Note: This tier list is for each individual tower path, with the Tier 5 image representing its tiers 3-5, in CHIMPS mode. A ‘+’ sign indicates further upgrades that are strategy-specific and shouldn’t always be purchased.



SS: Arguably game-breaking. Best in the game by far with virtually no weaknesses.


- Top Path Ninja: An early, mid, and late game powerhouse when supported. For less than $6k, this tower effortlessly carries to around r60, combining area cleanup with high point DPS. The Grandmaster + Shinobi strat is now insanely powerful, especially with Pat. Unlike other fifth tiers, it can be afforded before r63 while also slowly ramping up to the power level of towers like Avatar of Wrath as Shinobis are added. Its synergy with Overclock is simply broken. Best crosspath is 502.

- Middle Path Engi: While Cleansing Foam is unreliable and Ultraboost is unaffordable in CHIMPS, the real winner of this upgrade path is Overclock. Paying just $16k for a strict 2x power boost is huge, especially in a meta that’s dominated by highly-supported fifth tiers as opposed to many weaker towers. This ability is currently shaping the entire meta by causing a shift towards defenses that simply overpower the bloons with sheer DPS, with control towers taking a backseat. Best crosspath is 040.



S: Strong in all portions of the game. May be weak to some round types, but succeed when properly supported.


- Middle Path Ninja: One of the most versatile and useful abilities in the entire game. Almost compulsory against DDT rounds, and still demonstrates remarkable crowd control against hyperdense rounds, acting as a global MOAB Glue. As mentioned above, Shinobi strats are incredibly dominant and even enjoy some success with bottom path Ninja. Best crosspath is 0+40.

- Top Path Alchemist: Its buffs easily boost good towers into powerhouses, making it a necessity for most fast-shooting, low damage towers, or anything expensive where the speed alone justifies it. Its damage/pierce buff gives massive strength to Ninjas and Subs, while its attack speed buff works well with Avatar of Wrath. Best crosspath is 400+.

- Bottom Path Druid: Rose into the S tier thanks mostly to a ridiculous buff to Obyn, who literally quadruples the theoretical power of this tower. Can evaporate the densest rounds such as r98, but needs a lot of support to handle DDT rounds. Often seen with Permaspike as a result of this weakness. Best crosspath is 01+5.

- Bottom Path Spact: A consistently useful tower that has withstood the tests of time, as other towers waxed and waned with each passing balance change. At $32k it’s harder to use as a mid-game stepping stone, but when Overclocked with a Maim MOAB stall is capable of almost single-handedly defeating late game. The only tower to have beaten all 4 expert CHIMPS. Best crosspath is 025.


A: Shine in some portions of the game. Some are exceeding specialists, doing their job like no other tower.


- Bottom Path Tack: Tack Zone has recently been making a resurgence in popularity thanks to update 9.0 introducing Pat Fusty as well as a buff to the 4xx Alchemist. Once again, it can sustain 100% Alchemist uptime when the Alchemist is solely focused on it, and its damage is tripled by Pat’s Rallying Roar. The best way to use it is on a map where it can be placed directly below the track since its tacks originate above center and thus shred anything directly over it. It further received an almost unprecedented buff of +50% to attack speed as well as 100% uptime with Overclock, making it by far the strongest primary fifth tier in the game. Best crosspath is 205.

- Middle Path Sub: Useful for one round, r100, but boy is it insane. Two destroy r100 without fuss for around $30k when properly timed, while one can allow a defense designed against the previous rounds to succeed by simply deleting the BAD's children when activated late into the final damage phase. Best crosspath is 040.

- Bottom Path Sub: One of the most efficient towers early/mid-game, and can also be used to success as the sole source of popping power late-game on some maps such as Peninsula with the Sub Commander upgrade. On maps where a group can be placed easily, it is often the best option. Global range and easy camo detection make it very popular on Expert maps. Best crosspath is 203+.

- Top Path Heli: An all-rounder of a tower. Does solid damage against all types of rounds
 including r100, especially when supported. Also synergizes very well with Bloon Sabotage, which clumps up DDTs for its machine gun attack to get maximum value. Best crosspath is 501+.

- Top Path Wizard: Its large, homing projectiles offer powerful blimp support across the entire map. For its price, Arcane Spike is especially powerful when supplemented with a strong bloon clearer like MOAR Glaives. Archmage is more map specific, but dominates maps with poor visibility like Spillway and Workshop, especially when paired with a super ceramic clearer like Bloon Solver or Biggest One. Has amazing synergy with Overclock. Best crosspath is 401+.

