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BTD6

Greatly improved power and can shoot 3 grappling hooks at once, plundering extra cash from each MOAB-class Bloon taken down.
~ In-game description

Pirate Lord is the fifth upgrade of Path 2 for the Monkey Buccaneer in Bloons TD 6. It grants an improved MOAB Takedown Ability that allows the Buccaneer to pull down up to 3 MOAB-Class Bloons, including ZOMGs (although 2 hooks are required), but not BADs or bosses. MOAB Takedown is able to hook in Rock Bloons, unless they are immune to military. The player receives +100% cash for each blimp pulled in.

The Pirate Lord's ability has no initial cooldown, allowing it to be used immediately upon upgrading (provided that its previous upgrade's ability is not on cooldown after use). Cooldown for this ability upon activation is reduced from 50 seconds to 30 seconds.

Besides an improved ability, all base attacks (darts, grapes and bombs) attack 2 times as fast, and both grapes and bombs gain significant damage bonuses. Grapes deal 8 damage and +8 versus Ceramics, burn damage increases from 1 to 9 per tick, bombs now deals 3 damage plus another +5 versus MOAB-Class Bloons, and bomb fragment damage increases from 1 to 6 and +4 damage to MOAB-Class Bloons.

This upgrade costs $22,100 on Easy, $26,000 on Medium, $28,080 on Hard, and $31,200 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

Placeholder other

Pirate Lord

The pirate ship is upgraded to more ghostly green and dark purple theming, with torn green sails. The portrait shows three prominent green hook launchers, while in-game the ship appears with three hook launchers on each side. The pirate captain adds feathers to its cap, has a darker beard, and wears a fancy red coat.

Attacks are much stronger compared to the Monkey Pirates upgrade. All attacks are twice as fast, and grapes and bombs deal much more damage. Ability now can hook in 3 MOABs, BFBs, Rock Bloons, or visible DDTs at once (ZOMG uses 2 hooks, leaving one hook for one MOAB, BFB or DDT) with a shorter ability cooldown.

Targeting Priorities[]

Pirate Lord targets bloons using the standard target priorities. It has multiple types of attacks that are shot in different styles. It can also utilize multiple targeting to shoot projectiles from both ends of the boat if it detects bloons on its opposite side.

  • 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.

Darts are shot in a straight movement, grapes are straightforwardly projectiles shot in an angular spray, and bombs are also straightforwardly projectiles shot in an angular spray. Harpoons from its ability are locked on Strong and only targets MOAB-class bloons up to ZOMG and DDT.

When given the Crow's Nest upgrade, all its attacks can prioritize Camo Bloons over other types, which is provided by the Camo Prioritization targeting.

Activated Abilities[]

See also: Activated Abilities (BTD6)#Pirate Lord
PirateLordUpgradeIcon

Pirate Lord Ability

Pirate Lord Ability is the Activated Ability for the Pirate Lord upgrade and is an upgraded version of MOAB Takedown. The ship takes hold of up to three of the strongest MOAB-Class Bloon on the screen with harpoons and destroys them completely. Most blimps require one hook to pull in, but ZOMGs require two hooks. BADs and bosses are fully immune to this ability. Visible DDTs are always prioritized over ZOMGs. Can also hook non-Military Rock Bloons, albeit one per hook (up to 3 hooks for 3 separate Rock Bloons) and give no cash.

The player is rewarded +100% income. Adding Monkey Town adds +50% (+60% with "Inland Revenue Streams" MK) more income, and Monkey City increases it by an extra +15%. A blimp affected by Rubber to Gold adds another +200% income.

This table shows the income earned for different blimps, considering only the Pirate Lord's +100% cash bonus was applied.

Bloon Pirate Lord Income
Rounds
1-50
Rounds
51-60
Rounds
61-85
Rounds
86-100
Rounds

101-120

BTD63DMOAB M.O.A.B. BTD63DDDT D.D.T. 762 381 152.4 76.2 38.1
BTD63DBFB B.F.B. 3,050 1,525 610 305 152.5
BTD63DZOMG Z.O.M.G. 12,202 6,101 2,440.4 1,220.2 660.1

Pirate Lord ability is considered an instant ability; if the ability is pre-emptively reset, then the ability can be activated again immediately. It also has a cooldown of 30 seconds, with no initial cooldown due to how initial cooldowns work with abilities that decrease cooldowns.

