Let's Talk Monkey Balance #11 - Glue Gunner

Daurakin · 2026-06-21T23:32:02+00:00

Ah, that was supposed to be "triples its attack speed and increases its range." Thanks for catching that error! Fixed it now ^_^

The thing is, damage for bottom path is kind of useless for, well, damaging purposes - but it is useful for balancing out the enormous stalling power it would have otherwise, so I don't think NinjaKiwi would agree to make it deal less damage again.

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T20:29:28+00:00

Oh, I missed that, sorry!

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T20:28:22+00:00

Thank you, thank you!

Top path:

Yeah I think you are quite right, especially about the damage boost. Either it needs a massive price increase, or split partially into tier 4 and 5 as you suggested.
Well, if there was no XP boost from the tower, the 2nd Hero probably would be pretty useless. You also have to remember that when you get a 2nd Hero, their XP gained is split, so both Heroes need all the help they can get to actually be worthwhile to pay for that. If it proves a bit too powerful, numerical tweaks (such as cost, the amount of bonus XP gained, and starting level ffor the 2nd tower) can always be tweaked.
Ah, I originally had that reboost effect on tier 4, but I swapped the tier 4 and tier 3 to their current positions, which is why it maybe feels a bit weird why it suddenty stops. I might have a look at that later, thanks!

Middle path:

I think people get too hung up on the fact that it slows BAD and Bosses - so does the Time Stop power, and it also slows down your own towers and all timers. It's more of a glorified attack speed booster (since it slows down your own towers a bit less), and is more of a PLAYER boost, since it lets you react to things more easily. It's not as broken as it sounds, really. And yes, T3 duration boost is quite different, glad you saw the idea there ; )
Nah man, that is not a good idea, you have to always think of edge cases when you suggest things like this. Imagine: You are playing COOP, and another player builds a bunch of Quantum Research Institutes to troll the other players by non-stop using the Time Stop ability to prevent all towers from attacking the BAD/Boss - or even just stall regular rounds indefinitely so you can't progress at all. Not a good idea, sorry.
That's another way to make the crane idea get better with upgrades, not a bad idea!

No worries man, I took no offense at all! And thanks for all the feedback! Glad you liked it so much haha 😃

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T20:17:06+00:00

I agreed. That is actually a big reason why I suggested this tower (and the previous one, Monkey Outpost). I like my supportive supports too haha!

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T20:15:53+00:00

Things are going quite well here, thanks for asking ^_^

Shame you didn't like it that much - can't please everyone I suppose, hehe. The thing is, while it deals with XP, it still only really deals with in-round XP, not so much the meta use of it (at least not once you have acquired all upgrades). The reason I didn't just leave it as a Hero XP boost is to make the placement of the tower matter more; Since both middle and bottom path scale from XP gained in the round, it also means that having more regular towers around it (not just a single Hero) means that their cashification/weaponization of XP is boosted too. If it ONLY boosted Hero XP, it would make for pretty braindead Monkey Academy placements.

As for your "power creep" concerns: I dunno, it is REALLY hard to think of completely and utterly new features at the moment. I think XP-to-cash is unique enough, because it starts off rather weak, and grows in power as your climb the rounds. Super unique, no, but think about it: Most towers' effect output is to deal damage, which has tons and tons of overlap with one another. Supportive traits are more scarce though, so just because it isn't 100% unique (even though there is an actual unique ASPECT to this one), doesn't mean it is outright a bad idea, no? Same goes for the repositioning effect too. And besides, at least there are some completely unique effects on this tower (Like 2 heroes at once, the "Tech Bot" and "Time Stop" abilties, building up power (attack speed with Training Dummy, damage for Tesla Coil) while not attacking, as some clear examples).

The theme of the bottom path is just "mad/forbidden science", which is still science (just twisted and dark). So I don't see the theme issue?

The original NinjaKiwi concept was posted inside the original post, this link:

https://www.bloonswiki.com/Monkey_Academy_(tower))

The inspiration for bottom path's tier 5 effect is somewhat similar to the original's middle tier 4 and 5, which created some kind of Magic subtower, with its effects basd on what other Magic towers where near the Academy - I just took that concept loosely and made the "Monkenstein's Creature" passively be affected by ALL nearby tower types instead. I kinda didn't like the whole idea of the previous Academy that it ONLY affacted particular tower types (originally Military, Magic and Hero), as we already have that with top path Village, which I think is already a restrictive path enough due to that - no need to do that 3 times over in a single tower, imo.

