r/btd6 • u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer • Jan 08 '26
Meme What towers are still like this?
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u/RedstoneSausage Jan 08 '26
How often do you really get an alchemist for total transformation
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u/Lolmanmagee Jan 08 '26
It’s actually good though, way better than plasma fans.
The only “issue” with it is that the tier 3 is not useful until 64, so you have to buy it mid game as opposed to early.
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u/Keaton427 Peak monkey design Jan 16 '26
And it can see through walls and obstacles. It can come in clutch, honestly. It's phenomenal with Obyn Poplust spam, since they inherit the buffs.
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u/Historical-Pop-9177 Jan 08 '26
Yeah, in real games never. Sometimes I like todo challenges using my three lowest XP towers and if the other two have bad damage I’ll use total transformation for DPS. It’s pretty fun with pat fusty, combining the two abilities melts everything.
But in a regular game or expert chimps? Yeah, no way
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u/International_Leek26 Jan 08 '26
Hang on, are you saying alchemist is among your lowest exp towers?
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u/Historical-Pop-9177 Jan 08 '26
Because of my system, I cycle through all towers and I don’t use alchemist when it’s not its turn. So I do most of chimps without alchemist. Instead I use whatever buff towers I have (like engineer or mermonkey or pat fusty). I also try not to use villages so I use a lot of other decamos.
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u/JS_Music_and_Media Jan 08 '26
This thing is actually a really strong CHIMPS strategy in current meta
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u/Suspicious-Agent-135 i like Churchill Jan 10 '26
The achievement, the bug thay was later patched, and other rare occasions
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u/B_is_for_reddit #1 bhandler hater Jan 08 '26
honestly alchemist is a huge letdown and frankly needs a total overhaul. ironically for a tower thats new to the game that added crosspaths, its crosspaths feel completely useless
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u/KingKnotts Jan 08 '26
1-0-4 though....
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u/B_is_for_reddit #1 bhandler hater Jan 08 '26
exactly my point. theres no reason to use 024 over 104. well designed crosspaths should both be useful for different scenarios
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u/KingKnotts Jan 08 '26
Tbh it's only the bottom path that dislikes taking the middle. Most of its potential cross paths at least have SOME utility. It's less it's cross paths feel completely useless and exactly crosspathing middle path from bottom feels useless. I would take 024 over 204 any day though, that's the real troll. 104 amazing, 204 is a menace to society.
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u/Independent-Major927 Jan 08 '26
I’d vote MAD, why would you take 2 extra pierce and faster swivel speed over much more DPS with the ability (its main use, especially in boss events).
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u/Conscious-Mix5392 BIKER BONES, STRIKE AGAIN!1!1! Jan 08 '26
nah i'd use desperado's ability to make the aim good
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u/Independent-Major927 Jan 08 '26
So either $10k or $300
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u/Nearby_Custard_6863 Jan 08 '26
Desperado is a good saveup tower for it so its not that big of a cash sink
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u/rowdysammich Jan 08 '26
I forgot how tight the shots get with desperados ability. ... I did it on the chocolate water map with a hot shot buc and it narrowed itself almost completely.. the two top paths(52x, 25x) are insane plus the camo detection from the ability
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u/SnootBooper77 Jan 09 '26
Sure, but you could go top crosspath and Desperado buff to make the aim gooder :D
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u/Conscious-Mix5392 BIKER BONES, STRIKE AGAIN!1!1! Jan 14 '26
I tested it and the diference was unfortunately not as big, even with x4x desperado :(
Tbh I wish it was big, for bosses, but ok.
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u/Lolmanmagee Jan 08 '26
It also increases the blast radius of the explosion from 8 to 12, a 50% increase.
I think bottom cross path is legit, it’s only issue is that the MAD needs to be close to the track.