The cooldowns of the Pirate Lord ability can accept cooldown reduction buffs from a nearby Bloontonium Reactor, as well as both the local and global Energizer buffs. It can also accept the cooldown reset of Geraldo's Rejuv Potion. It also accepts cooldown reduction bonuses from Monkey Knowledge and Relic Knowledge.

Full Popology[]

Statistics[]

Updated as of Version 41.2
Base stats
  • Dart:
    • Projectile, sharp type, 60 range, 0.5s attack cooldown, 1 damage, 4 pierce. Can shoot a second copy of Dart at 180° from first Dart if bloons are detected behind.
  • Grape:
    • Projectile, fire type, 60 range, 0.65s attack cooldown, spray of 5 in a 100° spread with equal distribution, 8 damage, +8 Ceramic damage, 1 pierce. Can shoot a second copy of Grape at 180° from first Grape if bloons are detected behind. Upon hit, apply Burn that deals 9 damage per 1.5s for 3.0s, and cannot burn Purples.
  • Cannonball:
    • Projectile, explosion type, 60 range, 0.65s attack cooldown, spray of 3 in a 75° spread with equal distribution 40 blast radius, 3 damage, +5 MOAB-class damage, 28 pierce. Can shoot a second copy of Cannonball at 180° from first Cannonball if bloons are detected behind. Upon hit, create Frags.
  • Frags:
    • Shrapnel, sharp type, spray of 8 in a 360° spread with equal distribution, 6 unbuffable damage, +4 MOAB-class damage, 1 pierce.
Ability stats
  • MOAB Takedown:
    • Instant ability, 30 seconds cooldown, 0 seconds initial cooldown.
    • Triggers Hook.
  • Hook:
    • Lock-on behavior, normal type, camo detection, infinite range, infinite blimp-penetrating damage, 3 impacts, can only target MOABs, BFBs, ZOMGs, and visible DDTs. Uses two hooks for ZOMGs. Gives +100% cash per pop.
Crosspathing interactions
  • 1-5-0: Dart attack cooldown reduced from 0.5s to 0.375s, Grape attack cooldown reduced from 0.65s to 0.4875s, Cannonball attack cooldown reduced from 0.65s to 0.4875s.
  • 2-5-0: Dart quantity changed from 1 to 2, and shot in a straight spray. Grape quantity increased from 5 to 6, total spread unchanged at 100° but spread per projectile changed from 20° to 16.67°.
  • 0-5-1: Dart pierce increased from 4 to 6, Grape pierce increased from 1 to 2, Cannonball pierce increased from 28 to 35, Frags pierce increased from 1 to 2.
  • 0-5-2: All new attacks gain camo detection.
Monkey Knowledge interactions
  • NavalUpgradesIcon Naval Upgrades: All Monkey Buccaneers get +1 pierce.
  • EliteMilitaryTrainingIcon Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
  • BigBunchIcon Big Bunch: Grape Shot shoots 6 grapes instead of 5.
  • FasterTakedownsIcon Faster Takedowns: MOAB Takedown Ability has 5 second faster cooldown.
  • FlankingManeuversIcon Flanking Maneuvers: Attacks 10% faster when set targeting priority to "Last".
  • MilitaryConscriptionIcon Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
    • Monkey Buccaneer base cost from $425, $500, $540, and $600 → $285, $335, $360, and $400 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
  • AdvancedLogisticsIcon Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
    • Monkey Buccaneer base cost reduced from $425, $500, $540, and $600 → $405, $475, $515, and $570 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
      • If Military Conscription is also enabled, the base cost will be $265, $310, $335, and $370.
  • MonkeyEducationIcon Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
  • BetterSellDealsIcon Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more. Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
  • VeteranMonkeyTrainingIcon Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.

