Dartling Gunner (BTD6)

"Uses a dart-shooting machine-gun. Aims wherever you point on the screen."

- In-game Description

The Dartling Gunner is a Military-class tower that arrived in the 22.0 update of Bloons TD 6. It was confirmed to arrive to BTD6, renamed from "Dartling Gun" to "Dartling Gunner", as described by an official Ninja Kiwi teaser on their YouTube account, named "HE. IS. BACK! (Bloons TD 6)" posted on November 26, 2020. Likewise, on November 26, 2020, a gameplay preview was posted of the Dartling Gunner arriving in BTD6, featuring a number of different upgrades of the Dartling Gunner.

Some players were given approved early access to the Dartling Gunner, specifically YouTuber Superjombombo, linked here. Most of them discuss certain aspects showcasing the Dartling Gunner. Later on, YouTuber ISAB posted a video of the Dartling Gunner, here. Several hours later, YouTuber Tewtiy posted a video of the Dartling Gunner, here.

Unlike the previous versions of the Dartling Gun in the BTD4 and BTD5 generations, the Dartling Gunner comes with its own target priorities ("Normal" cursor tracking and "Locked" fixed targeting), but no longer detects camo by default. Instead, it now requires Advanced Targeting, a camo detection upgrade. Likewise, Dartling Gunners have a slight delay in rotation speed, in similar fashion to BTD5 Flash, rather than spinning instantaneously like in BTD4 or BTD5 Mobile.

Similar to the Monkey Sub in BTD5 Mobile and the Beekeeper in BTD4 Mobile, Dartling Gunner is not unlocked by level, but rather by getting 500,000+ individual pops (not damage) on any map. Difficulty does not matter, although the game recommends Medium, Hard, or Freeplay Mode. However, the player must reach Level 20 for pops to count.

At base, the Dartling Gunner fires darts every 0.2s, equivalent to 5 shots per second, but only deal 1 pierce. Each shot has a projectile deviation angle of 20° by default, for 10° per side. It can turn at a rate of 180° per 2 seconds. The Dartling Gunner can receive upgrades that greatly assists its role as a fast-firing aimable tower, including firing laserbeams, shooting Bloontonium missiles, and becoming a multi-layered buckshot-firing turret.

It costs $720 on Easy, $850 on Medium, $920 on Hard, and $1,020 on Impoppable by default.

Description
The base Dartling Gunner wears a green military helmet and carries a Dartling Gun. The gun appears similar to a handheld mini-gun. It is an all around tower that handles rushes of smaller bloons at a base level.

Path 1 focuses on focused firing, as indicated by increased accuracy and energy-related upgrades. The first upgrade, Focused Firing, decreases the projectile deviation of the darts, increasing the overall accuracy of the Dartling Gunner. The next upgrade is the first energy-related upgrade, Laser Shock; this upgrade adds an electric shock effect to the Dartling Gunner's projectiles so they deal an additional 1 damage to Bloons 1 second after they have been hit, as well as making Bloons take +1 damage from any other Dartling Gunner with the Laser Shock upgrade. Laser Cannon increases its overall damage by replacing darts with lasers. Plasma Accelerator increases accuracy even further by replacing lasers with a focused beam of plasma, with increased damage at the end point. The final upgrade, Ray of Doom, generates a persistent and extremely powerful laser beam with infinite range, capable of wiping out most Bloons without a problem. Furthermore, upgrading to this path increases the DPS of the Laser Shock upgrade.

Path 2 focuses on countering special Bloon types, combining offense with Bloon specialization. The first upgrade on this path is the camo-detecting upgrade, Advanced Targeting. The next upgrade is Faster Barrel Spin, increasing its offensive potential by significantly improving its fire rate. Hydra Rocket Pods swaps regular darts for depleted Bloontonium missiles that damage any Bloon type and produce multiple explosions per shot. Rocket Storm adds the ability to produce waves of missiles that bombard the whole map when activated. The final upgrade, M.A.D, converts the Dartling Gunner into a potent anti-MOAB unit, attacking slower but dealing massive damage to MOAB-class bloons.

