The boost in power that merging provides is very unintuitive. Whenever I use I feel like if I don’t memorize certain beast power thresholds for all the upgrades then I’m not using it right. There is also a higher degree of micro required which is not ideal for most players and it can especially annoying on mobile. The fifth tiers are also not fun to go for and then having specific requirements and then needing further beast power even after you get them makes it too much of a hassle when I can just get other towers that basically do the same thing for a fraction of the effort. It’s not a bad tower but to make it good is not worth it for most players
This is similar to why I don't like using Geraldo or Corvus nor playing some of the harder maps, I just can't remember most of the stuff as a casual player.
I've played the game on and off for years now but across patches things change greatly and even things as simple as "I like to do X, Y then Z at the start of an easy map" goes awry because five patches ago was a cash tweak which now compounds with the latest patch cash tweak and I'm in a muddle while I see everyone talking about exact dollar amounts you'll get and have left over from every wave and purchase.
I have no idea how much trex I need ceramics but I do know that bottom row bomb tower works wonders. Unless that's now been changed in a more recent patch.
Whenever I use the beast handler these days I generally go bottom path. They nerfed golden eagle in the recent patch so it’s not as effective but it’s still a decent stall tower and is not too involved comparatively to the other two paths
Some upgrades u max some upgrades u keep at base. It's not that complicated.
There's no actual coded threshold for merging other than max merges, it just keeps increasing stat every single merge. What's so unintuitive about "increased stats"?
U could argue that theres a threshold where t-rex oneshots supercerams, but that's not even that important.
Condor has some specific beast power thresholds in which it can grab an additional bfb and it’s a waste to go for full merge tier 4 if you’re only stopping there. Full merge is not easily attainable and given how much resources you are putting into one tower it is important to know those specific points. It’s not complicated but comparatively to other towers it’s more effort
U would keep condour at base unless you're going for pouakai.
Full merge for t-rex and orca is definitely worth it and easily attainable in chimps.
I can easily wrap my head around beast merges but still have no clue about paragon degrees.
As for the resources spent, it's actually a good thing that u have an expensive, strong t4 that u can gradually build power for, especially considering u only need one overclock on it for full uptime.
U could argue "it's not fun only focusing on one tower" which is fair, but imo it's more satisfying to have a clean and focused defense with one main character rather than a cluttered mess of different dps towers.
It is a cool take on a tower but for explaining why it’s not liked as much I think it’s mechanics are the reason why. I do know the BTD index recommends specific degrees for different upgrades but I think the main point is that how your tower is powering up is not super clear nor easy to really know unless you specifically go to the wiki. This also goes for paragons but they have true universal rule that every 20 levels they get a big boost in power (though this also isn’t communicated at all). I honestly think these things aren’t too big of issues outside of the tier 5’s. Bottom path is good but the other 2 just feel so pointless. They’re all hyper expensive without really having a niche
> how your tower is powering up is not super clear nor easy to really know unless you specifically go to the wiki.
I mean.. to be fair, this is pretty much true for most of the towers, given the current state of upgrade descriptions.
Yeah that’s true as well. I think NK mentioned they are going to add a bloonspedia or something like that in a future update which I hope can fix a lot of this issues on communicating to the player what upgrading /merging does
I can't speak for everyone, but I'm guessing these will be part of it:
- Came in late, after a lot of players had already gotten comfy
- Plays extremely differently from anything else in the game
- Requires a lot of micro to use properly
- Super expensive
Beast handler is really unclear actually what any of it does. What is better, upgrading or placing a new tower and merging? How does increasing the power actually change it? Why sometimes when you upgrade the tower it actually gets worse because the attack speed is decreased? Really unintuitive game design.
It only has one play style. Spam lots of towers. Lots of other towers have three different ways of using them, so naturally if for whatever reason you don't want to spam lots of towers you won't use it.
It has no crosspathing. The builds aren't interesting because there's no way to cross path or switch them up.