Attack Interactions[]

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Military
Updated as of Version 40.2

Costs[]

Updated as of Version 41.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.
[Module | Data] Purchase Sell
Costs Easy Medium Hard Impoppable Easy Medium Hard Impoppable
Upgrade (X-5-X) $22,100 $26,000 $28,080 $31,200 -
Total (0-5-0) $28,345 $33,350 $36,015 $40,020 $19,842 $23,345 $25,211 $28,014
Crosspath (1-5-0) $28,580 $33,625 $36,310 $40,350 $20,006 $23,538 $25,417 $28,245
Crosspath (2-5-0) $28,940 $34,050 $36,770 $40,860 $20,258 $23,835 $25,739 $28,602
Crosspath (0-5-1) $28,515 $33,550 $36,230 $40,260 $19,961 $23,485 $25,361 $28,182
Crosspath (0-5-2) $28,810 $33,900 $36,610 $40,680 $20,167 $23,730 $25,627 $28,476

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: MilitaryConscriptionIcon Military Conscription, AdvancedLogisticsIcon Advanced Logistics, BetterSellDealsIcon Better Sell Deals

Strategy[]

Summary[]

Pirate Lord's lack of an initial cooldown allows its ability to be repeatedly sold and bought back to instantly take down many ZOMGs and groups of weaker blimps. But as a lone tower, it is actually very strong for its relatively low cost at both general damage and insta-kills, the aforementioned hook ability having a moderate ability cooldown. Its high synergetic potential allows it to be paired with other towers for maximum effect, patching out certain weaknesses to high-health targets and weaker targets. The upside to the Pirate Lord ability is that any blimps taken down with it gain +100% income in income-enabled game modes, although the Pirate Lord's attacks can sometimes become too powerful, destroying blimps before they can be taken down with its ability.

Tips[]

  • If primarily used for its main attacks, it is better off going for 2-5-0 Pirate Lord rather than 0-5-2 Pirate Lord, because it can shoot its highly damaging three-bomb sprays much faster. With the Version 22.0 and v33.0 buffs, crosspathing is more significant for giving Pirate Lord with DPS outside of instakills. But, if optimizing instakills, 0-5-0 is better, so as not to kill the blimps too quickly before the ability can become ready again.
    • Note that grapes receive +1 pierce with 0-5-1, so the choice for 0-5-2 may actually be worth a try.
  • Admiral Brickell is a strong hero option to pair with Pirate Lord, as this synergy minimizes the low pierce of Pirate Lord, taking advantage of its high DPS potential, as well as dealing with Super Ceramics in the late-game.
  • Pirate Lord gives surprising amounts of money from the hooks, but generally this is still an unreliable source of income.
  • Alchemist's Rubber to Gold upgrade will increase the cash earned by an affected blimp by +200% (with the +100% natural bonus, blimps will give +300% income)
  • Place the Pirate Lord in range of a Bloontonium Reactor to decrease its ability cooldown by 15%. (50% with Energizer) This will optimize its ability cooldown and make the most of its hooking potential.
  • While Crow's Nest gives the main attacks the ability to pop all bloons, Faster Shooting and Double Shot are still useful to increase the overall power of the Pirate Lord.
  • Rock Bloons are able to be hooked in by the Pirate Lord, so if desperate, the player can sell and rebuy Pirate Lord to constantly hook in rock bloons. This will only work if the rock bloons do not have military immunity.
  • Pirate Lord with Overclock can be an effective option for Elite Tier 1 Bloonarius on weeks where debuffs and Overdrives are banned, and only when it is possible to place a buccaneer at the entrance. This is because not only does the Pirate Lord destroy the boss itself, but it also handles the ceramic swarms sent by Bloonarius.