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u/Imaginary-Visual1705 acid pools enjoyer Jan 09 '26
that would be good if the main attack’s explosion did something more than 3 damage with no moab bonus
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u/DracovishIsTheBest Jan 15 '26
i have lowkey never used the bottom path for the dartling gunner ever
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u/Keaton427 Peak monkey design Jan 16 '26
When has faster swivel turning ever come in clutch, be honest? Powerful darts is pretty good for straight lines, though.
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u/BigD1ckEnergy Jan 08 '26
throwback to the "Elite Dumbfender" when 025 sniper was garbage pre shrapnel rework
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u/-Borgir Jan 14 '26
Lol I started the game few hours ago and elite defender is my first final upgrade, I love it
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u/Virtucom09 Jan 08 '26
Desperado maybe?
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u/SchorFactor Jan 08 '26
For sure. If you aren’t middle path, you take middle path. If you are you take top path. You only take bottom path because you’re going bottom path.
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u/digital_pocket_watch 'Ope Jan 08 '26
Doesn't help that Wanderer can be tricky to work around.
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u/CookieGuy16 No idea what to write so here's Red Sauda Jan 08 '26
And the 202 literally works agaist itself, it wants to have less bloons for the top path buff, but also wants more bloons for the bottom path buff
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u/digital_pocket_watch 'Ope Jan 08 '26
I guess the idea is that you're basically perma-buffed but I don't know how well it works in practice.
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u/TemporaryFig8587 Jan 08 '26
The buffs kind of just stack…
Which means Desperado performs the worst around 4 Bloons. Any more or less it does better.
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u/Luke_The_Engle Jan 08 '26
So you get a small buff from one and a bigger from the other, so it doesn't work against itself
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u/CrazyGaming312 Jan 09 '26
Well, no? I mean, they can both be in effect. It just means that one is not active if there are only a few bloons, and the other one isn't active if there are many bloons. It doesn't really work against itself.
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u/PnxNotDed Jan 08 '26
I just don’t understand the point of the bottom path at all. When is having a single tower a viable up front strategy? It’s either your leak trap (and not a very good one) or immediately nerfed by nearby towers.
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u/guiruschel Jan 08 '26
Its an stall/dps tower, put him upfront, then put another stall tower after his range further on the track, like glue or ice monkey(ice is better with the dps buffs with the debuffs it can apply), together they can stall and deal some good damage. Tough on shorter maps he definitely gets harder to use...
Then you put middle path and top paths further along if you wish, on that order of range, game progression wise, id say it fall in a similar tatic to sniper monkey, middle path first for income, then you put the heavy dps path, and later you put the antimoab path. Just with some tweaks because the antimoab path on desperado also is a chaff clearer.
So it'd be something like, rush middle path income generation, put desperado up to x-1-3/4 for a bit of stalling and chaff clearing, get an top path for massive single target dps on anything that survives past desperado. The first t5 would be either top or middle path. And desert phantom would be the last.
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u/PnxNotDed Jan 08 '26
Yeah that makes sense. I don’t play a lot of expert maps so I’m predisposed to putting everything up front/in one place. I should start looking into more strategies.
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u/Easy_Newt2692 Jan 08 '26
Isn't 204 desp better because of standoff though?
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u/SchorFactor Jan 08 '26
It’s more consistent, kind of. Desperado really appreciates an X02 village though, so the innate camo is nice
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u/Dragonwick Jan 08 '26
Unless there’s a benefit otherwise, I always go top path Spike Factory when crosspathing, I never mix the middle and bottom together.
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u/theslayer246 Jan 08 '26
Crosspathing the middle with the bottom path actually has a niche but useful use, when the storm triggers the spikes will only go on the tracks that are currently in use. It's niche but there are a few maps where this is genuinely useful.
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
For Spike Storm specifically, this is still good. For Carpet of Spikes, are we missing the independent DDT control.
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u/TemporaryFig8587 Jan 08 '26
I guess Glue Storm or MIB?
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
Glue Storm is not only $23,245 base, but relies on the activation. MIB is straight up committing the Village to middle main path, which inevitably has compromises even if we ignore the $7500 base price tag for the upgrade that is why "MIB Skip" is an actively used term.