- Top Path Super: Sun Avatar has great value both before and after super ceramics show up. It effortlessly solos up to r80, then is able to provide consistent crowd control by stalling super ceramics. The nerf to knockback is definitely significant however, enough to knock this path down to A tier from S. Best crosspath is 301+.



A-: Similar to A tier, but are often less powerful or can be replaced in many circumstances by better towers.


- Middle Path Boomer: Permacharge received a massive buff in 12.0, making it over twice as powerful as before. Combined with Overclock and MIB, this tower can decimate 90s bloon rushes and DDT rounds alike, even on short sections of track. Turbocharge is also a strong mid-game ability, one of the cheaper ways to deal with multiple MOABs. Best crosspath is 250.

- Bottom Path Boomer: Most useful for its knockback, which has substantial pierce and does well against hyperdense rounds. Seen in the original Puddles CHIMPS solutions, as well as Workshop CHIMPS. Perhaps its most common usage is against r100, to push the spawned ZOMGs back as far as possible. Most recently, its ability in 12.0 for the knockback kylies to benefit from crosspathing launched it into viability thanks to mid crosspath granting a 78% attack speed increase. Best crosspath is 024.

- Bottom Path Ice: Powerful for its crowd control capabilities that allow it to solo DDT rounds. However, offers less support than other towers at a similar price range against hyperdense rounds, along with weak point DPS. Replaceable by Perma-Spike on most maps. Best crosspath is 01+5.

- Bottom Path Glue: Wields a useful form of crowd control against both hyperdense and DDT rounds. A little expensive, but stacks well with Bloon Sabotage to cripple DDTs. Best crosspath is 01+3.

- Top Path Sniper: Most commonly used due to its synergy with Perma-Spike. When set on Last targeting, Maim MOAB can drag out rounds to unreasonable lengths, allowing Perma-Spike to stack up far more spikes than usual. This, in turn, means that Perma-Spike can do well against hyperdense rounds, especially when Overclocked. In addition, Deadly Precision is decent for its global range, seeing use in all #ouch CHIMPS strategies since update 7.0 to deal with the r40 MOAB. Best crosspath is 402.

- Top Path Mortar: A substantial nerf to blimps in 11.0 severely decreased the viability of this tower. As a result, it is no longer a late game menace, but rather an alternative to Bloon Solver that offers some advantages (global range, decent blimp DPS) and disadvantages (significantly more expensive, less effective at catching stray fortified super ceramics). Synergizes well with Overclock to blast hyperdense rounds into oblivion. Best crosspath is 520.

- Middle Path Spact: Most effective against r100, but can also provide global damage to chip away at the substantial health pool of r99 DDTs. It’s recently gained popularity due to fantastic synergy with Pat Fusty, making it the most efficient way to damage the BAD besides First Strike Capability. Best crosspath is 1+40.

- Middle Path Village: After the reign of Comanche Commander ended, the best late-game towers in the game started to require MIB support once again. Its ability to grant DDT popping power is invaluable for Sub Commander, Grandmaster Ninja, and Avatar of Wrath especially. Often seen in refined CHIMPS strategies in the form of double villages, with the other village upgraded along the top path and both having the discount upgrades. Call To Arms is generally unreliable, but can be used to some success, as seen on Muddy Puddles CHIMPS. Best crosspath is 032.



B: These towers tend to have great use, but are highly map or strategy dependent.


- Bottom Path Dart: Crossbow is problematic in CHIMPS due to its lack of synergy with Alchemist and tendency to miss, resulting in being largely outclassed by top path Ninjas. However, thanks to enormous buffs in 12.0, Crossbow Master is now a valid substitute for Sun Avatar as it has remarkable super ceramic clearing abilities. Still needs lots of straight lines to be usable, such as on Cubism. Best crosspath is 025.

- Bottom Path Bomb: Easily decimates midgame when supported by Striker Jones. It hasn't been as popular recently, but acts as a usable replacement for Sun Avatar in some strategies. However, the significant nerf to Biggest One and the current Pat meta has resulted in a lower tier as other midgame options continue to dominate the game. Completely evaporates dense ceramic rounds such as r78. Best crosspath is 204.

- Middle Path Tack: While the 5th tier ability is up and buffed by Pat Fusty, this tower melts everything nearby, including blimps. The ability is up half the time. The 4th tier is a cheap patch for round 63 defenses, and can be used on both the first and third rushes. Best crosspath is 250 (although this doesn’t affect the ability).

