Bloons TD 6 – Ultimate Guide to Relics

39.x Tierlist Justifications

Note: Some relics have comments from top players who have a unique opinion. These point out underrated or overrated aspects of the relic, or hidden uses people don’t give credit for.

Abilitized

Reduces cooldowns of all Abilities by 10%.

As Activated Abilities are very commonly used throughout the game, this relic is very universally helpful. However, the reduction rate usually isn’t impactful enough to warrant giving up a better relic.

• Bosses: Faster cooldown for Support Chinook, Supply Drop, and Jungle’s Bounty gets you more money to defeat the boss. Also decent for ability-based damage such as Spike Storms and MOAB Eliminator

Air And Sea

Reduces upgrade cost of Aces, Helis, Subs, and Buccaneers by 5% and increases their fire rate by 5%.

Decent choice in general, as all four towers are often seen in any gamemode.

• Least Cash: Directly improves your score when using affected towers.
• Bosses: Reducing the cost of Merchantmen significantly improves boat farming on tiles that need it. Also pairs well with many boss damagers such as Destroyers, Pirate Lord, and Comanche Defense.

People don’t realize the price difference can actually break or make a run. For example affording Spectre before a certain round that could kill you without sms or having enough starting cash for ace to start a race.

Alchemist Touch

Allows all attacks do damage Lead Bloons.

While Lead Bloons in other gamemodes can be easily countered with cheap towers like Alchemist, such towers are a luxury in CT.

• Races: Allows towers like Druid of the Jungle, Glaive Ricochet and Blade Maelstrom to ignore lead bloons that would otherwise prevent them from damaging bloons entirely. Also synergizes extremely well with Flint Tips for said towers.
• Least Tiers: Saves tiers by bypassing lead crosspaths.
• Bosses: Theoretically should allow all towers to damage Dreadbloon while unshielded. Unfortunately, a bug prevents this.

For lc/lt it saves you from crosspathing, no complaints for races and bosses. Maybe overused rather than overrated. Then again, also overused because it’s just a good relic.

Bigger Bloon Sabotage

All MOAB-Class Bloons move at 95% speed and spawn with 85% health.

While any anti-MOAB relic is very nice to have, this relic is simply outclassed by its overpowered competitor, MOAB Clash. Sometimes chosen when MOAB Clash is barely short of making a defense work.

• Bosses: The health and speed reduction no longer affects Bosses since over a year ago.

MOAB Clash is almost always the superior MOAB-debuffing relic and affects bosses, but BBS tends to shine in late-game and Least Cash with towers with high average MOAB damage per attack like pod, ods or sticky bomb. When MOAB Clash is unavailable or in tough local fights, this is also a great alternative to make certain strategies succeed.

Probably one tile has ever used this as an optimal solution.

Box Of Chocolates

Starting Lives increased by 100.

Generally less frequently used than relics that give continuous lives, such as Restoration. Has a good niche use in Races.

• Races: Outclasses any other life relic in this gamemode, as extra lives right from the beginning allows you to send rounds much more aggressively without losing.

Box Of Monkey

First tower that costs less than $400 on Medium Difficulty is free.

Generally has the same strengths as Starting Stash. More powerful when starting with a tower that costs above $250; less powerful when starting with a tower Box cannot make free.

• Races: Greatly reduces time spent in earlygame due to having a ~$400 cheaper saveup, or simply due to having an extra tower’s worth of firepower. Sometimes even allows you to start with Spike-o-Pult, Blade Shooter, Druid of the Jungle, etc., which means you can send a lot of rounds right from the very beginning.
• Least Cash: Very powerful in regular tiles where the optimal score barely goes over $2000. Also good for cutting a small amount of money from tiles with fixed strats.

Very OP in races; when combined with Starting Stash allows you to start with towers like 300 dart or 030 tack, giving you a easy cut on time when trying to best other teams’ scores.

Broken Heart

All attacks do +1 damage to Regrow Bloons.

