Beast handler strats?

[Dewutt]

I feel like I can only focus on getting 1 path up to tier 5 other wise the money for upgrades gets spread too thin so you can only get like high levels of each beast in stuff like free play or intense farming. I recently tried focusing only bottom path but since I had only beast masters, 1 engi for decamo, and 1 ace because bottom path t4 and below just ignores ZOMGs it seems, but still got overwhelmed by the multiple BFBs coming through.

So I guess my question is what is each path best for, my guess so far is top is MOAB, dunno about the other 2

[Cowmunist Leader Moo Zedong]

Top: MOAB
Mid: Area Denial (t2 lead)
Bot: Grouping/Stopping Bloons (t2 camo)

What I've gathered so far.

[WalrusJones]

Shark: Killls.

Bird: Level 2 birds can stall out ceramics till they die, even camo (???????????????), level 4 bird can haul moabs into shark range in large quantities allowing the shark to farm moab kills. Decent stalling unit.

Trex: Level 2 raptors act like small anit-lead units.
High level: Anti-lead stun AOE thing that can do a lot of damage but requires a lot of micro to do what shark does, but can also be used to stunlock things in front of shark.

My strategy:

A 3-2-0 and 2 3-0-2's handles an absurd variety of threats, as the merged shark can oneshot moabs and the unmerged sharks can DPS down several moabs. Follow that up with a x-x-4 to manage thicker skin camos and small moabs as x-x-4 seems to gain the ability to deal with most things. Then add another 3-0-2 and start upgrading your sharks to the 5-x-x.

Probably at some point grab a decamo or a 1-2-0 sniper for lead camos just because even with big birds its not worth the time waiting for the birds to haul high HP bloons til they die.

[L4sz4r]

5-0-0 is really good late game, i think 0-5-0 is a good tower mid-late, and 0-0-5 is good early, i think the best of all of them is 5-0-0 because of BAD control, this tower is awful against DDTs in my experience

[Dewutt]

just had a thought, when should you try and funnel alot to get a tier 5 animal or rather just a bunch of tier 3/4s instead, like when should you merge?

[♠Snorl4xxer♠]

Originally posted by Dewutt:

just had a thought, when should you try and funnel alot to get a tier 5 animal or rather just a bunch of tier 3/4s instead, like when should you merge?

I feel like that's the handling part of beast handler tbfh. It feels like there are multiple points where you'd want EITHER more or stronger creatures. Personally I'd like for handlers to be able to unmerge, but I feel like that would just crack the tower in strength.

[phantom]

First I would like to note to some the bird has innate camo.
that aside I say the bird is the best path because price. Without using banana farms the price is prohibitively expensive for the two two paths. Said this in another thread but with little spent on other towers and Patt it was able to carry me through The Brick.

[HoneyDrake]

4-0-0 or 4-2-0.
They are quite strong by themselves, while staying relativly cheap. And 0-2-0 is acceptable to gain something to deal with lead.

I am going to avoid getting the bottom path. It's just not worth it. The camo detection is purely on the bird, which makes it quite bad.

And the cost of the T5 seems quite high, so, outside of the shark I won't even attempt going for the other options, especially because the Handler takes up space + are not even attacking (even if they barely do anything). The benefit to redeploy your pets at range of any handler which has merged with the main pet is quite interesting and can create an interesting situations where you can cover a lot of space with a single strong beast.

[laslax]

Top path is purely MOAB focused.
T3 and 4 are very different from each other and it really depends what you want in terms of MOAB killing. T3 is essentially unstable concoction (avoid maxing its level) and should be paired with it, and 4 is just a worse Pirate Lord. Top path also seems to struggle against DDTs.

A good combo with the T3 strategy would be with The Bloon Solver.

Mid path is DPS/grouped focused.
T4 seems good enough and can be maxed/ultraboosted in CHIMPS. It is also the only upgrade path effected by overclock, but Its weakness are DDTs and the BAD. Use its ability when the highest ranking Bloons (ZOMG/BFB) are in attack range.

Bottom path is stupidly overpowered and its maxed T5 is affordable in CHIMPS.
It's only weakness is the BAD since its the only thing it can't stunlock into oblivion. Pair bottom path with anti MOAB towers to deal with the early game and ZOMGs/BADs and you will be set. T4 also destroys ceramics with 2 additional T4 sacrifices.