Dragon's Breath (BTD6)

"Spews endless flames at nearby Bloons and enhances Fireball and Wall of Fire."

- In-game description

Dragon's Breath (sometimes referred to as Dbreath) is the third upgrade of Path 2 for the Wizard Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It allows the Wizard Monkey to shoot out an endless stream of flames at bloons (specifically one flame per 0.1s), alongside creating improved Fireballs and Walls of Fire compared to the respective preceding Path 2 upgrades. The flames pierce through up to 4 bloons (+2 with Intense Magic) and deal 1 damage each (or 2 damage versus Ceramics). Each flame also applies a burn effect like Burny Stuff, dealing 1 damage per 1.5 seconds for 3 seconds.

Besides adding a new attack, the Dragon's Breath upgrade improves both of its existing fire attacks. Walls of Fire are now deployed at a faster rate (per 4.5 seconds as opposed to per 5.5 seconds), the initial cooldown for Wall of Fire is removed entirely, and contact damage rate of newly deployed blazes increases from 0.15s to 0.10s. Fireballs deal 9 damage each with 14 blast radius instead of 10. However, Dragon's Breath no longer has automatic Camo detection because Monkey Sense is now a Path 3 upgrade.

It costs $2,550 on Easy, $3,000 on Medium, $3,240 on Hard, and $3,600 on Impoppable.

Appearance
The Wizard Monkey becomes much more fiery in appearance. He gains a red flaming wand and a pair of black boots. He exchanges his old grey cloak with a more detailed red cloak, gradiented with a touch of dark red. His wizard cap now features a golden yellow trim as the hat's secondary color to complement the hat's red primary coloring. His black pupils become red.

On the official upgrade portrait, the Wizard Monkey is blowing fire.

Statistics
The following is a list of statistics of a Wizard Monkey with Dragon's Breath. 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

Damage Types

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

The following are a list of wiki-written damage types associated by a Wizard Monkey with Dragon's Breath. 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
Dragon's Breath is a good option for mid-game as general cleanup and decent MOAB-class damage. It tends to fall off late-game, but it remains a highly effective option at damage against various bloon types with the exception of Purple Bloons. Placing a Dragon's Breath along bends or as much coverage across multiple regions of the track will optimize its attacks. The most optimal locations for its previous more popular Wall of Fire upgrade are not optimal for Dragon's Breath, making Dragon's Breath more of an upgrade to be bought for its upgrade rather than as a stepping stone.

Tips

 * 0-3-2 Dragon's Breaths are generally the preferred crosspath when getting this upgrade. Unfortunately, the flames do not deal +1 damage, even with top-path upgrades, but they do pass through walls and there's a special interaction where flames will last twice as long with Guided Magic. For most purposes, the bottom path is preferable, as the benefits provided by Guided Magic are usually inferior.
 * The pierce bonus for the Dragon's Breath attack is from 4 pierce to 6 pierce, a +2 pierce bonus instead of +5 for most other attacks. Even still, this makes a big difference versus grouped bloons.
 * 1-3-0 Dragon's Breaths can deploy its faster Walls of Fire onto specific regions of the track, and the more powerful Fireball attacks can pass through walls, but these utilities usually are not any more superior than the opposite crosspath, as the Dragon's Breath attacks make the biggest difference for the total DPS of the Dragon's Breath upgrade. 2-3-0 Dragon's Breath makes little difference compared to 1-3-0 because it only affects its measly bolt attacks.
 * 0-3-2 Dragon's Breaths are a potent tower in Apopalypse mode due to being able to pop all bloons except purples and dealing with Leads, Zebras and below super quickly, even if they are semi-grouped. (However, a large rush of ceramics can still easily overwhelm the Dragon's Breath.)
 * In a similar way to maximizing Dragon's Breath in BTD5, place a Dragon's Breath along an region of the map with more track area, to maximize its flame attacks against stronger bloons. Unlike in BTD5 though, Dragon's Breath comes with Wall of Fire, making it more useful against Ceramics overall due to the general cleanup utility of such an attack. Because Walls of Fire are placed towards the closest location of the Wizard by default as of Version 25.0, placing a Dragon's Breath near a very close intersection will optimize both attacks.
 * Although Dragon's Breath flames deal more damage versus Ceramics, don't assume that Dragon's Breath excels against them, although Dragon's Breath is good against rounds with moderate numbers of spaced Ceramics, like Rounds 43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, and 58. Dragon's Breath can be considered more of a mix between a DPS tower and a cleanup tower.
 * Despite the fact that the Wizard's range does not increase, Dragon's Breath can attack Bloons that are slightly out of range, occasionally leading to scenarios where Dragon's Breath and the Magic Bolt attack are targeting two different Bloons.

Sounds
When a fireball explodes:
 * [explosion]
 * [explosion]
 * [explosion]
 * [explosion]
 * [explosion]

When deploying a Wall of Fire blaze:
 * [flame ignition]
 * [flame ignition]
 * [flame ignition]
 * [flame ignition]
 * [flame ignition]

Trivia

 * In BTD6, Intense Magic increases its pierce. However, Arcane Blast doesn't increase its damage, only the magic bolts.
 * The initial BTD6 Dragon's Breath price is the same as the first price reduction to the Dragon's Breath upgrade in Bloons TD Battles Mobile and the only price reduction on Bloons TD Battles Flash.
 * The XP requirement to unlock Dragon's Breath, 2,600 XP, is the same amount as the cost of the Dragon's Breath upgrade in Bloons TD Battles Mobile ($2,600).
 * Dragon's Breath is the 74th unique 2MPC tower upgrade listed on the fan-official 2MPC spreadsheet, as shown here. This is also the second debut of a new 2MPC tower on the Version 19.x series, specifically on Version 19.2. It is also a downgrade of the entry for Summon Phoenix done just one day earlier.
 * Ironically, real-world ceramics are normally highly resistant to fire, but Dragon's Breath deals extra damage to Ceramics.
 * However, it is also known in the real-world that, more specifically in the context of ceramic pan care, suddenly changing the temperature for the pan drastically will lead to thermal damage via thermal shock. Combining this with the fact that buildup causes the ceramic material to start peeling off by the use of cooking oil sprays, it could be concluded that Dragon's Breath flames likely utilize a mixture of biological thermal energy and an excess of biological oil-rich fuel emitted from the mouth.
 * The Dragon's Breath flame projectiles actually do come from the Wizard Monkey's mouth if observed closely.