Regrow Bloons rarely pose a threat in CT, and when they do, +1 damage is usually not enough to stop it. There also exists more powerful relics for dealing with regrow rounds.

• Least Tiers: Used in a very niche situation where Sun Avatar has to deal with Round 76.

Camo-Flogged

All attacks do +3 damage to Camo Bloons.

Amplifies your towers’ damage to Camo Bloons and DDTs by ridiculous amounts. Usually outclassed by Camo Trap which removes camo entirely, but shines in occasions where it is unavailable.

• Races: Many race tiles have good cleanup towers, but bad camo detection. Camo-Flogged allows you to send rounds much faster on these tiles without getting overrun by Camo Bloons.
• Bosses: Affects Phayze. As long as its camo status has not been removed, this relic is 50% stronger than MOAB-Clash. Both relics stack, too.

Fantastic pairing with MOAB Clash for Rounds 90+ or when you have weak camo options.

It’s getting recognition now that Phayze was added, but since it was buffed to +3 I’ve found it very useful for saving thousands on camo defense or even allowing a base Spike Factory with help from other relics to handle camos up to Round 59.

Camo Trap

Gives you one Camo Trap power.

If placed after leaking Rounds 24 and 33, this power handles all Camo Bloons until Round 77.

• Least Tiers: Bypassing camo saves a few tiers spent on camo detection crosspaths, or even allows a completely different strategy to work.

Deep Heat

Allows all attacks to damage White Bloons.

Essentially affects only Ice Monkeys. Used in very niche situations when Ice Monkeys will be your only defense, or when you wish to use a single Ice Monkey to hold the bloons off while saving up for something else.

• Least Tiers: Used for one tile where Icicle Impale had to solo.
• Boss: Used by a top Boss player in one tile throughout 1 year+ of Contested Territory, where a single Ice Monkey had to defend through the 20’s while farming to barely afford Super Mines for Tier 2 Vortex. Wack.

Durable Shots

Extends projectile lifespan by 25%.

Aside from making your darts fly a bit longer before vanishing into thin air, this also makes Wall of Fire and Druid of the Jungle’s track vines last longer, too. Sadly, said towers also require other relics (Flint Tips, Royal Treatment, Alchemist Touch)  to operate at their maximum potential.

• Races: Jungle Druids and Wall of Fire are both often used in races, and Durable Shots significantly increases their DPS.

I’ve only used it on a couple of tiles throughout all of CT, but when I did I actually noticed its significant impact. It just feels good to use idk, would love to use it more but NK like hates it and people never cap all relics because NK hates fun as well.

Makes hero solos like Gwen or cheap solos like 030 druid easier, can also help (in some cases) saving for certain towers in it.

I feel like people don’t know how it works and when to use it and it gets easily overshadowed by the other relics.

El Dorado

Increases Monkey Money and Team Trophy rewards from tile capture by 25%.

Does not affect tile scores. Best relic when a tile’s best score only needs 3 relics to work, but worst relic otherwise. Most teams forsake this relic when going for leaderboards, but there is no doubt that everyone loves it.

I love getting 1 team trophy after a recapture.

Makes CT Races the fastest renewable Monkey Money farm!

Extra Empowered

Makes your Hero start at Level 3. If appropriate Monkey Knowledge or another copy of this relic is already equipped, adds 3 more starting levels to your Hero.

Incredibly broken for Regular non-Race tiles, as a single Level 6 (or even 9) Hero is almost always enough to solo the game to Round 51. Unfortunately, the board does not only contain regular tiles.

• Races: Allows Gwen and Sauda to immediately start with their abilities on non-Regular tiles, saving precious time needed to level them up.

Flint Tips

All sharp-type attacks gain a damage over time effect.

Greatly amplifies the damage output of many sharp-type towers in the earlygame and midgame. Very frequently used on tiles where sharp-type towers are powerful, sometimes alongst Alchemist Touch to counter their lead weakness. That being said, Flint Tips isn’t good with all sharp towers, and the low DPS of the burn falls off past Round 80.

