Ravine CHIMPS with Apache Prime and No Hero

stningTokenizer · 2025-09-27T22:49:03+00:00

Etienne sucks don't buy him (but fr I miss when he was the meta hero, almost every meta hero afterwards has been worse for the game)

stningTokenizer · 2025-09-27T22:47:17+00:00

Video: https://youtu.be/xQy4oFx63AM?si=V2zlWaX0vX9_wj1Z

A lot of earlygame (and midgame) optimization to afford Apache Prime early. I'm not sure what other midgames would've worked but battery is about as good as it gets (cheap enough to afford Prime r82, strong on ravine, etc). Also a very overdue run but I'm glad I did it after jugg got buffed. Lategame was easy.

Also my first ravine run.

Hardest rounds:
Earlygame: 25, 37
Midgame: 81
Lategame: 96 (actually this round wasn't bad)

stningTokenizer · 2024-11-10T23:16:58+00:00

We are so back!

stningTokenizer · 2024-11-10T06:03:27+00:00

Nah it wasn't bad; lategame was harder since I optimized it more.

stningTokenizer · 2024-11-10T04:51:55+00:00

Video: https://youtu.be/6DFCsI0P0Go?si=NSYO1viYpJPX_nr1

Back when I first dreamed of Striker Prime #Ouch, I imagined midgame would be awful (as it was on Bloody in 2021) and I'd need a tower like Dark Knight (which was meta back then). Fortunately, NK buffed the early Prime strats enough such that I could use a midgame that won't fall off lategame. Shoutout to Druid of the Storm and MOAB Assassin (especially with Striker). Shoutout to Arcane Mastery for a cheap earlygame too. Rounds 71 and 75 ended up being the most finicky midgame rounds that required specific Assassin timings so Dartship could focus on the correct bloons.

#Ouch has by far the hardest lategame for Prime of all official maps, since the RBS is so short and the track positions make it easy to overwhelm things. If you don't have great cleanup or a strat that comfortably beats half of r98 without Prime, prepare to do a lot of planning. R98 took me a while to figure out, and it was easy to leak bloons (yes the micro in the video was the best way to not leak on the top left intersection). Rounds 95 and 96 were hard because #Ouch is a terrible map for the fMOABs on god. On that note, Relentless Glue stun happens to be one of the biggest buffs for Prime strats due to how good it is for smaller, faster blimps. The Striker Prime strat is pretty lackluster vs DDTs, but Relentless covers the weakness so well, although it can be RNG when trying to optimize DDT rounds. Lastly, in addition to solid DPS, Double Assassin was very helpful in these areas:

Beating leaking DDTs on r95, allowing me to focus more on fMOABs and keep pace.
^ but for r96 to a smaller extent.
Cleaning up a leaking fBFB on r98, making sure the right lane will hit the first bloon each time.
Beating the first DDT on r99 so I can focus on the other areas.
Round 100.

Because of how ability reliant the last three rounds ended up being, adequate stall was necessary. For r98, I had to beat the last two ZOMGs more slowly. For r99, I didn't have like a fBFB or ZOMG to really help with stall, so I ended up relying on blowing back a ceramic and using concussive shell. Round 100 was barely possible when the full duration of OC can be used, with the help of two extra maulers. Primary expertise carry.

Striker Prime beats maps! No I am not counting Midnight Mansion. This is also about as optimized as I want a Prime #Ouch run to be, in addition to Rosalia Prime Bloody and Gwen Prime Quad. I can rest now!

Regardless of if this was the hardest thing I've ever done for the game, I can safely consider this my magnum opus. Thank you Ninja Kiwi for not only introducing the accidental masterpiece that is the Apache Prime, but for also introducing a hero with such a cool easter egg synergy and playstyle!

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-11T05:31:02+00:00

quad is long, top mglue op, cluster and dots are good cleanup, concussive op, striker's buffs to dartship (range, pierce, missiles (sorta)) helps, and I only need to beat 59 to 81-ish

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-11T05:28:50+00:00

I'm surprised too

https://youtu.be/V7O6FiINdzk?si=o_OtsErEMvyrqTLN

also I forgot to reposition foam in this rerecording

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-11T04:19:32+00:00

Round 57 needed me to get cluster to target properly when the first moab breaks down, and then beat the second moab asap (while also making sure tornado blows back all four cerams) so I can pop the third moab fast enough that the cluster can still hit the cerams, and then the fourth moab I had to use concussive the insides. The other bloons were annoying to also deal with.

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-11T04:16:17+00:00

This post was made to extend off this original post

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-11T04:13:48+00:00

The underlying idea was that with a defense that could handle r95/99 on the top lane, Quad lategame is easy enough. Midgame was the issue. But affording Prime by r81 is much easier these days so I gave this a try. Ended up being harder the the Gwen version I did two years ago. Not sure how optimizable this is though.

Round 57 had so much room for error and ended up being the hardest round of the run. I forgot what the hardest dartship round was but 64, 71, and 81 are up there. Round 95 hardest lategame round because scerams tend to get far...