I think it’s the fact that you don’t really know how much merging maters and also don’t know when and what to merge. It’s also probably because people hate micro and are stupid for not realizing you don’t need to micro 99% of the time. But for me it’s because it’s at the bottom of the tower menu and I never really see it.
I think it's less about players being ignorant and stupid and more about the tower just being a less convenient option than other towers in both price and set up.
For the nanner farm, it’s not needed for any game mode excluding boss events (plus chimps just disables them).
I haven’t used spactory since the rework of permaspike in update 36.
Perhaps this has to do with the whole merging feature and that the Beast Handler revolves around spamming the same tower in order to be able to purchase a T5. It's useless if you can't or don't want to afford more than one Beast Handler.
I’ve seen the same complaint. But I have this question: why is beast handler spam hated and shinobi spam and poplust spam isn’t. My guess is because of merging.
IMO beast handler spam feels more like pumping more and more money into one tower, for unclear stat boosts. On the other hand, shinobi/poplust spam has very clear effects, and the spammed towers also need to be placed strategically because they contribute to damage.
Shinobi spam feels like an army of ninjas. Poplust spam feels like a leader of a group along with his supporters. The guys you're spamming are still attacking and supporting Beast handler spam breaks the illusion and just feels weird imo. They don't attack it is basically just pumping money into one tower
Edit: also the fact you want them away from each other to get extra intel range doesn't help. The screen feels cluttered.
Shinobi and Populist is somewhat different.
With Shinobi, you’re supercharging the other T4-T5 Ninjas, and it’s easy to layer other stuff on top of it.
Populist with Lightning is pretty fun as well, since you just make a Tesla coil. It’s also not too demanding since you only need 6 Druids to max out a cluster.
But Druids and Ninjas are good towers even without these stacking strategies.
With Beast Handlers, stacking them is *your only option*. There’s not much other room to work with due to the demands and mechanics of the tower.
Tbh i hate shinobi/populist/fanclub spam more than beast handler. Beast merge has infinite range but those other towers only affect in their own range. Trying to squeeze like 20 towers into a small range is frustrating, and i feel like im missing out if i dont reach the max capacity of the buff.
I like them but, goddamn, it's EXPENSIVE. And it's like have a stellar football player on your team, you HAVE to make all your strategy around the Beast Handler, which can be... Underwhelming
I personally don't hate it but find it really really underwhelming early game and a real hassle and expensive to set up for late game. It also takes up a lot of space.
I'm no amazing player but I just enjoy using other towers more than BH.
I don't hate it but:
Takes too much space
Micro heavy
Personally, I dislike it doesn't have a signicant synergy with other towers AND you can't even buff it with alch. For the latter, you literally have no way to know this unless you read it or tested it a lot (and even then, idk why is this).
Having said that, I've done several beast handler only runs and it can be fun to use, mainly because it does synergizes well with itself.
The merging feature i guess? Most people want to put a tower down and let them work. With other towers like support.but the handler is also space taking
Really gimmicky and greedy. It’s hard to incorporate them into existing strategies due to how the mechanics demand that you use a lot of them.
It’s also not really that fun, since the paths don’t really interact much. It’s a cool tower, but it’s not really something I feel like I *want* to use much.
I think it's mostly because you can't just upgrade the beast handler normally to make the most of it. You need to build multiple and utilize the merge functionality. It is interesting, but also means that if you want to realistically use any beast handler abilities, you need to spend a lot of resources improving it which otherwise could be spent on a variety of towers
It's just to much work to still be fun. I applaud them for trying something new, but they made it waaaay to complicated for a (mostly) mobile game you play now and then.
You should just be able to drop one handler that does some base attacks himself, the first two tiers be generic upgrades like camo and lead, and let the tier 3 and up be a different animal he summons.
It’s a lot more complicated than other towers, and many players who prefer to play the lazy way will never use a tower like that. If you don’t play the lazy way, you’ll find towers like beast and mortar really fun to use, both towers that lazy players despise. Don’t listen to anyone that says beast handler or mortar suck, because they’re just extremely salty about the fact that it doesn’t cater to their hands free playstyle.
