Crucible of Steel and Flame

Crucible of Steel and Flame
General Information
Tower	Tack Shooter
Unlocked at	500,000 XP
Cost (Upgrade)	$170,000 (Easy) $200,000 (Medium) $216,000 (Hard) $240,000 (Impoppable)
Cash Sacrifices	Up to extra 60,000 power via cash sacrifices Easy: Manual: $8.5 / 1 power Slider: $8.925 / 1 power Max Manual: $510,000 Max Slider: $535,500 Medium: Manual: $10 / 1 power Slider: $10.5 / 1 power Max Manual: $600,000 Max Slider: $630,000 Hard: Manual: $10.8 / 1 power Slider: $11.34 / 1 power Max Manual: $648,000 Max Slider: $680,400 Impoppable: Manual: $12 / 1 power Slider: $12.6 / 1 power Max Manual: $720,000 Max Slider: $756,000
Activated Ability(s)	Maelstrom Meteor Impact
Targeting Options	First, Last, Close, Strong
Constituents
Inferno Ring
Inferno Ring
Super Maelstrom
Super Maelstrom
The Tack Zone
The Tack Zone
[Source]

“	Spinning blades of Bloon immolation!	”
	~ In-game description

Crucible of Steel and Flame is the Paragon for the Tack Shooter, which is first introduced in Version 46.0. It is the third of the Primary Monkeys to possess a Paragon.

Combining major features of the Inferno Ring, Super Maelstrom, and The Tack Zone, Crucible of Steel and Flame constantly unleashes a 4-spray volley of fiery blades in a maelstrom across a short range. Once expired, each fiery blade emits an orbital spray of 6 heated tacks. Unlike most Paragons, Crucible of Steel and Flame cannot detect Camo Bloons without the support of Ascended Shadow, the only camo granter that it accepts.

It has two activated abilities: Maelstrom, and Meteor Impact. Maelstrom focuses on grouped damage, while Meteor Impact is a burst-damage, single-target dealer.

• Maelstrom: Maelstrom projectiles last twice as long and pierce massively increased, and produces an aura of blue flames while active. This activated ability has a cooldown of 20 seconds and has no initial cooldown, minus the transformation animation after purchasing the Crucible.
• Meteor Impact: Blasts a gigantic meteor to an enormous area, obliterating upon contact and breaking into a ring of 32 homing fireballs. This activated ability has a cooldown of 90 seconds and has no initial cooldown, minus the transformation animation after purchasing the Crucible.

The Crucible of Steel and Flame is obtained by having one of each tier 5 Tack Shooter and purchasing the upgrade which subsequently consumes all Tack Shooters on screen. The Degree of the Crucible of Steel and Flame ranges from 1-100 and is determined by total cost, pop count, upgrades, and number of Tack Shooters sacrificed as explained here. As with all Paragons, the Crucible of Steel and Flame cannot receive buffs from any external sources except for a select few types:

• The "Paragon of Power" Monkey Knowledge
• Glaive Dominus's Primary Monkey attack speed buffs
• Ascended Shadow's camo detection
• Submerged Nautic Siege Core's ability cooldown reduction
• Debuffing status effects of Cripple MOAB, Glue Storm, and Super Brittle

Additionally, Crucible of Steel and Flame is unobtainable in Sandbox Mode until it has been created in a real game, but can be created in Challenge Editor without any prior requirements.

Upgrading into this Paragon costs $170,000 on Easy, $200,000 on Medium, $216,000 on Hard, and $240,000 on Impoppable. To max out on manual cash sacrifices starting from v39.0, the player must spend at least another $510,000 on Easy, $600,000 on Medium, $648,000 on Hard, and $720,000 on Impoppable. With the cash slider, these costs increase to $535,000 on Easy, $630,000 on Medium, $680,400 on Hard, and $756,000 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

Crucible of Steel and Flame and all three Tier 5 Tack Shooters

Crucible of Steel and Flame shoots out 4 fiery blades in a maelstrom. Each flameball emits 6 heated tacks in an orbital spray when expired. Its Maelstrom ability doubles the range. The Meteor ability emits a heated meteor that generates extreme heat, instantly exploding upon losing all pierce and generating 32 fireballs that explode again.