Version History[]

Balance Changes[]

Mostly received damage buffs overall, although in a very early Version 1.7 buff it now correctly hooks in 3 blimps as the description states. It hadn't received a significant benefit to its main attacks until Version 33.0, when it got a massive overhaul to all its grape and bomb attacks, massively improving its DPS potential and subsequently displacing Permabrewed Destroyers + Brickell as the most popular Brickell late-game strategy. Inevitably, because of its popular position on game modes such as CHIMPS, its price was nerfed the next update due to overperforming in the mid-game, and its damage further nerfed in Version 36.0. While not directly nerfed, the popular 2-5-0 crosspath was nerfed in Version 37.0 by reducing numbers of the Pirate Lord’s powerful grapes provided by Double Shot. Version 41.0 gave a hefty nerf for Pirate Lord, increasing its weaknesses to single-target by changing fragments to no longer hit the parent bloon, plus low enough damage for grapes to no longer one-shot normal Ceramics.

1.7
  • BUFF Pirate Lord now has more hooks per ability (2 → 3).
3.0
  • Change Cash popup from activating MOAB Takedown abilities of Monkey Pirates and Pirate Lord is displayed above the tower.
15.0
  • BUFF Bomb attack damage increased from 1 to 2.
17.0
  • BUFF Pirate Lord now shoots 3 bombs per shot instead of 1.
  • BUFF Affected by 2-1-0 Grape Shot double grapes buff
22.0
  • BUFF Pirate Lord grapes now deal more damage (1 → 5)
  • BUFF Pirate Lord grapes now deal +5 Ceramic damage on top of the new damage buff
23.1 (?)
  • Change [Undocumented] Pirate Lord now always targets DDTs over ZOMGs, rather than always reserving 2 hooks for any ZOMG on screen and using 1 hook for one other "small" blimp
25.0
  • BUFF [Undocumented] Pirate Lord now will prioritize Fortified over non-Fortified when deciding which blimps to pull down. Still retains the DDT-ZOMG-BFB-MOAB algorithm.
  • Change [Undocumented] Pirate Lord when targeting blimps of the same rank will now targets blimps that are the most first rather than the most damaged.
33.0
Monkey Pirates is great for the first couple MOABs but with the long ability cooldown it very quickly falls off after that point, we have pushed it and Pirate Lord’s base stats up to feel more competitive especially with possible Brickell synergy. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Pirate Lord grapes now deal more damage (5 → 10)
  • BUFF Pirate Lord grapes now deal more damage to Ceramic (5 → 10)
  • BUFF Pirate Lord burn DoT damage increased (1 → 9)
  • BUFF Bomb attack damage increased (2 → 5)
  • BUFF Pirate Lord Bomb now deal +10 MOAB-Class damage on top of the new damage buff
  • BUFF Pirate Lord frags damage increased (1 → 10)
  • BUFF Pirate Lord frags now deal +5 MOAB-Class damage on top of the new damage buff
34.0
[...] Recent changes were very popular for Pirate Lord, so now it no longer feels like it needs to be such a cheap T5. While this isn’t enough of a change to curb its newfound power too much the price will be increasing [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Pirate Lord price increased $21,000 → $26,000
  • [Bug] Pirate Lord hook ability will crash the game when a Rock Bloon is on screen. Does not affect Navarch of the Seas.
35.0
  • BUFF [Bug Fix]: Pirate Lord hook ability no longer crashes the game when a rock bloon is on screen, and can now hook in rock bloons.
    • [Note]: This does not work if the rock bloon has military immunity.
36.0
We wanted to do a little general lower tier balancing of costs, as things work a bit better at higher tiers but on the lower end with T1-2 upgrades cost for power doesn’t compare well. We’ve realized that the 130 crosspath just hasn’t even been working for cannons, so we wanted to correct this so that people get all that they pay for with that crosspath, however middle path buccaneer at higher tiers has been overperforming significantly so in addition to this attack speed buff we have also balanced back out that difference in the opposite direction with a damage reduction.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Pirate Lord cannon-ball damage decreased 5 → 3
  • NERF Pirate Lord cannon-ball MOAB bonus decreased +10 → +6
  • NERF Pirate Lord cannon frags damage decreased 10 → 6
  • NERF Pirate Lord cannon frags MOAB bonus decreased +5 → +4
  • BUFF 1-5-0 Pirate Lord now increases attack speed of cannon bombs
  • BUFF [undocumented] Pirate Lord's bombs gain a further double attack speed, matching the doubled speed of grapes and darts.
37.0
  • NERF Affected by 2-1-0 grape quantity nerf
38.0
Small tweaks to Buccaneer’s Long Range upgrade to improve its additional pierce benefit for a number of attacks.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF 0-5-1 Pirate Lord now gains +7 pierce to bombs (28 → 35) and +1 pierce to fragments (1 → 2)
41.0
[...] As noted earlier, Middle Path was identified as not having weakness to justify the power and is seeing changes related to that.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Pirate Lord's frags attack interaction changed from Burst to Shrapnel (i.e. frags spawned from the cannon bombs no longer targets the parent bloon)
  • NERF Pirate Lord's MOAB Takedown ability no longer has innate camo detection, now requiring the 0-5-2 crosspath for the MOAB Takedown ability to see Camo innately.
  • NERF Pirate Lord grapes damage reduced from 10 to 8
  • NERF Pirate Lord grapes bonus damage to Ceramic reduced from +10 to +8
  • NERF Pirate Lord bombs bonus damage to MOAB-class reduced from +6 to +5

