- For the BTD6 equivalent of Bloon Area Denial System from BTD5, see Rocket Storm.
| “ | 4-barreled auto-cannon that can be set to attack automatically. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Bloon Area Denial System (also known as BADS or B.A.D.S) is the fourth upgrade of Path 3 for the Dartling Gunner in Bloons TD 6. It upgrades the Buckshot Dartling Gunner into a mounted four-barreled auto-cannon, each barrel shooting out six-spray buckshots per shot, with each barrel shooting every 0.375s (every 0.25s with 0-2-4) alternating between each barrel from top to bottom. Upgrading to the Bloon Area Denial System upgrade also grants a new target priority "Target Independent" that allows all four barrels to independently shoot First, Last, Close, and Strong. Crosspathing with Laser Shock upgrade causes the Laser Shock status effect to now deal 3 damage instead of 2.
Unlike most Dartling Gun upgrades, the Bloon Area Denial System is taller, so some of its higher barrels can reach over certain Line of Sight obstacles where its lower barrels cannot. It does not necessarily mean its top barrel can ignore Line of Sight, however.
This upgrade costs $10,200 on Easy, $12,000 on Medium, $12,960 on Hard, and $14,400 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Overview[]
Compilation of Bloon Area Denial System shooting buckshots with each barrel
This upgrade places the Dartling Gunner at the top of a tall cylindrical tower, which comprises of rotating barrels. The tower alternates in blue and white colors, with four yellow trapezoidal feet for reinforcement. The Dartling Gunner wears a blue helmet with two yellow ribs on top and yellow ear coverings.
There are several inconsistencies between the in-game model and the upgrade portrait. The barrels are grey and green in-game, while the barrels are grey and yellow in the upgrade portrait. The helmet in-game has a yellow circle on the front, while the helmet in the upgrade portrait has a yellow badge with a red circle on the front. The upgrade portrait resembles a X-0-4 Dartling Gunner more than a 0-0-4.
Path 1 crosspathing adds a red circle inside the badge, a gold ring around the barrel, and then paints the barrel dark grey. Path 2 crosspathing paints the ring around the barrel purple, then the barrels themselves green.
BADS fires 4 times faster than Buckshot (0.375s attack cooldown, 0.25s with 0-2-4) on account of its four distinct barrels; the individual barrels fire the same exact attack as Buckshot and cycle repeatedly, top to bottom. Also gains Target Independent, described below. Additionally, the upper two barrels are tall, able to fire over most obstacles. If crosspathed with Laser Shock, that status effect's damage is improved to 3 from 2.
Targeting Priorities[]
Bloon Area Denial System customly aims based on direction and angle of where the Dartling points towards. It shoots straight movement projectiles controlled in a aim-based mobile style guided by touch-based mobility, albeit with some erratic angular deviation. Barrels alternate based on the turret's set targeting priority, from top to bottom.
- 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.
Since all Dartlings already attack based on custom aim, Dartlings don't receive Camo Prioritization even with Advanced Targeting.
Costs[]
- Updated as of Version 42.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.
| [Module | Data] | Purchase | Sell | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costs | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable | Easy | Medium | Hard | Impoppable |
| Upgrade (X-X-4) | $10,200 | $12,000 | $12,960 | $14,400 | - | |||
| Total (0-0-4) | $14,955 | $17,600 | $19,005 | $21,120 | $10,469 | $12,320 | $13,304 | $14,784 |
| Crosspath (1-0-4) | $15,210 | $17,900 | $19,330 | $21,480 | $10,647 | $12,530 | $13,531 | $15,036 |
| Crosspath (2-0-4) | $15,975 | $18,800 | $20,300 | $22,560 | $11,183 | $13,160 | $14,210 | $15,792 |
| Crosspath (0-1-4) | $15,165 | $17,850 | $19,275 | $21,420 | $10,616 | $12,495 | $13,493 | $14,994 |
| Crosspath (0-2-4) | $15,970 | $18,800 | $20,300 | $22,560 | $11,179 | $13,160 | $14,210 | $15,792 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
Military Conscription, 
Advanced Logistics, 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
Summary[]
Bloon Area Denial System is an effective all-round option at popping various types of non-Lead bloons. It attacks 4x faster because of alternating attacks from each barrel. Under Alchemist buff conditions it consumes buffs 4x faster, but it is still much slower than most Dartling Gunners. Combined with its good pierce, Bloon Area Denial System is a good mid-game option at countering various bloon types. Its value can extend into the late-game against Super Ceramics, thanks to the knockback it inflicts against ordinary bloons.
Besides its increased number of barrels, the added "Target Independent" target option allows the Bloon Area Denial System to become capable of acting as an ordinary limited-range tower with multiple target priorities per shot.
Tips[]
- Like its previous upgrade Buckshot, the crosspaths for Bloon Area Denial System are generally equal in power. 0-2-4's strong points include the increased attack speed (and thus more knockback) and in-built camo detection. However, since it attacks a lot faster than Buckshot, 2-0-4 still has great consistency, increases projectile distance by +30%, and can utilise the higher-damage Laser Shock effect more consistently, making the Bloon Area Denial System better at long distance damage.
- 2-0-4 crosspath does out-DPS 0-2-4 in exchange for less knockback potential. The added Laser Shock provides about +75% DPS from base damage.