Crucible of Steel and Flame Monkey

Crucible of Steel and Flame's monkey is only visible in-game for a brief moment during the Paragon creation animation. Otherwise, he is only visible as a mere shadow of a skull while inside the Crucible of Steel and Flame. He has a skull mask covering his entire face, the skull mask cracked on the monkey's left side and brokenly cracked on the top, and the eye sockets glow at the pupils. His hair is spiky. Each of his wrists has a spiked bracelet, with a leather base and grey spikes, with about 8 in total per bracelet. He wears a black longsleeve shirt and brown shorts. On his feet are sneakers.

Activated Abilities

See also: Activated Abilities (BTD6)#Crucible of Steel and Flame

Meteor Impact

Maelstrom

Crucible of Steel and Flame comes with 2 powerful abilities. The player who purchased the Paragon can use either one of them.

The first ability is Maelstrom. It greatly increases projectile lifespan and generates a blue hot flame ring.

The second ability is Meteor Impact. Shoots a giant meteor at targeted bloon, devastating the target upon expiry.

Targeting Priorities

The maelstroms of hot blades and the fire rings are locked on Close. However, the meteor from the Meteor Explosion ability is affected by ordinary targeting priorities.

• 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.

Monkey Knowledge Interactions

The following Monkey Knowledge Points directly affect the Crucible of Steel and Flame:

• Fast Tack Attacks: Tack Shooter attack speed increased by 8%.
• Increased Lifespan: Projectiles shot from Tack Shooter have increased lifespan.
• Poppy Blades: Blade Shooter upgrade gets +2 pierce.
• Hard Tacks: Tack Shooter tacks can pop Frozen Bloons.
• Big Inferno: Inferno Ring upgrade gets +3 burst radius.
• Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
• Global Ability Cooldowns: All Ability cooldowns for all Monkeys reduced by 3%.
• Paragon of Power: Paragons attack faster if there are no Tier 5 of the same tower.

The following Monkey Knowledge Points do affect Crucible of Steel and Flame, but only indirectly:

• Come On Everybody!: Primary towers attack 5% faster if all are below tier 3, and cost 5% less if all are tier 3 or 4.
• Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
• Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more. Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.

Creation

Creating a Degree 1 Crucible of Steel and Flame

A base Crucible of Steel and Flame can be created by having one of each tier 5 Tack Shooter on screen, at which point, the upgrade icon for the Crucible of Steel and Flame will become available on any of the tier 5 Tack Shooters. Purchasing the upgrade will change the selected Tack Shooter into the Crucible of Steel and Flame, while sacrificing every other Tack Shooter on screen (including those belonging to co-op players). Only one Crucible of Steel and Flame may exist at a time.

Paragon Power

The degree of the Crucible of Steel and Flame depends on a hidden value known as "power", which itself depends on the amount of tier 5 upgrades, non-tier 5 upgrades, cash, and pops of sacrificed Tack Shooters, as well as any Paragon Power Totems on the map. In addition to cosmetic changes every 20 degrees, a higher degree will elevate the damage output of the Crucible of Steel and Flame. Power is calculated as follows:

• Each Tier 5 Tack Shooter will contribute 6,000 power for a maximum of 50,000 power (9 Tier 5 upgrades). Excludes the first three Tier 5 Tack Shooters.
• Each non-Tier 5 Tack Shooter upgrade will contribute 100 power for a maximum of 10,000 power (100 non-Tier 5 upgrades). Excludes the first three Tier 5 Tack Shooters.
• Every $8.5 / $10 / $10.8 / $12 spent on sacrificed Tack Shooters will contribute 1 power for a maximum of 60,000 power ($510,000 / $600,000 / $680,000 / $720,000 spent). Excludes the three cheapest Tier 5 Tack Shooters.
  • Alternatively, cash can be injected into the Paragon directly with 5% reduced efficiency.
• Every 180 pops achieved by sacrificed Tack Shooters will contribute 1 power for a maximum of 90,000 power (16,200,000 pops). Includes the first three Tier 5 Tack Shooters.
  • Round 132 is the first round where the game's cumulative RBE exceeds this threshold. Waiting until round 136 before upgrading to Crucible of Steel and Flame should provide enough buffer to achieve the 16,200,000 pops, assuming Tack Shooters are responsible for 80% of all pops until that point. These rounds will be earlier on Double HP MOABs or Boss Events due to the increased RBE from Boss Bloons and MOABs, so it is always best to confirm by calculating manually.
• Each Paragon Power Totem contributes an additional 2,000 power, with no limit.

