The Tack Zone

"Many, many tacks."

- In-game Description

 is the fifth-tier Path 3 upgrade for the Tack Shooter in Bloons TD 6. It changes the top of the Tack Shooter to feature a red skull icon, and adds another layer of tack barrels, making the Tack Shooter significantly taller.

This upgrade makes the Tack Shooter shoot 32 tacks per volley instead of 16, going hand-in-hand with the upgrade's description, "Many, many tacks." In addition to its already extraordinary attack speed, The Tack Zone upgrade also increases its range from 23 to 30, and its attack speed by +33% (equivalent to a 0.75x attack cooldown reduction). Each tack now also pops up to 4 bloons per tack instead of 2 and deals 2 damage instead of 1. Like most Tack Shooter upgrades, it still cannot detect Camo Bloons or damage Frozen Bloons or Lead Bloons without support. And similar to Overdrive, The Tack Zone excels against MOAB-class bloons and becomes more effective against grouped bloons.

It costs $17,000 on Easy, $20,000 on Medium, $21,600 on Hard, and $24,000 on Impoppable.

Appearance
The Tack Zone has a now red/white skull on the top of the tack shooter, and has double the amount of volleys on it. The top of the tack shooter now also is fully black, instead of the grey on the past upgrade, Overdrive.

Statistics
The following is a list of statistics of a Tack Shooter with The Tack Zone. It includes its base statistics and all associated crosspathing interactions. Expand the box on the right to see further information.
 * Updated as of Version 27.3


 * Base stats


 * Crosspathing interactions
 * 1-0-5:
 * Attacks faster, 0.1969s (-25%) instead of the initial 0.2625s.
 * 2-0-5:
 * Attacks even faster, 0.1181s (-40%) instead of 0.1969s from the previous 2-0-5.
 * 0-1-5:
 * Base range increased to 34 (+4).
 * 0-2-5:
 * Base range increased to 50 (+16).
 * Tacks gains an extra +6 pierce which sums up to 10 pierce.

Damage Types

 * See also: Damage Types/Bloons TD 6/Primary

The following are a list of wiki-written damage types associated by a Tack Shooter with The Tack Zone. These damage type statistics include how it attacks and how these attacks would affect bloons. Expand the box on the right to see further information.
 * Updated as of Version 27.3


 * Base attack(s)

Summary
The Tack Zone is a highly versatile tower that should not be underestimated for its relatively low range. The sheer number of projectiles per shot alongside a relatively fast attack speed makes The Tack Zone a very powerful tower when synergized with the right towers. Even though it is most optimally placed around tight bends, it is still very powerful when placed in any region of the map where MOAB-class bloons congregate the densest, as their huge hitboxes render them more susceptible to the frequent swarms of tacks shot out at once. With correct placement, all 32 high-damage tacks will hit the same MOAB-class bloon meeting the center of The Tack Zone, resulting in The Tack Zone being an effective choice against MOAB-class bloons.

The Tack Zone benefits greatly from buffs that grant bonus damage, attack speed, pierce, and range, in that order. Since it already has a decent 4 pierce per tack, it could use more to counter rushed bloons, especially against Super Ceramics. Its base range without range upgrades is decent, but some of its tacks may often miss a few bloons without boosted range. The Tack Zone especially pairs well with Stronger Stimulant, as its brews have just over 100% uptime, and any additional attack speed boosts won't render the brews redundant. Other useful buffs include: Jungle Drums (+15% attack speed), Primary Training (+10% range and +1 pierce), Primary Mentoring (+5 range on top of previous range buffs), and Overclock (+66% attack speed ability).

The best crosspaths for The Tack Zone are Path 1, for +66% attack speed really benefits against blimp hitboxes colliding with The Tack Zone's center. Path 2 crosspaths, while not at all considered useless, means that the Tack Zone would not possess enough attack speed to effectively combat blimps or Super Ceramics in compensation for much greater range and pierce.