• Races: Huge DPS boost for Druid of the Jungle, Glaive Ricochet and Blade Shooter, allowing you to send rounds much, much faster.
• Least Tiers: Good synergy with Neva-Miss and Apache Dartship, which save up into some of the most powerful Least Tiers towers in the game. Note that these are just example cases; numerous other towers also get easier setups into the next tier.

While being amazing at a good amount of Races, it lacks in the other 3 categories compared to other relics to actually hold the still really high reputation so I belive it to be incredibly overrated.

Fortifried

All attacks do +1 damage to Fortified Bloons.

Because most tiles end before Fortified Bloons start to appear frequently, this relic has very limited uses. MOAB Clash and Hard Baked are more versatile replacement options. Sometimes sees use in lategame tiles, and when its replacements are unavailable.

Helps with 46 a lot in Races and does +1 damage to Fortified MOABs.

Glue Trap

Gives you two Glue Trap powerups.

Typical “get out of jail free” relic for Least Tiers/Cash. The powerful slow provided by the traps allow your towers to deal with tough rounds that would have been otherwise unbeatable, similarly to Monkey Boost and SMS. The advantage of Glue Trap over the aforementioned two is that its effect lasts much longer; one trap is enough to cover several rounds in the 40’s or neutralize the entirety of Round 63.

• Boss: Occasionally used to slow down Bloonarius spawns so that they don’t leak before the boss dies. Also used when farming, as the glue lets you use a cheaper defense so that you can invest more money into farms.

Going The Distance

Increases all towers’ range by 25%.

Unarguably one of the most generalist relics in the game; 25% extra range is a significant buff to any defense. Unfortunately, the existence of more drastically game-changing relics for each gamemode means this relic will rarely make it into an optimal loadout.

• Boss: Immensely useful for Vortex tiles. Because Vortex stuns all towers near it when reaching a skull, it is very important to position your towers carefully so that they can hit the boss while staying out of the stun’s radius. Going The Distance makes this much more achievable.

The range increase is quite substantial even though it doesn’t seem like much, it’s not a great relic but it beats out lots of other relics when there are limited options. Especially good on maps with good curves.

Hard Baked

All attacks do +1 damage to Ceramic Bloons.

Ceramic Bloons are always a threat in CT; you will encounter them very frequently no matter what gamemode you play. This makes Hard Baked better than most other “extra damage to specific bloon” relics.

• Least Cash: Depending on your setup, very good for Super Ceramics that appear past 80. Also good for tiles that end early, because Ceramics will be the toughest bloons you regularly encounter.
• Least Tiers: Seriously helps Apache Dartship and Spectre when beating the early 80’s, as both towers have low damage per attack. Also useful for tiles with absurd amounts of bonus Ceramic Health, which can range up to 200%.
• Boss: This relic is supposed to apply to Dreadbloon’s ceramic shell, allowing for a significantly faster kill. Unfortunately, it currently doesn’t apply due to a bug.

Hard Baked is actually quite handy on tiles with increased ceramic health (such as the 171% increase on Rake on Event 31) and tiles with high round counts, but those’re still pretty niche use cases so I tried not to let it affect my rating *too* much.

Dealing a tiny bit more ceramic damage is a whole lot less important than regular bloon damage or MOAB damage as most games do not have Super Ceramics, and +1 isn’t great on the towers used for 80+ tiles.

Heartless

Reduces Regrow Rate by 50%.

Regrow Bloons are not enough of a threat to justify capturing a relic that exclusively counters them. Even in the very niche case when you need one, Broken Heart is a better choice.

Hero Boost

All heroes level up 15% faster.

Overtakes Extra Empowered past the 40’s. Makes a noticeable difference in freeplay, if your tiles ever get there.

• Least Tiers: Used for Gwen solo banner tiles to achieve ridiculous scores. Despite her earlygame nerf, her level 10+ remains mostly unchanged, so she should still theoretically be able to solo to 80 on Beginner maps with appropriate relics.