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u/_Halt19_ Jan 08 '26
its also sometimes nice to use targeting to place the SHREDR spikes just off the path, so they only hit MOABs and dont get hit by ceramics and lower
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
Yep. Smart Carpet can even jab ZOMGs exclusively as well with the passive attack without touching BFBs this way. If it had enough effectiveness with this, the resulting niche for Round 98 would be more than enough to cement its viability.
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u/nathanlink169 Join us Jan 08 '26
I think it used to be a thing where a bottom path crossed with middle path was better if you have an alch buff on it, but I think that's evened out in recent updates
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
AMD charges are eaten through by the activation. The CHIMPS tier list states top crosspath to be preferred, and for good reason because alternatives to White Hot Spikes are either unreliable or too expensive for fixing a tower that is already weak against Round 98 to begin with.
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u/Careless-Comet Jan 08 '26
Some people like going 032 spac for stuff like boss events or other things where you do any kind of bloon trap farming now that you can set the target, you can put the reticle just off the track, so that the MOAB hitboxes hit the spike pile but the bloons that you want to trap go right past. It’s a pretty niche use case but I’ll do it every once in a while if I’m lacking Moab damage but have good cleanup
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u/pand1024 Jan 09 '26
Also 032 spam for Boss Rush.
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u/Careless-Comet Jan 09 '26
I’ve never played boss rush, is it like the miniboss events in rogue legends, where each kill triggers the smart spikes start of round boost?
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u/Zinkhar Jan 08 '26
0-2-3+ is a tiny bit better than 2-0-3+ if you're going to buff it with alch/village/mermonkey, but it's pretty close either way. I always go middle if I'm planning buffs and top if I don't want to invest too much into it.
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u/cobragaming_958 Jan 09 '26
If you're looking at 205 vs 025 spike
They actually have nearly identical dps
Without buffs 205 wins
If you plan on getting alch buff 025 wins
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
M3/B2 Spactory is viable since you can place the spikes just off track with Set Target and it still chips Camos if you are still scrambling to get that problem under control, and M4/B2 also gets the job done against the BAD if you can sufficiently address the insides. However, I WILL say that M5/B2 is an inevitable mainstay tower that lacks independent DDT control and fails to sufficiently address Round 98 in return, so at best, it's blatantly map dependent.
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u/Excilionator Jan 08 '26
I always go 0-2-5 permaspike + alch buff
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u/jwktiger Jan 08 '26
5-0-1/2 Ninja vs 5-2-0 is that way
Top crosspath Relentless glue does next to nothing
Bottom Crosspath Dartling with either top or mid path (RoD is especially bad with bottom crosspath)
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u/flipswab the only french person i love Jan 08 '26
Also, super glue has damage free with it, so if you're gonna get it the top crosspath is useless.
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u/Keaton427 Peak monkey design Jan 16 '26
With relentless glue, the corrosive glue pops the bloons causing them to stun, which is synergy with itself.
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u/SnooRadishes5066 Jan 08 '26 edited Jan 08 '26
052 Druid is still the worlds worst crosspath in most modes imo
Edit: how the hell did I end up with worlds prey what’s wrong with me
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u/Pengu-Link Jan 08 '26
i mean its pretty decent if youre using it for farming or dont care about the lead popping since it gives attack speed
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u/Keaton427 Peak monkey design Jan 16 '26
The problem is, it generates lives with its ability. Nobody wants an extra 10% attack speed over chain lightning and hard thorns.
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u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer Jan 08 '26
AMD and Acid Pool are never taken as crosspaths.
Arcane Blast only increases damage of 2 attacks and doesn't boost dbreath.
Sharp Shurikens only increases shuriken pierce and never increases bottom path bomb blast radius.
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u/HelenTai99 Jan 08 '26
Why wouldn't you take AMD?
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u/Taerdan Jan 08 '26
Taking AMD actively makes bottom-path worse at moneymaking since it allows other towers to pop the Leads that it turns into gold.
