Switches tacks out for sharp blades that can pop up to 2 additional Bloons.
”
~ BTDB2 description
Blade Shooter is the 3rd upgrade on Path 2 of the Tack Shooter in Bloons TD Battles 2. Aside from the higher cost, it acts like its BTD6 counterpart, having high pierce in addition to greater projectile size.
Blades pop many bloons and have larger hitboxes. Each blade pops up to 4 bloons, 5 with Even More Tacks crosspath. Projectile size increases from 1 to approximately 3. When compared to its BTDB1 Mobile counterpart, it has much more pierce, 1 more to be exact. It has twice as less pierce than its BTD6 counterpart. Blade Shooter gains +13.6% attack speed (0.88x attack cooldown multiplier), attacking every 1.232s (0.924s with 1-3-0, 0.554s with 2-3-0).
It is a powerful choice for dishing out lots of grouped damage. Find a spot where as many blades can reach the bloons as possible, and it will defend reliably against almost all types of early-round sends up till massive Grouped Yellows. With proper positioning, a 2-3-0 becomes essentially unstoppable against Spaced Whites and Spaced Blacks. Blade Shooter, while it excels in the early-game, becomes less of a bloon-popping carrier leading into the mid-game, but remains a good option for chipping away at bloons including Purples.
Tips[]
2-3-0 tends to do better overall in terms of DPS, but 0-3-2 can be used for slower bursts of basically +50% more projectiles, and it is remarkably cheaper while coming with its unique +1 pierce bonus.
Blade Shooter can be used in conjunction with Ring of Fire to get rid of Purple layers while Ring of Fire gets rid of the rest of the bloons.
Blades have larger projectile size, allowing them to more reliably hit bloons within tight range.
An example of where this is significant is on Oasis when doing an anti-stall Tack strategy. A Tack Shooter placed near the entrance will have three of its tacks hit the entrance, whereas a Blade Shooter can hit the entrance with five of its blades.
Version History[]
Blade Shooters have seeked resurgence in Bloons TD Battles 2, becoming a popular tower to excel the early-game ever since the initial release of the game, on top of being a meta choice when adding Tack in a tower loadout. Popular strategies involving Blade Shooter include Wizard-Tack-Farm, all other variants of Wizard-Tack, Tack-Mortar-Farm and other Tack-Farm variants, and Tack-Glue-Village.
Initial release (compared to BTD6 during Version 28.0)
Blade Shooters +1 pierce when upgrade with Even More Tacks
Blade Shooter costs more ($550 → $600)
Blade Shooter projectile size increased (1 → 3)
Blade Shooter pierce decreased (6 → 4)
1.5.0
No longer requires 2,300 XP to unlock. Players who have unlocked this upgrade before the update will not receive a full refund.
1.10.3
Blade Shooter cost increased ($600 -> $700)
“
Tack Shooter has always stood out as being exceptionally powerful in the early game. While this is Tack Shooter’s strong point, we believe a small nerf is justified so that it’s not quite so efficient.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
3.1
Blade Shooter cost increased ($700 -> $750)
“
Tack Shooter has consistently remained one of if not the best starting tower, due to its incredibly efficient Blade Shooter upgrade. This strong point is the main appeal of Tack Shooter and we don’t want to take that away from it, however we have decided to tone it down very slightly so that it doesn’t stand out quite so much when compared to other early-game options. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
3.3.2
Blade Shooter: attack cooldown reduction is reduced from 0.85x -> 0.88x, base attack cooldown 1.19s -> 1.232s
“
The smallest of nerfs for Blade Shooter - an upgrade that has persistently remained an exceptionally efficient early game tower. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Gallery[]
Blade Shooter shooting blades
Blade Shooter blades on Garden, some of which have piercecapped
Blade Shooter description since 2.2.0, fixing the "5" into "2" as factual
Blade Shooter's blades just coming out and had hit some bloons in all directions on Castle Ruins
Previous image same position, but also some blades hit some bloons already
Blade Shooter's sawblades replaced with gears (Loose Screws cosmetic)
Videos[]
Battles 2 Blade Projectile Size
Upgrading from x-2-x to x-3-x, showcasing projectile size differences
Trivia[]
Blade Shooter is the only variant of Tack Shooter to be not affected by a bugfix/nerf in Version 1.0.4 that removed the bonus +1 pierce from Even More Tacks. In fact, this exclusion was specified by Ninja Kiwi's Version 1.0.4 patch notes.
Until Version 2.2.0, Blade Shooter was claimed to gain +5 pierce, for 7 pierce per blade. This was since corrected, with Ninja Kiwi adjusting the number to "2".