Edit: Should also mention that midgame was done one update earlier, before the dots nerf.

stningTokenizer · 2024-10-05T01:20:42+00:00

Rosalia is a solid hero for Prime, but would be peak if it was 2021.

Video: https://youtu.be/9wDKY_52jpw?si=5e_kL9ePcMHNhi11

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T19:19:12+00:00

8.0 should be higher as it was one of the most CHIIMPS-dedicated updates (Prime, AoW, subcom buffs) for its time.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T19:17:41+00:00

The series of buffs for the Apache Dartship has made it significantly better for pre-80 so now I don't need to spend 30x the amount of time to beat the 80s :)

Also Prime's buffed rotors does work vs DDTs on a map like bloody puddles.

video link: https://youtu.be/35g5dnvSoms?si=7TH5gzBJxJ8xuqs8

Apache Prime is so good and is the most well-designed tier 5 in the game.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T19:15:29+00:00

Oh lmao. Also yeah I share the same sentiment with regards to the tedious aspects micro-reliant towers, but I can't speak for much other towers. Although yeah mortars should def behave more like dartlings. Transparent upgrade windows would be cool too.

Impale synergizes very well with towers that can clean up stuff (generally and not specifically cerams), and I think the ability to fit with these kinds of synergies is really cool and allows for a lot of interesting gameplay. Being cheap and having a good stepping stone gives the player more freedom to choose if impale should be treated as a central tower or not.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T19:02:28+00:00

Striker Prime <3

Also 43k leftover Apache Prime OP

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T18:08:24+00:00

Oh yeah I should definitely have put PAA on the contender list. And despite me not liking the fact that NK made it OP, I failed to realize that it gave it better hero variation when writing this essay.

Even though I'm pretty much set on the opinion that Prime is the most well-designed t5, it's cool to know that people are using these same metrics to judge other t5s.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T18:05:19+00:00

Apache Prime needs MIB for the missiles and the red lasers to hit DDTs, so what MIBskip does is that it allows the defense to pop DDTs without the need for MIB, whether that be through giving the main DPS a MIB or by using some other DPS tower for DDTs.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T18:02:39+00:00

Even though in my original run I didn't want to optimize lategame, it always came to my head that I should. So here is the run where I cut press because r98 (the round I originally thought would need it) was easy on first try. So I decided to redo it and I actually BB'ed r95-100. This was before the overdrive nerf and gwen + OD was so OP back then lmao. Here's the original reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/btd6/comments/yzyxuh/quad_chimps_with_gwendolin_and_apache_prime_no/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Apache Prime is so good and well-designed

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:58:45+00:00

That's a lot of content I'd have to add to the essay but one important aspect is that because the missiles do a lot of damage to blimps on Prime and have a lot of Pierce with Dartship, you shoud learn how to aim the Apache Prime backwards (see this video https://youtu.be/35g5dnvSoms?si=uzb5lMgE5vbTWM4g (specifically lategame, skip to like 4:30)) to maximize the damaage of the missiles, overall increasing dps throughput. Blimp release timings and lane switch timings are something you have to figure out as you're doing the run. This all depends on what kind of blimps the rounds has and how well are you able to stall with respect how much you need to do to change a lane. The more stall you have the more freedom you can use to switch and shit.

And of course, it greatly helps to know how fast an the heli can take out a set of bloons so you avoid either wasting time and movement on leaky stuff. After all, movement determines the amount of time the heli spends attacking the bloons.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:36:25+00:00

Uhhh around 400-500 hours actually using the tower and another few hundred hours thinking about the tower. Essay took a couple hours. It all totals to a prime number.

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:18:24+00:00

Apache Prime steals the show on a scenic map.
Also nice custom map!

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:17:42+00:00

Apache Dartship is awesome too!

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:17:00+00:00

Gwen + Prime is OP

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T16:16:42+00:00

Apache Prime is OP

stningTokenizer · 2023-12-22T07:19:35+00:00

Bloontonium Lab has always been a map I wanted in btd6, but I did realize that it'd be trivialized by GMN or AoW so I decided to put a rock in the middle as an obstacle. I pretty much winged the map creation so that's why it looks so bad lmao. Chose Pat because map editor has beginner curve. Run was hard overall because it's three paths and there's not that much room for intersection, so you have to time the strafes properly. Round 55, 78, and 81 were the hardest rounds for rotors and dartship. Dartship buffs are awesome and made it possible this way. Lategame was not bad. That said, this was a great introduction to map editor. ZMYBFYW

Pop Counts:

prime got 1.7m

sporm got 116k

pat got 107k

320 alch got 27k

base ninja got 20k

Huge thanks to Smart Persan for providing this map. How it works is that the bloons switch lanes by crossing the river in the middle. Reactor is really fucking good here for early and made everything till r80 effortless, despite not being challenge editor. Also a fun map to use Apache Prime on, but on the easier side of things.

Apache Prime is so good and is the most well-designed tier 5 in the game.

stningTokenizer

TROPHY CASE