- For the tower related to a special mission in BTD5, see Wizard Lord (Tower).
- For the special mission in BTD5, see Wizard Lord (Special Mission).
| “ | Wizard Lord becomes a master of the flame, turns into a super powerful Lava Phoenix for a short time. | ” |
| ~ Wizard Lord Phoenix upgrade description |
The Wizard Lord Phoenix is a Path 2, Tier 5 upgrade for the Wizard Monkey. Along with a permanent phoenix from the Summon Phoenix upgrade, as well as 50 pierce for the Wizard's Dragon's Breath attack instead of 4, the Wizard Lord Phoenix upgrade comes with a replacement for the old ability: it temporarily transforms the Wizard Monkey into a super powerful phoenix that deals massively increased damage and pierce, can pop any bloon type including Purple Bloons, and in addition to the normal phoenix flame attack (with significantly faster projectile speed), the phoenix regularly spews out 8 fireballs at 45° angles. Interestingly, instead of summoning another Phoenix, the Wizard Lord himself becomes a Phoenix, so while the Wizard Lord Phoenix is active the monkey will not be able to attack but the original phoenix will remain on the map. While the ability is active, a carved flame rune is left where the Wizard was.
The ability lasts 20 seconds and has a cooldown of 50 seconds. It is worth noting that there is always an initial cooldown of ~16.67s for the Wizard Lord Phoenix regardless of whether the Summon Phoenix ability was in cooldown or not.
It costs $51,000 on Easy, $60,000 on Medium, $64,800 on Hard, and $72,000 on Impoppable.
Strategy
Summary
Wizard Lord Phoenix is a very expensive upgrade that can be used to inflict massive damage to all bloons on the entire screen. If timed properly, it is capable of single-handedly wiping out any round before the Round 100 BAD. However, a Wizard Lord Phoenix without his ability is extremely weak, even with the massive base Dragon's Breath pierce and the added permanent phoenix, so backup support is most certainly required with this tower. Like most of the powerful ability-based towers, adequate methods of stalling should be added to increase the availability of the Wizard Lord Phoenix's ability in preparation for difficult situations.
Tips
- Upgrading Wizard Lord Phoenix to 2-5-0 or 0-5-2 will make no difference to the Wizard Lord Phoenix ability, as the abilities are not affected by crosspaths. However, 2-5-0 is generally better because this takes advantage of the improved 50 pierce (opposed to 4 pierce) of the original non-ability Dragon's Breath attacks to last much longer, making it useful for reaching many more bloons before projectile expiry. The opposite crosspath, 0-5-2, is still useful, as it allows it to attack Camo Bloons with its Dragon's Breath attacks, although the pierce buff bonuses for all its attacks are near negligible. Wizard Lord Phoenix ability already detects camo, so Monkey Sense is not very useful.
- It is worth noting that the Wizard Lord Phoenix transformation and the regular phoenix are both considered sub-towers, and thus cannot be buffed by Alchemists.
- Consider using this upgrade on maps where the Monkey Ace's Centered Path is highly effective, as the Wizard Lord Phoenix's radial meteor attacks will benefit greatly from shooting directly under bloons.
- The Wizard Lord Phoenix upgrade is extremely powerful when timed correctly. One entire use of the ability is able to solo extremely difficult rounds such as Rounds 98 and 99 if used correctly.
Update History
- 2.0
Multiple Wizard Lord Phoenix upgrades can no longer be exploited through activated Wizard Lord Phoenix ability.- Wizard Lord Phoenix now shoots 8 fireball projectiles instead of 4.
- Wizard Lord Phoenix projectile speed and fire breath attack speed greatly increased.
- 4.0
- Wizard Lord Phoenix ability now deals 4x damage on its main attack and 10x damage on radial fire burst.
- 6.0
- The tower's and the Phoenix's main fire breath attack has increased to 50 pierce each.
- 7.0
- Wizard Lord Phoenix price reduced. ($80,000 → $60,000)
- 11.0
- Wizard Lord Phoenix now has a basic phoenix active whenever ability is inactive.
- 12.0
- Base phoenix damage increased from 2 to 3.
- Base phoenix projectile speed increased from 200 to 300.
- 17.0
- Base phoenix disappears after ability is used. (Likely unintentional.)
- 17.1
- Base phoenix is now completely permanent, even while the ability is active.
- 21.0
- Affected by Summon Phoenix buffs
Bugs
- Before the 2.0.0 update, another Wizard Lord Phoenix could have been placed and upgraded while the other was in phoenix form making many clones of the phoenix itself.
- In early versions of the game, attempting to move the tower with the Support Chinook while it is still transformed would cause a game crash. This was fixed on version 3.0.
- There is a bug where a building on High Finance would destroy the active Wizard Lord Phoenix's phoenix form.
A flame rune throwing some magic bolts and flames.
- There is a bug when you're testing your own challenge. If you enter a round with the Wizard Lord ability still active, lose that round and replay the round, the ability will be deactivated while the flame rune is still there. The rune will seem to "face" to the target bloons and attack just like a normal Wizard Lord. Reactivating the ability will make it normal again.
- If you put it on water with Snowstorm, the Phoenix that is spawned will have ice under it.
- In version 12.1, a bug existed that you cannot gain the 2TC Achievement (Complete a game in CHIMPS Difficulty with only 2 towers) by using a Wizard Lord Phoenix as one of the 2 towers. This was likely because Wizard Lord Phoenix counted as two towers: the base tower and the phoenix. This bug was fixed on version 17.0.
- There was a bug in Version 17.0 where the Wizard Lord Phoenix's regular phoenix disappears once the Wizard Lord Phoenix's main ability had expired. Interestingly enough, the transformed phoenix would still turn into the regular phoenix when quitting and rejoining a saved game. This was fixed in Version 17.1, but now the regular phoenix remains on the map always, regardless of whether the ability is active or not.
- If the Wizard Lord Phoenix is given enough speed buffs (Homeland Defense, Jungle Drums, Stronger Stimulant, True Sun God with support sacrifices and maxed out Ultraboost ability at a minimum), activating the ability will spawn 2 phoenixes.
Gallery
Trivia
- Prior to Version 8.0, with the nerfs to income-related abilities, Wizard Lord Phoenix was the only Tier 5 tower to have an initial cooldown regardless of whether its previous upgrade's ability was in cooldown or not.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||