Flash Bomb (BTD6)

"Throws a flash bomb that stuns multiple Bloons."

- In-game description

Flash Bomb is a Ninja Monkey upgrade that gives the monkey an additional explosive attack that stuns bloons, returning as the third upgrade of Path 3 in BTD6. Flash bombs damage bloons, including those with Black Bloon properties, and stun all affected bloons for 1.0s. Each Flash bomb deals 1 damage and has 60 pierce. One flash bomb is thrown with every fourth shuriken, which occurs every 2.8s (every 1.68s with Ninja Discipline).

It costs $2,335 on Easy, $2,750 on Medium, $2,970 on Hard, and $3,300 on Impoppable.

Appearance
The Flash Bomb upgrade gives the Ninja Monkey a red tusked mask.

Summary
In a similar way to the BTD5 counterpart, the BTD6 Flash Bomb has considerably high pierce but at the cost of only dealing 1 damage at a slow rate, while itself having a high pricetag. Compared to other grouped stun options, specifically Shell Shock and Bloon Impact, Flash Bomb is cheaper than Bloon Impact but more reliable than Shell Shock, as well as affects camo by default, but the Flash Bomb attack is slower than either of the two upgrades.

In most cases, Flash Bomb is limited for niche purposes on strategies heavily involving Ninja Monkeys, especially for Ninja-only strategies or when paired with armies of Shinobi Tactics.

Tips

 * This is the only upgrade for the Ninja Monkey that can allow it to pop Lead Bloons directly, excluding the Ascended Shadow.
 * Flash Bomb is generally considered less powerful than Bloonjitsu; however, Flash Bomb can pop Lead Bloons, which makes it slightly more useful in certain circumstances.
 * Flash Bomb stuns less efficiently compared to Bloon Impact, but Flash Bomb may be more easily purchased, does not need camo support, and it pops Black Bloons.
 * When combined with Counter-Espionage, Flash Bomb provides an effective way of de-camoing large groups of camo bloons.
 * The 1-0-3 Flash Bomb is usually the better crosspath for the increased DPS, although 2-0-3 Flash Bomb improves the pierce of the shuriken attack. On occasions where Camo Bloons are a serious issue, the 0-2-3 Flash Bomb can be used to de-camo large groups of Camo Bloons. 0-1-3 Flash Bomb is no more effective than 0-0-3, except for the shuriken attack.
 * If going for a Tier 5 ninja strategy of either kind, Flash Bomb is great support for Round 63 as it can stall the 3 Ceramic waves rather reliably even on maps like Dark Castle and #Ouch if there are at least 12 Shinobi ninjas nearby.

Trivia

 * One 0-0-3 Flash Bomb or any Path 1 crosspathed Flash Bomb costs exactly $50 more than in BTD5 because the previous Caltrops upgrade in BTD6 is $400 instead of $350 for the Distraction upgrade.
 * This upgrade first appeared in BTD5. In its first appearance in that game, it wears a red bandana and a black ninja suit. In BTD6, Sharp Shurikens wears this instead.