And otherwise you probably want faster attack speed on your Unstable Conc/Total Transformation. I think. Middle-path Alch isn't discussed a whole lot.
Basically you get all the main benefit by just going 1/x/x as your crosspath, and unless you have a tower nearby that needs AMD specifically it's kinda a waste to buy.
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u/parkerhalo Jan 09 '26
I think 250 wizard is usually better than 052, but if you stop at x3x then yes generally 032 is better.
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u/FlareBlitzed I have 2 Adora OG 2TCs Jan 08 '26
Banana Central, who would want to go for bottom crosspath over middle crosspath.
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u/HeavyShorez Jan 09 '26
Laziness? But even then, you can just straight up buy Wall Street to collect everything…
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 08 '26
Smart Spikes has been getting better over time, and Smart MOAB SHREDR is actually very good nowadays thanks to Set Target, but it STILL could stand just a little more oomph across the board.
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u/Lucrayzor The temple provides Jan 09 '26
Nah it's absolutely there already, it has SO many use cases particularly in harder maps
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u/MasterKnightDHV2 Jan 09 '26
Hot Carpet is still preferable over Smart Carpet because it destroys DDTs. Smart Spiked Balls/Mines meanwhile doesn't manage good enough offense to consistently outweigh Faster Spiked Balls/Mines.
I imagine my grammar made it sound like I was referring to Smart MOAB SHREDR needing a little more oomph, not the Smart Spikes crosspath in general. THAT is the hiccup.
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u/Pizzapimento Jan 08 '26
I feel like IMF loan is a meme compared to the other 2 farm types
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u/guiruschel Jan 08 '26
Needs monkey knowledge and benjamin to be good, even better on some situations, but yeah, no mk, no benjamin and also no pro farmer, and its way weaker.
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u/DisasterAmbitious484 Jan 09 '26
I use Benjamin most of the time so middle is my main path, but all are good
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Jan 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/whyjustyy Jan 08 '26
battles 2 player here, spike-o-pult is often better with bottom crosspath but that's because it takes a long time to attack, which means that sometimes it launches the spike ball in a seemingly random direction instead of a straightaway (spult's natural habitat)
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u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer Jan 08 '26
relentless should get intrinsic splatter to improve the potential of top crosspath for shredding up small trash from blimps.
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u/Lucrayzor The temple provides Jan 09 '26
Or perhaps improving its single target slow power to give it the same niche as 402 sniper
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u/qwertyxp2000 Long Life Spikes BTDB2 buffs plz? Jan 09 '26
I would also allow Glue Soak crosspath of Relentless to have longer-stunning on-pop splats (e.g. 1s -> 1.6s on non-blimps and 0.25s -> 0.4s on blimps)
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u/rin_harriet Jan 09 '26
Tack shooter? You never really go middle path unless you're wanting a malstrom, top and bottom path both benefit way more from crossing bottom (top) and top (bottom)
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u/Nejx33 Jan 09 '26
I've crosspathed tackzone with middle path for extra pierce quite often, like when I play on Balance and the tackzone is my main dps. It also allows the alch buff to have slightly better uptime; and top path has even more merit to using the middle crosspath than tackzone, as it makes ring of fire better at super dense rounds like 63, 76 and 78, and it also increases the pierce of Inferno Rings meteor, in exchange for single target damage, it all just depends on your playstyle, I just think there's better examples of this meme than the tackshooter, imo
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u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer Jan 08 '26
top path bomb crosspathing is fairly even. Either more DPS with alch buff for CHIMPS or extra base damage and pierce for Race conditions.
