Dark Knight

"Dark blades increase knockback and pierce and deal extra damage to MOAB-class Bloons. Gains Darkshift ability to shift to a nearby location."

- BTD6 description as of Version 24.0

 is the third upgrade on Path 3 for the Super Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It replaces the Super Monkey's darts with dark blades that deal +2 damage to MOAB-class Bloons and can deal extra knockback versus Leads and Ceramics, specifically at -90% speed instead of -60% speed. Additionally, since Version 17.0, it gains a new special ability named "Darkshift" that allows it to teleport to anywhere within its range, with a cooldown of 20 seconds.

Dark blades deal 3 damage to MOAB-class Bloons. They also have +4 extra pierce, giving 5 pierce overall (+1 per Path 2 upgrade crosspath, or just +1 with any Path 1 upgrade).

The Dark Knight upgrade costs $4,760 on Easy, $5,600 on Medium, $6,050 on Hard, and $6,720 on Impoppable.

Appearance
The Dark Knight changes from a comic-book hero style outfit to a dark vigilante suit. It gains black gloves. Most of its outfit is black or dark grey, and throws dark blades instead of darts. Its cape loses the dart and circle logo.

Summary
Dark Knight is an effective mid-game option at countering MOAB-class bloons and dealing decent cleanup against regular bloons. With the favorable Plasma Blasts crosspath, Dark Knight is effective at taking down MOAB-class bloons at a relatively low cost compared to alternate Tier 3 Super Monkey options, Sun Avatar and Robo Monkey. The additional benefit of Dark Knight is that it comes with an activated ability that allows it to teleport within its direct range, which can come in handy in a handful of tricky situations. Like all Tier 3 Super Monkeys, Dark Knight takes full advantage of Monkey Commerce discounts and pairs well with Obyn Greenfoot and Alchemist buffs.

Tips

 * Generally, a 2-0-3 Dark Knight is better, as it can pop DDTs without extra support (such as MIB, Gwendolin Level 4+, or Acidic Mixture Dip), has double attack speed, and gains +1 pierce on top of the bonus +4 pierce that Dark Knight comes with by default.
 * Occasionally, a 0-2-3 Dark Knight is useful, but only in cases where range and projectile speed are of a greater considerable importance. Specifically, Epic Range now adds extra projectile speed and pierce as of Version 10.0 and Version 25.0, and 0-2-3 has more pierce than 2-0-3 as of Version 30.0.
 * 1-0-3 Dark Knight is not more useful than a 0-2-3 Dark Knight, as all Laser Blasts does is increase pierce by +1, grant Frozen Bloon popping, and prevent the Super Monkey from popping Purples. Compared to the 0-2-3 Dark Knight, the bonus range and projectile speed outweighs most of these single benefits from Laser Blasts, unless further upgraded to Plasma Blasts.
 * Additionally, adding a specific MK will allow Super Monkeys to pop Frozen Bloons by default regardless of upgrades (except on CHIMPS Mode or on challenges where MK is disabled).
 * 2-0-3 Dark Knights make considerably decent poppers of MOAB-class bloons, especially to DDTs, but they themselves may struggle to solo the Ceramics inside. Additional support may be required to pop the Ceramics that come out of the DDTs, such as a Bloonjitsu with Distraction, a Druid of the Storm (but not to Camo Ceramics).
 * 0-2-3 Dark Knight is a viable option when trying to utilise the most of the new "Darkshift" ability.
 * The 2-0-3 Dark Knight pairs well with Etienne during the mid-game, as it deals effective MOAB-class damage and decent bloon damage while UCAV is under cooldown. In addition, it can also help UCAV focus on more important MOAB-class targets by destroying MOAB-class bloons quicker so that UCAV can attack other strong targets.

Sounds
When upgrading or relogging into a game having Dark Knight upgrade:
 * [Bat screeching]

When activating Darkshift Ability:
 * [Teleporting]

Trivia

 * Super Monkeys with the Dark Knight upgrade are sometimes informally called Batmans (intentionally ignoring the pluralization rules), Batmonkeys, or Batman Monkeys by fans, due to how much they resemble Batman, even though subsequent upgrades also resemble Batman.
 * Fittingly, the upgrade name is also a reference to The Dark Knight film.
 * There is an avatar on the Ninja Kiwi website that resembles this upgrade.
 * As of v17.0, The Dark Knight is currently the first and only Tier 3 tower in the game to have an ability.
 * Dark Knight, Dark Champion, and Legend of the Night are the combined second towers to have an ability as a Path 3 upgrade, the first being Soulbind.