Assuming no Paragon Power Totems, a maximum of 160,000 power is obtainable in single-player, and 210,000 power is achievable in co-op, though only up to 200,000 power is actually used.

Degree roughly scales with the natural logarithm of power, so there is no unique set of upgrades, prices, etc. that will place the Paragon at a certain degree. In addition, the attack speed, pierce, damage, specialized damage, boss damage and ability cooldown each scale differently with the degree.

Statistics

The approximate power requirements for the 20 degree increments are listed, alongside the associated damage statistics and some general guidelines on which sacrificial investments to make.

Data updated as of v46.x

All Degrees

• 1 Inferno Ring, 1 Super Maelstorm, 1 The Tack Zone (same for all degrees)
• 42.32 range
• Same footprint as a Tack Shooter

Blade:

• Constantly produces sprays of 2 blades at 360 degrees per second in a clockwise direction. Projectile speed of 140, projectile lifespan of 0.3s, 2 radius.
• Upon expiry, produce Tack.

Tack:

• Produce spray of 6 tacks in a 360 degree angle. Projectile speed of 120, projectile lifespan of 0.2s, centerpoint radius.

Degree 1 (Base)

• 0 Power needed

Blade:

• 20d, 50bd, 100ed, 5p, 4j, 0.0325s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 10d, 30bd, 60ed, 3p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

90s cooldown, shoots a giant meteor at targeted bloon, devastating the target upon expiry, producing a huge explosion and 32 small fireballs, which will fly to the center, causing an additional blow to the Bloons they encounter.
Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 50,000d, 50,000bd, 100,000ed, 500p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 700d, 700bd, 1,400ed, 2p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

20s cooldown, buff the project life and pierce and gains a new short-range attack— Eruption, which can continue to pop the surrounding Bloons.

• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 250d, 500bd, 1,000ed, 60p, 1s

Degree 20

• At least 11,032 Power needed.
• Buying 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters should comfortably get Degree 20 on all difficulties.

Blade:

• 24.8d, 75.625bd, 151.25ed, 7.85p, 4j, 0.02485s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 12.9d, 45.875bd, 91.75ed, 5.47p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 68.81s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 59,501d, 74,376.25bd, 148,752.5ed, 596.9p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 834d, 1,042.5bd, 2,085ed, 4.28p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 15.29s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 298.5d, 745bd, 1,490ed, 73.3p, 0.765s

Degree 40

• At least 31,360 Power needed
• Buying 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters and achieving 2,040,000 combined pops across all Tack Shooters should comfortably get Degree 40 on all difficulties.

Blade:

• 30.8d, 108.75bd, 217.5ed, 10.85p, 4j, 0.02254s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 16.9d, 67.05bd, 134.1ed, 8.07p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 62.41s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 6,9503d, 104,254.5bd, 208,509ed, 698.9p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 976d, 1,464bd, 2,928ed, 6.68p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 13.87s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 350.5d, 350.5bd, 2,094ed, 87.3p, 0.693s

Degree 60

• At Least 66,387 Power Needed
• Buying 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters and achieving 8,350,000 combined pops across all Tack Shooters should comfortably get Degree 60 on all difficulties.