A notable combo that is often used on budget CHIMPS attempts (commonly referred to as the 'Pat Zone') is to use this tower with Pat Fusty, as it benefits from his Rallying Roar, dealing massive damage to bloons and MOABs extremely quickly. Not only that, but the stuns and knockback allow bloons to be kept within the Tack Zone's range.

Tips

 * 2-0-5 Tack Zone is far better at single-target blimp damage due to benefiting the huge attack speed and damage while the blimp is inside range.
 * 0-2-5 Tack Zone's only benefits include larger range and pierce, but the lack of bonus attack speed means that it heavily falls behind compared to 2-0-5. In addition, external buffs help to patch the 2-0-5's short range and lower pierce.
 * It is highly worth combining The Tack Zone with Overclock for regular massive attack speed bonuses. Combining with Primary Training or Primary Mentoring and Stronger Stimulant are also excellent buffs to add to The Tack Zone.
 * Both crosspaths of the Tack Zone strongly depend on external buffs to optimize its performance. More specifically for the 2-0-5 Tack Zone with Stronger Stimulant and Primary Mentoring, as these buffs address for the Tack Zone's low pierce and range.
 * For the most optimal performance, pair with Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar ability. This combo alone can easily obliterate bloons extremely efficiently for a relatively low cost.
 * Adding Super Brittle nearby The Tack Zone is a good idea, because Super Brittle's debuff to blimps and bloons are able to not only multiplicatively amplify The Tack Zone's potential damage output but also bypass its weaknesses to frozen and lead.
 * Beware of DDTs, because The Tack Zone cannot beat DDTs without support from MIB. When it comes to Alch buffs, it requires Permanent Brew to gain reliable lead-popping, as normal Acidic Mixture Dip alone just cannot make do as lead-popping for The Tack Zone. Otherwise, try pairing it with anti-DDT towers such as 2-4-0 Spike Storm, which also pairs well with Pat Fusty.
 * Like Overdrive, The Tack Zone's "death zone" is centered where the centerpoint of the central body would be positioned. The "death zone" is the point where all 32 tacks will spawn from, since tacks actually spawn from a single point rather than directly out of each of The Tack Zone's visual barrels. To find the "death zone" of this Tack Shooter, look for the y-axis position of its middle barrels and locate the circle's center from there; it should be located where the mouth of the skull icon would be.
 * Further information about optimizing the Overdrive's tacks are listed here.

Extra Notes (Version History)

 * With the Version 23.0 base range nerfs to The Tack Zone, the projectile lifespan actually remained unchanged, meaning that the projectiles now last as long as if The Tack Zone didn't have the range nerf. However, The Tack Zone now needs the bloons to be closer in order to trigger its tack attacks.
 * The cost for an MIB to address for the Version 25.0 Tack Zone damage type nerf is more than the reduction amount to the price of The Tack Zone upgrade. With the reduced Tack Zone price, the upgrade can be bought sooner when it is most needed, which in some cases can be a buff, but this rework is an overall nerf due to the greater cost and space required to restore its lead-popping and therefore pop DDTs.

Trivia

 * There used to be a glitch where range bonuses do not cause the tacks from The Tack Zone to last longer. This has been since fixed as of Version 2.0.
 * As of Version 12.0, Overdrive attacks faster than The Tack Zone without the Version 12.0 Overdrive buff.
 * Just like Grandmaster Ninja in Version 11.0, The Tack Zone in Version 23.0 gained a pierce nerf but a damage buff to compensate. For The Tack Zone's second stat nerf, however, The Tack Zone gained less base range instead of less attack speed.
 * The Tack Zone shoots out 32 tacks at a time, however its upgrade art only has 24 tacks on it. This might be because not all barrels are visible, meaning that the tacks shot by the hidden barrels are also hidden themselves. The upgrade icon has even less tacks, with only 16 (not counting the tacks pointing into the middle skull).