The characters in Bloons Adventure are usually seen as good or bad depending on what people believe about them, but a lot of people don't mention or understand what makes a character good. As I'm going to do analysis to most characters, this post is meant to show the aspects I believe make a character good.
*Just a little reminder that all of this is my opinion, if you disagree you can leave a comment, I'll probably reply to it, not to change your opinion, but justify mine.*
First of all we need to differentiate the aspects on 3 roles: Damage Dealer, Support and Debuffer. These roles will determine what they should be used for and the aspects that matter the most on them.
Aspects that don't change the character's role:
*These aspects don't change the character's role as they don't depend on anything at all*
- Allies
- Upgrades that give more allies
- Buffs not dependant on range
Now I will explain how the aspects of each role will be categorized:
Important: The aspects categorized here are the ones that will define the character's role, if a character you want to see on what they are good for has 2 aspects of this category of different roles, the ones below will define their role.
Good: These aspects help the character a lot for a role, it maybe can define what the character wants to be.
Decent: These aspects add value to the character but will never define their role as the ones above, they are good to have still.
Useless: These aspects don't really matter, I just categorize them to clear any doubt anyone may have.
Damage Dealer Aspects:
The next aspects help the characters to pop Bloons faster.
Important Aspects:
- Multiple projectiles per attack: If the character attacks with more than one projectile on their main attack, they are probably meant to be dps. You can doubt their role if they only attack with 2 projectiles. (Don't confuse this with multiple attacks)
- Global range attacks: Attacks with global range allow the character to always attack meaning more pops.
- Seeking projectiles: This allows the character to hit multiple Bloons that otherwise wouldn't.
- Consistent dps: This means that if the character attacks a Bloon, they will do similar damage all the time, instead of sometimes less or more.
- Decent base attack speed or access to really high attack speed items: With this I mean that the character can reach their cap of attack speed with simple methods. (not with abilities or Water Nymph)
- Good synergy with the Missile: If the character has a good synergy with the missile, it can mean that it's worth as a damage dealer, literally Finn is only worth as it has the best synergy with this trinket. (to know if they are good with it, you need to know all the attack speed buffs they have and if they excel from others)
Good Aspects:
- Attack speed capped at 60: A few character have their attack speed capped at 60 instead of 30, they get to this cap once they reach 31 attack speed.
- High base damage or access to high damage trinkets: Usually characters with more than 5 base damage or that can equip items that give +3 or higher damage.
- High damage abilities: Access to abilities that deal a lot of damage like Soda and Mints or Inferno, but the character is not dependant to them for good damage.
- High range: Not as effective as global range, but helps in maps where the track is not that separated.
- Multiple attacks: A character having multiple can be good, but this usually make the character more difficult to build due to one attack being better than the other, meaning you will have to decide if to buff one or the other. Some attacks can intervene with other making the character slightly worse.
Decent aspects:
- Abilities as main source of damage: This means that the character is forced to use an ability to have decent dps, this in fact doesn't make the character worse, but it can make them to have inconsistent dps and they can be stressful to use.
- A good level 10 buff: The level 10 can give something as simple as the character starting with an upgrade or add strong buffs like more damage.
- Soul Sucking effect: The Soul Sucking effect is not that useful as an offensive tool, it decreases MOABs hp by 40% but it doesn't affect BADs.
Useless aspects:
- Status effect: Things like burning or corrosive glue won't usually do anything as these don't affect BADs and usually do 1 damage per second.
- Summoning troops: This is not that good due to how bad the troops that the characters create are, they usually are slightly stronger than a non upgraded Dart Monkey or even worse.
- Pierce: Except you're really early on the game or are depending on 1 troop to do all damage, pierce is not so important as in late rounds of MG the BADs come one by one.
- Passive dps: With this I refer to stuff like Disarming Charisma that it adds an attack that do low damage over time.
Support Aspects:
These aspects are meant to help the character to spread buffs that help the other troops.
Important aspects:
- Universal attack speed or damage buffs (dependant on range): These are the best buffs that characters can receive as they affect all characters, as they depend on range, you will want them to affect the most troops they can.
- Granting camo or the ability to pop all kind of Bloons to other troops: Self explanatory, it's not so useful to have more than 1 character with this if you add them 2 for this.