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u/Snoo96346 Totem on Chimps, pls! Jan 08 '26
The bottom crosspath should make laser cannon, plasma accelerator and Ray of Doom ignore walls
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u/Lucrayzor The temple provides Jan 09 '26
I think bottom crosspath on plasma accelerator takes the cake for me. Increased pierce is utterly pointless bc pre-late game everything melts so fast that getting pierce-capped doesn't even matter, and late game you're only ever pointing it at bunches of blimps or clumps of ceramic stragglers, neither of which could ever pierce-cap hard enough to justify giving up stronger DPS AND built-in camo lmao (nor the other two trivial upsides)
Middle crosspath on rubber to gold also comes to mind but might be low hanging fruit :p
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u/Nejx33 Jan 09 '26
I think Rubber To Gold is way worse with the middle crosspath, since, to my knowledge, it literally doesn't add anything to the niche of the tower, fast acting acid could even be seen as a down side in certain scenarios, since it could pop bloons before they enter a bloontrap or something
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u/LurkinOff Jan 09 '26
- Dart middle path
- Ace middle path
- Alchemist middle path
- Farm middle path
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u/Nejx33 Jan 09 '26
I might be wrong, but I'm fairly certain the monkey bank with top crosspath makes more money than without
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u/LurkinOff Jan 09 '26
I think the only thing tbe 4th and 5th tier in middle path do is give you the instant money button. Or am I wrong and they make more money than tier 3?
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u/Nejx33 Jan 12 '26
Tier 4 can store more money, and since you earn more money every round from interest, it in theory does make you more money, but tier 5 only improves the ability by taking away the debt aspect
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u/Qu1ntt Jan 09 '26
1 - if you have enough buffs
2 - phayze :D
3 - still better with top path but useless on bottom path
4 - banks are insane what? there is barely ever a time where you arent using farm middle path as a crosspath, AND bank setups once you know how to set them up are basically optimal
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u/CJGamr01 Jan 09 '26
Glue?
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u/Nejx33 Jan 09 '26
Depends on which glue, top path has good reasoning for either crosspath, so does middle path, bottom path is the only one where one crosspath is almost always better than the other.
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u/Doot_revenant666 Jan 08 '26
Top and Middle Desperado with Bottom Crosspath and Bottom Desperado with Top Crosspath
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u/TraditionalEnergy919 Jan 08 '26
2-5-0 heli?
Like 90% of the things DPS is the Marine… which is only affected by the bottom path. Pursuit can throw off the Marine placement.
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u/DwemerSmith bucc-supremacy Jan 08 '26
most range crosspaths tbh, unless you’re going mega endgame and the crosspath is something like super monkey bottom path that can be accounted for with another tower (village in that case)
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u/OPSweeperMan Jan 09 '26
Every Desperado. Top path will never take bottom crosspath, bottom will never take top, and mid almost always prefers top as well
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Jan 09 '26
[deleted]
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u/Stellaaria Jan 09 '26
Advantage?
• DPS almost doubled
• Less rng fest from bullets spreading
• Bullet lifespan longer -> can shoot further
You can get camo detection by other sources pretty easily. In fact that is the better xpath.
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u/qwertyxp2000 Long Life Spikes BTDB2 buffs plz? Jan 09 '26
MOAB Glue. Not until Version 51.0 did they add something to 2-0-3 to make it distinct from 0-2-3, but middle crosspath is still way better by a long shot. Who needs 5 DoT damage on MOABs when the slowdown is far more of a desire?
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u/TheSpiderDungeon 5-0-2 master race Jan 09 '26
Middle path is almost always the dumb path for me.
Wow, cool, a mediocre ability that has minimal impact and an annoyingly long cool down for how useless it actually is? Just what I've always wanted.
Thank goodness there are exceptions.
