| “ | Extra strong brew has even more powerful effect on the target. Lasts even longer. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Stronger Stimulant is a 4th upgrade on Path 1 for the Alchemist in Bloons TD 6. An Alchemist with this upgrade will throw a stronger buffing potion every 8 seconds (6.4s with 4-0-1) at a nearby tower. It is an improved version of the Berserker Brew upgrade, providing bonus range, pierce, and attack speed, to boosted towers for a significantly longer duration. Each brew now grants +3 pierce instead of +2, +17.6% attack speed (x0.85 attack cooldown) instead of +11.1%, +15% range instead of +10%, and maintaining +1 layer of damage per hit, and the brew lasts for 12 seconds or 40 attacks (13 seconds or 55 attacks with 4-2-0), whichever comes first. Towers require 5s (4s with 4-2-0) before being able to be buffed again by any Alchemist (only affects Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant); cooldown starts as soon as they receive the buff.
This upgrade costs $2,420 on Easy, $2,850 on Medium, $3,080 on Hard, and $3,420 on Impoppable.
Quick Answers
What is the effect of the Stronger Stimulant upgrade on the Alchemist in Bloons TD 6?
How often does an Alchemist with the Stronger Stimulant upgrade throw a buffing potion?
What is the difference between the Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant upgrades in Bloons TD 6?
What bonuses does the Stronger Stimulant upgrade provide to boosted towers in Bloons TD 6?
How does the Stronger Stimulant upgrade affect the pierce of the Alchemist in Bloons TD 6?
Description[]
Overview[]
Stronger Stimulant splashing brew on a Ninja Monkey
Stronger Stimulant will give the Alchemist a more crazy appearance, along with holding two large wooden barrels with a black chimney instead of just one wooden barrel without a chimney. Also, its potions will give a glass-smashing effect upon boosting a monkey. The monkey additionally gains an X-shaped scar on its forehead and now wears goggles on an aviator's cap. The Alchemist seems to have bushy sideburns.
When purchasing the Path 2 upgrades, it will add white gloves if upgraded to Stronger Acid, or black gloves and black mouth mask if upgraded to Perishing Potions. When purchasing the Path 3 upgrades, the Faster Throwing upgrade will change the monkey's goggle shape from two eye sockets to a single lengthened socket, while the Acid Pool upgrade will change the color of the goggles from orange to blue.
Stronger Stimulant is an improved version of Berserker Brew; its berserker potions will have a more powerful effect on monkeys, granting +3 pierce instead of +2, +17.6% attack speed instead of +11.1%, +15% range instead of +10%, and maintaining +1 layer of damage per hit. It also makes the potion last longer (12 seconds or 40 attacks, whichever comes first; upgraded from 5 seconds or 25 attacks). An Alchemist with this upgrade will be able to keep a maximum of two monkeys consistently boosted with Berserker Brew, whereas regular Berserker Brew wears off too quickly to consistently boost even one monkey.
Just as with Berserker Brew, the Perishing Potions upgrade also improves Stronger Stimulant brews, improving the 4-2-0 Stronger Stimulant's brew duration to 13 seconds, per-shot lifespan to 55 instead of 40, and re-brew cooldown to 4s instead of 5s.
Targeting Priorities[]
Stronger Stimulant targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. It lobs potions at bloons based on current targeting.
- 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.
Alchemists with this upgrade can throw buff potions at nearby towers, giving them tower buffs. Acidic Mixture Dip is thrown on a random tower and prioritizes those without an AMD buff. Strong Stimulant potions always target on Close relative to the Alchemist, and ignores already brewed targets or those who have very recently been brewed.
Costs[]
- Updated as of Version 49.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.
| [Module | Data] | Purchase | Sell | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable |
| Upgrade (4-X-X) | $2,420 | $2,850 | $3,080 | $3,420 | - | |||
| Total (4-0-0) | $4,580 | $5,400 | $5,835 | $6,480 | $3,206 | $3,780 | $4,085 | $4,536 |
| Crosspath (4-1-0) | $4,790 | $5,650 | $6,105 | $6,780 | $3,353 | $3,955 | $4,274 | $4,746 |
| Crosspath (4-2-0) | $5,195 | $6,125 | $6,620 | $7,350 | $3,637 | $4,288 | $4,634 | $5,145 |
| Crosspath (4-0-1) | $5,130 | $6,050 | $6,535 | $7,260 | $3,591 | $4,235 | $4,575 | $5,082 |
| Crosspath (4-0-2) | $5,510 | $6,500 | $7,020 | $7,800 | $3,857 | $4,550 | $4,914 | $5,460 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
- See also: Alchemist Brewing Strategy
Summary[]
Stronger Stimulant is a highly effective tower for empowering multiple nearby towers, greatly improving the attack speed, pierce, and damage of the affected towers. In particular, it is one of the best options when paired with towers that attack relatively slowly but possess a high number of projectiles, such as Bloonjitsu, Triple Guns, Recursive Cluster, Overdrive, and Destroyer with Grape Shot. It can even be viable for boosting towers with higher upgrades such as The Tack Zone or Grandmaster Ninja for a big boost of damage, although the uptime decreases for higher attack speed towers.
