Pierce is the number of different bloons an attack can hit
”
~ Bloons Adventure Time TD, while loading screen message displayed
Icon for pierce in Bloons TD 6
Pierce is a commonly used description for the maximum number of bloons that can be affected by an individual element of attack. An element of an attack may be a dart, tack, bomb, frag or something else that is individual. Pierce could even be described as the remaining "health" of a projectile.
"Pierce" is obviously the language of pointy things. In contexts where a non-pointy attack is launched it is also common to talk in terms of blast, splatter, shoot, slice or shred but pierce has become the term in most general use.
The concept of arbitrary pierce is not limited to Bloons TD games, but it is a notable game mechanic influential for optimal defensive strategy in this tower defense sub-genre. For example, a Ninja Monkey's shuriken has 2 pierce by default, meaning it can hit up to two different bloons before the shuriken expires automatically. Some attacks may have exactly one pierce no matter what are marked as Impact. Some attacks may have strictly infinite pierce, and are marked as Infinite Pierce.
When referring to any spike-related attack, such as Spike Factories' spike piles, pierce is the "health" of the spikes before it gets used up. For attacks that are capable of dealing Contact Damage, some projectiles also gauge pierce as "health", but some such as Wall of Fire constantly refresh pierce every contact tick until the projectile expires.
Towers have varying amounts of pierce, and can sometimes have their pierce increased via upgrades (like Dart Monkey's Piercing Darts). Most projectiles pop bloons until their pierce maximum is reached, in which the projectile disappears immediately.
One exception to the above behavior is the Bomb Shooter/Cannon. Its bomb projectile creates blast upon its first contact with a bloon, expiring immediately and casing an explosion. The explosion affects the closest bloons in its blast radius until its pierce maximum is reached; any more bloons will be unaffected. Thus, area of effect attacks will affect random bloons after reaching their pierce limit. This includes the Ice Tower, which has a pierce limit of 50 before Bloons TD 4.
While not a tower itself, the Monkey Storm ability has infinite pierce, and is the only source of damage in the TD series before BTD5 to possess infinite pierce.
In addition, towers with multiple pierce can hit blimps multiple times, provided their pierce is not exhausted.
Bloons TD 4[]
Similar to early BTD games and has not changed much. Monkey Storm retains its infinite pierce. No other tower has gained an infinite pierce attack except for Arctic Wind's passive aura.
In addition, towers with multiple pierce can hit blimps multiple times in the flash version, provided their pierce is not exhausted. This does not apply to the Mobile version.
Bloons Super Monkey[]
There is one upgrade and one powerup in the game with completely infinite pierce. Super Bomb is a powerup that damages infinite bloons on screen, while Death Ray Vision is an upgrade that has infinite pierce. Heavy Missile and above also produce explosions with infinite pierce, although the rocket projectiles themselves only have one pierce for creating an explosion.
Bloons TD 5[]
Towers can now gain pierce buffs from tower abilities as well as certain buffs such as Monkey Village's Monkey Fort upgrade. The Sniper Monkey is the first tower can only have 1 pierce regardless of any pierce buffs.
Despite not having infinite pierce in the previous games, Ice Monkey's default AoE attack now has Infinite Pierce in every BTD5-gen game except for Bloons TD Battles Mobile since version 6.12.
Explosions still have infinite pierce due to the game being unable to calculate pierce on explosions. There are also some Epic Powers, such as Doom Gauntletss, that possess infinite pierce. There is also a new shield modifier for bloons that prevents weapons from piercing through it, with few exceptions.
In addition, homing projectiles with multiple pierce can hit single targets multiple times. Mostly notable with Neva Miss Targeting with all projectile-based weapons, but also applies to Tier 4 and above Rangs weapons on both Flash and Mobile due to their innate homing.
Exclusive to the BSM2 games, there is another mechanic internally called Energy, where certain attacks do not directly have damage or pierce, but instead use energy. Instead, each point of damage dealt to said bloon consumes one energy, and on the Mobile Version, each bloon it damages will consume one energy. When there is no more energy left, the attack is exhausted. It has bizarre interactions with Explosive Shots, which adds pierce, and results in projectiles with this mechanic occasionally piercing through bloons twice to deal one damage each time it pierces.
Bloons TD 6[]
Pierce is a noteworthy aspect in the game, and virtually all of the offensive towers in this game have at least one upgrade that increases pierce in some way shape or form.
For some of the towers' attacks, stronger bloons consume more pierce against their attacks (e.g. Bloon Master Alchemist versus MOAB-class bloons). Usually, bloon types that consume more pierce are heavier bloon types such as MOAB-Class Bloons.
Most Infinite Pierce towers have been changed to no longer have infinite Pierce (such as Ground Zero or Blade Maelstrom) through version updates. There are still a few infinite pierce towers though, such as Bomb Blitz's passive.
Some towers are unable to be buffed by external pierce buffs. In the in-game code, this is treated by the maxPierce variable, and further in-game code handles bonus pierce via internal crosspathing by simply raising both the ordinary pierce and the maximum pierce.
Bloons Adventure Time TD[]
TBA
Bloons Pop![]
In Bloons Pop!, pierce is mostly in regards to the maximum number of bounces an attack can make, including for monkeys who are thrown onto the screen. Boomerangs and bolts are among many exceptions, and these projectile types follow the typical pierce rules of any mainline BTD game.
Parallels and differences between Pierce and Popping Power[]
Along with a depth of Damage inflicted by an attack, with the number of elements in an attack (such as from a Tack Shooter or from Triple, Airburst or Monkey Ace Darts) and possibly with attack speed, Pierce is an important contributing factor to Popping Power. Indeed, in some situations, it is simply described as "Popping Power" as per the following quotes.