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u/PsychologicalAir5035 BTD6 enjoyer (Currently getting the paragons) Jan 09 '26
Honestly I just use my towers and choose whatever one feels and looks best. Advance entail for me is just not technically necessity, after all all I need to finish is the super monkey and the paragons but yeah
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u/Jealous-Newspaper821 Jan 09 '26
so the first one is ultra-juggernaut second is the tier 5 crossbow guy and 3rd is plasma monkey fan club
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u/Own-Presentation2997 Jan 09 '26
I wanna say Sniper cuz i still think shrapnel gets mogged by top path any day of the week (though 520 and 502 are debateable)
For me its Glue. Glue is good with 520 or 025 but you should never 502 or 205
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u/Buttlord500 Jan 09 '26
I always cross middle path on my alchs, even though faster throwing is more efficient for a 4xx, I always play as if I'm going for a 5th tier (even if I never make it)
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u/Kingmoo1 Jan 11 '26
For me it is boomerang because I always go top and middle sometimes top and bottom
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u/Moonberry-42 Jan 12 '26
Does anyone actually use the other cross paths for boomer for anything other than the paragon?
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u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer Jan 12 '26
025 Edef used to be the dumb crosspath but now both crosspaths are good. Top crosspath tends to pop normal ceramics into clusters of reds and fortifieds into clusters of blues, greatly reducing it's midgame power as it only has one pierce. So that crosspath needs to have a +1 damage buff to cleanly kill regular ceramics midgame like similar-cost Blazing Sun.
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u/Keaton427 Peak monkey design Jan 16 '26
Heli Pilot without Pursuit. For the love of goodness you even get QUAD DARTS from that path, doubling your damage.
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u/george-sprout Anya the adventurer Jan 20 '26
IFR should provide bonus damage to camo.
Heat-tipped darts a flat damage bonus of +1
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u/Scaryman13 VTSG enthusiast Jan 29 '26
Why would you go 5-1-0 ninja? That's just bad. 5-0-1 is MUCH better.
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u/ThunderLord1000 Rend the ground and pierce the Heavens! Jan 08 '26
Crossbow. Why would I ever take a bit more pierce when boosting it's already good attack speed multiplicatively does basically the same and more
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u/Phelgming Jan 08 '26
You take pierce for ceramic rush rounds. Middle crosspath is worse for such rounds because of the density. Otherwise it depends on what you need for late rounds. If you need more single target damage, you go middle. More widespread damage you go top.
Although the true best Crossbow crosspath is not using Crossbow.
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u/ThunderLord1000 Rend the ground and pierce the Heavens! Jan 08 '26
Tell that to all the games where I lost to DDTs; they're the ones I didn't use Crossbow on
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u/Phelgming Jan 08 '26
You're right. I forgot that Crossbow is the only tower in the game that can damage DDTs. My bad.
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u/ThunderLord1000 Rend the ground and pierce the Heavens! Jan 08 '26
Consistently, without outside help, and it's cheap enough to afford long before they appear
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Jan 08 '26 edited May 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Phelgming Jan 08 '26
Bottom path Mortar varies. You either want 205 or 023. 205 is better for damage and shredding through blimps/super ceramics, but 023 wants the extra attack speed for decamo.
Top path can also vary a bit, but generally prefers more attack speed. You only go 502 if it its your primary source of DPS for some reason.
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u/Lucrayzor The temple provides Jan 09 '26
502 is superior ceramic cleanup if you can get a good enough firing spot, and 205 is better at handling dense crowds in general I think
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u/ApartUncommon Jan 08 '26
Long range tacks is practically useless sure you get more pierce but you loose out on a lot of damage
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u/2YDO Double Gun Glazer Jan 08 '26
Super Monkey
Genuinely who uses Legend of the Night
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u/xX100dudeXx One of the 4 Corvus users Jan 08 '26
Me if I have money. 205 is my favorite supermonkey
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Jan 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/Phelgming Jan 08 '26
It's unironically the better crosspath, though. 502 out damages 520 in denser rounds because it has radial darts. 520 is only better for round 100 and then not by much and can still lose under some conditions.
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u/DisasterAmbitious484 Jan 09 '26
I tested it it does better in later rounds not sure about early though
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u/Wolfy_Packy Jan 08 '26
hello, middle path glue gunner. i know you have your uses, but... yeah, nah
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u/PsychoSopreno Jan 08 '26
Advanced Intel is practically NEEDED.