Blade:

• 36.8d, 147.875bd, 295.75ed, 13.85p, 4j, 0.0211s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 20.9d, 92.225bd, 184.45ed, 10.67p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 58.33s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 79,505d, 139,133.75bd, 278,267.5ed, 800.9p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 1,118d, 1,956.5bd, 3,913ed, 9.08p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 12.96s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 402.5d, 1,400bd, 2,800ed, 101.3p, 0.648s

Degree 80

• At least 120,115 Power needed
• Buying 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters and achieving 9,020,700 combined pops across all Tack Shooters should comfortably get Degree 80 on all difficulties.
• Max cash slider (630,000$ on medium)

Blade:

• 42.8d, 193bd, 386ed, 16.85p, 4j, 0.01996s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 24.9d, 121.4bd, 242.8ed, 13.27p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 55.28s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 89,507d, 179,014bd, 358,028ed, 902.9p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 1,260d, 2,520bd, 5,040ed, 11.48p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 12.29s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 454.5d, 1,804bd, 3,608ed, 115.3p, 0.614s

Degree 91 (Single Player Max w/o Geraldo)

• At least 159,085 Power Needed (power value: 160,000)
• Buying 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters and achieving 16,200,000 combined pops achieved across all Tack Shooters should comfortably get Degree 91 on all difficulties.
• Max cash slider (630,000$ on medium)

Blade:

• 47d, 208bd, 416ed, 18.5p, 4j, 0.01945s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 28d, 132bd, 264ed, 14.7p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 53.86s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 95,009d, 190,018bd, 380,036ed, 959p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 1,339d, 2,678bd, 5,356ed, 12.8p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 11.97s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 484d, 1,918bd, 3,836ed, 123p, 0.598s

Degree 100 (Max)

• 200,000 Power needed
• Co-Op game mode Or Paragon Power Totems required.
• Having 9 additional tier 5 Tack Shooters, or 20 Paragon Power Totems, either 25 0-2-2 Tack Shooters, and achieving 16,200,000 combined pops across all Tack Shooters on screen should comfortably get Degree 100 on all difficulties

Blade:

• 50d, 247.5bd, 495ed, 20p, 4j, 0.01907s
• If all pierce is consumed at once or projectile expires, Blades splits into 6 Tacks

Tack:

• 30d, 157.5bd, 315ed, 16p, 6j

Activated Ability - Meteor Impact

• 52.82s cooldown

Giant Meteor:

• TBA Blast Radius
• 100,010d, 225,022.5bd, 450,045ed, 1,010p
• Releases 32 fireballs after dealing damage.
  • Fireball: 1,410d, 3,172.5bd, 6,345ed, 14p

Activated Ability - Maelstrom

• 11.74s cooldown
• Project life buff: 2x
• Pierce buff: ???
• Eruption: 510d, 2,272.5bd, 4,545ed, 130p, 0.587s

Behavior and Interactions

TBA

[format from subparagon]

Costs

Like all Paragons, which are able to sacrifice other towers, Crucible of Steel and Flame has a complex set of costs.

Data updated as of Version ???.0.

Quick Reference Costs

Assumes normal undiscounted costs of each tower.

[format from subparagon]

Cost Formula

Lists the costs for all Tier 5 Monkey Subs without crosspathing, all Tier 4 Monkey Subs without crosspathing, and all crosspaths up to Tier 2 on all four game modes (Easy, Medium, Hard, Impoppable), along with the power contribution next to each price value. The three cheapest Tier 5 Monkey Subs do not contribute power to the cash requirement.

[format from subparagon]

Cash Sacrifices

• Cash : Power: Ratio of cash required to gain 1 power. Maximum power gained from cash sacrifices is 60,000 power.
• Max Manual Sacrifices: Maximum amount of cash required to max out power via cash sacrifices by only using placed towers, irrespective of possibility in practice.
• Max Slider Sacrifices: Maximum amount of cash required to max out power via cash sacrifices by only using the cash slider.

[format from subparagon]

Strategy

Summary

The Crucible of Steel and Flame incorporates elements from Inferno Ring, Super Maelstrom and The Tack Zone, resulting in a Paragon that benefits heavily from a close proximity to the track. Allowing as many of its projectiles as possible to hit bloons is key, resulting in larger ones such as Boss Bloons and BADs being decimated.