Super support of Monkey Fort while targeting is set to "first"
“
Increases the popping power of all nearby monkeys by 1.
”
~ BTD%M/BMCM description for the Monkey Village x/1, Monkey Fort upgrade
“
Grants a (2-20)% increase in popping power of every offensive tower and agent you deploy...
There is no strict "tier" of indicating the quantitative amount of pierce a certain attack possesses, because an attack can be considered "high pierce" or "low pierce" depending on the type of attack and how it performs in a practical game.
Assuming the attack is an ordinary projectile-based attack, the following is a table indicating a quantitative measure of how much pierce each projectile has.
Pierce Tiering
Low
1-5
Moderate
6-20
High
21-50
Extreme
51+
In-game quotes relating to pierce[]
Quotes indicating quantities of bloons that an element of an attack can pop[]
“
Can pop 1 extra bloon per shot.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dart Monkey x/1, Sharp Shots upgrade
“
Can pop 2 extra bloon per shot.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dart Monkey x/2, Sharp Shots upgrade
“
Catapult fires spiked balls that can pop 18 bloons.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dart Monkey 3/x upgrade
“
Hurls a giant spiked ball that excels at crushing ceramics
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dart Monkey 4/x Juggernaut upgrade
“
Shoots out big razer sharp blades.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Tack Shooter x/3, Blade Shooter upgrade
“
Converts tower into a blade shooter that shoots our razor sharp blades that are harder for the bloons to avoid.
”
~ BTD5 description for the Tack Shooter x/3, Blade Shooter upgrade
“
Ability: covers the area in a storm of blades.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Tack Shooter x/4 Blade Maelstrom Abiity upgrade
“
Blade Maelstrom Ability: covers the area in an unstoppable storm of blades.
”
~ BTD5 description for the Tack Shooter x/4, Blade Maelstrom Ability upgrade
“
Boomerangs can now pop 7 bloons each.
”
~ BTD5 description for the Boomerang Thrower Multi-Target upgrade
“
Glaives slice through up to 12 bloons at once!
”
~ BTD4 description for the Boomerang Thrower Glaive Thrower upgrade
“
Glaives now automatically bounce from bloon to bloon.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Boomerang Thrower 3/x, Glaive Ricochet upgrade
“
The glaives from this tower will automatically bounce from bloon to bloon as long as there is one close by.
”
~ BTD5 description for the Boomerang Thrower 3/x, Glaive Ricochet upgrade
“
Two permanent glaives orbit the tower.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Boomerang Thrower 4/x, Glaive Lord upgrade
“
Creates two permanent glaives that orbit round the tower, shredding almost anything that touches them. Glaive Lord can attack Camo Bloons.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Boomerang Thrower 4/x, Glaive Lord upgrade
“
Shurikens can pop 4 bloons each.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Ninja Monkey 2/x, Sharp Shurikens upgrade
“
Larger blast area and more popping power.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Boomb Shooter x/1 Bigger Bombs upgrade
“
More velocity and range, more damage, and faster firing.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Bomb Shooter x/2, Missile Launcher upgrade
“
Throws out secondary bombs instead of frags.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Bomb Shooter 3/x, Cluster Bomb upgrade
“
Splatters glue across 6 bloons as a time.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Glue Gunner x/2, Glue Splatter upgrade
“
Monkey Ace darts can pop 8 bloons each!
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Ace 2/x, Sharper Darts upgrade
“
Fast firing twin laser beams pop twice as much as before.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Super Monkey 1/x, Laser Blasts upgrade
“
Plasma vaporizes everything it touches.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Super Monkey 2/x, Plasma Blasts upgrade
“
It is said that bloons who doth touch the sun shall be cleansed, and there shall be peace.
”
~ BTD5 description for the Super Monkey 3/x, Sun God upgrade
“
Shoots larger and more powerful magical bolts.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Apprentice 1/x, Intense Magic upgrade
“
The Apprentice adds a powerful fireball attack to its arsenal.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Apprentice x/1, Fireball upgrade
“
Unleash the power of lightning to zap many bloons at once.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Apprentice 2/x, Lightning Bolt upgrade
“
... and adds a powerful energy beam attack
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Village 4/x, Energy Beacon
“
Darts move faster and can pop 3 bloons each.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Darlting Gun x/1, Powerful Shots upgrade
“
Rapid fire Plasma can pop 13 bloons each and also pops frozen bloons.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dartling Gun 3/x, Laser Cannon
“
Shoots vicious little missiles instead of darts.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dartling Gun x/3,
“
The Ray of Doom is a persistent solid beam of bloon destruction.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Dartling 4/x, Ray of Doom upgrade
“
Produces sharp spiked balls that do extra damage to ceramic bloons
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Spike Factory 3/x, Spiked Balls upgrade
“
Spiked balls explode when they loose all their spikes.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Spike Factory 4/x, Spiked Mines upgrade
“
Massive nails pop 8 bloons at once, including frozen bloons.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Engineer x/1, 9-inch nails upgrade
“
Makes the Submarine's darts pop up to 3 bloons each.
”
~ BTD5M/BMCM description for the Monkey Sub 1/x, Barbed Darts upgrade
Trivia[]
In the BTD5 generation, while Sniper Monkeys attacks single bloons, it inflicts damage on its affected target.
Note that in BTD6, Shrapnel Shot and further upgrades allow the Sniper Monkey to be able to affect multiple bloons at once.
. Some attacks may have strictly infinite pierce, and are marked as Infinite Pierce 
.
, some projectiles also gauge pierce as "health", but some such as Wall of Fire constantly refresh pierce every contact tick until the projectile expires.