I like having boosted heroes. I like using it, especially for hero solos.

Mana Bulwark

Start with +50 Mana Shield lives. Recharges by 5 when no lives are lost that round.

A combination of Box of Chocolates and Regeneration at half power. Useful in general when those relics are needed but unavailable.

Marching Boots

Adds +1 of each tower type or +4 max towers depending on the type of tower count restrictions the tile has.

Great for tiles with crappy restrictions. Note that using a workaround setup with a better relic can be often better than using a relic slot for Marching Boots.

• Races: Because this is the gamemode most heavily affected by tower counts, Marching Boots often comes in clutch. For example, using Marching Boots to Maelstrom chain a map with one Tack Shooter is significantly faster than an alternative strategy with only one tack.
• Boss: Allows you to grab more farms, and more copies of your main DPS tower for a much faster kill.

Moab-Clash

All attacks do +2 damage to MOAB-Class bloons.

Unarguably the most coveted relic there is, despite many players deeming this relic overrated. The mere existence of this relic makes MOAB-Class Bloons a joke.

• Least Cash: On Relics/Banners, allows you to slash your anti-MOAB budget by ridiculous amounts. For example, a single Overdrive can beat every MOAB-Class bloon up to Round 80 given a decent map.
• Least Tiers: On Relics/Banners, enables tower options that are great vs. regular bloons but bad at killing MOABs.
• Boss: The extra damage applies to Bosses, which means spamming low-damage rapid fire towers (which is the current norm) can become up to 3x as effective. For example, Overdrives at 3x power are the most effective form of boss damage there is, barring instakills. Note that as of 39.2, 1-damage attacks still cannot damage Dreadbloon’s lead armor even with this relic.

MOAB-Clash is 100% outclassed by MOAB Mine on 70% of tiles on the map, being regular tiles [that end at Round 51 latest], and MOAB-Clash often isn’t used in races due to it being practically pointless, as you very often aren’t dying to MOABs for the fullsend, which is the part that matters. That isn’t to say moab clash isn’t good; it’s essential for any Boss tile and can still excel at specific Least Cash/Tier Banner/Relic tiles, but in my opinion it is overrated garbage and the reason I feel it is treated as such is because it has become such a norm for the global leaderboard playing teams to grab 1 relic and 1 relic only: Clash.

Moab Mine

Gives you a MOAB Mine power.

Lasts to Round 54 when placed instantly. As such, this is undeniably the best anti-MOAB relic for tiles that end at 54 or below.

• Least Cash: Allows you to completely remove your MOAB defense while it lasts.
• Least Tiers: Aside from saving up earlygame, this can also get you through a single tough midgame round.

Really only useful for those LC/LT regs with solos like Druid of the Jungle, only does 400 to Bosses which isn’t really helpful and (obviously) cannot be used in races.

I used this once on Round 99 to weaken the Fortified DDTs back when Flying Fortress was much weaker than it is. The opposing team called me a hacker.

Monkey Boost

Gives you three Monkey Boost powerups.

Essentially equivalent to three “skip round” buttons to beat a round that otherwise doesn’t work. Top tier relic for Least Cash and Tiers for that reason.

• Boss: Must-have relic unless you’re solely relying on abilities to kill the boss. Regardless of what you’re using, you’re effectively halving your score, barring the time loading the boss animations.

Regeneration

Regenerates 20 lives when no lives lost that round. Cannot exceed starting lives this way.

Useful for salvaging defenses with a very bad earlygame, or in conjunction with other relics to leak a lot of early camos.

Restoration steals its spotlight too much but it can do better on easy mode when you don’t need lives cap to be higher or when you have road spikes to life micro and don’t need high life count later on.

It does a better job than her sister when you have a weak defense cause you’re saving up to something. Especially in races with ass loadouts, getting 20/40 lives back can make the difference instead of only getting half of it.