Path 3 focuses on increasing the power of the Dartling Gunner's gun at close range along with allowing it to fire at multiple targets at once with later upgrades. Faster Swivel increases its mobility by allowing it to adjust to different angles at a quicker speed. Powerful Darts increases the pierce and projectile speed of the darts, allowing it to become more potent at close range. Buckshot converts the Dartling Gunner into a slower but more powerful buckshot-shooting gunner, dealing much more damage from the swarms of buckshots as well as knockback at the cost of range and attack speed. Bloon Area Denial System overall quadruples attack speed by converting the gunner into a tall four-barreled turret, which also grants a new target priority called "Independent Targeting" that allows the darting gunner's four barrels to be set to first, close, last, strong. (May not be in correct order) The last upgrade, Bloon Exclusion Zone, further upgrades the turret into a six-barrel turret that shoots many more projectiles per shot with greater damage and attack speed.

Target Priorities
The Dartling Gunner has two target priorities by default: Normal and Locked. The Dartling Gunner gains access to a new target priority called Target Independent once it is upgraded to Bloon Area Denial System (and also its upgrade Bloon Exclusion Zone).


 * Normal: Rotates towards the direction of where the player last tapped. On desktop versions, always rotates towards direction of the cursor inside the game.
 * Locked: Locks the Dartling in place. By default, locks at center of map, but can be adjusted in the same way as a Mortar Monkey. On desktop versions, using a hotkey to switch to Locked will default to wherever the mouse currently is pointing.
 * Target Independent: Barrels alternate in standard target priorities from top to bottom, and back to the top again for every cycle.
 * Bloon Area Denial System alternates between First, Last, Close, Strong
 * Bloon Exclusion Zone alternates between First, Last, Close, Strong, First, Strong.

Teaser
The first teasers of the Dartling Gunner were posted on 26th November 2020, on Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit. All of them featured a sneak peek of the Dartling Gunner.

On November 30, 2020, YouTuber Superjombombo released a new video showing off the tower, alongside many of its upgrades, linked here. Many of its upgrades have been revealed there, but it is also revealed that Dartling Gunner can no longer detect camo by default without a camo detection upgrade "Advanced Targeting". In addition, the Dartling Gunner has a specific rotation speed, akin to how the Heli Pilot must gradually change position when tapped on a new location. Later on, on 1st December 2020 on 5:03pm NZDT, ISAB uploaded a video showing off the tower, but focuses more on the base upgrades and Path 1, as shown here.

On December 1, 2020, the following videos were released, featuring even more depth about the Dartling Gunner, in no particular order:
 * Superjombombo's Bloon Exclusion Zone
 * Tewtiy's Ray of Doom
 * Dablooon's M.A.D
 * ISAB's Bloon Exclusion Zone
 * Superjombombo's M.A.D

On December 2, 2020, the following videos were released, featuring yet more depth about the Dartling Gunner, in no particular order (videos released after the official release of Version 22.0 are not in this list):
 * Tewtiy's M.A.D
 * Dablooon's Bloon Exclusion Zone
 * Superjombombo's Ray of Doom

On around ~5:00pm NZDT on December 3rd 2020, version 22.0 was officially released, along with the Dartling Gunner.

Monkey Knowledge
This section displays Monkey Knowledge that has effects on Dartling Gunner and its changes when compared to one by default:
 * EliteMilitaryTrainingIcon.png Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
 * EmergencyUnlockIcon.png Emergency Unlock: Unlocks special ability that boost the Dartling Gunner swivel speed for a short time.
 * GorgonStormIcon.png Gorgon Storm: Rockets spawned from the Rocket Storm ability can stun any bloon including MOAB-class for 0.5s per rocket. The same applies to M.A.D.
 * CrossTheStreamsIcon.png Cross the Streams: Where two Plasma Accelerator or Ray of Doom beams meet, they will create a temporary pool of plasma similar to the Alchemist's Acid Pool. These pools have a special Damage Over Time effect.
 * MilitaryConscriptionIcon.png Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
 * Dartling Gunner base cost from $720, $850, $920, and $1,020 → $480, $570, $615, and $685 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
 * AdvancedLogisticsIcon.png Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
 * Dartling Gunner base cost from $720, $850, $920, and $1,020 → $685, $805, $875, and $970 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
 * If Military Conscription is also enabled, the final cost will be $450, $535, $570, and $630.
 * DoorGunnerIcon.png Door Gunner: Enables Door Gunner special ability.
 * MonkeyEducationIcon.png Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
 * BetterSellDealsIcon.png Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more.
 * Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
 * VeteranMonkeyTrainingIcon.png Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
 * GlobalAbilityCooldownsIcon.png Global Ability Cooldowns: All Ability cooldowns for all Monkeys reduced by 3%.