Tips[]
- This upgrade is best utilized on slow fire rate and/or high-projectile towers such as Bomb Shooters with Recursive Cluster and Ninja Monkeys with Bloonjitsu.
- Purchasing Faster Throwing will allow Stronger Stimulant to maintain up to two towers.
- There are many various good towers that synergize well with Stronger Stimulant, even after the Version 6.0 nerfs:
- A 4-2-0 Stronger Stimulant can permanently maintain brew on a Sky Shredder, and is highly recommended as it adds over 50% extra damage to an already extremely strong lategame option. Using a 5-0-2 Sky Shredder is the preferred option with this strategy as Stronger Stimulants benefits the darts more than the missiles. This single combination, when combined with camo detection from a capable tower, is of soloing the later rounds of C.H.I.M.P.S. on most maps.
- Stronger Stimulant can be applied nearby a lone 0-2-5 Perma-Spike in range of a Jungle Drums Monkey Village to maximize Permaspike spike production along with virtually full DDT popping power via Acidic Mixture Dip. The Alchemist should only be in range of the Perma-Spike to guarantee full DDT popping power.
- Stronger Stimulant is very useful when paired with Icicle Impale, since it not only increases attack speed significantly (along with increased range, pierce, and damage), its Acidic Mixture Dip potions allow Icicle Impale to pop Leads and DDTs for almost all of the time, even when Icicle Impale is crosspathed with Enhanced Freeze and Deep Freeze.
- When timed well, activated abilities such as Blade Maelstrom ability and Spike Storm ability can become significantly more effective.
- Stronger Stimulant is not always better than two Berserker Brews. In some cases, such as when utilizing multiple Spiked Balls to secure different exits, having separate Berserker Brews is better for each Spiked Balls. This is due to each one of those Berserker Brews having their own Acidic Mixture Dip, and because two Berserker Brews are discountable and overall cheaper while maintaining an overall high buff value.
- For the base Stronger Stimulant's brew to naturally wear out by number of shots faster than the brew downtime, the target must be have an attack cooldown of up to 0.125s while the brew is active; with the brew's +18.7% attack speed included, the unbrewed attack cooldown must be up to 0.1471s. To outpace the timed duration of 12s, 0.3s brew-inclusive and 0.3529s brew-noninclusive.
- With 4-2-0 crosspath, this requirement decreases to 0.0727s while the brew is active, with the unbrewed attack cooldown up to 0.0856s. To outpace the timed duration of 13s (instead of 12s), 0.2364s brew-inclusive and 0.2781s brew-noninclusive.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
While still arguably the most important supporting tower for boosting various types of offensive towers, especially in the mid-game and late-game, Stronger Stimulant is significantly weaker than when it was first released. Initially, it was considered one of the most overpowered supporting towers in the game, as it could amplify the damage of fast-attacking towers for extensive periods of time, but the Version 6.0 Alch buff rework softens the overpowered interaction with fast-attacking towers. It remains an incredible option for boosting mid-game towers such as 4-0-2 Bloonjitsu and 2-0-4 Armor Piercing Darts, even after getting overall nerfed yet again in Version 20.0 and 21.0.
As more players favored multiple Berserker Brews over a Stronger Stimulant in many cases, Stronger Stimulant's cost was reduced and moved into Berserker Brew.
- 5.0
[Bug fix] Stronger Stimulants no longer apply range buffs twice.
- 6.0
- Brew lasts for the next 50 attacks or the current timed duration (12 seconds), whichever comes first. In addition, any Stronger Stimulants that expired cannot be reapplied to the target tower until the 12-second duration is over.
- 9.0
- Stronger Stimulant cooldown between expired potions on target stimulated tower decreased (12s → 5s), to be consistent with Berserker Brew cooldown between expired attacks.
- 12.0
- Alchemist buffs no longer affect sub-towers (i.e. Comanche Commander mini-Comanches, Aircraft Carrier planes, etc.)
