MOAB Assassin (BTD6)

"Assassinate MOAB Ability: Special missile flies out and does massive damage to MOAB class Bloons. Regular attack range and MOAB-class damage also increased."

- BTD6 Description

MOAB Assassin (sometimes shortened to Assassin) is the fourth upgrade of Path 2 for the Bomb Shooter in Bloons TD 6. It grants a new ability that fires a missile dealing 750 damage to the strongest non-camo MOAB-class bloon on screen and creates a 3 damage explosion with 100 pierce when the missile explodes, with a cooldown of 30 seconds. Alongside its new ability, its missiles now deal 31 damage to MOAB-class bloons (instead of 19) and 5 damage to Ceramics, while still dealing 1 damage to all other bloons. Additionally, MOAB Assassin adds +5 range on top of the MOAB Mauler upgrade, which in itself has extra range on top of Missile Launcher.

It costs $2,720 on Easy, $3,200 on Medium, $3,455 on Hard and $3,840 on Impoppable.

Summary
MOAB Assassin's main power comes from its single-target damage through its ability. MOAB Assassin is most commonly seen used in tandem with Striker Jones against rounds with spaced and isolated MOABs, especially Round 100, or sometimes against early isolated MOABs such as the Round 40 MOAB layer or the Round 40 Fortified MOAB layer. It is a good idea to pair with Striker Jones for the opportunity to reset cooldowns for the MOAB Assassin abilities and double damage on the second activation at level 20. With Striker Jones' Artillery Command, MOAB Assassin is very efficient DPS ignoring grouped damage.

Tips

 * As a damage tower, MOAB Maulers tend to be more efficient in terms of grouped popping power as they are more spammable, especially with Primary Mentoring. However, to optimize mauling of MOABs, the best candidate Maulers to promote are those that are close to Villages and the main line of defense.
 * Most strategies for utilizing MOAB Assassin's main missile attacks can be utilized based on that for the previous tier MOAB Mauler. As such, 1-4-0 tends to be the preferred crosspath for the increased pierce and blast radius.
 * Striker Jones and Top Path Villages are great buffs, as they not only buff MOAB Assassin itself, but also synergise with other towers that are great MOAB Assassin partners.
 * Before Round 80, The Big One and Recursive Cluster are great choices to help with dense bloon rounds.
 * After Round 80, Bloon Impact and Arctic Wind can help to handle superceramics which MOAB Assassins have much lower damage against.
 * Unlike BTD5 or BMC, MOAB Assassin ability can neither target non-MOAB-class nor target DDTs with camo properties. As such, be sure to have effective backup against either bloon types.
 * MOAB Assassin gains bonus Ceramic damage, but it is highly cost-inefficient as Ceramic popping power. As with Mauler spam strategies, use alternate defenses for countering Ceramics, especially Super Ceramics. Cryo Cannon and Bloon Impact are among several examples of such.

Sounds
When activated Assassinate MOAB Ability:
 * [Launching]

Trivia

 * MOAB Assassin's ability missile uses exactly the same sprite as the normal MOAB Assassin attack missile. The same applies to MOAB Eliminator.
 * A 0-4-0 MOAB Assassin is the cheapest tower to be able to be affected by Striker Jones' Artillery Command ability before he reaches Level 20. In the opposite side of the spectrum, a 2-0-5 Bomb Blitz is the most expensive tower under the same conditions, the second being 2-5-0 Pop and Awe if excluding all possible Bomb Blitz crosspaths.