Bloons Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Bloons Wiki
BTD6

For the Bloons Adventure Time TD weapon, see Bomba.
A very, very large bomb. Someone put a stop to this craziness!
~ In-game description

Tsar Bomba is the fifth upgrade of Path 2 for the Monkey Ace in Bloons TD 6. It grants the upgraded Monkey Ace with an improved version of the Ground Zero ability. The improved Tsar Bomba ability creates a much more damaging explosion that does 3,000 damage to up to 5,000 bloons closest to the center of the Ace's runway, additionally stunning all damaged Bloons excluding the BAD (which cannot be stunned at all) for 8 seconds. Cooldown for the Tsar Bomba is 35 seconds upon activation, 10 seconds less compared to Ground Zero. Initial cooldown is also reduced from 15s to 5s.

In addition to an improved ability, Tsar Bomba regular bomb attacks now can pop any bloon type.

This upgrade costs $25,500 on Easy, $30,000 on Medium, $32,400 on Hard, and $36,000 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

Tsar and its bomba

Tsar Bomba with its big red nuke activated

Tsar Bomba is a large grey four-engine turboprop monoplane. Its detailing includes a black nose cone, a black leading edge length-wise along the wings, and its wing emblems are blue circles with yellow edges. Overall, it resembles most closely to the Tupolev Tu-95. Its nuke is now a much larger red nuke that briefly flashes red upon detonation.

Tsar Bomba improves the Ground Zero ability damage to 3,000, its pierce to 5,000, and grants it the ability to stun all surviving targets (except BADs and Bosses, which can't be stunned) for 8 seconds. It additionally improves the cooldown to 35 seconds and the initial cooldown to 5 seconds, down from 45 and 15, respectively. Finally, its ordinary standard bombs change to the Normal type, now able to pop any Bloon.

Targeting Priorities[]

Like all Monkey Aces, Tsar Bomba uses flight patterns as its targeting priority settings. It can also access Centered Path targeting option by purchasing the Centered Path upgrade.

  • Circle: Flight pattern becomes a circular path around the runway.
  • Figure Infinite: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the infinite symbol (∞). As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
  • Figure Eight: Flight pattern becomes the shape of the number 8. As the Monkey Ace flies, it will pass its runway during its flight, specifically at each half of the whole flight path.
  • Wingmonkey: Instead of a fixed flight path, the Monkey Ace will attempt to fly as close to the path as possible, similarly to an Aircraft Carrier Plane. Available only via the Wingmonkey MK.
  • Reverse Flight: Shown by an icon of a reverse aircraft, the Ace will reverse direction of flight. Unlike other target priorities such as Change Hands, there is a cooldown of 5 seconds before being able to reverse flight direction again. It can be coupled with all flight options except Wingmonkey.

Dart volleys are zone-type sprays of projectiles shot relative to the position of the aircraft. Bomb salvos are considered on-track attacks by a spawn. Ability nuke affects the whole screen and is locked on Close relative to the landing base for pierce calculations.

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) $25,500 $30,000 $32,400 $36,000 -
Total (0-5-0) $42,710 $50,250 $54,270 $60,300 $29,897 $35,175 $37,989 $42,210
Crosspath (1-5-0) $43,260 $50,900 $54,970 $61,080 $30,282 $35,630 $38,479 $42,756
Crosspath (2-5-0) $43,810 $51,550 $55,670 $61,860 $30,667 $36,085 $38,969 $43,302
Crosspath (0-5-1) $43,135 $50,750 $54,810 $60,900 $30,195 $35,525 $38,367 $42,630
Crosspath (0-5-2) $43,600 $51,300 $55,405 $61,560 $30,520 $35,910 $38,784 $43,092

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

Full Popology[]

Statistics[]

Damage Types[]

Strategy[]

Summary[]

The Tsar Bomba can be used to clear hyperdense clumps of MOABs, BFBs, and Super Ceramics, including their Fortified variants, in just a single ability use, especially during Round 94, 96 and 98. One use of the ability can also destroy Round 99, as it pops Fortified DDTs instantly, and can act as an emergency button in earlier late game. However, multiple Ground Zeroes are usually sufficient to combat most hyperdense rounds for a slightly lower cost, with exception of Fortified BFBs, while 2 Ground Zeroes outclass Tsar Bomba at eliminating Round 95 effectively.

The majority of the Tsar Bomba's power comes from its ability; because of this, effective stalling strategies should be made in order to optimize its large-scale damage. Tsar Bomba's stun is useful for stalling down surviving ZOMGs and can deal high-scale crowd control. Tsar Bomba normally shines the best on custom challenges such as 2TC or 2MPC, but is still useful outside of those.

Tips[]

  • Delay using it as much as possible to ensure as many bloons are hit by its ability while still keeping only a few blimps untouched. There is good reason to intentionally let a few blimps survive; this can stall out the round to refresh the cooldown of the ability.
    • Note that the ability itself has a 0.7-second delay when deploying.
    • An interesting trick to keeping only one ZOMG is to use Pat Fusty's Big Squeeze ability on the ZOMG to "protect" the ZOMG. This will grant at least 4 seconds of extra uptime of the ability.
  • Because the ability has an arbitrarily high pierce, it is not at all necessary to worry about the ability reaching the pierce cap, even on Race Events.
  • The Tsar Bomba deals with whole rounds by instantly killing almost all bloons in a single click, so if there are a few unpassable rounds that are far enough for the Tsar Bomba to clear each of them, consider using the Tsar Bomba on those rounds.
    • Note that this instance may be rare to come by in normal games. This is far more prominent in custom challenges (e.g. community-made 2MPC and 2TC combos).
  • Like Ground Zero, the 1-5-0 Tsar Bomba is generally superior for its main bombing attacks, rather than 0-5-1, although 0-5-0 Tsar Bomba is sufficient because the main point of Tsar Bomba is for its ability. The only Tier 2 crosspath that is worth mentioning is 0-5-2, as Centered Path grants access to central flight pathing and a new style of micromanagement of the plane itself.
  • The majority of the Tsar Bomba's damage potential comes from its ability. As such, optimizing stalling strategies is key. If not comfortable with timing abilities, alternatives such as Apache Prime or Sky Shredder are available, but Tsar is much more powerful when used correctly, and its true power does not rely on external buffs.