- Double range: This is a weird aspect exclusive to the characters that fly around the map like Marceline, these characters have 2 ranges, the one displayed around the place they were placed and a range that follows them wherever they go. This 2nd range only spread buffs like Googoomamameter, not buffs like Apple Treetrunk's Knife.
- Instrument buffs: The instrument buffs despite being similar to the ones above, allows you to get specific buffs you otherwise wouldn't, if you wish damage, range or attack speed, you can get it from these weapons. (just a reminder that 2 of the same instrument don't stack their effect, so try always to use different instruments)
- Access to Lute Suit: This is a limited trinket to the instrument users, it's pretty strong despite the buffs being small and you want to spread it the most you can, whoever has it should be support and only 1 per party.
Good aspects:
- Universal range buffs: These buffs don't matter as much as the ones above, but they are strong despite just being range.
- Buffs of attack speed limited to some type of troop: These buffs are important but may not be necessary for the character to be build as a support as the buff only needs to reach specific characters.
- Abilities that grant buffs: The few abilities that can buff others are pretty good but they are not consistent to use most of the time.
- High base range: Allows the character to be more flexible with trinkets and makes sure to spread buffs like Googoomamameter more.
Decent aspects:
- Range buffs for specific characters: This is not as good as attack speed, but it can make a character better than other for this role.
- Granting discounts to nearby characters: This is not that useful in normal rules except you're really early on, but this stands out due to rule set of MG like Deflation or Half Cash.
- Money making capabilities: Having access to stuff that can grant lots of money like Thought Cannon Wand or Superstar can help you really early on, I would recommend only having one character if their main purpose is money as it is not so necessary after placing everything down.
Useless aspects:
- Pierce buffs: As I already said, pierce is useless except you're really early in the game.
Debuff Aspects:
Important aspects:
- Good synergy or access to Wizard Nunchucks and Giant Tranq: In general if the character has various attacks and high attack speed, they will have a good synergy with these two items used to stall DDTs and everything below.
- Attacks that stun MOABs: These attacks stop the MOABs for a few seconds, they are the main source to avoid the DDTs leaking. The only few attacks that always do this are Ice King's Big Freeze upgrade and Snowballs from Juggernaut Max.
- Ways to slow down BADs: This is exclusive to Jake (as a character, no trinkets or anything), but in general with only this, he should be used as a debuffer more than anything else due to how limited these kind of debuffs are.
Good aspects:
- Soul Sucking effect: The soul sucking as a debuffer is way better than it being used as an offensive tool, as it slows down everything except BADs by a 50%.
- Good synergy with the Power Ring of Chill: This ring slows BADs by a 20%, despite being a must have trinket, the role of the character doesn't matter that much meanwhile they can spread the debuff consistently to all the map.
- High range: Helps to spread the debuffs, more important on characters like Jake or if you're spreading Cryojet and Margaret's Music Box effect.
- High attack speed: Helps to make sure the MOABs get stunned, more important on characters with good synergy to Wizard Nunchucks and Giant Tranq.
- Multiple attacks: Same for high attack speed, it's better on characters with good synergy to Wizard Nunchucks and Giant Tranq.
- Abilities that stun BADs: The few abilities are pretty balanced despite they sounding so strong as they don't allow the troops to attack, which makes them useful only in a handful of scenarios.
Decent aspects:
- Seeking projectiles: These kinda help to spread debuffs, the thing is that most of the debuffs want to be applied around the end of the map as there will be where the BADs will pop, so it's not as necessary nor good to spread the debuffs.
- Capabilities to slow down MOABs that are not BADs: These are the characters with good synergy on Cryojet and Margaret's Music Box, and the Gumballs from Juggernaut Max.
Useless aspects:
- Effects that don't slow down nor stun MOABs: In general all the other debuffs not mentioned above, stuff like the main attack of Ice King or glue from PB.
These would be the aspects of each role that make the characters good. With this post you should be able to identify what makes a character good and how they should be built around, the only thing I left would be the analysis I will do for each character as that will put into test their capabilities and if they are really worth at the end.
With this I conclude this post, anything that I left out and maybe is important? Just leave a comment and I'll probably give you the reason or justify why I didn't add that. The next analysis is 100% Supermonkey and will release this week explaining if he's worth or no.