Call To Arms

BTD5

BTD6

BTDB2

Call to Arms

General Information

Game

Bloons TD 6

Tower

Monkey Village

Unlocked at

20,000 XP

Cost

$17,000 (Easy)
$20,000 (Medium)
$21,600 (Hard)
$24,000 (Impoppable)

Activated Ability

Call To Arms

Targeting Options

None

Camo Detection

Yes (grants camo detection)

Other Names

CTA

Popology

Damage Type(s)

Passive Range:

Passive

Black affected

White affected

Camo affected

Purple affected

Frozen affected

Lead affected

Target Tower

Grow Block:

Normal

Camo affected

No Damage

Area of Effect

Grow Blocked

Infinite Pierce

Ability

Passive

Charge buffs

Whole Screen

Statistics

Damage

0 (growblock attack)

Pierce

Infinite (growblock attack)

Attack Speed

Instantly (growblock attack)

Range

40 (0-4-x)
48 (1+-4-0)

Status Effects

Grow Blocked (prevents Regrow Bloon regrowth), affects Regrow Bloons while within range

Tower Boosts

+10% range, affects nearby towers
Grants camo detection, affects nearby towers
Grants normal popping power, affects nearby towers

While ability is active:
+50% attack speed for 15.0s, affects globally
+50% pierce for 10.0s, affects globally

Income/Life Boosts

N/A

Path Upgrades

← Previous

Current

Next →

Monkey Intelligence Bureau

Call to Arms

Homeland Defense

Path Info

Path

Upgrade Tier

2

4

Related upgrades

M.I.B. Call to Arms, for the BTD5 counterpart.

[Source]

“	Call to Arms ability: Gives all Monkeys +50% attack speed and pops for a short time.	”
	^{~ In-game description}

Call To Arms is the fourth upgrade of Path 2 for the Monkey Village in Bloons TD 6, corresponding to the M.I.B. Call to Arms upgrade from the previous generation. It grants an activated ability that when activated increases the attack speed and pierce by +50% for all towers on screen for 15 seconds, with a 45 second cooldown.

This upgrade costs $17,000 on Easy, $20,000 on Medium, $21,600 on Hard, and $24,000 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

Call To Arms upgrades the pentagon-shaped headquarters building from solid metal to a modern glass-framed-with-metal-and-concrete. The exterior walls of the building is fortified with solid concrete. There are a lot of windows on the building.

Call To Arms adds the Call To Arms ability, which affects all towers on whole screen, and give them +50% attack speed and +50% pierce, and lasts 15 seconds. Call To Arm ability's buff constitutes as Charge, an applied buff rather than influential, and hence can be sapped by Gravelord Lych. The other buffs from this Village constitute as Influence, which are passive influential buffs.

Activated Abilities

See also: Activated Abilities (BTD6)#Call To Arms

When activated, all towers on screen gain +50% attack speed and +50% pierce for up to 15 seconds. Cooldown of 45 seconds. It doesn't stack with Homeland Defense's ability, but is overrided with Homeland Defense's ability while active.

As a duration-based ability, its ability must finish running before it can be activated again when its cooldown is reset.

The Call To Arms Ability can gain reduced cooldowns from Global Ability Cooldowns (Monkey Knowledge), Abilitized (Relic Knowledge), and the global Energizer buff. Its ability can be reset with Geraldo's Rejuv Potion.

Targeting Priorities

Call To Arms supports nearby towers with influential tower buffs, with the exception of its ability which is a charge tower buff. Because it also has Grow Blocker, it can attack any Regrow Bloon within its range, defaulting on Close for calculation purposes. Call To Arms' "rallying" buff is a tower buff that affects all towers on screen. However, for simplicity reasons, Call To Arms has no targeting priorities.

Costs

Updated as of Version 46.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.

[Module \| Data]	Purchase				Sell
Costs	Easy	Medium	Hard	Impoppable	Easy	Medium	Hard	Impoppable
Upgrade (X-4-X)	$17,000	$20,000	$21,600	$24,000	-
Total (0-4-0)	$26,305	$30,950	$33,425	$37,140	$18,414	$21,665	$23,398	$25,998
Crosspath (1-4-0)	$26,645	$31,350	$33,855	$37,620	$18,652	$21,945	$23,699	$26,334
Crosspath (2-4-0)	$27,920	$32,850	$35,475	$39,420	$19,544	$22,995	$24,833	$27,594
Crosspath (0-4-1)	$26,730	$31,450	$33,965	$37,740	$18,711	$22,015	$23,776	$26,418
Crosspath (0-4-2)	$27,155	$31,950	$34,505	$38,340	$19,009	$22,365	$24,154	$26,838

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: Flat Pack Buildings, Better Sell Deals

Strategy

Summary

Call To Arms, although not necessarily the most useful upgrade, is still a relatively viable option as a quick emergency ability in case a defence is struggling. As it is the upgrade after Monkey Intelligence Bureau, it is not too difficult to access Call To Arms, because most of the time when this upgrade will shine the greatest is where there is a dense group of nearby powerful towers within range of the Village. Certain combos may especially benefit from Call To Arms, particularly any strong towers within range that are paired with other attack buffs such as Stronger Stimulant, Overclock, or Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar.

