While I can’t say that the Tack Shooter sees a whole lot of use in Bloons TD 6 as there aren’t a whole lot of tracks that feature good placement for them, there are some situations where players will want to rely on them due to their high amounts of damage.
Tack Shooters have the ability to deal damage in a circle, making them ideal for maps that have circles on them, though players can also use them on corners that allow then to attack on two or three sides.
Tack Shooters often deal with sharp projectiles, though depending on what path players upgrade choose to upgrade to, the Tack Shooter has the chance to use fire damage instead.
As is with most towers, all three types of Tack Shooters have use their uses depending on what map players are playing on, though undeniably some of the upgrades will be used more than others due to their versatility.
PATH 1 TIER-5 TACK SHOOTER – INFERNO RING
The first upgrade path players can choose when upgrading to a tier-5 Tack Shooter is the Inferno Ring.
As mentioned earlier, players will initially deal sharp damage to bloons when using a Tack Shooter, though with the Inferno Ring upgrade, the Tack Shooter will primarily deal fire damage, which is considered energy damage, meaning that it will no longer be able to damage Purple Bloons.
As players will no longer be able to damage Purple Bloons, players will need to rely on damage caused by other towers such as the Dart Monkey, Boomerang Monkey, or even the Bomb Shooter.
Inferno Ring Tack Shooters excel in dealing rapid damage to bloons, dealing 4 damage per 0.1 second to all normal bloons in the ring and dealing 6 damage to any MOAB-class bloon.
The fire blast can deal damage to a maximum of 60 bloons at a time.
The Inferno Ring comes with a passive ability that launches a meteor every 4 seconds at the largest bloon on screen dealing 700 damage.
Upon landing, the meteor will cause more damage, exploding and affected a maximum of 10 bloons with 50 damage with an addition 50 damage per second up to a maximum of 4 seconds.
It should the meteor passive ability can detect Camo Bloons, though the main tower’s attack will not be able to detect Camo Bloons.
Players will not be able to rely on the meteor attack to destroy all Camo Bloons and will instead need to place a variety of towers to defend themselves unless they instead choose to use a Monkey Village with Radar Scanner (-/2/-).
The method of cross pathing players can choose when using an Inferno Ring Tack Shooter will depend on the needs of the player.
With Path 2 players will receive 20 pierce for each upgrade, often being the best choice as it will essentially make it so the the Inferno Ring can deal damage to up to 80 bloons at a time whenever it shoots.
Path 2 will also further increase the range of the Inferno Ring, though it should be noted that the Inferno Ring already gains a bit of range simply from its Path 1 upgrade to tier-5.
With Path 3 players will receive 1 extra damage per upgrade. While 2 damage can be quite substantial, especially with how fast the Inferno Ring shoots, the ability to shred through more bloons is usually the better option as the majority of player will still want to place a number of towers to support their Tack Shooter for added protection.
The biggest priority for the Inferno Ring is destroying smaller bloons so players can focus on the bigger threats with their more versatile towers.
Path 3 Inferno Rings are only considered optimal when players would not benefit from the range essentially having to rely on the quick damage output the Inferno Ring already has. These are most notable when tracks only have 2 sides for players to damage or tracks that have smaller rings in them.
The Inferno Ring will rapidly chip at bloons ensuring that they are not a threat for players to deal with.
In regards to towers that make sense around an Inferno Ring, players can place a Monkey Village with Primary Training (3/-/-) or higher with the addition of Radar Scanner (-/2/-).
Players can also use a Bomb Shooter with Bloon Crush (5/-/-) in hopes of stunning bloons in the range of the Inferno Ring to deal never ending damage.
While impactful and useful against MOAB-class bloons like the ZOMG, I would say the Inferno Ring Tack Shooter is the last choice for me, simply because of the amount of versatility the other types of Tack Shooters provide.
I would mostly make the choice to upgrade a Tack Shooter to an Inferno Ring if I’m having difficulty dealing with Ceramic Bloons or Lead Bloons.
PATH 2 TIER-5 TACK SHOOTER – SUPER MAELSTROM
The Path 2 Tier-5 Tack Shooter is by far the most versatile players can upgrade to simply because it comes with an ability that players can activate in order to deal global damage.
Players can activate the Super Maelstrom ability every 20 seconds to deal 2 damage to each bloon hit by the global ability, essentially being 4 waves of saw blade spinners.
The waves of saw blades have unlimited pierce and will damage every 0.0333 seconds.
The most impressive thing about the Super Maelstrom ability is the fact that it can shred through Lead Bloons, making it unstoppable to any form of bloon except Camo Bloons unless provided visibility with Etienne or a Monkey Village with Radar Scanner (-/2/-).
