The Mortar Monkey is one of the most powerful types of Towers players can place, though the unfortunate reality is that the Mortar Monkey can only damage bloons in one location, firing constantly unless players choose to alter where the the Mortar Monkey shoots.
Unfortunately the Mortar Monkey, as powerful as it is, is not the most reliable tower to place as not only will it have difficulty shredding through a number of bloons such as Black Bloons and Zebra Bloons, simply because of their explosion immunity.
Though Mortar Monkeys will experience difficulty shredding through some types of bloons players can either place a tower that provide the Mortar Monkey with the ability to destroy these bloons such as the Monkey Village with Monkey Intelligence Bureau (-/3/-), though players will also be happy to note that the Mortar Monkey can be upgraded in order to detect and even reveal Camo Bloons.
The Mortar Monkey can become extremely powerful by upgrading it with attack speed as this will help ensure that bloons are destroyed with ease.
While players can essentially do similar things using a Bomb Shooter, though players can do more damage using the Mortar Monkey and again can move where the Mortar Monkey is targeting.
Players will always want to target areas that see bloons multiple times, essentially being where paths cross over often being a loop in the track.
Unlike the Bomb Shooter a loop or path layover is actually not as important as players can essentially move the Mortar Monkey’s targeting multiple times in order to essentially gain the same result.
The following guide will take you through everything you need to know about which tier-5 Mortar Monkey they will want to place and in what circ*mstance they are best in.
PATH 1 TIER-5 MORTAR MONKEY – THE BIGGEST ONE
By far one of the strongest Mortar Monkeys players can upgrade to for sheer popping power is The Biggest One.
The Biggest One deals exceptional damage, having a base radius of 80 though the shockwave explosion has an even larger radius being an extraordinary 120 range.
The Biggest One deals massive damage, popping up to 200 bloons per hit being able to shred through 20 layers of normal bloons.
The best bloons to use The Biggest One on are Ceramic Bloons and MOAB-class bloons which will have 40 layers shred with each blast, though it should be noted that if Ceramics or MOAB-class bloons are hit with the external shockwave they will only receive 11 layers of damage.
Players will often want to enhance a Mortar Monkey by placing an Alchemistwith Berserker Brew, an Engineer Monkey with Overclock or even a Hero like Striker Jones as these will greatly increase the damage output of the Mortar Monkey.
It’s important for a player to try to increase the attack speed of The Biggest One as doing so will raise the chances of bloons being completely obliterated bloons before they begin to leak. This is especially important for Super Ceramics as they are quite speedy and have the chance to leak before the Mortar Monkey has a chance to actually damage the Super Ceramics.
When it comes to cross pathing a Mortar Monkey, players will essentially deal the same amount of damage with both upgrade paths though the choice will be based on what the player needs.
If players are looking for a Path upgrade that allows them to constantly change where the Mortar Monkey attacks they should focus on Path 2 as this will raise the attack speed of the Mortar Monkey and raise the chances that the Mortar Monkey will be able to damage bloons that are making their way to that part of the map.
As such, the Path 2 cross path will essentially also raise the chance that players will be able to shred through Super Ceramic Bloons before they leak.
Path 2 will also raise the chance of bloons becoming stunned as it will rapidly fire in comparison.
If players wish to simply deal more damage to bloons, especially damage over time they can select a Path 3 cross path as this will essentially cause damage from explosions to deal 25 damage every 1.5 seconds for 3 seconds, essentially adding an extra 50 damage to affected bloons.
Path 2 is a much better option for players who are working at chipping away the health of MOAB-class bloons, though it risks Super Ceramics leaking.
PATH 2 TIER-5 MORTAR MONKEY – POP AND AWE
The Pop and Awe upgrade path is ones of the best upgrades for players who wish to provide a Mortar Monkey with more attack speed as well as the ability to stun all bloons and MOAB-class bloons, other than the BAD.
Pop and Awe comes with a special ability that provides players with the stun capability, shooting 8 times over the duration 8 seconds.
