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BTD6

Champion dark blades excel at puncturing and ruining all Bloon types. Darkshift ability extends mapwide.
~ BTD6 description as of Version 17.0

Dark Champion is the Tier 4 upgrade of Path 3 for the Super Monkey in Bloons TD 6. The Super Monkey now shoots twice as fast as before, alternating from each arm, firing every 0.0225s by default, and every 0.015s with Plasma Blasts. These improved dark blades deal much more damage to all bloon types, including Lead and Purple, dealing 2 damage, +3 MOAB-class damage, +2 Ceramic damage, +2 Camo damage, and gaining +4 extra pierce. Additionally, knockback against Leads and Ceramics is -100% speed, unlike Dark Knight's 90% bloon speed reduction. Dark blades can ricochet similarly to Quincy's arrows, at a 0.1s cooldown per bounce.

Additionally, the Dark Knight's Darkshift ability is improved, allowing the Dark Champion to teleport to anywhere on the map, instead of being limited to only within its own range.

This upgrade costs $47,220 on Easy, $55,555 on Medium, $60,000 on Hard, and $66,665 on Impoppable.

Description[]

Overview[]

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Dark Champion

Dark Champion adds ear-like protrusions to the monkey's head, and lengthens its cape significantly. The artwork shows it using this lengthened cape to provide itself cover whilst it holds one of its blades at its side.

When actually firing in-game, it visibly throws two blades alternating between each hand. When teleporting, it produces a purple cloud during teleportation and then the Dark Champion appears in the new spot immediately after.

Crosspathing with path 1 gives it laser, then plasma goggles. Crosspathing with path 2 adds 1 or 2 stripes along its head (with 0-2-4, the stripes run down the ear-like protrusions).

Dark Champion significantly improves its DPS when compared to its predecessor, Dark Knight, plus additional benefits to its attacks and activated ability. Each dark blade deals +1 base damage, increasing it to 2, and the bonus MOAB-class damage increases from +2 to +3, for a total of 5 damage to MOAB-class, and on top of this is a +2 Ceramic damage bonus. Dark blades are shot at double speed, alternating between the hands of Dark Champion, down to a 0.0225s attack cooldown at base (0.015s with Plasma Blasts), plus an extra +4 pierce per dark blade and the capability to ricochet between bloons. Additionally, its Darkshift can teleport it anywhere on the map, assuming there is space available.

Activated Abilities[]

See also: Activated Abilities (BTD6)#Dark Champion


Targeting Priorities[]

Dark Champion targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. It shoots straight movement projectiles that alternate between arms.

  • 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.

Dark Champion can access Camo Prioritization, allowing all its attacks to prioritize Camo Bloons over other types when this secondary targeting option is active.

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-4) $47,220 $55,555 $60,000 $66,665 -
Total (0-0-4) $57,675 $67,855 $73,285 $81,425 $40,373 $47,499 $51,300 $56,998
Crosspath (1-0-4) $59,375 $69,855 $75,445 $83,825 $41,563 $48,899 $52,812 $58,678
Crosspath (2-0-4) $61,500 $72,355 $78,145 $86,825 $43,050 $50,649 $54,702 $60,778
Crosspath (0-1-4) $58,950 $69,355 $74,905 $83,225 $41,265 $48,549 $52,434 $58,258
Crosspath (0-2-4) $60,565 $71,255 $76,955 $85,505 $42,396 $49,879 $53,869 $59,854

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

Strategy[]

Summary[]

The Dark Champion is a high-risk upgrade that can sometimes pay off. It strengthens the Super Monkey's stats, improves Darkshift, and excels at popping DDTs, but for an expensive price. While a Dark Champion packs high mobility and a large amount of pierce and damage, particularly DDT-popping power, multiple Dark Knights or a Dark Knight with Permanent Brew tend to have the edge in DPS overall. However, Dark Champion does have various synergies of its own that can give it unique advantages over other options, notable examples being its global mobility and special synergy with Overclock for Tier 4 status.

Dark Champion features as a powerful win condition, having high DPS by virtue of its stats. It also happens to apply Knockback as a decent status effect, and comes with the ability to teleport anywhere on the map for extensive mobility. However, much of this utility falls short due to its weakness against Super Ceramics, having low pierce and easily getting overwhelmed by them. Overall, with the proper support, Dark Champion is powerful, but it must be used with caution.