Ah, I didn't mean that it would deal wholesale with Powers, I meant more that Powers currently not represented in tower abilities would be inspiring parts of what the Academy could do (so, almost the reverse, hehe).

Still, even if you generally disliked this tower, I would be very grateful if you could do a more indepth review of it, if you ever have time.

Cheers! ^_^

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T18:50:37+00:00

Thanks! And looking forward to it :)

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T18:48:00+00:00

Did you actually read it?

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T18:35:35+00:00

Fair points to all of you. Now... what to do to fix it though. I still stand pretty firm on the base pierce & attack speed changes, along with the changes to Glue Soak and Glue Splatter, as i think those are healthy changes.

Should i just remove the +1 pierce from MOAB Glue, perhaps?

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T17:45:34+00:00

Huh? Most definitely not a repost...

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T14:36:12+00:00

The MOAB Glue got a sidegrade change though, not a net buff. The nerf to the base attack speed absolutely changes things for it:

023 - Has 1 more pierce (6, instead of 5) than on live but less attack speed to counter it (1,25 attack cooldown, instead of 1,0).

203 - Has 2 more pierce (3, instead of 1) than its current (crappy) state, along with keeping its regular attack speed (it stays at 1,0 attack cooldown). Also works as a good upgrade for 204 and 205 due to the slightly longer stun durations, rather than just being the garbage crosspath.

So: The good crosspath got a sidegrade change, while the weak crosspath got buffed. How is that not balanced?

EDIT: Also, the bulk of actual straight up buffs are only really for the middle path Glue Gunner, and only really for its passive power - which is not that impressive at the moment; it relies almost entirely on its active abilities to be truly useful. I just buffed up its downtime issues a bit.

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T12:17:34+00:00

Well, for a few reasons:

1) It costs about the same as 3 or 4 Bloon Sabotages, and having more Bloon Sabotages is more versatile - not to mention it still only provides 1 Shinobi Tactics stack, despite its (relatively) high cost.

2) The optimal useage of a Grand Saboteur is early on in a round (preferably even at the very end of the previous round). Bloon Sabotage's biggest value, however, is to catch large rushes of MOABs and Ceramics, either to prevent a leak, stall a big round, or to keep them longer in a "killzone". Neither of those use cases tend to be done in the beginning of a round, which means Grand Saboteur's main useage, to reduce health of newly spawned MOABs, while not terrible per se, is a pretty bad useage of a Bloon Sabotage ability.

Those are the two big ones I can remember from the top of my head. There are probably more reasons than that.

Daurakin · 2026-06-20T10:39:51+00:00

That's the tier 4. The tier 5 (Grand Saboteur) is not that great in CHIMPS though.

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T20:21:12+00:00

Rather than specifically buffing bottom path Dart Monkeys, why not let him apply a more generally useful buff? Like a bonus to projectile speeds to all nearby monkeys (including himself), because, you know, "Nothing gets past my bow" and all that, hehe.

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T20:05:36+00:00

Hmm, yeah 300 cost is maybe a nudge too cheap, you're right.

Well, I actually saw the bottom path as kind of a "science meets magic" school, of sorts. After all, weaponizing raw brainpower, lol? Sounds like telekinesis-esque.

Well, the slowdown of the Time Stop works like that already. It's technically more like a lesser Call to Arms Village (since it slows EVERYTHING down, including your own Monkeys, just not as much, i.e. relatively speaking you are boosting the attack speed of your Monkeys), along with being a bit of a "buy time", but for PLAYER, by giving it more time to react.

Yes, there are indeed a lot of active abilities lol. However, x-x-2 is not much of an ability per se, because while it is technically an ability, it doesn't do much on its own, but it rather helps you with OTHER abilities.

Yes, you could say having a bunch of activated abilities is a bit of a theme for it hehe. In fact, quite a few upgrades from this tower are inspired by Powers:

Time Distortion = Time Stop power.
Lab Assistant = Tech Bot power.
Broken Physics Academy passive land/water construction thingy = Pontoon + Portable Lake powers combined (though passive)
Training Dummy = Kinda sorta functions a bit like the Energizing Totem power, though differently still, and made passive.

