Rubber to Gold

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Rubber to Gold is the fourth upgrade of Path 3 for the Alchemist in Bloons TD 6. This upgrade gives the Alchemist an additional attack, a gold potion attack that partially turn bloons and MOAB-class bloons (except the BAD) into gold. Bloons partially turned into gold provide +200% more cash per pop and temporarily lose all of their Black, White, Purple, and Lead immunities while affected. The gold effect lasts for up to 14 seconds.

This upgrade costs $2,335 on Easy, $2,750 on Medium, $2,970 on Hard, and $3,300 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

The Rubber to Gold Alchemist will now dress up as an early English alchemist. Additionally, its goggles and eyes both become golden in appearance. The artwork features that alchemist revealing a golden-looking liquid potion.

With the Path 1 crosspaths, Larger Potions adds a large backpack on the monkey's back, while Acidic Mixture Dip adds a bucket of acid on the right-hand side of the monkey's backpack. With Path 2 crosspaths, Stronger Acid changes the acid in the bottle to purple and gives the Alchemist white gloves, while the Perishing Potions upgrade gives it a black facemask and black gloves.

Rubber to Gold will add an extra attack that turns bloons partially into gold. Affected bloons will appear slightly golden; these bloons will earn +200% cash per layer popped, and temporarily lose most properties (Lead, Purple, Black, White) for the duration. Its special attack comes out every 2 seconds and can hit up to 15 bloons. The gold effect lasts up to 14 seconds and soaks through layers (but not for MOAB-Class). The splash is 21, increased to 31.5 with 1-0-4.

Rubber to Gold also retains its Lead to Gold special capability, whereby popping lead bloons with this Alchemist in any way will give an instant $50 (not affected by other income modifiers or round pop income penalty). Leads can still be affected by Rubber to Gold; when they are affected by Rubber to Gold, popping them will earn +200% pop income, but cannot affect the Lead to Gold bonus.

An additional game mechanic to the goldified status: attacks that can penetrate multiple blimps or can instakill them will consider all popped layers as if they were partially gold.

Targeting Priorities

Rubber to Gold targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. It throws lobbing attacks, including the goldifying potion, at bloons.

• First: Targets the first bloon visible within its range.
• Last: Targets the last bloon visible within its range.
• Close: Targets the closest bloon visible within its range.
• Strong: Targets the strongest bloon visible within its range.

The acid pool attack is locked on Normal, being an on-track attack, and can only activate if there are no bloons nearby or if the offensive potion misses. The goldifying potion follows standard targeting priorities but does not target bloons already converted into gold, and never targets BADs.

Costs

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

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

Strategy

Summary

Rubber to Gold is a fraction of the cost of Monkey Town, a similar income-per-pop tower, but relies on attacks and proper positioning to maximize income. When utilized properly, it is a very efficient income source. Its main prey is mid-game Ceramics, which take less damage and provide the most cash per pop. Multiple Rubber to Golds may diminish income-generating value for every subsequent Rubber to Gold.

To maximize its total income, including its Lead to Gold benefit, the other defenses should be based mostly on slowing down the bloons, instantly destroying blimps affected by this Alchemist, and avoiding lead-popping power outside of the Alchemist as much as possible. Maps with bends or curves benefit the income production of Rubber to Gold a great deal, but maps with multiple entries may decrease potential for Rubber to Gold farming.

The bloon property debuff is fairly slow and weak. It is somewhat impactful when applied onto dense packs of Ceramics, so that the insides of dense Ceramics will lack Black and White properties, however it is way too slow to be reliable as a MIB skip versus DDTs. One unique advantage is being able to debuff Blastapopoulos's Purple properties so that Master Builder's Mega Sentries and Mini Sentries can damage this Boss.

However its ability to nullify Lead Property also means Lead bloons are vulnerable to being popped and as result lose 50$ bonus.

