Plasma Accelerator

"Concentrates a powerful beam of energy to a single point."

- BTD6 description

Plasma Accelerator (sometimes shortened to Paccel or Accel) is the fourth upgrade of Path 1 for the Dartling Gunner in Bloons TD 6. Instead of launching individual projectiles, it now fires a concentrated beam of plasma energy at wherever the cursor is located or the player last tapped. Bloons that cross the beam itself take damage, while the endpoint of the beam deals extra damage to Bloons. The endpoint pierces more if the whole laserbeam has remaining pierce. Plasma Accelerator gains the plasma damage type, so it can now pop Lead Bloons, but still does not pop Purple Bloons.

The laser beam itself deals 1 damage every 0.20s contact and up to 50 pierce (75 pierce with 4-0-2). At the end point of the beam, it deals 2 damage every 0.20s contact, +10 versus MOAB-class. Any leftover pierce is used to activate the endpoint damage instead of laserbeam damage. The endpoint will only activate if the laserbeam has not reached its pierce limit or not hit any Purple Bloons. An active endpoint is indicated by visible bubbling yellow plasma at the very end of the beam.

In addition, the Laser Shock effect lasts for 5 seconds instead of 2 from Laser Cannon. Both the laser beam itself and the end point can apply the Laser Shock effect.

It costs $9,350 on Easy, $11,000 on Medium, $11,880 on Hard, and $13,200 on Impoppable.

Summary
Plasma Accelerator is a relatively powerful tower for its cost. As the main source of damage is now concentrated in a small area, considerable micro is required to use this tower at its full potential. However, the tower becomes less effective during Freeplay Rounds when Super Ceramics start to appear, mostly acting as a supportive blimp damage dealer on those rounds. Paccel tends to struggle at beating Super Ceramics, so it is recommended to get other towers that can deal with them and stronger blimps.

Tips

 * The Plasma Accelerator is quite effective at beating the first 80 rounds, but it is quite ineffective late-game.
 * Do note that for it to fully be used for these 80 rounds, it would still require considerable micromanagement and support, especially on harder maps with less straight lines and/or shorter track.
 * A Plasma Accelerator that only uses its beam is very inefficient but can still deal some damage on long straight paths.
 * 4-2-0 Plasma Accelerator is more effective than 4-0-2, as the attack speed does make it pop up bloons at a faster rate. Occasionally, players may choose to go for 4-0-2 to make it easier to micromanage with the faster swivel speed.
 * 4-0-2 has the special benefit of gaining +25 pierce instead of just +2, but the pierce bonus is still rather small.
 * If the player owns the "Cross the Streams" monkey knowledge, when two Plasma Accelerator beams cross, small puddles of plasma are continually created. A puddle is spawned roughly once per second of contact. Each puddle can pop 5 bloons once, applying a plasma status effect to each bloon which pops two additional layers over time, similarly to an Alchemist projectile. The puddles can pop camo bloons even if neither Plasma Accelerators have camo detection.
 * Two Plasma Accelerators used together can easily solo a BFB, given sufficient micro.
 * When going for taking out heavy health blimps instead of rushes of Regrow Rainbows, stacking several Plasma Accelerators can rapidly overpower big bloons.
 * If the Plasma Accelerator's beam hits any Purple Bloon along the way, it will stop at the Purple Bloon and therefore not penetrate through it until the Purple Bloon moves away.

Trivia

 * Plasma Accelerator's attacks kind of resembles a weaker BTD5 Ray of Doom except its laserbeam has a focal point where it ends.
 * Although the Plasma Accelerator's beam is unable to penetrate through Purple Bloons, the graphics for the beam are not yet adjusted to accommodate this feature.
 * With 4 letter a's, this upgrade has the most number of letter a's for a Dartling Gunner upgrade.
 * In the Dartling Gunner teaser, Plasma Accelerator is the first Tier 4 Dartling to be revealed in the trailer.
 * In Version 23.0, although not stated, the Plasma Accelerator's beam also dealt +10 MOAB damage. Ninja Kiwi stated this to be a bug, and it has since been patched as of Version 23.2. This makes it the first actual nerf to the Dartling Gunner in BTD6 history.
 * In one of the Dartling Gunner concept artworks, Plasma Accelerator resembles closely to the Bloon Liquefier except the conceptual gun resembles a steampunk-styled gun, the mini-tanks on the handheld gun are replaced with tall lightbulbs, and the operator has singular red stripes.