| “ | Laser tipped shots shock bloons into popping again 1 second after being struck. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Laser Shock is the second upgrade of Path 1 for the Dartling Gunner in Bloons TD 6. This upgrade adds an electric shock status effect to the Dartling Gunner's projectiles, causing them to deal an additional 1 damage to bloons 1 second after they have been hit. In addition, bloons affected by the laser shock status effect will be dealt +1 damage from any Dartling Gunner with this upgrade. When interacting with Hydra Rocket Pods projectiles, the Laser Shock status effect only applies to the missiles themselves and not its explosions, and the missile cannot deal bonus damage to shocked bloons. Laser Shock damage (both DoT and taken damage) increases with Buckshot and above upgrades, going up to 2, 3, and 6, respectively, and Ray of Doom improves it to 20 (although its +20 bonus damage only applies to itself).
This upgrade costs $765 on Easy, $900 on Medium, $970 on Hard, and $1,080 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Overview[]
Laser Shock causes the gold emblem on the monkey's helmet to gain small square extensions either side, and the dart it holds, and fires, now bear a distinctive red hue. The artwork also depicts electricity discharging from the dart.
In-game, the darts remain red, however they now bear a distinctive white, then deep red, trail, and the status effect they apply is depicted as red electricity discharging from the bloons affected.
Laser Shock now causes all projectiles fired by the Dartling to apply the Laser Shock status effect, which deals 1 damage every 1 second, but also allows any Dartling with the Laser Shock upgrade to deal +1 damage to a bloon with this status effect. This is depicted by red electricity erratically discharging from afflicted bloons.
This status effect can stack with the variants of its higher tiers, and has a notable interaction with Hydra Rocket Pods: It will only affect the missiles themselves, not the explosions generated, and the explosions themselves cannot apply Laser Shock.
Several upgrades of the Dartling Gunner improve the DoT and extra damage taken aspects of this status effect:
- Buckshot improves it from 1 to 2.
- Bloon Area Denial System improves it from 2 to 3.
- Bloon Exclusion Zone improves it from 3 to 6.
- Ray of Doom improves it from 1 to 20, but restricts the bonus dealt damage to only be applicable to itself.
Targeting Priorities[]
Laser Shock 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 slight amounts of erratic angular deviation.
- 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 Gunner 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.
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 (2-X-X) | $765 | $900 | $970 | $1,080 | - | |||
| Total (2-0-0) | $1,740 | $2,050 | $2,215 | $2,460 | $1,218 | $1,435 | $1,551 | $1,722 |
| Crosspath (2-1-0) | $1,950 | $2,300 | $2,485 | $2,760 | $1,365 | $1,610 | $1,740 | $1,932 |
| Crosspath (2-2-0) | $2,755 | $3,250 | $3,510 | $3,900 | $1,929 | $2,275 | $2,457 | $2,730 |
| Crosspath (2-0-1) | $1,865 | $2,200 | $2,375 | $2,640 | $1,306 | $1,540 | $1,663 | $1,848 |
| Crosspath (2-0-2) | $2,885 | $3,400 | $3,670 | $4,080 | $2,020 | $2,380 | $2,569 | $2,856 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
Military Conscription, 
Advanced Logistics, 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
Summary[]
Laser Shock now causes all projectiles fired by the Dartling to apply the Laser Shock status effect, which deals 1 damage every 1 second, but rehitting bloons by any non path 3 dartling deals +1 damage.
When used as crosspath for Path 3, Laser Shock's extra damage increases to +2/+3/+6.
Tips[]
- If using this upgrade early on, it is best to buy Powerful Darts to crosspath. It also comes with the added bonus of being able to have Focused Firing. However, this path would lack camo detection.
- Note that the Faster Barrel Spin is better for Laser Cannon in general, but Powerful Darts is stronger in the save up to Laser Cannon.
- This upgrade is usually the worse crosspath for Hydra Rocket Pods because only the initial hit applies the effect. The created explosions do not apply the Laser Shock effects.
- However, note that Laser Shock does not apply this effect to the Hydra Rocket Pods' explosions. With the Laser Shock upgrade, the Dartling Gunner becomes effective at dealing extra damage versus single-target bloons.
- For Buckshot and its upgrades, Laser Shock, with its predecessor Focused Firing and improved Laser Shock damage, is roughly on par in terms of strength with the Path 2 counterpart. While Laser Shock generally provides higher raw DPS, Advanced Targeting and Faster Barrel Spin provide the useful utility of camo detection and better synergy with external buffs.
- Versus singular MOABs, such as on Round 40, 2-2-0 Dartling takes down the MOAB layer faster but struggles versus the bloons underneath due to insufficient pierce. 2-0-2 Dartling takes down the MOAB layer slower than 2-2-0, but it can almost fully solo the bloons underneath on Monkey Meadow. Other lower-tier Dartling Gunners cannot even take down the MOAB soon enough to take time to destroy the bloons underneath, specifically for the 0-2-2 Dartling.
Version History[]
Laser Shock has received a specific balance change to this crosspath, without simply referring to the Increased Accuracy upgrade.
- 22.0
- Initial release
- 38.0
Laser Shock now improves the Laser Shock damage of Buckshot and above
Gallery[]
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Official artwork[]
Status effects[]
Trivia[]
- The Laser Shock status effect is the second damage-over-time status effect in BTD6 to last for only one tick of damage, the first being Ezili's curse effect. All other forms of damage-over-time status effects last for at least two ticks (e.g. default Burny Stuff lasts 3 ticks over 3.75s by damaging bloons once every 1.25s, and Alchemist's potion lasts 2 ticks over 4.0s by damaging bloons once every 2.0s).
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