Cluster Bombs (BTD6)

"Throws out secondary bombs instead of sharp fragments every shot."

- In-game description

Cluster Bombs is the third upgrade of Path 3 for the Bomb Shooter in Bloons TD 6. It allows the Bomb Shooter to produce 8 smaller secondary explosions instead of fragments (from the Frag Bombs upgrade). Positions of these clusters may change slightly between each other, but they are fairly consistent overall. Each secondary explosion pops up to 10 bloons (16 with Bigger Bombs and 26 with Heavy Bombs) and has a blast radius of ~15 (roughly ~22.5 with Bigger Bombs). These secondary explosions are actually larger than the main explosions.

Unlike previous games, Cluster Bombs do pop Black Bloons, as its previous upgrade now converts explosions into "fraggy explosions" starting from Version 28.0.

It costs $680 on Easy, $800 on Medium, $865 on Hard, and $960 on Impoppable.

Summary
Cluster Bombs is an effective early-game option for destroying dense groups of bloons. Cluster Bombs usually performs better than Really Big Bombs in most situations, because the combination of all its secondary explosions cover a wider blast radius while occasionally overlapping damage to the same bloon(s), dealing a lot of damage versus weaker and stronger bloons. In addition, Cluster Bombs surprisingly deals good damage versus MOAB-class bloons for its price, although still weaker than MOAB Mauler in that regard.

The main purpose of Cluster Bombs is to be used for extensive explosion coverage, which allows it to deal good damage against various types of grouped regular bloons. Cluster Bombs becomes exceptionally more powerful with the Path 1 crosspaths, specifically with Heavy Bombs, as its secondary explosions are also affected by the extra damage benefits. Especially when paired with Striker Jones, a single 2-0-3 Cluster Bombs can easily deal great damage versus early mid-game grouped bloons for its price, and still counters them nicely even without him due to Version 28.0 providing it with innate black-popping.

Tips

 * Use this upgrade to pop many bloons at once. Its primary purpose is to expand its explosion range across many more bloons through the addition of extra explosions.
 * The 2-0-3 Cluster Bombs crosspath is usually better, as its secondary explosions can deal much more damage to bloons that the larger explosions can touch. Plus, more pierce per explosion is useful to have. 0-2-3 is better when paired with buffs such as Berserker Brew, utilizing the bonus benefits from them much more effectively overall, particularly from the damage and attack speed bonuses.
 * Note that it exchanges its fragment shots from Frag Bombs with secondary clusters, but they surprisingly pop Black Bloon properties as of Version 28.0. However, Cluster Bombs deals much better damage across wide groups.
 * Cluster Bombs is actually cheaper than Really Big Bombs, although a 2-0-3 Cluster Bombs costs $100 more than a 3-0-0 Really Big Bombs (if Budget Clusters is active, they have the same cost instead). Cluster Bombs can also be further upgraded to Recursive Cluster to create even more widespread explosions overall, a great option for wiping out grouped bloons with further ease.
 * Adding Striker Jones can help the overall performance of Cluster Bombs by granting attack speed bonuses, just as he would for MOAB Maulers and Recursive Clusters.
 * Cluster Bomb spam works well with Primary Expertise due to the support's significant boosts, mainly the free Tier 1 and 2 upgrades but also the other buffs offered too. This combo also pairs well with MOAB Eliminator in addition to Striker Jones.