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BTD6

Rapidly shoots smaller ice bombs over longer range.
~ In-game description

Cryo Cannon is the third upgrade of Path 3 for the Ice Monkey in Bloons TD 6. Instead of freezing cold radial blasts, the Ice Monkey utilizes an ice cannon that shoots freezing snowballs. Snowballs are shot at every 1.2s (instead of 2.4s) and deal increased damage (from 1 to 2). However, each shot has a smaller blast radius (20 blast radius, as opposed to 27 via radial freeze blasts) with a 20% shorter freeze duration (1.2s opposed to 1.5s). It possesses significantly greater range, allowing the Ice Monkey to shoot much further away, increasing from 27 to 46. Snowballs each have 40 pierce (45 with 0-2-3). With 2-0-3, it gains Camo Prioritization. As a Tier 3+ Ice Monkey, it inflicts full freeze duration versus Ceramics.

This upgrade costs $1,910 on Easy, $2,250 on Medium, $2,430 on Hard, and $2,700 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

Placeholder other

Cryo Cannon

The Ice Monkey gains grey earmuffs and a grey wristband. Its right hand is replaced with a cannon-like projectile launcher encased in ice. It retains the navy-blue sunglasses and grey gloves gained from Re-Freeze.

An Ice Monkey with Cryo Cannon receives a new idle animation. When idle, the monkey may occasionally scratch their head.

Cryo Cannon completely changes the Ice Monkey's attack behavior, shooting snowballs from an ice cannon instead of clapping to create radial blasts. The ice cannon has greatly decreased attack cooldown, increase attack range and deals more damage, also gain regular targeting Priorities just other common tower. In exchange, each snowball has a smaller ice blast radius.

Targeting Priorities[]

Cryo Cannon receives basic targeting priorities like most other towers do, converting from a zone-based radial attack into a standard straight movement projectile.

  • 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.

Adding Cold Snap (which detects camo) adds Camo Prioritization.

Full Popology[]

Statistics[]

Updated as of Version 41.3
Base stats
  • Snowball:
    • Projectile, glacier type, detects centerpoint hitbox, 43 range, 1.2s attack cooldown, 2 damage, 40 pierce, freezes for 1.2s. Blast radius of 20.
Crosspathing interactions
  • 1-0-3:
    • Snowball applies Permafrost status effect.
  • 2-0-3:
    • Snowball damage type changed from glacier to metal glacier freeze (can pop all except White), and gains camo detection.
  • 0-1-3:
    • Snowball attack cooldown reduced from 1.2s to 0.9s, freeze duration increased from 1.2s to 1.4s.
  • 0-2-3:
    • Snowball freeze duration increased from 1.4s to 1.76s, pierce increased from 40 to 45.
Monkey Knowledge interactions

Attack Interactions[]

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Primary
Updated as of Version 36.0
Base attack(s)
  • Snowball:
    • Glacier Type (pops Black, Purple, Frozen) Glacier
    • Single Projectile Single Projectile
    • Straight Attack Straight Attack
    • Area of Effect Area of Effect
    • Target Bloon(s) (unspecified types of bloons targeting, and quantity) Target Bloon
    • Extra damage to all bloon types (1 → 2) Extra Damage (2)
    • Freeze (standard bloons, 1 Freeze (1.2s)

Costs[]

Updated as of Version 41.0. 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-3) $1,910 $2,250 $2,430 $2,700 -
Total (0-0-3) $2,675 $3,150 $3,405 $3,780 $1,873 $2,205 $2,384 $2,646
Crosspath (1-0-3) $2,800 $3,300 $3,565 $3,960 $1,960 $2,310 $2,496 $2,772
Crosspath (2-0-3) $3,095 $3,650 $3,945 $4,380 $2,167 $2,555 $2,762 $3,066
Crosspath (0-1-3) $2,865 $3,375 $3,650 $4,050 $2,006 $2,363 $2,555 $2,835
Crosspath (0-2-3) $3,245 $3,825 $4,135 $4,590 $2,272 $2,678 $2,895 $3,213

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: BetterSellDealsIcon Better Sell Deals

Strategy[]

Summary[]

Cryo Cannon has a limited niche for freezing bloons that extends its coverage at the cost of a smaller blast radius. By converting the Ice Monkey's normal radial freeze attacks into projectile-based attacks, it is useful in concept but very limited in practice, and is mainly used for countering Super Ceramics. Besides being a stepping stone for Icicles and Icicle Impale, it can be used as a budget Bloon Impact for defenses that are able to pop Frozen Bloons. In spite of its comparatively lower pierce and blast radius, it attacks considerably faster than Bloon Impact with similar range but much cheaper.