Restoration

Regenerates 10 lives when no lives lost that round. Can go up to +200 past starting lives.

Tanks through lots of earlygame rounds due its ability to overheal. A very impactful relic in Least Cash or Least Tiers when you need to struggle through earlygame, and occasionally great in Races. In general, this is the most frequently used life relic.

Might not be the most underrated; in short LC/LT tiles lets you skip damage types thus less cash/tiers spent, for example tanking the purples on r25 or r32, the camos on r33, r36, 37.

Road Spikes

Gives you 10 stacks of Road Spikes.

Extremely versatile relic in general. Depending on how you use it, you can use it as a double Box of Chocolates, a MOAB popper for Round 40, or to counter camo/lead/purple bloons that appear in the earlygame.

• Least Tiers: By striking two or more Lead Bloons per spike, you can skip early rounds and use a tower that gains lead popping after those rounds. You can also start with Road Spikes to use a tower that’s more expensive than the amount of starting cash you get, without wasting an extra tier for earlygame saveup.
• Boss: Extremely good at avoiding earlygame penalty when farming, or when playing a tile with bad restrictions.

On LC/LT, Road Spikes is the Jack of All Trades relic. It can do so many other relics’ jobs, typically just a bit worse. Don’t have Alchemist Touch? You can do all pre r40 lead with Road Spikes and Glue. Don’t have Starting Stash? Road Spikes are better for that initial saveup than Starting Stash is. Don’t have Royal Touch? Road Spike those purples. Don’t have Broken Heart / Heartless? Road Spike the regrows on r39. Need extra lives? Road Spike that bloon that’s about to leak so your Mana Shield or Re*ration get triggered. Don’t have a MOAB Mine? 10 Road Spikes is a single charge MOAB Mine. And furthermore, b/c you can split it into tenths, you can divvy it up to apply just enough to each of your weaknesses. Eg I’ve Gwen solo’d with Road Spikes: 3 on r25 purple, 3 on r32 purple, 4 on r40 MOAB. Probably other uses, too, this enumeration is probably not comprehensive.

Rounding Up

Increases end-of-round income by $20.

There is no tile where extra income doesn’t help a lot on, excluding some very cheap Least Cash tiles. Unfortunately, the money isn’t significant enough to make this relic worth capturing in many situations.

• Race: On a gamemode where end-of-round sniping is crucial to improved times, the extra income provided by this relic is very welcome. Unfortunately, the existence of better relics (and the points penalty of capturing a relic) doesn’t increase its priority by much.
• Boss: On a tile with no farming, +800 extra cash by Round 40 can frequently afford you an extra DPS tower’s upgrade. Since every bit of extra money matters in Boss, this is the best use case of Rounding Up.

Royal Treatment

Allows all attacks to pop Purple Bloons.

Because many of the most frequently used towers (such as Gwendolin, Wizards, and Plasma Accelerator) have a weakness to Purple Bloons, Royal Treatment is one of the better immunity-ignoring relics.

• Race: Lets you send Rounds 25 and 32 in Gwendolin/Wall of Fire races without the risk of the firewall getting extinguished by Purple Bloons, saving lots of time. As these towers are meta, this relic is considered a good choice for Races.
• Least Cash: Wall of Fire solo with appropriate relics is usually the cheapest answer for a regular tile.
• Least Tiers: Allows you to skip the secondary tower for popping purples (and camo purples) when using a purple-immune tower such as Gwen, Summon Phoenix, Sun Avatar, or Plasma Accelerator.

Sharpsplosion

Allows all attacks to pop Black Bloons.

While explosive attack towers are much less frequent than sharp-type or energy/plasma type towers, they are still numerous and Sharpsplosion benefits them a lot.