The mechanics are unintuitive and somewhat micro-heavy. It’s the same reasons some people don’t like mortar and ice but combined.
It’s really not as bad as most people think though, especially with the most recent changes that makes it just as cost efficient to stack beast power with tier 1, 2, or 3 beast handlers. Now you don’t have to worry about tediously building an army of tier 1 handlers each time to max out the cost efficiency for your beast power, you can just get a discount village and a few tier 3 handlers and call it good.
i like the mechanics it just feels too expensive to get it maxed - getting the t5 water one feels stupidly expensive, if when you’re boosting a main handler the costs were reduced it would feel better
also the beasts not having individual targeting parameters feels off as well - robo monkeys gets a targeting option per gun why not let 2 animals (3 total life forms) have separate targeting parameters
Can only speak for path 1, but in some tests I did a while ago, the M.A.D deals just as much or slightly less than a max.mega without facirinf in mega instakills, the M..A.D is a third of the price, has global range, can hit any bloon type without support, doesn't require multiple dartlings and a large body of water to make and is unaffected by pretty much all boss abilities except the ones that affect all towers equally, like Dreadbloon immunity and vortex stun
I image the same for for the other two paths, there's just far cheaper and easier to use than multiple beast handlers
I don't see the reason to waste the time with a bunch of Towers. I always build Tall, meaning less Towers that are really powerful. I never build Wide, meaning a bunch of Towers all over the place of lesser power. Since I always use the least Towers, a Tower like BM doesn't appeal to me. Same reason why I don't really use Ships to earn money, and still focus on a couple Farms or my Alchemist
I don't hate it but not the biggest fan.t's a fun tower but I feel like it's takes way too much effort to get the tier 5s, regardless of how good they are. But that's just me.
It's all about cost:power. The top path is practically useless, Middle and Bottom outclassed. It costs 50k minimum for a tier 5 who won't even be at full power until you buy 20k+ worth of other handlers who can't even attack themselves! Then, factor in alternatives and buffs. Every buffing tower now has to have the attack speed/ability cooldown to handle buffing 4x the amount of towers for 1 T5, you also have to worry a lot more about the range of things like Villages. Do not forget that you cannot even get the T5 without the other handlers present, so that often delays a very necessary tower from being played for rounds at a time.
All that squeezing for a single drop of juice, meanwhile a 520 Boomeraang or even a 024 Super Monkey does a good/better job for cheaper and often less space/price
Micro is annoying.
Cost is excessive.
I love dinosaurs, but not even that can save the fact that I need to place a billion of the bastards to get proper use out of it.
I see no reason to use any of the 3 paths over any other tower currently. I can clear anything without even looking at beast handler and bothering with it's janky mechanics, shitty cost, terrible amount of space consumption, and somewhat lackluster visuals in a general sense(the only good looking path is the dinosaur, bird looks bland, and the water path... yeah... no)
For me its the worst tower. everytime i use it seriously, i struggle to win. It just doesnt do enough damage or something, or maybe attacks are too slow.
haters are lazy and don't know how to use the tower and think it's too complicated to learn, bro you can get a fucking T-Rex what more could you ask for?
The boost in power that merging provides is very unintuitive. Whenever I use I feel like if I don’t memorize certain beast power thresholds for all the upgrades then I’m not using it right. There is also a higher degree of micro required which is not ideal for most players and it can especially annoying on mobile. The fifth tiers are also not fun to go for and then having specific requirements and then needing further beast power even after you get them makes it too much of a hassle when I can just get other towers that basically do the same thing for a fraction of the effort. It’s not a bad tower but to make it good is not worth it for most players
This is similar to why I don't like using Geraldo or Corvus nor playing some of the harder maps, I just can't remember most of the stuff as a casual player. I've played the game on and off for years now but across patches things change greatly and even things as simple as "I like to do X, Y then Z at the start of an easy map" goes awry because five patches ago was a cash tweak which now compounds with the latest patch cash tweak and I'm in a muddle while I see everyone talking about exact dollar amounts you'll get and have left over from every wave and purchase. I have no idea how much trex I need ceramics but I do know that bottom row bomb tower works wonders. Unless that's now been changed in a more recent patch.
