New Features
- Nexus Tournament Rewards - Congratulations to Boltrix for winning the recent Nexus Tournament and well done to runners up ISAB and Tewtiy. - The text emote “A Defend, Is A Defend!”, chosen by Boltrix, is now unlocked for all players. - All players who made a purchase using any Nexus creator code during the tournament will also receive banners chosen by Boltrix and ISAB and an avatar chosen by Tewtiy. - These cosmetics are also available to any player who makes a purchase using the respective creator code.
Balance Changes
- Bloon Sends - Round 13 Spaced Ceramics: Spacing 0.75s -> 0.65s - Round 16 Grouped Ceramics: $400 -> $350, spacing 0.12s -> 0.11s, and eco change +1.8 -> +5 - Round 23 Tight Leads: $1,200 -> $1,400 and eco change +20 -> +24 - Round 28 Tight Ceramics: $4,000 -> $3,400 - A few buffs for the ceramic sends since other rushes are typically more effective than these ones relative to their unlock round. We’ve also increased the price of tight leads so that they are not quite as efficient.
- Dart Monkey - x4x Super Monkey Fan Club: $8,000 -> $9,000 and ability duration 15s -> 12s - x5x Plasma Monkey Fan Club: Ability duration 15s -> 12s - Dart has received a lot of buffs over the updates and has now gained recognition for being dominant tower in all stages of the game. We have decided to weaken its abilities so that it can keep its early game strength while being a bit easier to rush in the mid/late game.
- Boomerang Monkey - 1xx adds +3 -> +10 pierce to xx3 - 2xx adds +3 -> +12 pierce to xx3 - There was no reason to ever pick the top crosspath option for Kylie Boomerang since the attack speed buff heavily outclasses the small pierce increase. This change aims to balance the crosspaths so that the superior crosspath is situational.
- Ice Monkey - x2x Deep Freeze: Freezes 2 -> 3 layers - We’re providing a buff to an upgrade that doesn’t offer too much, to strengthen Ice Monkey’s early game a little bit.
- Glue Gunner - xx4 Relentless Glue: No longer drops any puddles on the track - xx4 Relentless Glue: Every time a glued bloon layer gets popped, a small splat occurs which stuns nearby bloons (6 pierce and 12 radius). Stuns bloons for 1s, moabs/DDTs for 0.35s, BFBs for 0.2s, abd ZOMGs for 0.1s - x1x Bigger Globs: increase xx4 on-pop stun pierce by 1 (6->7) - X2x Glue Splatter: increases xx4 on-pop stun pierce by 3 (7->10) - x3x Glue Hose: $2,000 -> $2,200 - Relentless Glue’s puddles have never felt right on this upgrade path, barely being a noticeable addition in most cases. Therefore, we have removed the puddles and given this upgrade something else to offer instead - greater stalling potential with stunning splats that occur every time a glued bloon is popped.
- Monkey Ace - xx2 Centered Path: This upgrade now allows you to target the position of any flight path (centered, infinite, and figure eight). Renamed to Advanced Navigation. - A small quality of life change to give greater flexibility in Ace’s flight pathing.
- Heli Pilot - xx1 Faster Darts: $150 -> $350 and this upgrade now increases dart pierce by 1 and razor rotor pierce by 3 - Faster Darts does not provide any significant benefit and Heli Pilot is not a common starting tower either. This change is intended to improve both of these aspects.
- Mortar Monkey - Base: Pierce 40 -> 35 - x1x Faster Reload: $300 -> $400 - x2x Rapid Reload: $500 -> $550 - x3x Heavy Shells: $900 -> $800 - Mortar Monkey has not really been affected by any recent nerfs, still remaining very strong and only seeing a drop in usage due to Etienne offering an exciting alternative. Therefore we think that it’s justified to make some significant nerfs to Mortar’s early game, as it’s been a top tier tower for quite a few updates now.
- Wizard Monkey - 1xx Guided Magic: Seeking angle 270 -> 360 and turning rate 600 -> 720 - 1xx Guided Magic: $150 -> $100 - xx4 Necromancer: $2,800 -> $2,600 - Wizard seems to be in a fairly decent spot in the meta, however we want to give it a little bump to encourage its usage. We’ve made a couple of small changes to Guided Magic so that it’s more dependable early on, as well as a small price buff to Necromancer for slightly cheaper purple popping power.
- Super Monkey - xx4 Dark Champion: $30,000 -> $27,000 - Sacrificing $15k of magic monkeys to 4xx or 5xx: The Super Monkey will buff towers in range with +10% -> +50% projectile lifespan and +2 pierce
- Ninja Monkey - Base: Shuriken attack rate 0.7 -> 0.62 - 1xx: Reduces all weapons’ attack rates by 38% -> 30% - 0x2: Caltrops attack rate 9 -> 8 - 0x4: Sticky bomb attack rate 5 -> 4.5 - 0x5: Sticky bomb attack rate 2 -> 0.18 - These changes buff 0xx Ninja upgrades while leaving 1xx Ninja upgrades unchanged. One major reason for this is so that 023 Ninja can be slightly more dependable.