Due to the nature of aim-based projectiles in general, Cryo Cannon naturally performs best along straight lines rather than around curves. Like the popular 0-2-2 Re-Freeze Ice Monkeys, it works best against Ceramics and Super Ceramics. But due to the reduced blast radius, the Cryo Cannon upgrade should be reserved in situations where the quick-attacking freeze at long ranges is vital. The higher damage can help in combination with its extensive freeze coverage.

Cryo Cannon, however, is one of the best cheap options for reliably hitting Golden Bloons at higher rounds, particularly with the 2-0-3 crosspath. As its only weakness towards Golden Bloons is Zebra properties, which only unlocks beyond Round 80, the Cryo Cannon only needs to hit once before it is able to consecutively hit it indefinitely until popped.

Tips[]

  • Multi-lane maps such as High Finance, Flooded Valley, and Muddy Puddles are among many of the maps where Cryo Cannon may perform better than an 022 Ice Monkey would.
  • Besides catching Super Ceramics easier through its new projectile-based attack, it is a suitable choice for stopping waves of grouped bloons.
  • Since the Cryo Cannon upgrade is at least twice the price of a single 0-0-2 Ice Monkey and just under the price of two 0-1-2 Ice Monkeys, in most non-Ceramic situations it would be preferred to have more 0-1-2 Ice Monkeys. If there is more than one section that needs to be covered by base Ice Monkeys, it is still worth trying Cryo Cannon as an alternative.
  • With Cryo Cannon, there is more control over what nearby bloons should or should not be frozen. Just like conventional towers, Cryo Cannon uses the four standard target priorities: First, Last, Close, Strong.
    • For most occasions, First is the best option, followed by Last and Strong. There is little reason to set it on Close, as 0-1-2 Ice Monkeys are more cost-efficient at close-range freezing anyway.
  • Cryo Cannon is one of the few Primary Monkeys that are able to reach bloons on Flooded Valley without the use of land platforms (i.e. from Pontoons and Arctic Wind ice platforms). Place the Cryo Cannon on one of the rocks on the ground side closer to the bloon path, and also place a 4-X-X Monkey Village nearby the Cryo Cannon to give it even better range.
  • If using Cryo Cannon as purely a stalling tower, there are some cases where crosspathing with Path 1 is superior over Path 2, but generally Path 2 is the better option.
    • One 1-0-3 or 2-0-3 Cryo Cannon set on Strong can ensure that all three Ceramic waves spawning on Round 63 will become affected by Permafrost effect. Alternately, set it to Last to hit the earliest Ceramics, specifically Super Ceramics, to set the Permafrost effect sooner.
    • Otherwise, the 0-1-3 Cryo Cannon is better if utilizing it for pure damage, or freezing dense groups of Super Ceramics. Deep Freeze's freeze penetration is nearly useless, but the marginal freeze duration and pierce increases can be handy.
  • Cryo Cannon works best as a budget Bloon Impact, except without white-popping power instead of black-popping power. It is much faster than Bloon Impact but has less blast radius and lower pierce. As of Version 25.0, due to Bloon Impact's damage type nerf, Cryo Cannon can outclass Bloon Impact in terms of taking down Super Ceramics, and it can even be upgraded to Icicles to counter the white immunity.
  • It can be combined with Downdraft, a global-ranged blowback, to further minimize the threat of Super Ceramics by blowing back bloons at the exit that aren't yet frozen. Note that Downdraft removes the frozen status, and should thus be used carefully.

Version History[]

Balance Changes[]

Cryo Cannon overall has been buffed, with a larger blast radius and slightly lower price being the most significant changes for its viability as a projectile-oriented freeze tower. Ninja Kiwi stated in their Version 21.0 balance changes that Cryo Cannon projectiles had too little blast radius in exchange from a close-ranged area-of-effect, and stated their intention to transform it into a hybridized damage + freeze tower.

