Wizard Monkey (BTDB2)/Strategies/General

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This page is a general guide for Wizard. For more advanced guides, see Wizard Monkey (BTDB2)/Strategies/Optimization

Wizard Monkey

The Wizard Monkey is a magical spell monkey in Bloons TD Battles 2, capable of casting various spells that can help destroy and harm the bloons. It can be upgraded to fit a variety of upgrades designed for middle-ground purposes. Magical bolt spells can be greatly improved with the Path 1 upgrades, fire spells are granted with Path 2, and its camo and universal popping power becomes empowered with Path 3 upgrades towards necromancy. Wizard Monkeys in general tend to have a strong weakness to Purple Bloons, of which only a few of its upgrades can beat.

The aim of this article is a general guide for using the Wizard. It summarizes how to effectively use Wizard without going into too much intricate detail about meta strategy.

Base Tower

• Cost: $250
• Unlock: 750

The base Wizard Monkey casts bolts at a moderately slow speed that pop 3 bloons each. It is quite weak for its cost, so it will need upgrades to maximize its popping power.

Upgrades

Guided Magic

• Cost: $150
• Path: 1
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Guided Magic allows bolts to seek at bloons, ignore walls, and last longer, as well as granting various interactions that modify fire spells. One of its most notable interactions with fire spells is letting Wall of Fire target at any location within range. As a relatively cheap upgrade, it can be beneficial in combination with strong spells.

Arcane Blast

• Cost: $250
• Path: 1
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Arcane Blast increases bolt damage from 1 to 2, but has zero interaction with any other spell. It is purely an upgrade for the bolt attack, increasing the bloon layers penetrated.

Arcane Mastery

• Cost: $1,200
• Path: 1
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Arcane Mastery increases bolt damage from 2 to 3, the bolt pierces more bloons and pops Lead properties, and the Wizard gains a huge range boost and attacks twice as fast. This is a significant benefit for maximizing its bolt spells in particular, making it excel in the early-game and work decently in the early mid-game.

Arcane Spike

• Cost: $9,000
• Path: 1
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Arcane Spike increases bolt damage from 3 to 8, and deals even more damage to MOAB-class bloons and Leads, including visible DDTs, and attacks twice as fast. Altogether, this greatly increases its potential for general popping power against all except Purples. In conjunction with a defense that excels at single-target and grouped bloons, Arcane Spike becomes quite strong, and assists well against DDTs.

Archmage

• Cost: $32,000
• Path: 1
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1500 (T5 unlocks)

Archmage increases bolt damage yet further against all non-Purple bloon types, attacks twice as fast again, pierces lots more bloons, and gains both Dragon's Breath and Shimmer spells. Every damaging attack now deals immense MOAB-class damage, including all fire spells. It possesses high DPS with great accuracy, making it excel against large groups of weaker MOAB-class bloons especially DDTs.

Fireball

• Cost: $300
• Path: 2
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

With the Fireball upgrade, the Wizard can produce slow-shooting fireballs that explode on impact, dealing 3 damage in a moderate-sized blast radius. Fireballs always pop Purples but cannot naturally damage bloons with Black properties. It helps against high-HP bloon rushes as well as slightly hold off against Purples.

Wall of Fire

• Cost: $1000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Alongside bolts and fireballs, the Wizard regularly produces a blaze of fire closest to itself by default. Wall of Fire constantly deals damage to bloons that pass by, provided it can damage them, making it an incredible source of cheap popping power. However, don't rely entirely on Wall of Fire, as the blaze can burn out partway through before the next blaze is ready to summon, and is vulnerable to Purple Bloons.

Dragon's Breath

• Cost: $3,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Dragon's Breath increases the potency of all its fire spells and adds a rapid flame attack that sets bloons on fire. Most importantly, Fireballs deal much more damage and Walls of Fire are produced faster. Altogether, Dragon's Breath does decent MOAB damage and is effective against all bloon types except Purples.

Summon Phoenix

• Cost: $4,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Wizards with Summon Phoenix gain the ability to summon a powerful phoenix that spews high-damage flames quickly across any range. It is much more powerful than its BTD5 counterpart, and more versatile for that fact too, but is still weak to Purple Bloons. It can be used for long-ranged grouped damage and/or beating single-target blimps.

