Bouncing Bullet (also referred as Bbullet) is the third upgrade of Path 2 for the Sniper Monkey in Bloons TD 6. Bullets now bounce up to 2 times, hitting a total of 3 bloons per shot. Each bullet comes with the Shrapnel Shot attack, and every bloon damaged by the bullet spawns a spray of 5 shrapnel pieces in a cone formation following the direction of the bullet bounce prior to collision with the bloon. The bullet can bounce around the screen up to 40 units apart from each bloon, or 50 with Large Calibre. Shrapnel remains at 2 pierce each.
Bouncing Bullet grants the Sniper a thicker camo jacket with brown arm bands, camo pants, and a short-brimmed hat with a camo pattern and grey band. Its goggles now bear four red markings on the right lens, and the scope gains two metal supports linking it to the barrel.
Path 1 crosspathing turns the hat's band red, then purple. Path 3 crosspathing turns the hat's band grey, then orange.
Bouncing Bullet causes every attack to spawn up to 2 additional Impact style attacks on the closest bloons within 40 units per bounce; these attacks will also produce shrapnel, and this shrapnel has 2 pierce per chunk. Top-path crosspathing retains its effects on shrapnel, as well as granting +10 bounce distance with Large Calibre, for a total of 50.
Note that since Bouncing Bullet generates multiple impacts, this means the main attack cannot receive pierce buffs.
Targeting Priorities[]
Bouncing Bullet targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. It shoots a snipe attack.
First: Targets the first bloon visible within its range.
Last: Targets the last bloon visible within its range.
Close: Targets the closest bloon visible within its range.
Strong: Targets the strongest bloon visible within its range.
Bouncing Bullet gives the Sniper an effective grouped popping power option, each bullet piercing multiple bloons and creating sprays of shrapnel every time the bullet hits bloons. While it has only a moderate amount of pierce, its infinite range makes it stand out as high-damage mid-game power, particularly on non-simultaneous lane maps (e.g. Bazaar, Geared). It works best works in groups or while supported by Alchemist buffs. Large groups of these towers can even defeat Super Ceramics in late-game rounds, although best suited when paired with the Ceramic Shock MK. Bouncing Bullet's main redeeming factor is Shrapnel Shot, the Bouncing Bullet's previous upgrade. The capability for the bullets to go parallel against or with the grain of bloons makes it viable for both breaking into strong bloons and cleaning up weaker bloons. Although not ideal against MOAB-class bloons, if there are multiple targets then it can also deal a hefty amount of damage to multiple MOAB-class bloons too.
One of its main strengths is for long-ranged offense against bloons while still offering an income option via its later Supply Drop upgrade. Another advantage is taking down long groups of Camo Bloons with ease, as the bullets possess decent ricocheting accuracy and deal increased damage to Camo Bloons by default (due to Night Vision Goggles). Its biggest strength, however, is its high synergy with Alch buffs (specifically Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant), as its many shrapnel pieces can be enhanced, and the buffs do not wear out as quickly compared to alternate long-range camo-detecting options, and for a relatively slow attack speed its DPS increases substantially. Such an opportunity for a high synergy can also extend to its interactions with cheap buffs from Geraldo via his Jar of Pickles and Sharpening Stone.
Tips[]
Crosspathing choice for Bouncing Bullet depends on the needs of the defense. In general cases, 2-3-0 is stronger on its own, while 0-3-2 performs stronger than 2-3-0 in combination with buffs or specifically against Camo Bloons.
It is usually a better idea to crosspath with the top crosspath for increased bullet damage in order to make the most of its bouncing bullet power, which comes very useful earlier in the game. In addition, Large Calibre allows each shrapnel piece to do 2 damage instead of 1, which can become very effective against large clusters of bloons.
There are some occasions where 0-3-2 Bouncing Bullet is better than the normally superior 2-3-0 Bouncing Bullet. In these cases, it is better against cleaning up weaker groups of bloons at a faster pace, rather than greatly damaging stronger groups at a slower speed. In addition, they synergize stronger with buffs and are still able to receive Geraldo's Sharpening Stone.