• Races: Good for Bomber Ace, a common option for earlygame.
• Least Cash: Captain Churchill is one of the best synergizing towers with this relic, as he can deal with grouped bloons without having to pop every single black/zebra child with his machine gun or Level 3 ability. With the immunity out of the way, Churchill performs significantly better on any tile.
• Least Tiers: Sharpsplosion greatly improves the performance of Apache Dartship and Etienne, both of which are common picks for Least Tiers. If you have Sharsplosion when planning to use these towers, it is almost always worth picking.

Obviously useful with Churchill and bomber ace, and Etienne. I’m shocked many people on CTA gave it a 0 last time.

SMS

Gives you two Super Monkey Storm powerups.

Essentially gives you two screen clear abilities that can be used as a “get out of jail free” card. Its high damage (2000) allows it to function effectively in the lategame as in the earlygame, although it doesn’t soak through MOAB layers.

• Least Cash: Allows your defenses to survive two tough bloon waves that would otherwise have been impossible without extra towers.
• Least Tiers: Aside from getting you out of a pickle, SMS can be used to wipe out bloons that your towers cannot damage, such as Lead Bloons, Camo Bloons, or early MOABs. Also, when used in conjunction with a Camo Trap placed after Round 33, you can handle every camo bloon until Round 89 while having a spare SMS to use for something else. Can also be used on the first two rounds to start with extra cash.
• Bosses: SMS can do 2,000 * 2 = 4,000 damage to a boss, which is at least 20% of a Tier 1 boss’s HP. Unlike MOAB Mine, this amount is big enough to justify bringing this relic to a boss tile when it is available.

SMS is a great all-around relic, however it’s not as effective as it would seem against every boss due to their unique properties. It excels against Bloonarius, allowing you to deal a bit more damage as well as clean up the ceramic waves when timed correctly, as well as allowing Vortex shield bypass on 2/3 skulls. However, it’s not as effective against Phayze or Lych due to the former having a healthbar shield and the latter having more skulls than your typical boss, with each skull granting immunity. On a two tier boss its better use case is probably cheapening your defenses so you can farm harder.

This event we’ll be able to see how it does against Dreadbloon – with the rocky bois and ceramic armor shield, it’ll be interesting to see how effective it is.

Starting Stash

Increases starting cash by $250.

While the raw increase amount may not seem big, Starting Stash can potentially snowball to become much more powerful than simply having a better earlygame.

• Races: Similarly to Box of Monkey, extra money allows you to snowball into a fullsend much faster. Because earlygame usually takes much longer than the fullsend and cleanup stage in Races, this relic is undeniably the best relic there is.
• Least Tiers: Allows you to start with expensive towers like Ace or Heli that cannot be bought with your starting cash.
• Boss: Lets you buy your first Farm earlier, which can potentially snowball into a massive eco difference by the time the first Boss appears.

Techbot

Gives you one Techbot.

Autocasts up to one tower’s abilities for you, and provides great moral support. Immensely loved by the CT community despite any sane team never capturing this relic where possible.

• Bosses: There is only one extremely specific niche case where Techbot has a use for the optimal player. Should you be able to afford enough First Strike subs to oneshot a boss, Techbot allows you to cast the abilities infinitesimally faster to save a small fraction of a second. If you use an autoclicker, you can cast up to two First Strikes within the same frame, so this is only really relevant for Tier 2 Bloonarius.

Makes a difference for Spirit of the Forest tiles, ability farming on boss tiles but I would only use it as a daily, but it’s not taking a spot.

I want to grab him by his antenna and start spinning and release him so he gets flung out into the distance forever. Then I kill the guy who spent 200 precious team trophies funding whatever this is.

Thrive

Gives you two Thrive powerups.

Generates several hundred extra money for non-farming Bosses by casting on 36 and 38, or ~$2k on Least Tiers tiles when casting on 44 and 49. Useless on Race Tiles and Least Cash tiles.

• Least Tiers: Allows you to buy an upgrade slightly faster. Usually replaceable with another relic for the same purpose.

Boss: Depending on how much you can farm, Thrive can actually generate a significant amount of money for Bosses. Almost always worth taking when available.