While awesome, the Pop and Awe ability does allow bloons to move from their stun state in between the attacks caused by Pop and Awe.
The Pop and Awe ability will deal 20 damage per second, essentially being able to obliterate a good amount of damage upon activating.
The Pop and Awe ability has a 60 second cool down, but this can be reduced by using Striker Jones, also allowing for more damage to stunned bloons.
The Pop and Awe Mortar Monkey will deal 12 extra damage to Ceramic Bloons, 4 extra damage to Lead Bloons, 4 extra damage to Fortified Bloons, 4 extra damage to MOAB-class bloons and 10 extra damage to stunned bloons.
When it comes to cross pathing a Pop and Awe Mortar Monkey players will only want to upgrade using Path 1 as doing so will increase its blast radius as well as increase it’s damage by 1.
Unfortunately a Path 3 cross path with Burny Stuff is considered very weak in comparison.
PATH 3 TIER-5 MORTAR MONKEY – BLOONCINERATION
The Blooncineration Mortar Monkey is a tremendously useful Tower to place as it will provide players with the ability to deal 100 damage to all affected MOAB-class bloons every second for 3 seconds.
Oddly enough the Blooncineration Mortar Monkey will only deal 5 damage to normal bloons per second for 3 seconds.
Though this is true, the Blooncineration Mortar Monkey will also spawn a fire wall that is similar to the Wall of Fire where it impacts dealing further damage to all types of bloons including Purple Bloons and Camo Bloons.
The lovely thing is that all forms of damage will be able to strip Camo Bloons of their properties, including DDTs.
Blooncineration Mortar Monkeys will also be able to remove Fortified Properties off of all bloons, including MOAB-class bloons except for ZOMGs and BADs, making them extremely powerful for players who would rather not deal damage to fortified bloons.
Players will want to unlock the Extra Burny Stuff Monkey Knowledge if they are planning on using a Blooncineration Mortar Monkey as unlocking this Monkey Knowledge will allow players to deal 200 damage per second, due to the Monkey Knowledge allowing the Blooncineration Mortar Monkey to deal twice per second instead of once per second.
When it comes to cross pathing a Blooncineration Mortar Monkey, players are recommended to use Path 2 as this will greatly increase the attack speed of the Mortar Monkey.
Path 1 will, however, increase 5 pierce and 1 damage, though this is not required due to the amount of damage output players will simply receive from faster attack speed.
CONCLUSION
When it comes to selecting a Mortar Monkey all three are extremely viable options, often leading me to place them all on all maps.
Path 1 grants players the ability to pop many bloons and deal with Ceramic Bloons efficiently, though it can still allow bloons to leak.
The more lovely thing about it is that players can choose to have The Biggest One Mortar Monkey damage directly in front of other towers to ensure that bloons are stunned in areas where concentrated damage can be done.
Path 2 will deal rapid damage as well as provide players with the ability to stun bloons upon activating the special ability.
Path 2 deals with most bloons quickly and efficiently, though I will say that it is usually my third option for damage.
Path 3 is by far my favourite kind of Mortar Monkey as it will not only reveal Camo Bloons for towers that do not have Camo detection, but will also remove Fortified properties off of bloons, essentially being the best choice for players who are having difficulty with MOAB-class bloons.
While Camo detection is not usually a problem, especially if players are strategic and place Monkey Villages with Radar Scanner (-/2/-) near all towers, the removal of Fortified properties is nothing to laugh at as this will greatly reduce the amount of hits players need to make in order to actually destroy a MOAB-class bloon.
The only downfall to removing Fortified properties is that it will make it more difficult to get some achievements, but in my opinion this trade-off is worth it.
So I’m curious, what’s your favourite Mortar Monkey?
Do you purely like the devastation of Path 1 Mortar Monkeys or are you more strategic and love Path 3 Mortar Monkeys?
Are you simply a Path 2 Pop and Awe user for it’s ability?
Let me know in the comments below!