The buffs given to Cryo Cannon makes it an effective long-ranged "stun" tower, adding competition against other ranged stuns such as Bloon Impact. Alongside previous upgrade price nerfs, its own upgrade price got nerfed too in Version 28.0. Base pierce was reduced in 34.0 but reverted in 36.0 due the nerf being unnecessary and already having competition with Arctic Wind.

2.0
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon pierce increased (20 → 30).
    • Despite what the patch notes mentioned regarding Cryo Cannon pierce not being affected by the change, Cryo Cannon actually received a pierce buff from 20 to 30. This has also affected its subsequent upgrades.
~5.0
  • Change Cryo Cannon target priority now defaults to First instead of Close.
21.0
While Icicles is quite fun for midgame cleanup, we acknowledge points raised on Cryo Cannon trading off its freeze prowess too quickly when the smaller freeze area even with such a fast rate increase still overall makes it struggle to slow as effectively. To counter this a little we have doubled the freeze radius of Cryo Cannon, but also increased damage of both the Ice Balls & Icicles to highlight more the intention of this path swapping to a damage hybrid earlier.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon blast radius increased (10 → 20)
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon now deals extra damage (1 → 2)
23.0
Ice Monkey power is currently too bottom heavy and mid-to-higher tiers are neglected, so some tweaks to mid-tier upgrades have been made.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon price decreased ($2000 → $1750)
28.0
[...] Additionally some smaller price nerfs have been made along the lower tiers of bottom path as each of these upgrades has been standing out a little much.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Cryo Cannon price increased from $1750 → $1950
32.0
Ice monkey Enhanced Freeze is too good at low tiers, allowing full stunlock of ceramics for very cheap, as the fire rate increase alone of this Enhanced Freeze is a powerful addition most of the increased freeze duration has been moved up as it makes more sense to have duration with the currently less desirable T2 Deep Freeze. Permafrost was previously reduced to a lower price than we’d like to try increase desirability of this crosspath, but as the reworks to metal freeze have had more success there in pulling this path ahead we want to add a little back on here. Cryo Cannon has now been overperforming compared to any towers that perform similar roles with either of these crosspaths so is also seeing a general reduction.
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to all Ice Monkey upgrades related to Cryo Cannon
  • NERF Cryo Cannon attack delay increased from 1s → 1.2s. Does not affect Icicles and above.
  • NERF Cryo Cannon price increased from $1950 → $2250
34.0
Ice Monkey base pierce is too high, very easily countering large numbers of strong Bloons early, mid or late in the game for small investment, leading to very low tiers of ice monkey (below t3) being highly effective spam options over upgrading your ice. We are reworking some of this base pierce to require crosspath investment and buffing the damage Ice 3xx Ice Shards to compensate for some of its reduced pierce.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Cryo Cannon pierce reduced 30 → 20
  • Change Description changed from "Shoots freezing bombs at Bloons over long range." to "Rapidly shoots smaller ice bombs over longer range."
36.0
[...] While we like the added pierce value on x2x crosspathing, the drop of pierce on xx3 feels too large now on a tower that already had quite good crosspath balance, so we want to try out removing the pierce downgrade entirely here.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon pierce increased 20 → 30
    • Note: This results in Cryo Cannon no longer having -10 pierce decrease.
37.0
  • BUFF Cold Snap now grants Cryo Cannon with the Camo Prioritization targeting option
  • Change Indirect buff, as all Tier 3+ Ice Monkeys, including Ice Shards, freeze Ceramics for their full duration.
38.0
Plenty of attention has been drawn to the high power of Ice, so we’re continuing to work on slowly dialing this back in fair ways.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • NERF Cryo Cannon freeze duration reduced 1.5s → 1.2s.
39.0
  • BUFF Cryo Cannon pierce increased from 30 to 40, due to base Ice Monkey pierce buffs

Bug Fixes and General Changes[]

Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Projectiles[]

Videos[]

Trivia[]

  • Prior to the Version 23.0 Cryo Cannon price buff, the Cryo Cannon upgrade costed as much as the Ice Shards upgrade did in BTD5. Interestingly, the BTD5 Absolute Zero upgrade following the BTD5 Ice Shards upgrade also costed the same, at a cost of $2,000 on Medium. And similarly, the price of Icicles was also the same price too.
  • Prior to the Version 36.0 Cryo Cannon had a pierce penalty of -10 which resulted in 30 pierce (20 pierce during Versions 34 and 35).


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