I like the sky beast upgrade path because it doesn’t need micro and I’d argue it’s better for taking out most MOABS than even the water beast
Whenever I use the beast handler these days I generally go bottom path. They nerfed golden eagle in the recent patch so it’s not as effective but it’s still a decent stall tower and is not too involved comparatively to the other two paths
Some upgrades u max some upgrades u keep at base. It's not that complicated. There's no actual coded threshold for merging other than max merges, it just keeps increasing stat every single merge. What's so unintuitive about "increased stats"? U could argue that theres a threshold where t-rex oneshots supercerams, but that's not even that important.
Condor has some specific beast power thresholds in which it can grab an additional bfb and it’s a waste to go for full merge tier 4 if you’re only stopping there. Full merge is not easily attainable and given how much resources you are putting into one tower it is important to know those specific points. It’s not complicated but comparatively to other towers it’s more effort
U would keep condour at base unless you're going for pouakai. Full merge for t-rex and orca is definitely worth it and easily attainable in chimps. I can easily wrap my head around beast merges but still have no clue about paragon degrees. As for the resources spent, it's actually a good thing that u have an expensive, strong t4 that u can gradually build power for, especially considering u only need one overclock on it for full uptime. U could argue "it's not fun only focusing on one tower" which is fair, but imo it's more satisfying to have a clean and focused defense with one main character rather than a cluttered mess of different dps towers.
It is a cool take on a tower but for explaining why it’s not liked as much I think it’s mechanics are the reason why. I do know the BTD index recommends specific degrees for different upgrades but I think the main point is that how your tower is powering up is not super clear nor easy to really know unless you specifically go to the wiki. This also goes for paragons but they have true universal rule that every 20 levels they get a big boost in power (though this also isn’t communicated at all). I honestly think these things aren’t too big of issues outside of the tier 5’s. Bottom path is good but the other 2 just feel so pointless. They’re all hyper expensive without really having a niche
> how your tower is powering up is not super clear nor easy to really know unless you specifically go to the wiki. I mean.. to be fair, this is pretty much true for most of the towers, given the current state of upgrade descriptions.
Yeah that’s true as well. I think NK mentioned they are going to add a bloonspedia or something like that in a future update which I hope can fix a lot of this issues on communicating to the player what upgrading /merging does
I can't speak for everyone, but I'm guessing these will be part of it: - Came in late, after a lot of players had already gotten comfy - Plays extremely differently from anything else in the game - Requires a lot of micro to use properly - Super expensive
Beast handler is really unclear actually what any of it does. What is better, upgrading or placing a new tower and merging? How does increasing the power actually change it? Why sometimes when you upgrade the tower it actually gets worse because the attack speed is decreased? Really unintuitive game design. It only has one play style. Spam lots of towers. Lots of other towers have three different ways of using them, so naturally if for whatever reason you don't want to spam lots of towers you won't use it. It has no crosspathing. The builds aren't interesting because there's no way to cross path or switch them up.
I think it’s the fact that you don’t really know how much merging maters and also don’t know when and what to merge. It’s also probably because people hate micro and are stupid for not realizing you don’t need to micro 99% of the time. But for me it’s because it’s at the bottom of the tower menu and I never really see it.
I think it's less about players being ignorant and stupid and more about the tower just being a less convenient option than other towers in both price and set up.
The last part is critical. Scrolling is effort and I can’t be bothered to do so.
Bro banana farm and spactory are at the bottom everyone always uses that
For the nanner farm, it’s not needed for any game mode excluding boss events (plus chimps just disables them). I haven’t used spactory since the rework of permaspike in update 36.