Bug Fixes and General Changes[]

24.0
  • Change Description changed from "Can shoot 3 grappling hooks at once, and plunder extra cash from each MOAB-Class Bloon brought down with them." to "Greatly increased attack speed for all attacks and can shoot 3 grappling hooks at once, plundering extra cash from each MOAB-class Bloon taken down."

Extra Notes (Version History)[]

  • Starting from around Version 23.1 or so, the Pirate Lord ability now always prioritizes DDTs over ZOMGs first. The game had "fixed some issues with Buccaneer MOAB Takedown hooks" according to the Version 23.1 patch notes; this likely was an indicator for the modified hook algorithms.
  • Version 25.0 changed the target priority of fortified over non-fortified; this likely affected Pirate Lord too.
  • It is not quite known how the Pirate Lord algorithm has changed exactly in history, but the Pirate Lord tested in Version 26.0 appears to now always target the first of the same rank. Priority tree currently operates as follows: blimp type (DDT, ZOMG, BFB, MOAB), fortification (yes or no), and order of appearance (always first).
  • The bomb attack from Pirate Lord was never actually upgraded in speed compared to Monkey Pirates until Version 36.0, which doubled the bomb attack of Pirate Lord.

Sounds[]

When activating Pirate Lord Ability:

Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Assets[]

Videos[]

Trivia[]

  • There used to be a bug where the Pirate Lord always pulled down 2 M.O.A.B. Class Bloons. This was fixed on Version 1.7.
  • The increased attack speed seems random, but it might be a reference to Battleship from BTD4 while giving more incentive to upgrade the tower besides a better ability.
  • After Version 8.0, when all farming-only abilities (including Tier 5 upgrades in this case) are required to undergo a full initial cooldown duration, the Pirate Lord ability is one of four abilities that, when bought, has the cooldown up immediately. The others are Total Transformation, MOAB Eliminator, and Absolute Zero.
  • In Version 17.0, the three-bomb buff now matches the actual tower graphics and the official artwork of the Monkey Pirates, which always had three rows of cannons per side.
  • Even though Version 19.0 added a separate money counter for almost all towers, it has not been yet implemented for Lead to Gold, Rubber to Gold, Monkey Town (and by extent Monkey City), Pirate Lord, Support Chinook (and by extent Special Poperations), and Jungle's Bounty. It has yet to be fully implemented for Spirit of the Forest (ability only), and Sun Temple and True Sun God / Vengeful True Sun God with Support sacrifices.
  • According to Ninja Kiwi's 21st January 2021 blog, Pirate Lord's ship is called the Simians Vengeance.
  • The ability icon bears a striking resemblance to Navori Quickblades, an item from League of Legends.[1]
  • Pirate Lord is the only T5 Monkey Buccaneer to have a visible monkey.
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