Tips[]

  • Due to Plasma Blasts increasing the Dark Champion's attack speed, the top path is usually the better crosspath choice. Middle path crosspaths add little benefit, as the range bonuses are redundant and its pierce benefits are only slightly better than those from the top path.
  • Note that Dark Champion does especially well against DDTs, since they have fairly low health and usually need little pierce to effectively pop. Players should focus on support for harder, hyper-dense rounds such as 96 and 98.
  • Overclock is an excellent support tower to increase its already high DPS, as it is the second most expensive Tier 4 upgrade in the game, which means that it can have 100% uptime with Overclock. Another valuable support tower for the Dark Champion is Shattering Shells, which reduces the RBE of Fortified rounds massively and removes Fortified from child super ceramics.
  • If only the utility of Knockback is desired, the 3-0-2 Sun Avatar is a much better choice than the Dark Champion, due to its higher pierce, better scaling with damage increases, and lower price.
  • The Dark Champion is very useful in Muddy Puddles since it can teleport around to other lanes. However, this is less effective in Bloody Puddles because Bloons enter from two entrances at the same time.
  • Prior to various changes starting in Version 28.0, it was much more common practice to use Permanent Brew in conjunction with Dark Knight in place of Dark Champion, as its buffs were generally more useful for Dark Knight than upgrading to Dark Champion, and they could be applied permanently to any tower, whilst costing the same as Dark Champion. Starting from 28.0, and in particular after 30.0, Dark Champion received key buffs of its own to differentiate itself from Permanent Brewed Dark Knights, and thus bring it into further relevance. In general, Permanent Brew still remains more effective, but in particular cases Dark Champion can now pull ahead.
  • The Dark Champion's damage type is Normal Type (pops Black, White, Purple, Lead, Frozen) Normal, which is useful in challenges where the player has to contend with Lead Bloons with no other way around it.

Version History[]

Balance Changes[]

Dark Champion received a stronger version of the Darkshift ability in Version 17.0, buffing Dark Champion's viability by giving it some mobility. It would later receive indirect bonuses from Dark Knight having reduced lead/ceramic knockback and itself receiving bonus ceramic damage and a bigger pierce increase to help cement its status as a true upgrade, particularly compared to pairing Dark Knight with Permanent Brew.

17.0
  • BUFF Dark Champion now has a "Darkshift" ability which allows it to teleport anywhere on the map. This ability is inherited from Dark Knight, which has a short-ranged version of "Darkshift".
  • Change Added "Darkshift ability extends mapwide." to the end of the description
28.0
[...] Dark Knights have been feeling strong with their stalling power but we don't want to hit this too hard just yet so have reduced the slow amount slightly and restored it at the T4.
~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Dark Knight
  • BUFF Affected by Ultravision adding Camo Prioritization target option
  • Change Indirect buff, as Dark Knight now has a nerfed knockback value.
30.0
[...] Dark Champion has had a ceramic bonus added to deal with super ceramics as it is priced only for use in that lategame range, and [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Dark Champion gains +2 bonus damage to Ceramic
31.0
Robo didn't need to lose pierce in the last Super Monkey T2 rework, and Dark Knight feels like it has too much pierce without ever considering the pierce crosspath. So to balance these together we've taken out pierce from Dark Knight and added it back into x2x carrying up into Robo Monkey. Dark Champion pierce is increased rather than decreased to push it further ahead of Dark Knight.
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Dark Champion base pierce increased (7 --> 8)
33.0
Ultravision is a lackluster crosspath with so many other ways to get camo detection cheaper &/or for more towers. [...]
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Dark Champion now deals +1 damage to Camo Bloons
35.0
  • BUFF Affected by base Super Monkey attack speed buff
36.0
Higher tiers on the bottom path have struggled to compare to clusters of T3s for a while now. To help with this we thematically really liked the idea of bottom path gaining a ricochet effect, possibly gaining teleport mechanic value repositioning for better ricochet angles, and a big improvement to the tower's camo path identity as higher tiers becomes far more effective at handling DDTs
~ Ninja Kiwi
  • BUFF Dark Champion projectiles now ricochet in a similar way to Quincy, 0.1s delay per bounce
  • BUFF Dark Champion cost reduced $60,000 → $55,555
  • BUFF Dark Champion camo bonus increased +1 → +2

Bug Fixes and General Changes[]

Sounds[]

When relogging into a game having Dark Champion upgrade or above:

When activating Darkshift Ability:

Gallery[]

Official artwork[]

Projectiles[]

Trivia[]

  • The Dark Champion, like Sun Temple, is a Tier 4 upgrade that allows the Super Monkey to pop bloons of any type.
  • Ignoring Master Builder's Mega Sentries, which do not directly cost money to place, 2-0-4 Dark Champion on Impoppable Mode is the most expensive tower that can be picked up by the Door Gunner MK ability for Special Poperations.
  • As of v30.0, it is the only non-Path 2 Tier 4 tower to have an ability.
  • After the price decrease to Dark Champion, it has become the only Tier 4 upgrade whose upgrade price ends in 5.
  • Coincidentally, the Impoppable price of this upgrade reminds the devil's number (66,666).


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