Spectre (BTD6)


 * "Spectre" redirects here.

"Rapidly fires darts and bombs, dominating most Bloon types easily."

- BTD6 description

Spectre is the fourth upgrade of Path 3 for the Monkey Ace in Bloons TD 6. Just like in BTD5, the Spectre replaces the usual Neva-Miss Targeting homing darts with a single stream of rapidly alternating darts and bombs, which fire 15 times per second (one projectile every 0.06s, or 0.045s with Rapid Fire). Each dart deals 2 damage and has 15 pierce (+25% pierce with Lots More Darts), while each bomb deals 3 damage and has 30 pierce (45 pierce with Exploding Pineapple). Additionally, both attacks deal +2 damage to Ceramic Bloons. However, unlike in BTD5, the Spectre's bombs do not harm Black Bloons, so it cannot damage DDTs without a Monkey Intelligence Bureau or similar upgrades, even if it has camo detection. Also, the Spectre upgrade is now split from the Rapid Fire upgrade path, which may potentially force either external camo detection for an attack speed bonus or internal camo detection in exchange for no additional attack speed bonus.

It costs $20,400 on Easy, $24,000 on Medium, $25,920 on Hard, and $28,800 on Impoppable.

Tower Prices

 * Updated as of version 30.0

Summary
Due to the Spectre's high pierce and damage, it is an excellent mid-game upgrade. Its largest benefit compared to other midgame towers is that it has global range, meaning it has additional viability on multipath maps or maps with a lot of length for Spectre to utilize. Due to its high pierce, it can very quickly dispatch heavy bloon rounds such as Rounds 63, 76 and 78.

Do note that however, it can sometimes have subpar damage against Fortified Bloons, and becomes less effective once Super Ceramics appear starting Round 81. It is possible to use the Spectre as a main DPS tower even late-game with a lot of support, although it is frequently outclassed by towers such as Sky Shredder paired with Stronger Stimulant and Apache Prime in this regard.

The Spectre can completely eliminate anything that is not a blimp in less than a second, so use that to your advantage. Although it is very powerful against pre-round 80 Ceramics, it may sometimes miss due to the long travel time of its projectiles. Adding slowdown support such as Bloon Sabotage or Glue Hose, or simply micromanaging the Spectre's flight to keep it closer to its targets, will help it miss less often.

Tips

 * On Rounds 81+, where subsequent rounds change Ceramics into Super Ceramics that have a set amount of extra health plus extra speed per round, Spectres tend to fall back on power against fast Super Ceramics. Often, Spectres fail to target properly on specific positions. However, this can be remedied by placing the Spectre's flight path to one that is more closely placed near the targeted bloons.
 * It is usually better off getting 1-0-4 Spectre as opposed to 0-2-4 Spectre. Rapid Fire adds 33% extra attack speed, which makes a big difference thanks to the Spectre's already-high DPS.
 * The Lots More Darts crosspath does not add any extra darts for the Spectre, but instead adds 25% more pierce to each dart. This generally isn't worth purchasing, unless the player has a glut of money or bought the upgrade while still using Neva-Miss Targeting.
 * Usually, Spectre micro-management strategies attempt to keep the Spectre shooting down a straight line or hitting multiple bloons to make full use of its darts' high pierce.
 * Pairing the Spectre with Overclock is a good idea, allowing the Spectre to avoid missing its shots as much. The increased attack speed allows it to adjust to new changes in bloon positions at a much faster rate. Overclock's buff also has full uptime on all Tier 4 upgrades, meaning that the 66% attack speed buff is constant on Spectre.
 * The Spectre appreciates both direct support, in the form of damage buffs from Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar and Permanent Brew, but also bloon control such as MOAB Glue and other Glue Gunners, Bloon Sabotage, or Downdraft. Damage buffs help Spectre to have far more acceptable stats, while bloon controllers help to deal with weaknesses such as DDTs and superceramics.
 * The Spectre's projectiles always target First. During the late-game, focus on destroying any bloons far from or otherwise unfavorable for the Spectre, so it will not waste its shots on missing targets.

Trivia

 * The nerfed attack speed Spectre with Rapid Fire shoots at approximately the speed of the Spectre in BTD5.
 * Use of a 0-2-4 Spectre formerly was a simple go-to strategy for almost all Deflation Mode maps, but this was no longer possible in Version 8.0, where the Spectre's price was increased, but it also received increased overall damage to compensate.
 * The BTD5 Spectre upgrade uses an ambiguous description ("Flying fortress of bloon doom"), but in BTD6, the description for the Spectre is fully described in terms of how it attacks ("Rapidly fires darts and bombs, dominating most Bloon types easily").
 * The darts from the Spectre are 2D models, while the bombs are 3D models.
 * It is believed the model for the Spectre has a small resemblance to the AC-130. This is further suggested by the name as older AC-130s were known as Spectre Gunships.
 * There are three window panes on the BTD6 Spectre, while the BTD5 Spectre in both the Flash and Mobile versions had only one wider pane.
 * A "spectre" is a type of ghost or a phantom. Alternatively, it means a "mental image of something unpleasant or menacing" (Dictionary.com definition) or "the idea of something unpleasant that might happen in the future" (Cambridge Dictionary definition). Regardless of how the word "spectre" may be interpreted, the Spectre's dark color scheme and high DPS closely matches the level of ferocity that its name may suggest.