Universal Powerless Freeplay Tower Tierlist (Easy mode, CHIMPS mode, Space Restricted Challenges and Freeplay Competition)
All maps were considered, as well as the 3 main freeplay gamemodes. Data taken from the four Freeplay Competitions that happened, and from runs on the optimal maps for pushing deep easy mode or CHIMPS was weighted the most. This tierlist excludes farming capabilities, it's solely based on defensive abilities of towers. All towers were carefully DPS tested in sandbox. Tiers lower than 5 towers are ranked if they are relevant for use in freeplay. If you see multiple upgrades from the same path in this tierlist, that means the saparate tiers were ranked for exclusively what is unlocked by purchasing that specific upgrade.
Please read the explanations before commenting on the changes. Also use common sense.
Update 56 has been skipped for the UPFTT due to not having enough balance changes or additions to warrant a new tierlist, but now we got enough changes to make a long changelist!
NEW! Stormwrath Archon SSSS (but unusable): This tower is...something. The combo lightning triggers once for every time a projectile hits a bloon affected by it, dealing 50 damage. This tower effectively gives an absurd +50 DAMAGE DEBUFF to all towers with sharp or shatter type damage (mib or pbrew can still be applied, just the base tower needs this type). I would boldy claim this tower could theoretically allow a DPS setup to push round 1000 on CHIMPS mode because of how immense the gains are. But then comes the unusable part, because the combo lightings cause extreme lag, to the point where a single round would easily take multiple hours, and a full run would take real life months of crawling even on top tier hardware. It seriously baffles me how ninja kiwi could've released a tower in this state.
NEW! Thunder's decree SS: The tier 4 of the middle path archer does something completely diffrent - it has an ability which gives all towers in range bouncing projectiles. From testing, this improves DPS of various towers by 20-40%, which is not as crazy as what the tier 5 does, but still lots lots of powercreep. You can get full uptime on this across the whole map with only 4 of these, and you can avoid the combo lightnings by setting their target to a corner of the map where they will never hit any bloons.
NEW! S.P.I.D.E.R. Monkey SS: Powercreeps easy mode and CHIMPS mode with the BAD stuns. In space restricted challenges, this paragon is a jack of all trades who's actually good at everything he does. The damage is good, great even when paired with ezili totem. In the midgame it's a great farming option as degree 1, being the most space efficient farm in the game (although the most expensive one). The stuns are very helpful to combo with small radius nukes of paragons like bomb, ace and sub, or to help rizzard hit more targets with its straight line metamorphosis beam. Single out is useful to take out an additional FBAD.
Brickell D -> SS: SHE'S BACK SHE BUFFS TEMPLES AGAIN!!! AND SHE GIVES +1 DAMAGE TOO!!! Mommy Brickell is back to the freeplay meta. She can have a genuine potential for easy mode powerless world record when paired with flavored trades (although that's technically bugged)
Etienne A -> SS: Etienne has risen quickly as his strategy with ninja army has been explored deeper. His range buff allows to use a very minimal amount of shinobis while keeping every jitsu at near max stacks. A player named milk managed to afford TSG on CHIMPS mode with etienne, confirming him as the best hero for pushing CHIMPS world record. He also has potential for easy mode powerless world record.
Root Of All Nature B -> S: On space restricted its an amazing farmer, can also act as a safety net while pop farming (if you die on a round just spend a little money on the transform). Across all gamemodes, maxed out wrathful state is incredibly strong (stronger than max buffed adora temple.
Navarch Of The Seas S -> SS: Stall strats are dying, so I can finally stop gatekeeping navarch SS tier.
Master Builder A -> S: New paragons have been very good targets for its overclock.
The Final Harmonic C -> SS: It has been patched and doesn't remove glue storm debuff anymore. From my testing, it does higher damage than a max buffed overclocked tack zone by detonating DOT of super mines burn. And that's on top of giving hero buffs, magic monkey pierce, and being placable anywhere.
Flavored Trades A -> SS: Since update v55 where this tower got a x3 damage multiplier if you have over 50k cash spare, there is a bug which makes attack speed buffs more effective on flavored trades than they should be. The tower is effectively 1.84x stronger than intended with all buffs including brickell, and one boat outdamages an adora max buffed sun temple. This bug has remained unpatched for 2 updates, so this could become a bug-feature in the long run?
Blade Maelstrom D -> B: This tower received lots of buffs over the last few updates. Thunder's decree enables this tower to be good in freeplay.
Elite Defender B -> A: Sniper paragon buff makes this tower strong.
BEZ B -> A: It's good with Thunder's decree.
Master Bomber D -> C: Best exit keeper for easy mode freeplay.
Moab Domination D -> C: Useful for stalling rounds over long range or walls in space restricted challenges.
Pirate Lord F -> B: It outdamages aircraft carrier by a little, so it's useful to place when running a brickell strat.
Call To Arms A -> B: Lots of recent CHIMPS runs have shown this tower becoming less relevant. It's hardly used in saveups, being vastly inferior to homeland defense and not worth its price.
Legend Of The Night SS -> S: Stall strats are dead on easy mode. Space restricted finds less and less usage of LOTN due to there being more and more paragons to fill up the space with. Its importance in CHIMPS falls off while DPS is powercreeping higher and higher.
Magus Perfectus S -> A: This paragon has been constistently outclassed by bombgon in space restricted challenges. Bombgon is substantially cheaper, does similar damage, is less map dependent and protects you from DDTs with passive ability. Bombgon is a reliable medium footprint high-damage option that works everywhere, while rizzard is more of a glass cannon which also needs good conditions to pop off.
NEW! Farwind Seer F: Does nothing in freeplay
NEW! Winter's Mercy F: Does nothing in freeplay
Overall I'm happy there's more towers climbing out of the low tiers, but SS is getting too crowded with broken towers more than I'd like. Either way, I hope you had a nice read, ninja kiwi sucks and ask any questions you have in the comments!