Tower placement and upgrade strategies are the most effective way of beating all maps/gamemodes in Bloons Tower Defense 6. Knowing which rank 5 upgrades provides the best popping power is important, as are the correct ways to actually use them.
However, just filling the map full of upgraded monkey towers is a fun way of playing. Regardless of their effectiveness and viability, the cheapest rank 5 upgrades give you a low cost way of summoning huge monkeys.
So if you’re looking out of interest or would like to know the strength of the cheapest upgrades, this list is for you!
Costs are based off the Medium difficulty
10. Trade Empire
On its own, the Trade Empire upgrade will give you 800 cash per round, taking nearly 29 rounds to pay itself back. This sounds horrendous but it does increase the cash earned by other Merchantmen by the number of buccaneers earning money.
Although it’s very difficult to achieve on maps not containing a lot of water, placing 19 Merchantmen along with this upgrade can provide you with nearly 20,000 cash per round which is insane!
Tower: Monkey Buccaneer
Monkey Type: Military
Price: 23,000
9. Grand Saboteur
After activating this upgrade’s ability, all newly spawned MOAB class bloons will have 25% of their health automatically removed, as well as being slowed.
In free-play, the Grand Saboteur is actually incredible for its price. MOAB class bloons have their health scaled after round 80, so cutting their health pools by 25% is seriously powerful.
Tower: Ninja Monkey
Monkey Type: Magic
Price: 22,000
8. Pirate Lord
I genuinely believe this upgrade is under-rated by the Bloons community. Trashing 3 MOABs at once and receiving double the reward is very nice, repaying you kindly for its small asking price.
With the Crow’s Nest upgrade, even those pesky D.D.Ts can be pulled, offering a nice way of dealing with them. I personally struggle with them, so this is probably why I love this upgrade so much!
Tower: Monkey Buccaneer
Monkey Type: Military
Price: 21,000
7. Tack Zone
Finally, the Tack Shooter actually has an upgrade worth using. On its own, the Tack Zone upgrade has a relatively cheap price for such huge AoE damage. Firing up to a huge range in all directions, it’ll delete bloons and melt MOABs.
I always make sure to build this under a x/2/x Monkey Village!
Tower: Tack Shooter
Monkey Type: Primary
Price: 20,000
6. Elite Sniper
Perfect for those Sniper Monkey playthroughs, the Elite Sniper provides a variety of buffs map-wide to other Sniper Monkeys. The first being an Elite targeting setting, forcing Sniper Monkeys to fire at strong bloons, before switching to First if any get too close to the exit.
The other buff is to their attack speed, Sniper Monkeys hit like a truck so the more often, the better!
Additionally, the Elite Sniper massively increases the cash provided by the Supply Drop ability.
Tower: Sniper Monkey
Monkey Type: Military
Price: 16,000
=3. Glue Storm
Over 10 seconds of gluing, almost completely covering the entire map in gluey goodness. Regarded as a cheap, effective method of dealing with mass amounts of blood, Glue Storm is a decent choice overall.
Tower: Glue Gunner
Monkey Type: Primary
Price: 15,000
=3. Ultra-Juggernaut
Offering crazy damage for its price, the Ultra-Juggernaut launches huge spiked balls that split multiple times. Particularly effective against Ceramics, MOAB class bloons hate this upgrade too as the spiked balls return to crush any spawned bloons after they die.
Tower: Dart Monkey
Monkey Type: Primary
Price: 15,000
=3. Super Maelstrom
The Super Maelstrom provides an upgrade to the Blade Maelstrom ability, further increasing how long it lasts as well as how many blades are provided. It’ll coat the entire map in blades, shredding bloons and MOABs alike. However, I’ve found it to be quite ineffective overall as during the ability’s downtime, the tower itself doesn’t provide much popping power.
Tower: Tack Shooter
Monkey Type: Primary
Price: 15,000
2. Elite Defender
As well as providing a x4 attack speed boost upon losing a life, the Elite Defender upgrades gives the chosen Sniper Monkey a passive x4 attack speed bonus too. This will add up to a x16 attack speed bonus which can dish out some serious DPS when combined with the first upgrade path. For just 14,000 cash, it’s too good to turn down!
Tower: Sniper Monkey
Monkey Type: Military
Price: 14,000
1. Monkeyopolis
Technically it can cost as much as 50,000, Monkeyopolis’ price increases by 5000 for every Banana Farm in its radius. It’ll then produce its own cash crates, which tend to be much higher than what the sacrificed farms would produce!
Tower: Monkey Village
Monkey Type: Support
Price: 5000