- Top Path Ice: Demonstrates incredible support capability with certain towers that deal low damage per projectile, such as Tack Zone and Grandmaster. Unfortunately, its pathetically small range makes it difficult to use well. Because of this, it also has, to an extent, high map dependence. Best crosspath is 51+0.

- Middle Path Ice: The tier 4 ability is fantastic for Expert maps in particular, where Perma-Spike is difficult to use. Its slow is significantly more powerful than MOAB Glue and Bloon Sabotage, especially against r99’s FDDTs. However, it does little to nothing on just about every other round. The water freezing can be useful for gaining extra land on Peninsula, better tower placements on Quad, and utilizing both subs and land towers in the center on #ouch. Best crosspath is 041+.

- Top Path Glue: One of the most specialized towers in the entire game. Its sole purpose is to deal with super ceramics, and this it does incredibly well. Perhaps the cheapest reliable option against these menaces late game. Its sheer concentrated power is a great counter to fortified rounds, in which the largest threat is the fortified super ceramic children. Best crosspath is 502.

- Bottom Path Mortar: Excels against r98, removing a sizable amount of the RBE for a cheap price tag, but not much else. Useful for strategies built around dealing with DDTs that need extra hyperdense round support, but the influence of Overclock resulting in a meta centralized on overwhelming with sheer DPS results in less usage than in other metas. Signal Flare is unfortunately too inconsistent to be useful and Blooncineration has nearly half its normal DPS with MK off. Best crosspath is 01+4.

- Middle Path Alchemist: The majority of its usage lies in its third tier upgrade, Unstable Concoction. For a very cheap price tag, it gets a very significant portion of the pops from hyperdense rounds when set on Strong. Synergizes best with towers that can hold their ground against groups of super ceramics, such as Perma-Spike, because its massive blimp-wrenching explosions have the side effect of releasing hordes of super ceramics all at once. Best crosspath is 032.



B-: Have limited, but occasionally useful, use.


- Top Path Boomer: Exceptionally strong against bloons, exceptionally weak against blimps. Best used as a complement to Arcane Spike to work as a surprisingly potent mid-game combo while saving up for fifth tiers like Grandmaster Ninja. The fifth tier, Glaive Lord, is usable in CHIMPS, although not commonplace. This is mostly because of its puny range and inability to actually deal with fortified super ceramics. Best crosspath is 420 with Alch buff.

- Top Path Tack: As usual with the offensive Tacks, it’s rather map specific. Ring of Fire acts as decent bloon clean-up, with the fifth tier Inferno Ring being a fun, if not amazing, tower to use. Similar to its partner in crime, Primary Expertise, it combines two roles it does decently into a tower that’s a little more than decent. Best crosspath is 520.

- Middle Path Glue: Acts as a weaker form of Super Brittle, but with global range. Obviously, best used with towers that deal low damage per projectile such as Tack Zone and Grandmaster Ninja. Glue Hose is very useful for certain strategies that greatly struggle against super ceramics, but these are few and far between with the dominance of Overclock. Best crosspath is 250 (after the bug fix made 052 unable to debuff blimps).

- Top Path Ace: At its third tier, Fighter Plane is an acceptably strong way of dealing heavy single-target damage to blimps, especially useful on r40, for maps where global range is particularly valuable. Above that, Sky Shredder combines two mediocre attacks to give a jack of all trades, master of none tower. Tends to struggle against super ceramics and dense blimp packs, but its relatively cheap price tag makes this somewhat acceptable. Best crosspath is 501+.

- Middle Path Ace: Best used on hyperdense rounds to clear out super ceramics and deal heavy damage to blimps. Due to this, it has enjoyed less viability recently as Avatar of Wrath and The Biggest One occupy the meta. Tsar Bomba is niche, but can be used well, especially with Perma-Spike. Bomber Ace is mostly relegated to races. Best crosspath is 14+0.

- Bottom Path Ace: After a “rework” that increased price significantly, Spectre fell off the map as its role was completely boxed out by Sun Avatar. However, the introduction of Overclock and the nerf to Sun Avatar in 12.0 has given it new life. It’s now able to contend with late game, especially because of its 100% uptime with Overclock. Seen with Impale on Muddy Puddles and Workshop CHIMPS, completed by Jajajosh. Best crosspath is 204.

- Middle Path Heli: Special Poperations does extraordinary damage but is unreliable without the extraordinarily expensive Energizer. In addition, its move ability rarely comes into use besides Puddles CHIMPS. Downdraft is a semi-reliable way to deal with late-popped MOAB children and is excellent for stalling out rounds to build up permaspikes. Best crosspath is 230 or 051.