- Druid - x3x Druid of the Jungle: Now has another vine attack that is identical to its regular one except it gives you $100 every time it pops a bloon and it has an 11 second cooldown between vines - x4x Jungle’s Bounty: $3,100 -> $4,500 - We’re introducing this change so that there is a cheaper money generation option available and accessible early on when using Druid. Jungle’s Bounty’s price has been increased so that this upgrade does not become too efficient as a result.
- Monkey Village - x1x Grow Blocker: Can now only affect a maximum of 200 bloons at once - xx3 Monkey Town: Renamed to Monkeyconomy. This upgrade no longer increases income from bloon sends. Instead, it produces four $100 crates each round and costs $5,000 -> $1,200. - xx4 Monkey City: No longer increases income from bloon sends or collects bananas in range. Instead, it increases the value of its crates to $400 and it costs $7,000 -> $7,500. - xx5 Monkeyopolis: Remains similar except it can now absorb xx3 and xx4 villages instead of farms. Money production is calculated in the same way, based on the cost of the absorbed towers. This upgrade also now increases income from bloon sends by 20% (what xx4 used to do). This upgrade costs $20k -> $15k, with $5k is added for every Village absorbed. - We’ve never been too fond of Village’s bottom path in this game - with xx3 and xx4 offering exactly the same thing and xx5 benefiting from being paired with Farms, which is not a common tower duo. We have simplified xx3 and xx4 to be simple money generation upgrades comparable to a Farm, and adjusted xx5 so that it no longer has any Farm dependency. Additionally, Grow Blocker has received a lot more attention recently, so we have added a limit to how many bloons it can affect at once.
- Engineer Monkey - x4x Overclock: Overclocking a tower will now also boost all its children towers (xx4/5 Heli’s mini comanches, Etienne’s drones, 4/5xx Buccaneer’s planes, 1+xx Engineer’s Sentries, x4/5x Wizard’s Phoenixes, 5xx Super’s mini Sun Avatars) - This change makes sense for most child towers such as Etienne’s drones and Buccaneer’s planes, as without it they were unfairly unaffected by Overclock. This also offers a pretty decent buff to Engineer’s sentries, particularly 5xx, however we are keen to see how it goes since this isn’t a very strong upgrade at the moment.
- Cyber Quincy - Level 1: Can now attack through blockers and has a faster projectile speed (480 -> 600) - Cyber Shot gives lvl7 explosions 2x pierce and 3x damage (previously it was simply +10 pierce and +2 damage, which did not scale up when his regular damage increased). - Level 11: no longer reduces attack rate from 0.95 ->0.6. Instead, it now increases damage 1 -> 3 - Level 14: bonus moab class damage 4 -> 8 - Level 15: Cyber Shot gives explosions 3x -> 5x damage (previously +4 damage) - Level 16: no longer reduces attack rate to 0.4. Instead, it now increases damage 3 -> 8 - Level 20: no longer reduces attack rate to 0.15. Instead, it now increases damage 8 -> 35 - Cyber Quincy has never had enough changes in order to distinguish him from regular Quincy, and as a result there has never really been much reason to pick him. We think it’s finally time that Cyber Quincy gets some well deserved love and so we are making some significant changes. Firstly, his projectiles are now capable of flying through blockers which should provide more incentive to use him on certain restrictive maps. Secondly, we’ve traded a lot of his attack speed increases for pure damage increases, distinguishing the two heroes more and making him a much more powerful hero later on.
- Gwendolin - Leveling curve: 1x Quincy -> 1x Striker Jones - Level 1: pierce 4 ->3 - Level 2: gives +1 -> +2 pierce (pierce remains unchanged at 5) - Level 3: Cocktail of Fire damages every 0.2 -> 0.24s - Gwendolin is an exceptional hero, providing solid damage in the early game and great support later on with her Heat it up buff. We’ve made a few small adjustments, weakening her level 1 and level 3 DPS and altering the level curve so that she doesn’t reach level 10 quite so early.
- Scientist Gwendolin - Leveling curve: 1x Quincy -> 1x Striker Jones - Base pierce 4 ->3 - Level 2 gives +1 -> +2 pierce - Level 3 Cocktail damages every 0.15 -> 0.18s - Same changes as Gwendolin, as these heroes are very similar.
