Shattering Shells

"Shattering shells strip all bloon properties off all but the biggest bloons."

- BTD6 description

Shattering Shells is the fourth upgrade of Path 3 for the Mortar Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It allows the Mortar to remove Camo, Regrow, and Fortified properties from Bloons. This includes Blacks and Zebras with Camo, Regrow, or Camo Regrow, even if it can't damage them.

Shattering Shells explosions are able to remove Camo Bloon properties from non-DDT bloons (unless with Paint Stripper MK), all Regrow Bloon properties, and Fortified Bloon properties from all bloon types except ZOMGs and BADs, and requires Paint Stripper to remove fortification from DDTs.

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

Appearance
TBA

Statistics
TBA

Damage Types
TBA

Costs

 * Updated as of Version 29.4

Summary
The prime value of Shattering Shells comes from defortifying MOAB-class bloons, particularly from high-HP rounds especially from the notorious Round 98. Although not a single-handed game-changer, it can greatly reduce the difficulty of specific rounds where the main bloon reinforcements come from fortification. It is usually used in Rounds 81+, where the accelerating scaling of blimps and presence of Fortified Super Ceramics both become significant issues.

Alternatively, Shattering Shells can be used as a niche support tower against rounds with fortification on earlier rounds, specifically starting from Round 62, and against rounds with Regrow Bloons. When it is used for this niche, it is usually to go for Blooncineration.

Tips

 * Since Shattering Shells causes the Mortar Monkey's shots to remove Camo, Regrow, and Fortified, it's a good idea to have a Mortar Monkey with this upgrade aim at the start of the track so it can remove the Fortified status from incoming MOAB-Class Bloons to make them easier to take down. DDTs, ZOMGs and BADs are immune to having their Fortified property removed, although Blooncineration can strip off all DDT properties.
 * If many Fortified ZOMGs approach the battlefield, placing the targeting reticle where the parent Bloon would pop can help to remove fortifications on the resulting children.
 * Being able to specialize against Fortified Bloons, it is an excellent choice to combatting rounds 97 and 98, though the ZOMG layer with its own Fortification needs to be popped first.
 * Regrow Bloons also lose their properties when hit by Shattering Shell's blast, allowing for it to assist in beating difficult rounds such as 76 and 79.
 * It's worth taking note that a single 0-0-4 Shattering Shells on Hard Difficulty costs $14,200 to purchase (since $11880 + $755 + $540 + $215 + $810 = $14,200). This is handy in CHIMPS Mode, where every dollar spent counts towards a successful or unsuccessful outcome.
 * It's generally not necessary to crosspath this Mortar, but if it's needed, a faster-firing 0-2-4 Shattering Shells is generally more useful than the increased explosion radius and mere one extra damage the 2-0-4 Shattering Shells brings. 0-1-4 Shattering is generally sufficient anyway, but 0-2-4 makes micromanaging it a lot easier on maps with multiple opposing entrances such as Dark Castle, #Ouch, or Quad.
 * There are exactly 11 rounds in a standard game that contain Fortified MOABs and/or Fortified BFBs, up to Round 100: Rounds 62, 75, 79, 82, 86, 89, 92, 93, 96, 97, and 98.
 * Round 97 has Fortified ZOMGs, but popping the ZOMG layers will open Fortified BFBs, to which the Shattering Shells can remove.
 * On ABR, there are 34 rounds that contain Fortified MOABs and/or Fortified BFBs, up to 100: Rounds 40, 50, 52, 53, 55, 57, 60, 62, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 88, 89, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100.
 * Rounds 97 and 100 contain Fortified ZOMGs and the Fortified BAD, respectively, and both contain Fortified BFB offspring that the Shattering Shells can defortify (though for the Fortified BAD, the Fortified ZOMGs must be popped to open Fortified BFBs).
 * Because there are a lot of Fortified Bloons in Alternate Bloons Rounds, Shattering Shells is very strong in this game mode.

Trivia

 * Shattering Shells, alongside its subsequent upgrade Blooncineration, are the only versions of the Mortar Monkey which fire using non-cylindrical mortars.
 * In Bloons Monkey City and its mobile version, the Signal Flare upgrade with certain Monkey Knowledge Packs can remove regrow properties. It is likely Shattering Shells removing regrow properties was inspired by this feature from Bloons Monkey City.
 * Before Version 7.0, the description of this upgrade was "All special Bloon properties are destroyed off each Bloon struck by the shattering shells." However this has been corrected to be more accurate.
 * Shattering Shells initially did not add stripped Fortified Bloon health to its damage counter. This feature has since been added in Version 8.0.
 * Prior to Version 23.0, only the fortified health stripped off was added to the total counter, but this formerly did not include the blimp children.
 * Before the change, if a Shattering Shells defortified all Fortified BFBs on Round 98, it would have gained around +32,640 damage count (as all 30 Fortified BFBs on Round 98 have roughly 2176 health each for their outer layers, and defortifying them strips up to 1088 health each).
 * Since Version 23.0, since the total Fortified health stripped off the four descendant Fortified MOABs and 16 descendant Fortified Ceramics, and extra +2048 damage count is added per Round 98 Fortified BFB stripped. The total damage count gain for defortifying all 30 Fortified BFBs now becomes +94,080.
 * Between Version 9.0-11.2, Shattering Shells had the greatest proportional price gap for a Tier-4 upgrade compared to the preceding upgrade (Signal Flare costs $700, but Shattering Shells costs $11,000, 15.7x more expensive in comparison).
 * Prior to the Shattering Shells price nerf, Shattering Shells was 14.3x more expensive than Signal Flare.
 * However, with the release of Engineer Monkey in Version 12.0, Overclock versus Cleansing Foam currently has the greatest proportional price gap for a Tier-4 upgrade compared to the preceding upgrade; Overclock is 16.87x more expensive than Cleansing Foam ($13500 compared to $800). Since then, Shattering Shells had the second-greatest proportional price gap, later demoting in such ranking.
 * Interestingly, both Tier-3 upgrades mentioned are both camo detection upgrades. They are also two of three Tier-3 upgrades to grant camo detection to the respective tower, the other being Submerge and Support.
 * Bomber Ace and Ground Zero had the greatest price difference until Version 9.0, at 28x, but again resumed in 30.0, at 20x.