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The Wizard Monkey comes with various magic-related upgrades that greatly enhance its power. Wizards excel at countering any type of bloon other than Purple Bloons, at least until Necromancer: Unpopped Army is used. However, each specialization at a different structure of bloons is often limited by upgrade path. If you can find a way to overwhelm a Wizard user, alongside other towers that offset the Wizard's weaknesses, there is a good chance of winning battles easier.
Wizard Monkeys generally are paired with another tower to fill roles that other towers tend to be weak on. Many of its upgrades are designed for cleanup.
Wizard Monkeys at their earlier upgrades, with exception of Wall of Fire, are mostly for the early-game, sort of like a Dart Monkey but somewhat more pricy.
Starting from Wall of Fire, it becomes much more powerful at handling grouped bloons during the early-game and mid-game. Its relatively low price, high attack speed, and pierce makes it dangerous once the opponent using Wall of Fire can access it.
At higher tiers, Wizard Monkeys mainly form a supporting DPS role, but the entire Upper Path 3 offers decamo and Necromancer: Unpopped Army and above provides extra popping power.
Attack Speed
The greatest power of the Wizard is its accuracy. Most attacks are fairly accurate overall.
Ability cooldowns are somewhat slow, and uptime is average.
Damage
Wizard Monkeys have a decent damage output.
Arcane Spike and Archmage deal high damage to weaker groups of bloons, especially DDTs, but not enough against BADs.
Necromancers and Princes of Darkness dynamically increase their damage based on their graveyard counts. They will gain more damage if bloons are popped close within their range.
Pierce
Wizard Monkeys have an okay pierce overall, but Wall of Fire has a lot of pierce compared to other upgrades thanks to its contact damage property.
Range
Wizard Monkeys have a decent range.
Support
Wizard Monkeys have one buffing option available: Prince of Darkness. It buffs Necromancer's undead bloon damage and lifespan.
In terms of synergy, it works best with towers with low camo detection, thanks to Shimmer.
Power
Overall, a Wizard Monkey is powerful in the early-game with its group-popping Wall of Fire, is accurate with its bolt attacks, but starts to fall off slightly in the very late-game.
Gains extra blimp damage and more attack speed. Try to avoid anticipating this upgrade beforehand.
Against an Arcane Spike user, send Fortified DDTs, not multiple normal DDTs. Only send DDTs if they only have one or two - any more and they can boost and defend just fine.
Three of them will barely defend Fortified DDTs on reasonably long maps without a boost. Four are needed on shorter maps, and two can do it on any map with a boost. 4-0-1 or better wizards will shred multiple DDTs as if they are one, so don't waste money on multiple.
Relentless against grouped blimps but may struggle against weaker groups, especially Ceramics.
He is equal to 3 4-x-2 Wizards plus one x-3-x Wizard in terms of DPS. Can defend Fortified DDTs on reasonably long maps by himself, or with some help on shorter maps. Archmage + Arcane Spike is enough to defend any number of DDTs until ramping becomes substantial.
Gains a Fireball attack that makes a Wizard respectable against grouped Red rushes. Send spaced bloons instead, or just continue ecoing to start defeating the opponent later.
Wall of Fire is extremely effective against early-grouped rushes, but falls short to Purples. If possible, rush Purples to force the blaze to disintegrate.
Wall of Fire has a small downtime between active blazes. This may possibly cause the opponent to become in a sticky situation.
Dragon's Breath has decent MOAB damage and improves all fire attacks. It will be harder to overwhelm with normal rushes. If the player has a Dragon's Breath, focus on improving eco instead of rushing.
Dragon's Breath can be overwhelmed by DDTs easily. 6 are needed to defend normal DDTs with a boost, so a Fortified one will easily kill them unless 13 or more of them are spammed.
Summons a Phoenix that adds DPS to the defense. It is quite weak and often dependent on positioning, and the map is so small that range hardly matters in this case.
One Phoenix has about the DPS of five Dragon's Breaths. If you include the Phoenix summoner, each x-4-x Wizard is roughly equal to 6 x-3-x Wizards in terms of DPS while the Phoenix is up.
Sending a long high-HP grouped rush may possibly overwhelm the opponent reliant on Phoenixes. They don't deal nearly enough damage or have enough pierce to shred large groups of bloons.
Sending a bait rush to force your opponent to use their Phoenixes and then punishing them with a DDT rush when Phoenixes are on cooldown is an effective way to kill them.
The Phoenix cannot pop purple bloons you can send some purple bloons to try to block the fire the Phoenix shoots, this works better mid game where the opponent won't have a lot of other defense for your rushes.
Wizard Lord Phoenix has a powerful ability capable of obliterating most of the powerful rushes. However, position awkwardness may cause the opponent to struggle. The flight pattern of the Lava Phoenix may make it worse on some maps; you can take advantage of this.
Wizard Lord Phoenix is not very efficient against BADs. Send Fortified BADs and some BADs.
Shimmer removes camo properties from bloons, but the upgrade is quite expensive and somewhat slow. Do not rely on camo rushes if the opponent goes for Shimmer or has one.
Wizard users often pair this upgrade with Wall of Fire, which renders spaced camo rushes useless.
One Shimmer can be overwhelmed by sending constant camos if their positioning is poor. Two Shimmers staggered on the track are virtually impossible to overwhelm their decamo abilities.
Necromancer is powerful as a cleanup source, especially with Wall of Fire. It can even pop Purples. If wanting to rush, go for a very dense powerful rush, and do not go in small bursts. Try going for a massive send stronger than grouped Whites.
Prince of Darkness is extremely powerful against weaker bloons, regenerating graveyard space to send more powerful undead bloons.
Send stronger blimps instead, and go all in with stronger blimps, such as Fortified DDTs instead of normal DDTs.
Do not send eco bloons to compensate a loss of eco. This will just empower the opponent's Prince of Darkness.
Crosspath-specific[]
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Crosspath
Wizard Monkey countermeasures
0-2-2
Wall of Fire with Monkey Sense gives camo detection to newly produced blazes. While the opponent may be set against weaker grouped camo rushes, Grouped Camo Purples can easily push right through them. Mixing rushes works well, especially if the Wall of Fire Wizard is placed at the front.
0-2-3
Shimmer with Wall of Fire combines decamo with weaker bloon cleanup. Most of the time, an opponent will place a Shimmer with this crosspath at the front; take advantage of this behavior.
Combining Wall of Fire with Glaive Ricochet allows Purples to be chipped away while Wall of Fire blazes remain healthy.
Sending Camo Purples may interrupt this synergy and cause camo WoFs to become extinguished.
Other Advice[]
If the opponent's Wizards have their respective unique cosmetics, the opponent has unlocked all upgrades for Wizard. In that case, prepare for all possible upgrades.
