Sharp Shooter

"Sharp Shooter attacks faster and does powerful Crit shots every few shots that do a lot more damage."

- In-game description

 is the fourth upgrade of Path 3 for the Dart Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It increases the damage of Sharp Shooter arrows from 3 to 6, increases projectile speed, attacks every 0.75s instead of every 0.95s, and every 8-12 shots (with equal chance for any per-shot numbers between this range, inclusive, every 10 shots on average) it shoots deadly critical arrows that deal 50 damage each. Each arrow has 3 pierce (4 with Sharp Shots or 6 with Razor Sharp Shots), like its previous upgrade Crossbow.

Critical arrows are distinguished by their red-orange trail.

It costs $1,700 on Easy, $2,000 on Medium, $2,160 on Hard, and $2,400 on Impoppable.

Description
The Sharp Shooter upgrade changes the original crossbow design to a more advanced design. This upgrade also gives the Dart Monkey black boots and a black cover for its tail.

This upgrade allows the Dart Monkey to shoot stronger arrows that can pop up to 6 layers, move faster through the air, and fires arrows faster. It also allows the Dart Monkey to shoot arrows that deal critical damage (50 damage). In this way, the Sharp Shooter can pop an entire Ceramic Bloon in a single shot with a single critical arrow.

Sharp Shooter will shoot a critical damage arrow once every 8-12 shots, and each critical damage arrow is denoted by an orange aura at the back of the arrow and the orange word "CRIT" above bloons struck by them. The frequency of critical damage arrows is determined by a pre-determined count for the number of per-shots made, with a plus-or-minus of 2 from the pre-determined crit frequency average, for an average of every 10th shot.

Costs

 * Updated as of Version 29.4

Summary
Sharp Shooter serves as an alright early-midgame tower, but it faces a lot of competition. Sharp Shooter can miss its shots and its crits can be inconsistent. In addition, its low pierce means that it can at times struggle to deal with the children leftover after a higher-tier Bloon is popped.

Tips

 * This upgrade can be useful for chipping away at Zebra, Rainbow and Ceramic Bloons while easily eliminating anything below them.
 * It can also be effective against the MOAB on Round 40, being able to deal large amounts of damage through its Crit Shots, although this can be difficult to utilize.
 * Due to its low pierce, it is best to pair it with a tower with some minor cleanup to help deal with weaker bloons that get past it.
 * While the Sharp Shooter already attacks faster by default, the 0-2-4 crosspath is still generally the better option for Sharp Shooter for further increased attack speed. Extra pierce can be received from external sources such as Alchemist buffs and Primary Training, and passive upgrades through Monkey Knowledge such as the Extra Dart Pops.

Trivia

 * It is possible to win with up to 44 Sharp Shooters on CHIMPS.
 * Sharp Shooter in-game always keeps its eyes open, while in the upgrade portrait the monkey is partially closing its eyes. The act done on the upgrade portrait may just be a pose for making accurate shots.
 * Oddly, even though the upgrade portrait shows a black tail, the in-game model's tail is totally nude, and the same colour as the regular fur. This is likely for the sake of the crosspath models.