Trivia

 * Now that the Dartling Gunner has no innate camo detection, Ninja Monkey and Spike Factory are the only base towers capable of popping camo bloons by default.
 * Formerly, the Darting Gunner could still count as camo detection for Advanced Intel even as a base tower (link to the first post to show this). This was patched in Version 23.0.
 * Dartling Gunner is the only tower whose camo detection upgrade precedes a faster attack speed upgrade, and both of those upgrades are below Tier 3.
 * Unlike previously leaked towers for Mortar Monkey and Engineer Monkey, the Dartling Gunner's Tier 1 and Tier 2 upgrades were entirely changed compared to the leaked information.
 * The "Locked" target priority option used to be exclusive to the Dartling Ammo Dump Specialty Building in BTD5, but this target priority is now available to all Dartling Gunners.
 * The old upgrades for the Dartling Gunner were leaked, which revealed the Path 3 Tier 2 upgrade to be an upgrade called "Lock & Load", which would grant Dartlings with that target priority option.
 * The Dartling Gunner is the first (and so far only) non-hero tower to have its own splash screen, in the same vein as a Hero.
 * The Dartling Gunner is also the first (and so far only) tower in BTD6 to have a specific requirement of pops to unlock, that being 500,000.
 * Placement of a Dartling Gunner uses the "drop monkey" sound (e.g. for Dart Monkeys and Engineer Monkeys) rather than the "drop machine" sound (e.g. for Tack Shooters and Mortar Monkeys). This is because the Dartling Gunner lands with its feet, and its gun is not mounted on the ground unlike the Mortar Monkey.
 * Despite having a tower name clearly nodding to a Gatling gun, the description says it is a machine gun.
 * All Tier 5 Dartling Gunners have completed a 2TC with Prince of Darkness on Logs.
 * Unlike BTD5, the Dartling Gunner has the same footprint size as a Boomerang Monkey. In previous games, the old Dartling Gun had a larger footprint.
 * When the Dartling Gunner was first released, all non-crosspathed Tier 5 upgrades attacked slower than the base Dartling Gunner, which meant that it was the only tower to match with such criteria.
 * In one of the concept artworks for all Dartling Gunner upgrades, the Dartling Gunner had an army beret like the BTD5 Dartling Gun. In addition, all returning BTD5 upgrades were all featured in the upgrades tree with only an increased tier for Ray of Doom and a rename of the P2T4 upgrade to Rocket Storm.
 * The old Hydra Rocket Pods concept art had a noticeable change where its gun appears as an orange assault gatling with hexagonal barrels, and the operator wears earmuffs like Sniper Monkey's Semi-Automatic.
 * Rocket Storm, the new BTD5 Bloon Area Denial System, takes on the appearance inspiration of Sniper Monkey's Full Auto Rifle, and gains even larger barrels and an ammunition tube connected to the operator's backpack.
 * The machine of the Ray of Doom upgrade appeared more like a scientist's powerful machine. More surprisingly, the only protective clothing for the monkey besides the basic white lab coat is a pair of green safety goggles.
 * Depleted Bloontonium Darts, an upgrade which did not make the final cut for the Dartling Gunner, appeared similar to its BTD5 counterpart.
 * The Bloon Area Denial System and its subsequent upgrade, The Bloon Exclusion Zone, are the first ones not to be included in the initial release and to possess the Tall attack behavior.
 * Tapping on the present, which contains the Dartling Gunner, while below Level 20 will show the popup "Unlock at level 20".

Cultural references

 * The artwork for the base Dartling Gunner resembles that by Heavy from Team Fortress 2 during the game's matchmaking loading screen.
 * Both the Bloon Area Denial System and Bloon Exclusion Zone turret designs have similarities to the Monty Tank in New Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo DS, more specifically the concept of a multi-barrel turret system.

Ninja Kiwi Blogs

 * According to Ninja Kiwi's 21st January 2021 blog, Dartling Gunner is the tower who would best enjoy grilled cheese.