Set the targeting of the Bouncing Bullet to First to allow the shrapnel direction to be against the bloons, thereby optimizing the pierce of each shrapnel piece. Strong could still be useful if specifically targeting stronger formations of bloons.
Note that Bouncing Bullet inherits the Night Vision Goggles property that allows its bullets and shrapnel to deal +2 damage to all Camo Bloons. As a result, it becomes a useful option against mid-game Camo Bloons.
Take advantage of Camo Prioritization to specifically handle Camo Bloons if needed.
While bullet bounce count cannot be increased with pierce boost such as Alch buffs, it is still very powerful with Alch buffs, as each spawned shrapnel still receives a large gain in popping power.
Try clumping up the bloons closer together to make most of the bullet bounces. Making use of a Glue Gunner or Ice Monkey may help.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
The majority of the buffs to Bouncing Bullets are based on those that apply for previous upgrades, besides a small price buff. The reworked Shrapnel Shot mechanics in Version 17.0 has also greatly improved the grouped popping power of Bouncing Bullets that the original design of Bouncing Bullets was built around. However, a tradeoff was made to allow shrapnel to receive external buffs but no longer let bullets increase bounces via pierce buffs, which somewhat affected the viability of Bouncing Bullet as a pierce-oriented Sniper option compared to Shrapnel Shot crosspaths.
The popularity of Bouncing Bullet in many Advanced and Expert CHIMPS maps, alongside a further synergy with Geraldo, had risen the use of Bouncing Bullet as a long-ranged mid-game option, in addition to high numbers of them carrying into late-game against Super Ceramics, including Bloody Puddles CHIMPS. Because of its fairly easy-to-use functionality, Bouncing Bullets got some nerfs. For instance, a shrapnel pierce buff granted in Version 22.0 was reverted in Version 32.0. A further nerf in Version 35.0 has lowered bullet bounces from 4 to 3, with a closer stat gain to Semi-Automatic's 3x attack speed. However, Version 41.0 and 42.0 buffed Bouncing Bullet on the basis that its uniquely powerful synergy with Geraldo is broken by getting rid of bonus damage from his upgraded Sharpening Stone.
7.0
Cost of Bouncing Bullet decreased ($3,500 → $3,200)
9.0
Projectile should no longer get stuck on track between jumps.
11.0
Main bullets from the Bouncing Bullets now deal +2 damage to Camo Bloons.
14.0
[Undocumented] Seeking projectiles appear to have been optimized, affecting the Bouncing Bullet. It is unknown how this has specifically affected the seeking of the Bouncing Bullet.
17.0
Shrapnel Shot reworked to eject in a 45 degree arc instead of 360
Shrapnel Shot now shoots 5 shrapnel pieces instead of 8.
Shrapnel Shot now produces shrapnel whenever the bullet damages bloons instead of only when entire bloon is destroyed
20.0
“
This tower felt like it's strength too heavily required the xx2 upgrade, and that this harmed crosspath choices. So we increased the base attack rate while nerfing the increase from these upgrades. This is a slight overall buff
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to base Sniper
Affected by base Sniper attack speed buff
22.0
“
[...] Bouncing Bullet has also had its shrapnel pierce increased as it was the only T3 sniper that did not have 3 pierce shrapnel.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bouncing Bullet shrapnel pierce increased (2 → 3)
28.0
“
[...] As middle path sniper has been feeling to be in a good spot with alchemist buffs, but other uses of sniper shrapnel weak due to lack of alchemist buff, we have decided to swap alchemist buffability over from the number of bounces to the power of the shrapnel itself.
Shrapnel Shot, shrapnel on all crosspaths is now able to receive any external buffs
Pierce buffs no longer increase the amount of bounces that a bouncing bullet can make.
