what does "popping power" mean?

[obandin2020]

like when an upgrade says it increases popping power, what does that do?

[BreadButterLight]

It either means it increases the towers pierce or it in general makes it better at popping bloons.

[Country Square]

It generally means how many bloons a single attack can go through before it stops, for example a basic dart monkey attack can go through two bloons before it is stopped and can't hit anything else, but with sharper darts it can go through an additional bloon, it's also sometimes called pierce.

[obandin2020]

thank you

[Vivianite]

popping power is overall performance, it can include both pierce and damage and extra effects such as attack speed, additional projectiles, etc.

example: 0-0-2 monkey sub's airburst darts is as follows:
"Airburst darts split into 3 on impact for massively increased popping power. "
since this makes the main attack burst into three additional shots, it's simply easier to say "popping power" instead of every statistical increase that comes with it

an icon on some maps that have the pop fx icon is indicating a boost to damage where as a sharpened dart is that of pierce. don't mistake any of these as "popping power"

[Ninja Zyborg]

it means damage, pierce, and/or attack speed. kinda inconsistent, but when referenced, the upgrade usually does more than one of those.

[sfnhltb]

As someone else said, popping power isn't actually one of the stats used in the game, it is just used in a few places to mean the tower is better without specifying how.

Specifically when use in the description for xx4 Sniper it means x2 attack speed (compared to xx3) and +2 damage to MOABs (and plus 1 damage to shrapnel where applicable).

For xx2 Sub it adds the 3 airburst darts, which in theory can give up to 7x the damage if each airburst pierces through 2 bloons each (but often will do less than this theoretical amount of course)

For 3xx Wizard it means x2 attack speed, +1 damage (50% increase on 2 base damage), +4 pierce (133% increase or 50% increase depending on crosspath), and 50% range increase.