocks)

Blooncineration hugely increases the damage of the napalm, especially versus MOAB-class bloons, creates super hot blazes at the location of impact, and can remove all Fortified properties from DDTs and ZOMGs. Altogether, it is a supporting unit that deals significant damage to all non-BAD bloons.

General Strategy[]

The Mortar Monkey is generally best used in combination with an existing defense. Although it has a very high base pierce, the Mortar is very inaccurate and slow at lower-tiers, making it a poor early-game option on most maps except those with tight corners, such as Bloon Bot Factory. Its general strength comes from its long-ranged high pierce explosions.

At lower-tiers, Burny Stuff provides a majority of its early-game strength, given the capability to chip bloons with burning damage-over-time. If consistency is required, attack speed benefits from Faster Reload and Rapid Reload will help hit the same spot more often. The top-crosspath upgrades Bigger Blast and Bloon Buster will provide better coverage and penetration from individual explosions.

At Tier 3, its explosive specialties begin to shine. Shell Shock further improves its overall damage and blasts, and stuns affected bloons, excelling at crowd control. Heavy Shells counters black properties directly and additionally increases its Ceramic damage and synergies with stuns. Signal Flare adds a camo countermeasure in the form of decamo, with a rather generous blast radius size and high pierce at stripping camo properties.

Tier 4 upgrades offer a variety of supporting damage and destruction to bloons. The Big One specializes at demolishing bloon rushes with its massive explosions. Artillery Battery attacks very quickly and has high specialized damage, allowing proper micromanagement to let the explosions quickly destroy rushes of various types. Shattering Shells offers defortification of MOABs and BFBs, lead-stripping, and neutralizes Regrow properties, all of which help assist a defense with weaknesses to these special properties.

Tier 5 upgrades bring the Mortar to its late-game bloon destruction, assisting mostly at the ZOMG and DDT level, but having some strength versus BADs. The Biggest One's massive stuns and damage to various bloon types allow it to dispatch densely packed rushes. Pop and Awe's stunning power and extra specialization bonuses including further BAD damage bonuses allow it to assist at stopping various rushes of bloons and blimps alike. Blooncineration's defortification of DDTs and ZOMGs alongside generalized high damage assist at dispatching more special properties and do some general cleanup.