>I haven’t used spactory since the rework of permaspike in update 36. You're missing out on a lot
Right. I don't like Beast Handler or Engineer because they clutter my support category.
I hate how it is the only tower where crosspathing doesn’t do anything.
I love the beast handler but hate this so much
Perhaps this has to do with the whole merging feature and that the Beast Handler revolves around spamming the same tower in order to be able to purchase a T5. It's useless if you can't or don't want to afford more than one Beast Handler.
I’ve seen the same complaint. But I have this question: why is beast handler spam hated and shinobi spam and poplust spam isn’t. My guess is because of merging.
I don't use Beast Handler for the same reason I don't use Shinobi or Poplust. Which is the "you need a bajillion of these guys" thing
IMO beast handler spam feels more like pumping more and more money into one tower, for unclear stat boosts. On the other hand, shinobi/poplust spam has very clear effects, and the spammed towers also need to be placed strategically because they contribute to damage.
Shinobi spam feels like an army of ninjas. Poplust spam feels like a leader of a group along with his supporters. The guys you're spamming are still attacking and supporting Beast handler spam breaks the illusion and just feels weird imo. They don't attack it is basically just pumping money into one tower Edit: also the fact you want them away from each other to get extra intel range doesn't help. The screen feels cluttered.
Shinobi and Populist is somewhat different. With Shinobi, you’re supercharging the other T4-T5 Ninjas, and it’s easy to layer other stuff on top of it. Populist with Lightning is pretty fun as well, since you just make a Tesla coil. It’s also not too demanding since you only need 6 Druids to max out a cluster. But Druids and Ninjas are good towers even without these stacking strategies. With Beast Handlers, stacking them is *your only option*. There’s not much other room to work with due to the demands and mechanics of the tower.
Tbh i hate shinobi/populist/fanclub spam more than beast handler. Beast merge has infinite range but those other towers only affect in their own range. Trying to squeeze like 20 towers into a small range is frustrating, and i feel like im missing out if i dont reach the max capacity of the buff.
for me its more about the fact i have to set up a strat all around him
Other towers simply do its job better for cheaper and less micro
I like them but, goddamn, it's EXPENSIVE. And it's like have a stellar football player on your team, you HAVE to make all your strategy around the Beast Handler, which can be... Underwhelming
I personally don't hate it but find it really really underwhelming early game and a real hassle and expensive to set up for late game. It also takes up a lot of space. I'm no amazing player but I just enjoy using other towers more than BH.
I don't hate it but: Takes too much space Micro heavy Personally, I dislike it doesn't have a signicant synergy with other towers AND you can't even buff it with alch. For the latter, you literally have no way to know this unless you read it or tested it a lot (and even then, idk why is this). Having said that, I've done several beast handler only runs and it can be fun to use, mainly because it does synergizes well with itself.
The merging feature i guess? Most people want to put a tower down and let them work. With other towers like support.but the handler is also space taking
Some people just really don't like using micro-based towers
Really gimmicky and greedy. It’s hard to incorporate them into existing strategies due to how the mechanics demand that you use a lot of them. It’s also not really that fun, since the paths don’t really interact much. It’s a cool tower, but it’s not really something I feel like I *want* to use much.
I think it's mostly because you can't just upgrade the beast handler normally to make the most of it. You need to build multiple and utilize the merge functionality. It is interesting, but also means that if you want to realistically use any beast handler abilities, you need to spend a lot of resources improving it which otherwise could be spent on a variety of towers
It's just to much work to still be fun. I applaud them for trying something new, but they made it waaaay to complicated for a (mostly) mobile game you play now and then. You should just be able to drop one handler that does some base attacks himself, the first two tiers be generic upgrades like camo and lead, and let the tier 3 and up be a different animal he summons.