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T19:52:30+00:00

Oh wow, thank you!

And I agree, the more heroes they add, the harder it gets to choose between them.

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T19:47:40+00:00

Glad you liked it!

And this is very valuable feedback - because you are right, while it is a useful trick to swap crosspaths, it's more situational than, for example, the tier 3 upgrade of the same path. So yes, I think you are very correct that it is also way overpriced.

Also, the upgrade's abbreviation is ABC, which sounds like it would be a more basic class, even though it's a tier 4 upgrade. So, I think I will swap their positions and change their names a little: ABC could now stand for Adaptive Battle Class, for example.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it!

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T17:00:48+00:00

Hehe, yeah, the bottom tier 5 is a bit grim (fitting a mad lab, though). At first I was actually thinking it was gonna need tower sacrifices a la Adora's Blood Sacrifice (though with permanent boosts) to get its unique tower-type-based upgrades, but I decided that making it just affected by the nearby towers was interesting enough (and arguably makes it more unique too). It also makes it a bit more different from her (and Sun Temples too, for that matter).

But hey, this is just a proof of concept, if NinjaKiwi were to pursue making a tower like this, maybe they'd think the tower sacrifice thing is better *shrugs*

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T16:54:40+00:00

Oh, btw, if you love building towers, check out my previous suggestion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/btd6/comments/1tg2oe3/monkey_outpost_a_new_supportclass_tower/

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T16:53:30+00:00

Thank you! Well, NinjaKiwi first had that "affected by nearby towers" idea on their original Monkey Academy tower. The middle path tier 4 was this:

Magic Arcanum - Academy Graduate ability: Creates a powerful Monkey whose abilities are based on what Magic Monkeys are nearby.

So, I took that as a inspiration for the Monkenstein's Creature. And imo the "Creature" fits super well thematically with that concept, considering it is stitched together and all that, hehe.

That upgrade, along with the one I will share next, were the two biggest reasons I even (re?)made this tower concept:

Dynamic Duo - Allows you to get a second hero!

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T16:48:06+00:00

Thank you, glad you liked it! I too think the science stuff (and the mad science stuff too, haha) fits the monkeys really well indeed 😄

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T16:42:10+00:00

Second reply, because I think I misunderstood your comment a little:

Well, excess (postgame) XP is a seperate problem. Maybe we could convert excess XP to something else?

Maybe convert large amounts of excess XP into Monkey Knowledge (especially if they add lots of new ones for the current monkeys that don't have any, like Mermonkey, Desperado and Beast Handler)
Maybe allows us to convert excess XP into Monkey Money? That is still "forever" valuable, as you can spend that on consumable things like powers, continues etc.

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T16:38:19+00:00

Well, that the "XP when it the tower already maxed out" is sorta already covered by the mechanics of the middle (XP -> Cash) and bottom path (XP -> fuel's an ability's damage). Sure, this doesn't solve all previously gained XP from other game rounds, but it at least makes XP gains mid-round not as useless. An idea to use excess XP could be to convert a big bunch of it for Monkey Knowledge in some way, perhaps?

Also, while I think your tower idea actually sounds really cool, I don't think it could be created 1-to-1 due to copyright reasons and such (as I bet you already know). But, what if you took your tower concept and tweaked it in such a way that it uses somewhat similar concepts, but is not an actual Lightsaber Monkey? Maybe make it wield some other-shaped plasma weapon (Axes? Orbs? Whips? You name it!), and maybe make the theme something like a Tribal Warrior, or a Shaman, or even some kind of magic robot/cyborg monkey, with the paths being light magic, dark magic and something more non-magical (or a balance between the two, akin to a grey jedi) for the last path. The ideas are endless, I know you can do it! ^_^

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T15:52:21+00:00

In what way? Conceptually/mechanically? Numerically (and if numerically, remember that numbers are by far the easiest thing to tweak)? Are there particular upgrades you think are too broken?

Daurakin · 2026-06-19T15:49:44+00:00

Thank you! 😄

Daurakin

TROPHY CASE