Spirit of the Forest

"Grows thorned vines along the path that deal constant damage plus bonus damage to ceramics. Vines nearest the Spirit of the Forest do more damage. Activated ability generates lives and more cash."

- In-game description

Spirit of the Forest is the final upgrade in the 2nd path for the Druid in Bloons TD 6. Once bought, it immediately produces powerful vines on nearby track in its range that damage bloons contacting them, weaker versions of the vines will grow out further away from it on the track. The range of the vines spreads further than the Druid's base range by 20 units every 0.5s. In addition, the ability now grants 25 lives per usage alongside the normal Jungle's Bounty effect. If the player has 1000 lives or more, the ability merely grants two extra lives. And lastly, it gives $1000 per round.

When purchased, it slowly begins growing three types of thorned vines along the track; one type growing outside of 100 range, another growing between 50 and 100 range, and a third type growing within 50 range. The thorns deal a minimum of 2 damage to bloons weaker than a Ceramic, and 10 against Ceramic Bloons and stronger. The 50-100 range thorns deal 3 damage to bloons below ceramic and 15 to the rest, and thorns within 50 range deal 4 and 20 damage against these respective bloon types. The damage is dealt every 0.5 seconds as contact damage. The vine attack can pop Camo Bloons but not Frozens or Leads unless given Hard Thorns crosspath or an external support such as MIB. Paths that are taken multiple times by Bloon may have a thicker layer of vines. This is purely visual, unless using the Vine Rupture ability.

Spirit of the Forest also receives +1 damage for all its main attacks, and on-track vines deal 5 damage per tick.

It costs $29,750 on Easy, $35,000 on Medium, $37,800 on Hard, and $42,000 on Impoppable.

Summary
Besides the improved Jungle's Bounty ability and bonus $1000 income per round, the Spirit of the Forest is a decent offense option against regular bloons. Its infinite pierce from its near-global range vines is a major virtue of this tower, allowing it to always constantly deal damage to bloons. Similarly to the Glaive Lord's orbital glaives, the Spirit of the Forest works the best if bloons are slowed as much as possible, so as to provide as much time to slowly destroy bloons as possible. Although not the most useful Tier 5 on CHIMPS, it is still viable on CHIMPS Mode, especially after numerous buffs applied to it.

Tips

 * Note that an invisible circle surrounds it that dictates when and where the vines will grow. The circle will expand over time, covering more area and growing more vines. This means that the closer it is to the track, the quicker the vines will grow.
 * Once the vines grow, they are on permanently, until the tower is sold. Therefore, it is vital to keep it on field, as once the tower is sold all vines are immediately destroyed.
 * The vines will remain on the track forever and have infinite popping power, being very powerful throughout rounds 60-100.
 * An x-3-x Village (Monkey Intelligence Bureau) allows the vines to pop Leads and DDTs, regardless of when it's bought.
 * The Vine Rupture Monkey Knowledge allows the druid to explode every vine segment on the screen at once, dealing 50 damage from each segment and stunning all remaining bloons.
 * Try to use Vine Rupture when there are a lot of weak Bloons on screen. Be careful when using Vine Rupture though, as the vines will need to grow back once exploded.
 * Vine Rupture will deal the most damage where many vines are stacked on top of each other, such as in the middle of Balance.
 * Pair with 0-1-3 or 0-2-3 MOAB Glue for extra effect against MOAB-class bloons, and add 0-3-2 Glue Hose for extra effect against Super Ceramics.
 * On lengthy maps such as Logs, Spirit of the Forest can solo all rounds up to 82, provided Monkey Intelligence Bureau is applied. This does not even account for specific placement, meaning that Spirit of the Forest can solo on Logs even longer with proper placement.

Bugs
None, as of now
 * Current


 * Patched
 * [???] Spirit of the Forest may not damage one child out of each set of MOAB children. For instance, every 4th Ceramic spawned via DDTs or MOABs would not be damaged. This bug still existed in version 27.1, although it has been reported to occur earlier. Patched in Version 28.0 (anyone wanna check?)
 * [27.0] With the added Spirit damage-based-on-distance buff in Version 27.0, a Chinooked or otherwise moved Spirit of the Forest did not adjust the positioning of the on-track vines' "denser" vines. Patched in Version 28.0.

Sounds
Vine grabbing attack:
 * [Vine attack]
 * [Vine attack]
 * [Vine attack]
 * [Vine attack]
 * [Vine attack]

When activated Jungles Bounty:
 * [Blessing]

When activated Vine Rupture:
 * [Vine unleashed]
 * [Vine unleashed]
 * [Vine unleashed]
 * [Vine unleashed]

Trivia

 * This tower is one of the few towers that retains the same ability when upgrading to Tier 5.
 * The others being the Spike Factory, the Heli Pilot (Chinook pickup ability only), the bottom path super monkey, and the Monkey Sub.
 * Note that the player can have a maximum of 5025 lives, with 5000 normal lives and 25 from Mana Shield if purchased, which is enough to survive multiple D.D.T.s or M.O.A.B.s. This is also enough to survive two B.F.B.s, or one Fortified B.F.B.
 * Spirit of the Forest can theoretically solo an unlimited number of unbuffed ZOMGs and DDTs (with MIB), due to the infinite pierce of its vines, however this is not possible in practice due to the Round 81+ buffs to Ceramics and MOAB-class bloons.
 * Spirit of the Forest is one of three towers referenced by a hero, with Obyn Greenfoot saying "The Spirits of the Forest awaken." The other two are Blooncineration mentioned by Gwendolin and the Sun God mentioned by Captain Churchill.
 * There existed a bug whereby the money counter did not increase if using the Jungle's Bounty ability. Strangely enough, the +$1000 per round feature adding to the money counter worked correctly as intended. This was fixed for the Jungle's Bounty and Spirit of the Forest as of Version 22.0.
 * The Spirit of the Forest's vines explode with the Vine Rupture Monkey Knowledge. This suggests that the Spirit of the Forest's vines are made out of something other than vines.
 * It takes 2040 uses of the ability to gain the maximum 5000 normal lives assuming the player starts with 1 life and can gain more lives.