- Top Path Druid: For a reasonable price, Ball Lightning is a respectably powerful tower that carries mid-game and can control super ceramics with the tornado. Combine 1-2 of these with poplust spam as a stepping stone to Avatar of Wrath on most maps. On easier maps, it can be used as a Sun Avatar replacement to lead into Avatar of Wrath, especially since the drastic Sun Avatar nerf in 12.0. Best crosspath is 402.

- Top Path Village: Combines decent buffs with a rather unreliable attack which can sometimes clear out large groups of super ceramics. While neither is particularly powerful, they merge into a tower that supports some Primary towers well, while taking on the role of denting super ceramic clusters. For example, Inferno Ring requires the use of this tower to quadruple the power of its meteor attack. It is often seen in the double village strategy in CHIMPS, outlined above. Best crosspath is 502.



C: Average towers, nothing extraordinary to see here.


- Top Path Bomb: On maps that converge to a single path, this tower completely shuts down every round besides r100 for a very large price tag. Almost always combined with Sun Avatar to burn through the dense packs of perma-stunned blimps it creates, largely because of the exceptional cost efficiency of Avatar to compensate for Crush's extreme price tag. Unfortunately, its complete lack of damage means that it requires powerful support, such as double First Strike. Note that Sun Avatar nerf has significantly decreased Bloon Crush’s viability. Best crosspath is 520.

- Middle Path Bomb: As the name might suggest, MOAB Eliminator completely trashes the r100 BAD. In addition, it contributes decent damage and can remove some of the RBE from hyperdense rounds. Unfortunately, its price tag means that, for the most part, First Strike on water and Spike Storm on land outclass it. MOAB Mauler spam can be mildly effective for late-game when supported with Primary Expertise and Striker Jones. Best crosspath is 050+.

- Top Path Buccaneer: Can do decent all-around damage, but has become steadily more and more outclassed and overshadowed by towers with much higher DPS. The nerf to Alchemists in 6.0 also had substantial impacts on Destroyers, causing them to become almost entirely replaced by bottom path Subs. In addition, the inability for Alchemists to buff the Aces at all in 12.0 is a severe reduction in power considering that they only do 2 damage per dart. Best crosspath is 520.

- Middle Path Mortar: Pop and Awe stuns all bloons on screen and erases superceramics while active, but it’s expensive and the main attack is negligible late-game. With Striker Jones’ level 10 ability, it can be used twice in a row for a 26% uptime, completely shutting down DDTs. A recent buff to Artillery Battery has made it decent for bloon clearing, but only on maps built for it like Moon Landing. Best crosspath is 250.

- Middle Path Wizard: stuff

- Bottom Path Super: Suffers greatly from an ability to deal damage to super ceramics, unlike Sun Avatar which pierces through and stunlocks them. Its blimp damage gives it some specialization, but it’s outclassed by more effective options for such a purpose like Arcane Spike. Dark Champion is decent DPS but very hard to afford and still falls to rounds like 98 and 99 without help. Best crosspath is 203.

- Bottom Path Ninja: Never quite been very good due to unreliability of Flash Bomb and extreme specialization of Master Bomber. However, with Shinobi spam very much in the meta, Flash Bomb is a cheap way to further power up Grandmaster by acting as a permanent stun to super ceramics. In addition, mass Shinobis greatly enhance the power of Master Bomber's blimp stun to become a strange derivative of Bloon Crush. Best crosspath is 103.

- Bottom Path Engineer: Very expensive for CHIMPS at $64.8k, but you do get what you pay for, a tower that shoots a trap capable of eating 10,000 RBE of blimps every few seconds. However, it’s unreliable and fast bloons like DDTs and ceramic clumps will often slip through, requiring a defense capable of dealing with them. Best crosspath is 005.


 C-: Almost entirely outclassed by better choices. There’s no more need to talk about each upgrade path specifically.

- Middle Path Dart
- Bottom Path Sniper
- Top Path Sub
- Bottom Path Wizard
- Middle Path Super
- Bottom Path Alchemist
- Top Path Spact
- Top Path Engi

D: Has no redeeming features.

- Middle Path Sniper
- Middle Path Buccaneer
- Bottom Path Heli

D-: Somehow has even fewer redeeming features than zero.

- Top Path Dart
- Middle Path Druid

F: Actively works against the player in CHIMPS.

- Bottom Path Buccaneer
- Bottom Path Village