Note that the Call To Arms ability has low uptime, which hurts it immensely as it is not able to keep up its buffs over time. While arguably not as powerful in CHIMPS, it still has high synergy with certain towers that would benefit from the dual pierce-and-speed benefit, especially Sentry Champion. Outside of CHIMPS, it is a very valuable buff for Boss Bloon Events.

Tips

Use it for boosting the attack speed and pierce of fast-attacking towers or large armies of powerful towers, such as Sub Commander + Triple Guns armies, Avatar of Wrath + Poplusts, or Grandmaster Ninja + Shinobi Tactics.
Use it as an emergency ability for difficult rounds such as Rounds 95, 96, 98, or 99, where there are bound to be a lot of issues for towers with relatively low pierce and/or attack speed.
Call To Arms forms a decent synergy with Sentry Champion sentries. For Sentry Champion, activating the Call To Arms ability increases production speed of the sentries, sentry attack speed, and sentry pierce.
Amplifying the overall damage output with Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar ability is very useful in combination with towers that strongly benefit from the Call To Arms buff. If possible, try to synchronize Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar ability with the Call To Arms ability; in fact, their cooldowns are both 45 seconds by default, making it easier to combine their buffs.
Generally speaking, a 2-4-0 Call To Arms is better than a 0-4-2, due to the additional attack speed buff of Jungle Drums. 0-4-2 Call To Arms might be necessary if using a multiple Monkey Commerce strategy while selling is disabled, however.

Version History

Call To Arms fulfills a range-based emergency support but it is expensive for its cost, and with other cheaper more cost-effective support options out there, Call To Arms tends to be outclassed in its role as support. The cost of Call To Arms was decreased, and later the Call To Arms ability cooldown was reduced and duration slightly increased, allowing it to be more useful in emergency situations. It received a major buff in Version 35.0, allowing its ability to buff all towers on screen like Homeland Defense.

8.0

Call To Arms cost decreased ($24,000 → $20,000).

22.0

“	Call to Arms has never had enough uptime for the small amount of space that it benefits.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

Call To Arms cooldown reduced (60s → 45s).

23.0

“	Call to Arms didn't last enough in some critical situations where it could have made the difference, so this duration has been increased slightly.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

Call to Arms duration increased (10s → 12s).

31.0

“	Call to Arms ability suffers from uptime, for such an expensive upgrade which is such low range and purely support this makes it hard to use, so duration has now been increased to push it up to a 1/3rd uptime threshold	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

Call to Arms duration increased (12s → 15s).

35.0

“	Village Call To Arms doesn't have a place in current high level meta gameplay as grouped clusters of equal towers are never really ideal. As it stands, the village radius is not a large enough area to get lots of benefit to all of the towers that you would be spreading out and maintain any uptime on them. A seemingly huge change but perhaps not in practical use, so we will be looking for feedback on this and whether this reduces placement skill or the need for multiple Villages.	”
	^{~ Ninja Kiwi}

Call to Arms ability now affects globally instead of only its local range.

Bug Fixes and General Changes

This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

24.0

Description changed from "Call To Arms Ability: Gives all nearby Monkeys +50% attack speed and pops for 10 seconds." to current description

Extra Notes (Version History)

Sounds

When activating Call To Arms Ability:

[Synchronized drum hitting and sword drawing]

Gallery

Official artwork

Trivia

On initial release until Version 8.0, Call To Arms upgrade was more expensive than the Tech Terror upgrade in BTD6 than in BTD5.
Call To Arms is one of the few upgrades returning from BTD5 that were formerly visually the same as the preceding upgrades, the others being Super Range, Turbo Charge, Long Life Bananas, and Valuable Bananas.
In BTD5, the M.I.B. Call to Arms upgrade gives +100% pierce and +100% attack speed, which is more than the bonus that Call To Arms gives. However, in BTD6, the ability lasts longer and has a shorter cooldown. (Ability in BTD6 lasts for 15 seconds and has a cooldown of 45 seconds.)