30.0
“
Elite Sniper bouncing bullet jump distance has been reduced so that it can't quite bridge small track splits so easily, however to change up use this lost distance has been added back to crosspathing. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Bouncing Bullet
Bouncing Bullet bounce distance reduced from 50 → 40.
Sniper middle path is too strong for how easy to use it is, while having infinite range & cash production as well. We have removed the free +1 pierce increase shrapnel gains at T3 in addition to the added bounce. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bouncing Bullet shrapnel pierce reduced from 3 → 2
35.0
“
[...] Bouncing bullet synergises too effectively with some buffs too early, and we don’t want to raise the price here and make the saveup from T2 to 3 any more tedious so the number of bounces is going down but remaining unchanged at T4. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bouncing Bullet reduced pierce 4 → 3
41.0
“
Sniper Monkey has some very powerful upgrades but also many poor stepping stones. We felt this tower needed a big price shuffle all around, pushing down the cost of many underwhelming upgrades but returning this back into stronger upgrades.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bouncing Bullet price reduced from $3200 to $2800
Overall price decrease is -$450 due to Night Vision Goggles (-$50)
42.0
“
Bouncing Bullets still feels decent enough at some points, however we feel it’s too difficult to save up into to justify the current power level. We’re shuffling prices to allow this upgrade to come online sooner while keeping the path at the same value for higher tiers as these still offer additional income support that they are balanced around. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Bouncing Bullet price reduced from $2,800 to $2,400
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
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39.0
Description changed numbers from "3" to "2" to account for Version 35.0 bullet bounce nerfs
Extra Notes (Version History)[]
Gallery[]
Crosspathing (Top: Path 1, Tottom: Path 3)
Bouncing Bullet attacking, with bounce pattern and shrapnel pieces from each Bloon shot
Bouncing Bullets bouncing between bloons from a distance
Bounce marks from bouncing bullets
Close demonstration of producing shrapnel parallel to the bounce target
Bouncing Bullet bouncing onto its 4th target (pre-35.0)
Bounce triggers[]
Spaced Rainbows between 7 units each, Bouncing Bullet triggering bounce
Spaced Rainbows between 8 units each, Bouncing Bullet not triggering bounce
Official artwork[]
Upgrade portrait for Bouncing Bullet
Upgrade icon for Bouncing Bullet
Instamonkey icon for Bouncing Bullet
Videos[]
Version 31.0 Bouncing Bullet pierce with Sharpening Stone
V31.0 interaction with BBullet adding bullet bounces and shrapnel pierce (pre-31.1)
Bouncing Bullet 4 bounces (34.3)
Bouncing Bullet bouncing up to 3 times (34.3)
Trivia[]
The Bouncing Bullet artwork has a similar pose to BTD5's Semi-Automatic Rifle, as well as both having the goggles from the Night Vision Goggles upgrade.
However, in BTD6, the Semi-Automatic upgrade no longer is along the Night Vision Goggles path, so it has a different pose. The pose used by Semi-Automatic upgrade in BTD6 is similar to the Night Vision Goggles upgrade in BTD5.
Bouncing Bullet originally costed as much as Semi-Automatic in terms of upgrade prices alone, until Version 7.0 when Bouncing Bullet received a price buff.
Each bullet can hit up to 44 bloons if there is no spacing between the bloons, and deals up to 48 pops per shot when taking into account bullet damage.
The 101st unique tower to gain 2MPC belongs to the 2-3-0 Bouncing Bullet. It was published on 11th May 2021 (or 10th depending on timezone).[1]
Despite getting a nerf in Version 35.0 to Bouncing Bullet's bounce count from 4 to 3, the description remained unchanged, causing its description of bouncing to "new targets" to become misleading. This was since fixed in 39.0.
The upgrade icon for the Bouncing Bullet depicts a bullet bouncing off a third Bloon. This would be accurate in BTD6 if it was before the Version 35.0 nerf to bounce amounts. However, this phenomenon remains true to the upgrade icon in Battles 2.