- 20.0
| “ | Alchemist is already widely used, but we thought of an interesting way to add some more crosspath value and wanted to take the chance to perform a small rebalance at the same time. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- 4-x-0 and 4-1-0 Stronger Stimulant buff shots per brew reduced from 50 → 40
- 4-2-0 Stronger Stimulant buff shots per brew now adds +10, for a total of 50
- 420 Stronger Stimulant duration increased from 12s → 13s
- 420 Stronger Stimulant re-application cooldown reduced from 5s → 4s
- 21.0
| “ | Follow up steps in overall balancing use of the 420 and 402 alchemist upgrades, this brings both combinations more in-line for total cost and allows us to think about Acid Pools as its own upgrade in future rather than worrying about the impact of changing 402. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant costs more ($2500 → $3000)
- 24.0
| “ | Alchemist has been given a small push towards the current underused Brew crosspath. Previously this crosspath only applied a benefit to Brew & Stimulant but now along with a buff to that, Acidic Mixture Dip will also gain a slight benefit from the crosspath. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- [Undocumented] 4-2-0 Stronger Stimulant buff shots per brew increased (50 → 55)
- 4-2-0 crosspath affected by 2-2-0 AMD changes
- 33.0
| “ | [...] Acidic Mixture Dip stacking from multiple alchemists / stalling tactics too effectively lowered use of other lead counter options in a way we didn’t like, so the maximum stacks here without Permabrew has been reduced considerably. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant's Acidic Mixture Dip max number of stacks reduced from 200 to 40
- 39.0
| “ | Alchemist 220 stands out a little too effectively in the crosspath efficiency of Acidic Mixture Dip uptime combined with the reduced forced downtime at 320 and so is being reduced. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant's x-2-x crosspath pierce for AMD reduced from 13 to 12
- 41.0
| “ | Acidic Mixture Dip is a strong offender removing many weaknesses in the game for exceptionally low of a cost. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant's Acidic Mixture dip max stacks reduced from 40 to 30
- 42.0
| “ | As groups of Berserker Brew seem proportionally too good compared to upgrading to Stronger Stimulant in some cases, we are slightly shifting price down into T3, keeping the total price of Stronger Stimulant the same but adding up more if choosing to spam T3 Brews. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant price reduced from $3,000 to $2,950
- Total price change is $0, as Berserker Brew costs $50 more.
- 45.0
| “ | As a small tax to low tier Alchemists we are moving cost from Stronger Stimulant into Berserker Brew, this shouldn't hurt much for general play and keeps un-discounted Stimulant the same. As this was an oversight Total Transformation is now being enabled to transform mermonkey. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Stronger Stimulant price reduced from $2,950 to $2,850
- Overall price adjustment is $0 due to Berserker Brew (+$100)
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
 |
This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it. |
- ??? (possibly 14.0?)
- Added "Lasts even longer." to the upgrade description
Extra Notes (Version History)[]
Sounds[]
Starting from Stronger Stimulant, the Alchemist now plays sounds upon buffing a tower.
When brewing a nearby tower:
- [glass smash]
- [glass smash]
- [glass smash]
- [glass smash]
- [glass smash]
Gallery[]
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Not enough images! There are not enough images on this page to sufficiently complete this page or section. You can help by uploading some images related to the article's subject(s). In particular, this article needs: Damage comparison with and without Stronger Stimulant. Speed is less easy to display but still welcomed. [for damage, use a Sniper; for pierce, use a Spike Factory]. |
.PNG "Qwertyxp2000 2023-01-14 (2).PNG (2.39 MB)")
Official artwork[]
Trivia[]
- Prior to Version 6.0, this upgrade was best utilized on high fire rate and/or high-projectile towers such as Sun Avatars. However, this is no longer the most viable option, since the potions now can wear out after a certain amount of attacks from the target tower.
- Note that (as of 13.0), many strategies for CHIMPS mode on Advanced maps still use Stronger Stimulant together with a Sun Avatar.
- This upgrade changes the color of the splash that Berserker Brew makes from yellow to fuschia.
- It has been proven between Version 6.0 and before 9.0 that expired Stronger Stimulant potions cannot be reapplied to the target tower until the 12-second duration is over, regardless of how many Stronger Stimulant Alchemists there are around the target tower.[1]
- Although not addressed directly on the Version 9.0 update patch notes, the Stronger Stimulant gained a buff to the decreased expiry cooldown.[2]
- On Version 21.0, Stronger Stimulant with the Faster Throwing crosspath costs overall $50 more expensive on Medium. Although the Acid Pool upgrade no longer needs to be purchased, the cost increase of Faster Throwing by $150 deviates against the $600 saved from not buying Acid Pool. So in a way, only $450 is saved if ignoring the price nerf to the Stronger Stimulant upgrade itself, therefore costing $50 more if the $500 price increase was taken into account.
References[]
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