Both of the activated abilities of this Paragon allow it to clean up large areas very quickly, with Meteor Impact dealing heavy damage in an extremely wide area and Maelstrom drastically increasing the range of its main attack while increasing its short range damage as well.

However, the tower suffers greatly from a lack of camo detection, making it unreliable against Reality Warper Phayze and DDTs without any external help.

Tips

• To get a cheap degree 20 Paragon with normal prices, one can buy 20 2-0-3 Tacks with Even Faster Shooting and Tack Sprayer to fulfill the 100 upgrade tiers requirement and a decent amount of cash for a cheap degree 20. In some cases, upgrading some of the Tacks to Overdrive is worth to squeeze in a few more tiers.
• 4-2-0 Ring of Fire is the most expensive non-Tier 5 Tack that can be sacrificed. 2-4-0 Blade Maelstrom is more recommended for widespread damage, while 2-0-4 Overdrive is suited for intense single-target damage compared to 4-2-0 Ring of Fire's grouped damage.
• Most of the buildup of pops will come from raw damage from all Tier 5 Tack Shooters, alongside some minor help from all other Tack Shooters. Tack Shooters lack any instakill attacks nor income generation, and the Inferno Ring's meteor burn only does marginal amounts of damage compared to lower-tier spam. Because of this, the process of accumulating pops should focus on the most expensive Tier 5 Tacks in combination with spamming powerful Tier 4 Tacks. Choose the most optimal Tier 4 Tack spam for the correct situations.
  • For Boss Events and Boss Rush, it's more natural to purchase lots of 2-0-4 Overdrives as the T4 spam of choice.
• Tack Shooters notoriously contain multiple of the cheapest Tier 4 towers, which makes buildup of the sacrifice costs portion much harder than the Glaive Dominus (Boomerang Monkey Paragon), without resorting to the cash slider.
• This tower benefits from the most Paragon buffs. The Glaive Dominus grants an increased attack speed of 11.1%, the Ascended Shadow grants it camo detection, while the Nautic Siege Core reduces cooldowns by 10%.
  • Without Ascended Shadow, the Paragon will struggle against DDTs spawned from both the round and from BADs, and against Phayze. Universal Decamo attacks are cheap solutions to this, but Phayze can make itself temporarily immune to Decamo, generally making this tower a poor choice against the boss.
• Every aspect of this tower boasts a high pierce usually seen with Paragons, and when combined with the high projectile count, the Crucible of Steel and Flame can effortlessly clean up spawns from bloons, such as those from Bloonarius the Inflator.

Teasers

Version 46.0 preview notes artwork

Tack Shooter Paragon was first announced in the Version 44.0 patch notes. It was subtly hinted to have a monkey inside.

Tack Shooter Paragon was announced in the Version 46.0 preview notes as the Crucible of Steel and Flame. This Paragon was revealed to be "constantly attacking with a short range maelstrom of white hot blades that burst into a nova of tacks when they expire", alongside two activated abilities: Maelstrom, and Meteor Impact. Maelstrom is designed to be an activated ability focusing on grouped damage, a "coverage & cleanup ability" that is "more of a utility", by providing increased projectile lifespan and "high pierce jets of blue flame" while active. Meteor Impact is the high damage ability that explodes over an "unfair area" and "breaks apart into a ring of 32 homing fireballs".