- Alchemist buffs such as Stronger Stimulant are very useful in conjunction with Bloon Area Denial System to allow it to attack faster and deal greater overall damage. Likewise, Pat Fusty is a good option because of its good attack speed and many projectiles per shot.
- This tower benefits greatly from the Stronger Stimulant boost, improving its damage by +1 (25%) and gaining +3 pierce, for a total of 7 pierce.
- Setting target priority to "Independent Targeting" can allow the player to focus micro on other towers such as Dartling Gunners, Mortar Monkeys, Heli Pilots, or Banana Farms. Note that a side effect of this is that the BADS will no longer always shoot as far as their projectiles can fly.
- Treat it further as a limited range tower with this upgrade, as it produces a lot of overall DPS in spite of its limited range.
- When using the "Normal" or "Locked" targeting, Bloon Area Denial System essentially acts as a 4x faster Buckshot.
- While not used often in Boss Events, BADS spam can be a very potent tower to spam at long distances when given the support True Sun God+Sun Temple buff, which increases how far projectiles can travel. 024 BADS does more DPS and can still travel about 2/3rds of the map horizontally, but 204 BADS is unable to compete with Plasma Accelerator and Full Auto Rifle. For this purpose, do not use Target Independent, as it will prevent the dartlings from attacking at their maximum possible range.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
Inheriting the Buckshot knockback buff, Bloon Area Denial System is overall stronger than it was when it was first released. More notably, the knockback buff makes it more useful at reducing progress of Super Ceramics. Various buffs were applied directly onto Buckshot, its previous upgrade, and passing onto BADS. As a result, BADS became a very strong mid-game dominator for its price with high value in the late-game versus Super Ceramics, and hence got price-nerfed in Version 34.0 to account for this. This rework was disliked by players and was completely reverted in v35 down to the v30 variant (plus the v33 variant’s further lifespan of 2-0-4).
- 22.0
- Initial release.
- 23.0
| “ | As our most recently added tower we are very happy with all the excitement surrounding this beloved monkey tower and the general middleground play position. We're happy enough with its time in the wild to make some first impression changes here which we hope you'll continue to enjoy. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to multiple Dartling upgrades |
BADS' buckshot projectiles now knock back non-MOAB-class bloons by a small amount on hit, similar to Super Monkey's Knockback but sends hit bloons ~33% backwards.
- 28.0
| “ | Even though we like the theme of the slow hitting upgrade, Buckshot has struggled to live up to its potential, so attack speed has been further increased through all tiers. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Buckshot |
- BADS attack cooldown reduced from 0.45s → 0.375s, because of the Buckshot attack speed buff.
- 29.0
| “ | The bottom path Bloon Exclusion Zone on the Dartling has had a lot of talk about damage types, with points raised on the viability here due to the high price. It did recently get a strong buff from the T3 up, but in order to work more into other synergies we have decided to finally do a damage type change here as well, starting from early on in the path. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to BEZ and Powerful Darts |
- Bloon Area Denial System damage type from Sharp → Shatter
- 30.0
| “ | [...] Finally as the Laser Shock crosspath is not so favorable for Buckshot path dartlings, we have doubled down on the ‘Focus’ of Focussed Firing to also increase projectile travel distance. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- 1-0-4 BADS’s Focus Firing crosspath grants distance to projectiles +25%
- 33.0
| “ | [...] Buckshot pierce has been increased to help make its attacks cut through more for a chunkier hit. Focused Firing’s distance bonus on 203 due to how it is setup with projectile speed dropoff was a bit less than this written ‘25%’ realistically closer to 18.75%, so this number has been increased enough to give it roughly a true 30% increase in distance. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- BADS pierce increased (4 → 6)
- Affected by Buckshot 1-0-3 buffs
- 34.0
| “ | [...] BADS on the bottom currently feels like it brings far too much power to carry the midgame for cheap so price is being shifted around from the T5 down into the T4. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Bloon Area Denial System price increased $12000 → $16000
- 35.0
| “ | While admittedly difficult to handle at T3, the recent changes made to attempt to give Buckshot an easier growth into BADS overall backfired and were a failure. Looking back, the difficult T3 required attention but was still not bad if used correctly and the improved handling at T4 was far worth this effort in the end. That seemed fine enough before and we don't like how it has ended up so walking those changes back. We have to admit when we miss and thanks for continued discussion on bottom path. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Bloon Area Denial System pierce reverted (6 → 4), does not affect Bloon Exclusion Zone
- Bloon Area Denial System price reverted ($16000 → $12000)
- 38.0
| “ | We weren’t quite ever able to take Laser Shock in the direction we initially hoped to, and due to this the 203 crosspath has fallen behind in value and overall use, so we are improving some crosspath values here to fix up damage with bottom path Buckshocks | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- 2-0-4 Bloon Area Denial System’s shock bonus damage increased (1 → 3)
Gallery[]
Official artwork[]
Assets[]
[]
Trivia[]
- Bloon Area Denial System is the only upgrade in BTD6 that does not at all resemble an existing BTD5 upgrade of the same name. In this case, the old BTD5 Bloon Area Denial System resembles the Rocket Storm upgrade except with triple rockets per shot for the main attack, with a different ability rocket deployment system, and without the potential to stun bloons with the activated ability (if the "Gorgon Storm" MK is active).
- In terms of upgrade price alone, the price of BADS in BTD6 in Version 34.0 matches the price of BADS in BTDB Mobile starting from Version 4.6.
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