Bugs[]

Bug Reports
  • [21.0] There was a bug during Version 21.0, the update when the Tsar Bomba ability received a slightly reduced ability cooldown, where purchasing any crosspath decreased cooldown by 5 seconds. Therefore, with any Tier 2 crosspath, its ability cooldown was decreased to 30 seconds. [fixed]
Bug Fixes
  • [22.0] Tsar Bomba ability cooldown bug fixed.

Version History[]

Balance Changes[]

Overall, Tsar Bomba has been buffed since it was first released, mostly to compete the efficiency of multiple Ground Zeroes. The ability pierce nerf can be seen as negligible outside of Race Events.

9.0
  • Change Now correctly applies stun art.
10.0
  • BUFF Tsar Bomba bombs deal more damage (3 → 10)
21.0
Tsar Bomba currently holds low value compared to multiple Ground Zero purchases aside from the stun, this greatly requested change should hopefully add more niche benefit.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Tsar Bomba bombs now pop any bloon type.
  • BUFF Tsar Bomba ability cooldown decreased (45s → 40s).
  • BUFF [Undocumented] Tsar Bomba ability initial cooldown reduced (15s → 10s).
22.0
While Pineapples are never the star of the show, the amount of pierce they have is completely unnecessary for their usage window and has only led to balance problems for Bombing Run, specifically in races. This high amount of pierce has been more evenly spread through higher tiers & crosspath. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to direct attention to nerfing Bomber Ace
  • BUFF 0-5-1 Tsar Bomba bombs now pop more bloons (40 → 52).
23.0
Monkey Ace was never intended to be a great starting tower and instead come into power at mid- and high-tier upgrades, but since the base tower feels lacking to new players (and some of us old timers) we decided to rework low tier power into the base tower. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to base Monkey Ace attack speed rework
  • BUFF Affected by base Bomber Ace buffs.
24.0
Similar to Tack Shooter Maelstrom upgrades, we have targeted a nerf to Ground Zero for race conditions by amounts which are not relevant outside of those conditions. Additionally Tsar Bomba has received a much smaller version of this nerf along with a reduced cooldown to increase its relevance.
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Ground Zero and Tsar Bomba nerfs by stripping their infinite pierce
  • NERF Tsar Bomba ability pierce decreased from infinite to 5000.
  • BUFF Tsar Bomba ability cooldown reduced (40s → 35s).
  • BUFF [Undocumented] Tsar Bomba ability initial cooldown reduced (10s → 5s).
30.0
More of a straight quality of life, Ace has gained a new special toggle button to allow it to turn back and fly in reverse on any selected flight pattern. As Ground Zero stands out in power, & enough so to make the upgrade to Tsar Bomba questionable, some upgrade cost has been moved out of Tsar Bomba into Ground Zero to make Ground Zero more expensive while not changing Tsar much other than a slight overall cost buff. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Tsar Bomba price decreased from $35,000 → $30,000.
    • This is a net price decrease of $1000 when also taking into account the Ground Zero price hike.
  • BUFF Monkey Ace can now toggle flight direction for any pattern.
31.0
Spy Plane is always a lesser crosspath aside from specific challenges that call for camo detection. It has a similar vibe to Night Vision sniper so we have given it a similar buff.
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Spy Plane
  • BUFF Affected by Spy Plane +1 camo damage buff
41.0
[...] Exploding pineapples gained a larger rate bonus from crosspathing than the main attack did to make up for its base rate being so poor, so we're fixing that poor base rate while keeping the crosspath bonus the same. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Exploding Pineapple
  • NERF 1-5-0 Tsar Bomba's bomb array attack cooldown increased from 1.02s to 1.275s

Bug Fixes and General Changes[]

Sounds[]

When activating Tsar Bomba Ability:

Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Videos[]

Trivia[]

  • The upgrade's name is a reference to the Soviet Union nuclear bomb Tsar Bomba, the most powerful thermonuclear weapon ever detonated.
  • The Tsar Bomba ability icon is the same icon as the artwork of the upgrade.
  • The plane for the Tsar Bomba most likely appears to be the Tupolev Tu-95.
  • This BBC news coverage about the Tsar Bomba explosion has more information about the plane that dropped the real-life Tsar Bomba.
  • Using a Ground Zero ability and then upgrading to Tsar before the bomb lands will convert it into a Tsar ability.
  • Several 2TC combos with Tsar Bomba were possible before the bug concerning the Tsar Bomba's ability cooldown was fixed, mostly because Tsar Bomba could deal enough damage to take down the BAD when paired with another suitable anti-MOAB damage tower.
  • The first 2TCC (2 Towers Co-Op CHIMPS) with two of the same tower belongs to Tsar Bomba + Tsar Bomba. This does not count as 2TC (2 Towers CHIMPS), as Monkey Ace is not affordable at Round 6 on CHIMPS Mode, so Co-Op Mode starting cash was required to make this combo work.[1]
    • The 2TCC combo Tsar + Ground Zero was also done before this.
  • Along with Homeland Defense, it is one of the two abilities that create a flash effect when activated.

References[]

Advertisement