Shrapnel Shot

"Damaged bloons spray out a cone of sharp shrapnel."

- BTD6 description as of Version 17.0

Shrapnel Shot is the second upgrade of Path 2 for the Sniper Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It causes bloons damaged by the Sniper's bullet to send out 5 sharp fragments, similar to the Bomb Shooter's Frag Bombs upgrade, but in a 45° cone shape as opposed to a full 360°. Each piece of shrapnel deals 1 damage per bloon (more with Path 1 upgrades) onto up to two bloons (more with Tier 3+ upgrades), though sprays of shrapnel can deal more damage if close enough to nearby bloons. Note that shrapnel does not deal damage to the bloon hit by the bullet, making this upgrade not so effective for doing single target damage.

Upgrading with Large Calibre increases the damage of each shrapnel piece to 2 instead of 1, Deadly Precision will increase the damage of each shrapnel piece to 4, upgrading it to Maim MOAB will increase it to 6, and Cripple MOAB will increase it to 12. Purchasing any Path 1 upgrade (including Full Metal Jacket) will allow shrapnel pieces to pop Frozen and Lead. Shrapnel spawned from Maim MOAB or Cripple MOAB additionally stuns and cripples affected blimps, respectively.

Similarly, upgrading with any Tier 3 upgrade increases the pierce of each shrapnel piece from 2 to 3. Supply Drop is the only further upgrade that increases pierce of the shrapnel, from 3 to 6, while Elite Sniper retains the 6 pierce per shrapnel.

It costs $380 on Easy, $450 on Medium, $485 on Hard, and $540 on Impoppable.

Tips

 * Do go for upgrading to Bouncing Bullet to utilize Shrapnel Shots to their highest pierce potential.
 * Try using this upgrade with Upper Path 3 (Semi-Automatic, Full Auto Rifle, or Elite Defender), as their high attack speeds allow more shrapnel to spawn, thereby increasing overall DPS. Additionally, this makes those Snipers far more usable with buffs such as Berserker Brew or Stronger Stimulant.
 * Upgrading with Upper Path 1 (Deadly Precision, Maim MOAB, Cripple MOAB) is a viable option for chipping away the damage of multiple densely packed bloons, but for most occasions it's better off using Even Faster Firing over Shrapnel Shot for those upgrades if going for purely damage.
 * Adding Shrapnel Shot to Maim MOAB and Cripple MOAB allows the Sniper to stun multiple blimps per shot as long as the shrapnel damages them.
 * 0-2-2 is decent as a general bloon-popper, while 1-2-0 is decent for taking down early Leads, including those on Rounds 37 and 38 where the Leads are mixed with Zebras.
 * If considering going straight for Shrapnel Shot, remember that it costs $750 on Medium to buy both this upgrade and its preceding Night Vision Goggles upgrade.
 * Properly position the X-2-X Sniper so the Shrapnel can hit bloons behind its target bloon, since the shrapnel cone's angle is directly related to where the sniper shot it from, or the previously hit bloon in case of X-3-X Bouncing Bullet.

Strategies
Shrapnel Shot is an upgrade that identifies one of the most critical flaws of the Sniper Monkey, in that they lacks any form of grouped popping power and is often overwhelmed because of its single targeting capabilities, frequently causing bloons to split into large groups of their children layers that flusters the Sniper. In such a scenario, Shrapnel Shot can take out one bloon directly as well as pop several other bloons indirectly.

Giving a Sniper Monkey with the Shrapnel Shot upgrade makes them become more oriented as a global-ranged limited grouped bloon popper. Different crosspaths or further upgrades will improve the grouped-popping potential in very different ways for the Sniper. Although limited to either high shrapnel damage at the cost of slow attack speed or more frequent shrapnel at the cost of low single-target damage, both options provide an adequate specialization for the Sniper versus grouped bloons. The Path 1 upgrades Large Calibre and Deadly Precision purely improve damage, while the Maim MOAB and Cripple MOAB upgrades allowing the shrapnel to apply stun effects to multiple blimps. Faster attack speed from the Path 3 upgrades allows the pure shrapnel to be shot at a faster rate. And lastly, further upgrading on Path 2 Bouncing Bullet allows the bullet to hit multiple bloons, help point the shrapnel against the direction of bloons, and can produce multiple shrapnel sprays per bullet hit.

The shrapnel flies in a cone away from the impact direction. While this can cause all the shrapnel to fly away from the track, if the sniper has Bouncing Bullet the shrapnel from the bounces often goes along the track, dealing more damage. Otherwise, it would be a sensible option to properly position the Sniper such that the shrapnel direction points along a favorable angle.

This upgrade may backfire when a shrapnel accidentally hits a bloon that spawns more than one children (e.g. Rainbow Bloons), the amount of bloons will duplicate, sometimes causing the Sniper to take more than one shot to wipe the bloons out. Either giving the Sniper with faster attack speed or adding backup defense should give them an easier time handling the bloons.

Before Version 17.0


Trivia

 * Shrapnel Shot adds a yellow explosion symbol on the Sniper Monkey's beret.
 * Prior to v17.0, Shrapnel Shot would only activate upon a bloon being fully popped and send the shrapnel out in all directions. The above changes were made likely to improve mid-path crosspathing.
 * Additionally, the old description before Version 17.0 was "Destroyed Bloons spray out sharp shrapnel in all directions." but has been changed as of Version 17.0 to accommodate the reworked shrapnel mechanics.
 * When not crossed with the first path, the shrapnel does more damage than the main bullet. This is most evident when a well-placed 0-2-5 Elite Defender is fighting the MOABs from a popped BFB; the leading MOAB is the last to pop.