Similarly the Super Maelstrom’s basic attack can shred through Lead Bloons and will deal 2 damage for each blade that strikes through a bloons.
The Super Maelstrom Tack Shooter is by far the most versatile tower and is able to help players get through the majority of Race Events, essentially allowing them to send out a single ability after summoning an endless amount of bloon rounds at once to make the best use of the ability.
A notable quality of the Super Maelstrom Tack Shooter is the fact that it does not need to be cross pathed as players will mostly use it for the ability. Though, if players do choose to use a cross path for the Super Maelstrom Track Shooter the only choice players really should use is Path 1 in order to raise the attack speed of the Tack Shooter.
The Path 3 cross path does not actually deal more damage as bloons will be clumped close enough to be struck by the majority, if not all saw blades.
Players can often pair up the Super Maelstrom with Pat Fusty or towers that freeze or stop bloons such as the Ice Monkey or Bomb Shooter with Bloon Crush.
Unfortunately the Super Maelstrom isn’t all powerful and can still lead to bloons leaking, meaning players will either want to pair the Super Maelstrom Tack Shooter with other towers nearby or with a Perma-Spike Spike Factory in order to ensure that no bloons actually make it through the finish line.
It should also be noted that shockingly the Super Maelstrom ability can be affected by a Monkey Village’s Jungle Drums (2/-/-) or an Engineer Monkey’s Overclock (-/4/-) ability, making them great resources that ensure that as many bloons as the player can defeat are destroyed.
The Super Maelstrom Tack Shooter is by far the best option for players unless they are simply trying to destroy bloons rapidly without the need of relying on an ability.
PATH 3 TIER-5 TACK SHOOTER – THE TACK ZONE
Say hello to a bloon’s ultimate demise.
The Tack Zone is the final tier-5 upgrade players can rely on in hopes of demolishing bloons.
The Tack Zone can shoot a staggering 32 tacks per shot and has a stupid amount of attack speed of a volley every 0.2625 seconds.
The other shocking element to The Tack Zone is it’s ability to shred through Lead Bloons without the support of any other towers and will pop a maximum of 9 bloons per tack.
Each Tack deals 2 damage.
The Tack Zone is the ultimate clean up tower and while players can greatly from having it placed in the centre of a circular track, players can also place this bad boy on a single track to deal a substantial amount of damage.
I often use The Tack Zone when completing a Race Event close to the front to clear up hoards of small bloons as it can help me focus on stronger bloons with stronger towers and greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a Race Event due to it’s impressive attack speed.
When it comes to cross pathing The Tack Zone a player’s only real option is to cross path with Path 1 as this will greatly increase the attack speed of The Tack Zone bringing it down to a shot every 0.1181 seconds. With a Path 1 upgrade The Tack Zone becomes nearly unstoppable.
Path 2 will simply add a bit of range to The Tack Zone which in the long run will not provide the tower with that much more damage, even if the range increases The Tack Shooter to have enough range to complete the full circle.
Players should always try to combine The Tack Zone with an Engineer Monkey with Overclock (-/4/-) and an Alchemist Monkey with Stronger Stimulant (4/-/-) as this will greatly increase the damage output of the Tower.
Players can also pair up The Tack Zone with a Monkey Village with Primary Training (4/-/-) as this will raise its damage output
At its fastest, The Tack Zone can attack every 0.1004 seconds, being one of the fastest towers in all of BTD6.
Similar to all of the Tack Shooters above, players may want to use Pat Fusty to stall bloons in order for The Tack Zone to be able to shred through as many bloons as it can or a Bomb Shooter with Bloon Crush to stall the bloons.
Shockingly, The Tack Zone can obliterate a number of MOAB-class bloons and will prove to be extremely effective as a defensive towers in earlier rounds or where players need a bit of extra popping power against slow bloons.
CONCLUSION
While players may find use for any of the Tack Shooters, players may want to stick to Path 2 Super Maelstrom or Path 3 The Tack Zones.
Players may want to use a Path 1 Inferno Ring if they do not have defences against Lead Bloons as long as they are not Camo Bloons or if they are against Ceramic Bloons.
If players want maximum DPS they should focus on using The Tack Zone as it rapidly fires out tacks, though Path 2 Super Maelstroms have global range with their abilities and can shred through all kinds of bloons including Lead Bloons.
Similarly, so can The Tack Zone making them pretty tied for best tower in my opinion.
The Tack Shooter is better for quick damage in tandem with other Towers while the Super Maelstrom is better for dealing damage throughout rounds and when worried that bloons are going to leak.
So I’m curious, what’s your favourite Tack Shooter? Do you also prefer Path 2 and Path 3 Tack Shooters or are you more of a Path 1 Tack Shooter use? Let me know in the comments below!