Wizard Lord Phoenix

• Cost: $50,000
• Path: 2
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1500 (T5 unlocks)

Wizard Lord Phoenix greatly enhances all its fire attacks, gains a permanent Phoenix, and grants an ability to transform itself to a super powerful Lava Phoenix. The Lava Phoenix flies clockwise in a circle, regularly producing 8 volleys of powerful meteors and spewing out flames that deal a lot of damage. To make the most of its incredible power, proper timing is vital. A properly used Wizard Lord Phoenix ability is enough to make quick work out all-out DDT rushes and do heavy damage to masses of BADs. The ability can also boost all other Phoenixes on screen, making Wizard Lord Phoenix viable for highly late-game strategies.

Intense Magic

• Cost: $300
• Path: 3
• Tier: 1
• Unlock: Default

Intense Magic increases pierce of all attacks and increases projectile speed of its bolts. It is mainly used for adding pierce.

Monkey Sense

• Cost: $300
• Path: 3
• Tier: 2
• Unlock: Default

Monkey Sense grants camo detection to the Wizard. It helps the Wizard pop Camo Bloons, but without other supports it may struggle against Camo Purples.

Shimmer

• Cost: $1,600
• Path: 3
• Tier: 3
• Unlock: Default

Shimmer allows the Wizard to cast shimmering spells that strip Camo properties from bloons nearby. This decamo proves to be essential for allowing other towers to affect Camo.

Necromancer

• Cost: $2,800
• Path: 3
• Tier: 4
• Unlock: Default

Necromancer summons Undead Bloons from recently popped bloons nearby. Each Necromancer has a separate counter that displays the numbers of Undead Bloons in its personal graveyard. The more Undead Bloons stored, the faster the Undead Bloons send out, and additionally grant more damage for all the Wizard's attacks except Wall of Fire. Undead Bloons can pop any bloon type, making it a reliable choice for dealing with Purples if relying mostly on Wizards.

Prince of Darkness

• Cost: $24,000
• Path: 3
• Tier: 5
• Unlock: 1500 (T5 unlocks)

Prince of Darkness expands its personal graveyard, can summon Undead MOABs and Undead BFBs that deal much more damage, empowers all Undead Bloon attacks for itself and other Necromancers, and greatly increases attack speed of its bolt and shimmer attacks. With a sufficiently high graveyard count, it deals huge amounts of damage for its price, thanks to a combination of its improved Undead Bloons and higher maximum damage for all its attacks. Prince of Darkness is suitable for cleaning up bloons in a large scale.

General Strategy

All towers including Wizard Monkey start off with upgrades up to Tier 4. All upgrades up to Tier 4 are unlocked with purchase of the Wizard Monkey, and Tier 5 upgrades unlocked with a single one-off purchase of 1500. In order to suit the tower's varied specialties, some upgrades in each tier should be mastered. Below is a brief guide to unlocking the potential for all Wizard Monkey upgrades.

Wizard Monkey's first two tiers are mainly useful for the early-game, particularly the Fireball and Wall of Fire upgrades, which have high damage potential for their tiers. Investment of Tier 3 upgrades is desired but not vital for Wizard Monkey, with major exception of Shimmer.

Wizard's Tier 3 upgrades provide a specialty for each stage of the game. Arcane Mastery is an early-game dominator for all bloons except Purples, Dragon's Breath provides all-around mid-game popping power against all except Purples, and Shimmer decamos bloons to provide a counter to Camo Bloons.

For Tier 4 upgrades, the Wizard becomes more flexible in its mid-to-late-game power. Necromancer largely minimizes the Wizard's weaknesses to Purples and also excels in the mid-game against all bloon types. Summon Phoenix provides infinite-ranged high damage that can be used to deal with single-target bloons. Arcane Spike is an all-around popper against MOAB-class and Ceramics.

Tier 5 Wizard Monkeys provide a noticeable benefit for the Wizard's potential in the late-game. Notably, the Prince of Darkness is a reliable and cost-efficient counter to DDTs. Archmage further improves its high DPS potential, and Wizard Lord Phoenix provides a powerful ability that wipes out many types of bloons on screen with proper timing.