White Hot Spikes (BTD6)

"Cuts through Lead Bloons and Frozen Bloons."

- In-game description

White Hot Spikes is the 2nd upgrade of Path 1 for the Spike Factory in Bloons TD 6. Spikes produced from this Spike Factory will now receive the normal damage type, allowing it to pop Frozen Bloons and Lead Bloons including DDTs.

It costs $510 on Easy, $600 on Medium, $650 on Hard, and $720 on Impoppable.

Summary
White Hot Spikes allows the Spike Factory to gain popping of any bloon type. While mostly used to allow Spike Storm and Carpet of Spikes to pop DDTs without additional support, White Hot Spikes can be used to synergize better with Ice Monkeys. It can also be a form of early Lead popping power, including Camo Leads, although there are other cheap upgrades that perform the same function.

Tips

 * Generally speaking, the White Hot Spikes upgrade is perfect for Upper Path 2 upgrades, more specifically for the Spike Storm and Carpet of Spikes upgrades, in contrast to crosspathing those upgrades with Smart Spikes, which is more situational.
 * While it helps MOAB SHREDR deal big damage to DDTs, most of the time other bloons will simply eat up the spikes, wasting potential versus DDTs. Its further upgrades, however, are the ones that benefit the most out of the White Hot Spikes upgrade.
 * This upgrade pairs well with Spike Storm and Carpet of Spikes, as it allows each spike storm ability to pop DDTs and can be a viable method of crippling many DDTs at once.
 * For Perma-Spike, it is generally preferred to go with the middle path to boost production while buffing it with an Acidic Mixture Dip to provide DDT popping power. The main weakness of this strategy is that bloons frozen atop a Perma-Spike pile will cause all the spikes to be used up, although this interaction can be rare.
 * It is recommended to get the first two upgrades of path 2 (Faster Production and Even Faster Production) before getting this upgrade, as producing spike piles at a faster rate is usually more valuable than allowing them to pop Lead Bloons.
 * The only exception is if going for Spiked Balls, where in this case it's usually better to just go straight towards 3-0-0 in most cases, unless a bit more bloon tanking is required before then. If that ever happens, purchase one attack speed upgrade, to buy some time before it is possible to upgrade to Spiked Balls.

Trivia

 * As of Version 22.0, purchasing the White Hot Spikes upgrade costs 1.5x more in BTD5 compared to BTD6, and half the cost in BTD4 compared to in BTD6.