Tips

• Place the alchemist at the front or midsection of the track, in order to affect as many bloons and layers as possible.
• Setting the alchemist to Strong will make it target the bloons that provide the most cash, since the effect soaks through all layers. It will make the best profit on Ceramics, as they take many hits to destroy, and the Rubber to Gold effect capitalizes on their high health pool. Although later in the game, Close targeting becomes the much better option as it allows the alchemist to goldify more different bloons, instead of throwing gold potions at the bloons that are already goldified.
• The Acid Pools set up by the Alchemist will not apply gold.
  • On the other hand, Acid Pools will still reward $50 if a Lead Bloon goes over it, due to Lead to Gold.
• MOAB-class bloons that are affected by Rubber to Gold give +200% income when hooked in by Monkey Pirates or Pirate Lord. Likewise, trapping an affected MOAB-class bloon into an XXXL Trap will provide +200% income once full, on top of another +200% bonus, for a total of +400%.
• Towers that can help to clump up and/or slow down bloons are an effective complement as they increase the amount of bloons affected by each hit of the Rubber to Gold potion.
  • Glue Hose has excellent coverage making it one of the more effective choices for this role. The 0-3-2 crosspath is usually more helpful, due to slowing down bloons even further. As a bonus, it does not pop bloons, allowing Rubber to Gold to apply its effect to more layers. Relentless Glue crosspathed with Glue Splatter is another good choice for stunning bloons in place, with the bonus of slowing down MOABs.
  • Likewise, the Bloon Sabotage ability is a decent option, however it is global and will immediately slow all bloons upon activation, thus losing some of the clumping value of Glue Hose.
  • Arctic Wind can be used to clump up bloons, especially Ceramics, but comes at the cost of dealing some damage to nearby bloons. The 0-3-2 Arctic Wind is usually the more useful crosspath, for its longer range and coverage, and being able to freeze bloons in place from the Re-Freeze upgrade. For even more range and coverage, upgrading to 0-4-2 Snowstorm can be helpful, as well as the Snowstorm ability. Adding another Arctic Wind with 1-3-0 or 1-4-0 to the Arctic Wind with bottom crosspath could also be helpful, due to its Permafrost effect. Avoid Cold Snap as it pops lead bloons, therefore losing out on the Lead to Gold farming. If camo detection is needed, there are other options to use instead that don't impede on the Lead to Gold farming, such as Radar Scanner, Submerge and Support, and Shimmer.
  • Knockback can be used to slow progress of Ceramics, but it deals quite a lot of damage to normal bloons. Place it away from the beginning of the Alchemist's range and use it as a general cleanup tower after Rubber to Gold is applied to bloons. It is also wise to set the Super Monkey on Strong so that it does not kill off any bloons entirely. 0-3-2 Robo Monkey set on Strong and Close or a 0-2-3 Dark Knight set on Strong are probably the best options for this purpose.
• The best crosspath for Rubber to Gold is 1-0-4. 0-2-4 is stronger at offense, but it loses out on potential income gain through a larger splash radius for its goldify attacks. Avoid 2-0-4 as it can potentially cause nearby towers to pop Lead before the Alchemist has a chance to use the Lead to Gold effect.
• When optimized, Rubber to Gold income generation in a full game gains between +150% and +200% more income, equivalent to affecting between 75% and 100% of the bloons in the game with Rubber to Gold's gold status effect. The maximum income bonus is +200%, which would require every popped bloon to be partially golden.
• When trying to goldify bloons first before damaging them, please note that serious regrow farms can occur with regrow bloons. That's why adding a Bloon Trap just after the Rubber to Gold alchemist can help alleviate the issue of regrow farms, as well as generating even more cash with goldified bloons going into the Bloon Trap.
  • If many regrow bloons make it past your Bloon Trap as it gets full, adding a 3-2-0 Druid further down the path can be an excellent option as tornadoes can also strip off regrow properties and blow them back to your Rubber to Gold alchemist and Bloon Trap. Maximising the Heart of Oak buff makes the Druid of Storm even more reliable as tornadoes will gain twice as much pierce.
    • If the 3-2-0 Druid can't handle too many regrow bloons, upgrading to Ball Lightning can be helpful as tornadoes gain a lot more pierce, ball lightnings can freeze bloons, as well as strip off regrow properties, and sends out much more lightnings, which can help strip off even more regrow properties off bloons. If this still isn't enough, adding 5 Poplusts with the 4-2-0 Druid can help maximise the effects even more with an additional 75% attack speed and pierce.
• Contrary to popular belief, Rubber to Gold does not provide 3x income, but rather +200% income. This is not mathematically equivalent, as the mechanics of combining multiple income per pop sources stack additively by percentage increase rather than multiplicatively by a set number. Rather, the income bonus percentage increase is the same no matter what other income per pop sources are utilized, such as Monkey Town or Bloon Trap. Thrive also counts too.

Version History

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes and General Changes

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

Extra Notes (Version History)

Sounds

When converting bloons into gold:

• [golden bling sound]
• [golden bling sound]
• [golden bling sound]
• [golden bling sound]
• [golden bling sound]

Gallery

Crosspathing (Top: Path 1, Bottom: Path 2)

Lots of Golden Bloons produced by Rubber to Gold effect

Lead Bloon affected by Rubber to Gold. Directly hitting the Lead Bloon by this alchemist will give the Lead to Gold effect

Golden Purple Bloon

Golden Fortified Lead

Golden Camo Regrow Red

Rubber to Gold allowing Tack Zone to damage DDTs

Rubber to Gold allowing Recursive to break Round 63's Ceramics into weaker clumps instead of Black Bloons

Enough XP to unlock Rubber to Gold

Official artwork

Upgrade portrait

Upgrade icon

Instamonkey icon

Other PNGs

Rubber to Gold potion

Rubber to Gold effect over a Red Bloon

Rubber to Gold effect over a Regrow Red Bloon

Videos

Trivia

• Despite the fact that Ceramic Bloons are made of clay, they can still be turned into gold.
  • After update 3.0, this also applies to M.O.A.B. Class Bloons (except the BAD).
• Even though Version 19.0 added a separate money counter for almost all towers, it has not been yet implemented for Lead to Gold, Rubber to Gold, Monkey Town (and by extent Monkey City), Pirate Lord, Sun Temple and True Sun God / Vengeful True Sun God with Support sacrifices.
• On Medium Difficulty, it takes 2700 RBE worth of goldified bloons, excluding multi-HP layers, to break-even the cost of a single 0-0-4 Rubber to Gold.
• The sound effects for Rubber to Gold's goldifying are actually named LeadToGold01.wav through to LeadToGold05.wav, according to in-game code.