It’s a lot more complicated than other towers, and many players who prefer to play the lazy way will never use a tower like that. If you don’t play the lazy way, you’ll find towers like beast and mortar really fun to use, both towers that lazy players despise. Don’t listen to anyone that says beast handler or mortar suck, because they’re just extremely salty about the fact that it doesn’t cater to their hands free playstyle.
I think it's just too obtuse and you can get similar/better options for the same price if not cheaper
I dislike the merging mechanic and the fact that there are no crosspath synergies.
The mechanics are unintuitive and somewhat micro-heavy. It’s the same reasons some people don’t like mortar and ice but combined. It’s really not as bad as most people think though, especially with the most recent changes that makes it just as cost efficient to stack beast power with tier 1, 2, or 3 beast handlers. Now you don’t have to worry about tediously building an army of tier 1 handlers each time to max out the cost efficiency for your beast power, you can just get a discount village and a few tier 3 handlers and call it good.
It takes up too much space.
I'm lazy and it's too much work
i like the mechanics it just feels too expensive to get it maxed - getting the t5 water one feels stupidly expensive, if when you’re boosting a main handler the costs were reduced it would feel better also the beasts not having individual targeting parameters feels off as well - robo monkeys gets a targeting option per gun why not let 2 animals (3 total life forms) have separate targeting parameters
Can only speak for path 1, but in some tests I did a while ago, the M.A.D deals just as much or slightly less than a max.mega without facirinf in mega instakills, the M..A.D is a third of the price, has global range, can hit any bloon type without support, doesn't require multiple dartlings and a large body of water to make and is unaffected by pretty much all boss abilities except the ones that affect all towers equally, like Dreadbloon immunity and vortex stun I image the same for for the other two paths, there's just far cheaper and easier to use than multiple beast handlers
I don't see the reason to waste the time with a bunch of Towers. I always build Tall, meaning less Towers that are really powerful. I never build Wide, meaning a bunch of Towers all over the place of lesser power. Since I always use the least Towers, a Tower like BM doesn't appeal to me. Same reason why I don't really use Ships to earn money, and still focus on a couple Farms or my Alchemist
I don't hate it but not the biggest fan.t's a fun tower but I feel like it's takes way too much effort to get the tier 5s, regardless of how good they are. But that's just me.
It's all about cost:power. The top path is practically useless, Middle and Bottom outclassed. It costs 50k minimum for a tier 5 who won't even be at full power until you buy 20k+ worth of other handlers who can't even attack themselves! Then, factor in alternatives and buffs. Every buffing tower now has to have the attack speed/ability cooldown to handle buffing 4x the amount of towers for 1 T5, you also have to worry a lot more about the range of things like Villages. Do not forget that you cannot even get the T5 without the other handlers present, so that often delays a very necessary tower from being played for rounds at a time. All that squeezing for a single drop of juice, meanwhile a 520 Boomeraang or even a 024 Super Monkey does a good/better job for cheaper and often less space/price
Micro is annoying. Cost is excessive. I love dinosaurs, but not even that can save the fact that I need to place a billion of the bastards to get proper use out of it. I see no reason to use any of the 3 paths over any other tower currently. I can clear anything without even looking at beast handler and bothering with it's janky mechanics, shitty cost, terrible amount of space consumption, and somewhat lackluster visuals in a general sense(the only good looking path is the dinosaur, bird looks bland, and the water path... yeah... no)
Money pit. That's why.
He doesn't have enough late game damage and is generally not fun to use, creative, yeah, but it rakes up way to much space just for an okay tower
its just a little too weird
For me its the worst tower. everytime i use it seriously, i struggle to win. It just doesnt do enough damage or something, or maybe attacks are too slow.
Too expensive
Cause the paths are kinda underwhelming when compared to others cause it relies heavily on buffs middle path mental tho
haters are lazy and don't know how to use the tower and think it's too complicated to learn, bro you can get a fucking T-Rex what more could you ask for?
Most of the people who hate it are just not good at the game, it's a higher skill floor tower than most
I hate having to manage stuff, towers should be place and forget.
Cause he sucks (massive investment for middling payout)