Paragons, the strongest monkeys in the universe,
made from sacrificing whole villages of monkeys, are what every casual player aspires to build. But
could they be Bad for BTD6? Well, let’s find out. Paragons were first released in Update27.png along
with Bloonarius. It was clear that the new Apex Plasma Master and Glaive Dominus were made to help
us beat bosses, but there was 1 clear problem that most people saw right away. The Dart paragon was
much better than the boomerang in terms of damage, price, and the ease of getting it to a high
degree as monkey knowledge lets us get down 1 extra crossbow master. All of this added
up to make the APM a staple of boss events and the glaive dominus an afterthought.
Fast forward to the next update where the Ascended Shadow was added to the game, and he
took paragon powers to the next level. This guy had incredible damage between his continuous
stream of shurikens and massive sticky bombs, plus he had crazy utility by having a passive
50% slow. This made him an instant favorite for popping bosses, especially with the new
addition of Lych, but his crazy price tag of 600k and no way of getting easy degrees made
him almost exclusively a late game option. So, the meta was clear. Get a Dart Paragon
for tiers 3 and 4 of boss events and take down the tier 5 with a super high level
Ascended Shadow and a VTSG. Once again, the glaive dominus was thrown to the side as it
didn’t really fit in with the meta even though Ninja Kiwi doubled or even tripled some of its
stats in this update. With these buffs, there was no arguing that it was great boss option, it
just couldn’t compete with the APM early or the Ascended Shadow late, so it was stuck in limbo.
This is totally fine. There are many cases in bloons and other games where a tower is
good but not used as it just doesn’t fit into the meta. But update 29 is where we
get into the crux of the paragon problem. In it, the Glaive Dominus got 3 more damage
buffs, making it deal more damage than the APM pound for pound. But that’s not the issue. What
is, is that getting a degree 30 Glaive Dominus by round 80 is much more difficult and expensive
than a degree 30 Apex Plasma Master. And this difference in price and difficulty more than
makes up for the damage difference, especially when considering optimizing money for bosses.
But even more problematic than trying to solve this delicate problem with brute force
damage buffs, is overshadowing it with the strongest tower we have ever seen. Yes,
this update added the Navarch of the Seas, which put all other paragons to shame. It
had global fighter planes, 6 sets of turrets, grappling hooks that automatically 1 shot ZOMGs
and below, it was the first paragon to get an ability which just so happened to let it 1 shot
BADs which everyone thought was off limits, but more on that later, and most importantly
it is now the second paragon to have a super easy way to get it to a high degree.
Boat farming, already the fastest way to farm in the game, now counts each dollar
generated by a boat as 4 pops, which is the main limiting factor in Paragon degrees other
than how many Tier 5s you can sacrifice. So, now we have clear path to beating every
beating every boss, you just had to boat farm, get a super cheap degree 30 Dart Paragon for
round 80, get a massive degree 50+ Navarch of the Seas for round 100, then, and only then,
would we think about getting the Glaive Dominus or Ascended Shadow which you’d only do if you
had enough money left over. Luckily, this did get shaken up if the map had little to no water,
but then we just went back to update 28 strats. So, what’s the problem? Well, we have 4 paragons,
but 2 of them are clear stand out favorites that are essentially needed to beat elite bosses,
you get them first when doing a freeplay run, and the only time you get the other 2 paragons
is if you have extra money and time to make them. Ninja Kiwi has recognized this and has been
forcing players to opt for the other paragons for a while now by picking certain maps or limiting
what monkeys we can use for bosses. Though this is effective and normally praised by players, it is
clearly a band aid fix instead of a full solution. So how does Ninja Kiwi solve this? Well, we have
already covered that this is a meta problem and not so much of a DPS issue. So, in order
to compete with the current top paragons, new ones will need an easy way to get high degrees
and make it worth the price at key rounds like 80, 100, or 120. If this can’t happen, the meta would
have to change either by new bosses countering certain paragons or nerfs to the APM and Navarch
making it more difficult to get extra degrees This could’ve fixed all our problems, but then the
Master Builder was added in This engineer paragon is the most expensive one yet, but it does have 2
things going for it. The first is that you can get some extra degrees with its XXXL trap generating
money and getting pops. And the second is that if you are farming super efficiently, you’ll have
many overclock engineers to buff your BRFs; so, you already have your sacrifices ready when
the time comes to making the Master Builder. This kind of achieved the necessary metrics for
being a useful paragon. It has a way to get extra degrees, but it isn’t nearly as effective
as the extra tier 5 that the APM gets or boat farming that the Navarch gets. That being
said, the extra pop count is always welcome as it’s price makes it a round 100 or 120 option.
Which is where you’re exclusively looking for damage and it checks that box too. So now the
master builder is competing with the Glaive Dominus and Ascended Shadow for that 3rd spot.
But the addition of the Master Builder brought a new problem to the forefront of every players
mind. The Master Builder does not combine all 3 paths of the engineer like the previous 4
paragons did to their respective monkeys. All it has is the mega sentries of the top path and
it ultra-boosts itself every round. Now, I don’t think of this as too big of an issue, but the
community has spoken and even Ninja Kiwi stated that it is odd that the first support paragon
does not buff other towers in some way. So, I’m hopeful that it gets reworked, but it brings
up something that is much, much scarier to me. And that is the power creep that has snuck into bloons
and is even expected by players at this point. Now, Ninja Kiwi is actively fighting against the
power creep and I’m making a whole video on that, but in short, the crazy amount of power
that the Navarch and Apex Plasma Master have has conditioned many people to expect that
from new paragons. And when that isn’t met, there is frustration and disappointment, even
though new paragons are meant to be hype machines. So, let’s say that the Master Builder gets
reworked to have a MEGA Trap. What does it do? You’d be surprised at how many comments
I’ve gotten about how it should be able to eat BADs just like the Navarch can, but I think that
should be completely off limits even for paragons, but if it has to exist it better be locked behind
a paragon ability with a crazy long cooldown. So how would I solve all these issues? Well,
let me first say that I think Ninja Kiwi is being careful and doing the right thing, so these
should be solved soon, but I’d start with what I said earlier: Make it much more difficult to get
high degree APMs and Navarchs. This will instantly level the playing field for the existing 5
paragons. Then, I’d make it clear whether paragons will be exclusively DPS machines or a
culmination of their 3 paths going forward. And if a re-work is done for the Master Builder,
I’d make it much more supporty. I probably wouldn’t let it overclock other paragons, but I’d
give it an ultra-boost aura for normal monkeys, and I’d do something unique with the trap. There
is absolutely no way I’d let it eat BADs. Instead, I’d make the trap similar to Geraldo’s totems in
that the next paragon made would also sacrifice the trap and count the pops and money when
calculating levels. This way the master builder helps make better paragons without directly
overclocking them. This would be a cool mix of all its paths, keep it true to supporting,
and hopefully make every paragon viable.