- Obyn - Level 12: Druids in range get +1 damage to all bloons (previously this was only to fortified bloons) - Level 13: All tier 5 Druid upgrades in range cost 10% less - Our previous change to Obyn made him give Druids in range +1 damage to fortified bloons, however we no longer think that limiting this to fortified bloons is necessary, and so we have opened this up to +1 damage to all bloons. Additionally, we have added further incentive to run Obyn and Druids with a nice price discount for tier 5 Druids at level 13.
- Ocean Obyn - Level 12: Druids in range get +1 damage to all bloons (previously this was only to fortified bloons) - Level 13: All tier 5 magic monkey upgrades in range cost 10% less - Similar to Obyn, we wanted to provide more incentive to pick Ocean Obyn as the hero of choice to be paired with magic monkeys like Ninja + Alchemist.
- Sentai Churchill - Level 1: explosion pierce 4 -> 5 - Level 2: explosion pierce 6 -> 7 - Level 11: explosion pierce 9 -> 10 - For quite a while now Captain Churchill has been preferred over Sentai Churchill, so we wanted to give Sentai Churchill a small buff to even it out.
- Benjamin - Level 5: All banks earn +8% -> +12% income - Level 9: All banks earn +14% -> +18% income - We’ve buffed the Benjamin and Banks interaction since both of them still don’t see much usage.
- DJ Ben Jammin’ Level 5: All banks earn +8% -> +12% income - Level 9: All banks earn +14% -> +18% income - Same as Benjamin.
- Highwayman Jericho - Level 3: Stand and Deliver initial cooldown 60s -> 45s - For the past couple of updates, Highwayman Jericho has fallen out of popularity. Star Captain and Agent Jericho are both still seen as great heroes that are pretty relative to each other, however Highwayman no longer matches up to these two. To address this, we would like to partially revert one of the big nerfs we made to him a few updates ago.
- Adora - Level 1: Pierce 6 -> 5 - Adora has recently gotten a bit more recognition for being a powerful defensive hero in the early game, so we’re toning it down very slightly.
- Fateweaver Adora - Level 1: Pierce 6 -> 5 - Level 3: Sharp Sting of Fate projectile pierce = main weapon pierce * main weapon projectile count * 8 -> main weapon pierce * main weapon projectile count * 7 - Level 10: Chains of Fate pierce cap 500 -> 450 - Fateweaver is certainly deserving of some nerfs as she remains to be an top-tier hero, particularly because of her strong defensive abilities. In addition to the same change that Adora received, we have made a couple of changes which weaken her level 3 and level 10 abilities.
- Etienne - Level 5: Now has the camo prioritisation option - We’ve added this in since all other heroes with camo detection have this option. Note that this targeting option affects both his drones and the UCAV.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed Ocean Obyn and Pat Fusty selling themselves when placed on the edge between land and water.
- Fixed issue where some players were unable to load the game after a season ended.
- Fixed Village ability buffs not ending when Village is sold
- Fixed Village ability buffs not affecting towers that were placed after the ability was activated
- Fixed x5x Ninja damaging newly spawned bloons even when the ability was not active
- Fixed notification icon not showing on the shop button during sales.
- Fixed main menu league leaderboard not animating like a button.
- Fixed Clan War timer not displaying correctly
- Fixed the target light on Etienne’s drones not working once upgraded.
- Fixed Etienne’s spy drone showing opponents cash during Hero Challenge (Arcade only)
- Fixed occasional hang when upgrading Etienne.
- Fixed event banners not aligning correctly to the edge of the screen on widescreen devices.
- Fixed incorrect interaction between Fateweaver’s level 3 ability cooldown and the 5xx Monkey Sub.
- Fixed score not appearing in the Hall of Masters leaderboard when viewed on mobile.
- Fixed not being able to view the profile of players with animated banners or avatars.
- Fixed the club icon being clipped if appearing on the #1 player in Hall of Masters.
- Fixed event screen not scrolling to the correct event after clicking on one of the banners in the main menu.
- Fixed settings button not working in the clan screen.
- Fixed accolades and medals not displaying in the league leaderboards.
Going Foward
We've heard your feedback on Arena Leagues and are currently in discussions about making changes based on that. These changes will be spread across a few updates, but more immediately, we'll be making the following changes in update 4.1:
- The return of Casual Mode - We've noticed a lot of comments from players who miss the non-competitive aspect of casual mode, so it'll be returning to the game in update 4.1!
- A rework of Fast Track - A lot of the feedback we saw about fast track in its current form was that it felt quite grindy and just a race to 50 trophies, so from 4.1, it'll no longer be based on trophies. Instead, if you reach a win streak of 10+ games, you will be given the option to fast track to the next arena. There will be no limit to the number of people per league who can be fast tracked. The hope here is that it'll make fast tracking more skill-based!
As always, we welcome your feedback in the comments and be sure to keep an eye out as we announce further planned changes and ask for your input!