On 8th December 2024, early-access videos for Version 46.0 have been released on YouTube, including the following YouTubers who contributed:

• HBomb - "What Happens When You MAX OUT a Tack Paragon?"
• Ethan Reid - "NEW Tack Paragon - Crucible Of Steel And Flame Is HERE! (Update 46 BTD6)"
• ISAB - "New 5-5-5 TACK Paragon - The Crucible Of Steel & Flame! (Bloons TD 6)
• Tewtiy - "Tack Shooter Paragon! | UPDATE 46.0"
• SJB - "TACK PARAGON is CRAZY - Lvl1 VS 100"
• Dabloon - "How Far Can the NEW Tack Paragon Go in BTD6!"
• Mehalic POPs (Ryan Mehalic) - "NEW TACK Shooter PARAGON - Crucible Of Steel And Flame!"
• MackanRules - "NEW 5-5-5 TACK SHOOTER Paragon! (BTD6)"

Quotes

“	Update 46 Tack Shooter Paragon! We’ve always known there’s a Monkey inside each one, and now we’ll all get to see what the Paragon-in-a-can can do!	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi, Version 44.0 patch notes

“	New Tack Shooter Paragon, the Crucible of Steel and Flame. Tacks, blades, fire - what more could there be? Well, plenty actually, as the Monkeys realized they can cram blades full of hot tacks! We could leave it at that, but for those who’d like a little more detail, read on! Constantly attacking with a short range maelstrom of white hot blades that burst into a nova of tacks when they expire, this paragon creates quite a spectacle to behold. The tack monkey inside (!) is unable to see unrevealed Camo Bloons, however with its 2 abilities this isn’t enough to hold back its power. Maelstrom ability: given that the main attack already is a permanent maelstrom, this ability gives the tower a massive temporary increase to projectile lifespan & pierce in order to greatly expand the coverage of that local maelstrom. While this is occurring, high pierce jets of blue flame will periodically blast around the tower to wipe out any smaller targets. This is a coverage & cleanup ability, so it has an extremely short cooldown but is not a single target damage dealer. Meteor Impact: As the Maelstrom ability is more of a utility, a second ability is here to bring the damage! Meteor Impact calls down a blast that deals high damage to an unfair area, and any Bloons foolish enough to withstand the initial impact will be wiped out when this meteor breaks apart into a ring of 32 homing fireballs	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi, Version 46.0 patch notes

Sounds

When creating the Paragon:

• TBA

When activating Maelstrom:

• [Spraying]

When activating Meteor Explosion:

• [Launching]

When meteor explodes:

• [mega explosion]

Gallery

Transforming into a Crucible of Steel and Flame

Monkey comes out

Base attack

Monkey comes out again

Big explosion from meteor damages FBAD

Big explosion fading away, revealing the offspring of the FBAD

The extra fireballs imploding towards the center of the big explosion

Firing the meteor like a First Strike

Degree 100 attack formation (25 frame/s)

Official Artwork

Paragon artwork

Paragon icon

Meteor Impact

Maelstrom

Crucibles of Steel and Flame

Degree 1-19

Degree 20-39

Degree 40-59

Degree 60-79

Degree 80-100

Videos

Unlocking and activating the Crucible of Steel and Flame

Demonstration

Trivia

• Since the Tack Shooter Paragon's announcement on August 1st 2024, it marks over 3 years since the announcement of the Apex Plasma Master (Dart Monkey Paragon), which had its reveal on July 9th 2021.
• Crucible of Steel and Flame is the first Primary Paragon to not have shared a release date with other Paragons.
• This is the first Paragon which does not have Camo Detection.
  • It is also the first Paragon where neither the base Tower nor any of its upgrades provide any form of Camo Detection whatsoever.
  • However, Ascended Shadow can buff the paragon with camo detection.
• Between the release of Nautic Siege Core (Monkey Sub Paragon) and the announcement of Crucible of Steel and Flame, it took 3 updates to unveil the next Paragon, taking between Version 41.0 and 44.0 to do so.
• It is the second paragon to be revealed in an update preview.
• The filename of the upgrade portrait is Paragon-CycloneOfFireAndMetal.png, implying that Crucible of Steel and Flame had a different name in development before its official release.
• The Goliath Doomship and Crucible of Steel and Flame are the only 2 paragons that are able to receive the most buffs with 4 in total.
• The Paragon's Meteor Explosion ability shares the same sound as the MOAB Assassin and the First Strike abilities.
• The mega explosion from the Meteor Explosion ability is shared by Goliath Doomship and Admiral Brickell's Mega Mine.