| “ | Devastating explosions pop 7 layers of any Bloon type. Increases Burny Stuff damage further. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
The Big One is the fourth upgrade of Path 1 for the Mortar Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It increases the blast radius (38 to 58 for main explosion, 19 to 29 for the stunwave and 57 to 87 for the shockwave), damage of the main explosions from 3 to 8, pierce of all AoE effects from 45 to 85, and its stunwaves stun bloons for 0.75s instead of 0.5s. Shockwaves can affect Black Bloon properties regardless of upgrades, but the primary explosion cannot. Shockwaves deal 2 bloon-unpenetrating damage, plus another +1 damage versus Ceramics. Shockwave can also affect DDTs if visible. With Burny Stuff, the damage per tick increases from 2 to 7, and retains a burn rate of every 0.625s for 1.875 seconds.
This upgrade costs $5,525 on Easy, $6,500 on Medium, $7,020 on Hard, and $7,800 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Overview[]
The Big One creating very large explosions that deal 7-9 damage to Ceramics (7 with main explosion, 2 with shockwave)
The Big One upgrades the mortar cannon into a much bigger mortar cannon that shoots black artillery shells, presumably a nuclear-infused shell. The mortar cannon is yellow with thin green bands, and the mortar cannon has a very thick and wide barrel. At the front and back of the barrel, radioactive symbols appear on both sides. The operator now wears a full jumpsuit, patterned black with a wide yellow stripe (wide red stripe with 4-0-2 crosspath) at the center of it. Aside from the pattern, this jumpsuit is very similar to Glue Hose, which also has a pair of green lenses for the eyes. It continues to wear the same gloves as Shell Shock. In the official upgrade portrait, the operator is looking ahead after launching a shell from the mortar cannon.
As “The Big One”, it increases the power of its explosives even further. It increases its blast radius, damage and pierce, of both the main blast and shockwave, and also increases shockwave Ceramic damage. When crosspathed with Burny Stuff, the burn damage deals significantly more damage per tick, and retaining the same tick rate as 3-0-2 Shell Shock.
Targeting Priorities[]
Mortar Monkey has only one target priority, "Set Target". This allows the Mortar Monkey to land shells within anywhere inside the target reticle. Tapping on the "Set Target" button prompts the player to change the target position of where the Mortar Monkey will land its shells. By default, once the Mortar Monkey is bought, the Mortar Monkey's target reticle is placed near the start of the first bloon track.
If Striker Jones's Level 7+ Target Focus ability is activated, all Mortar Monkeys are automatically set to Follow Touch / Follow Mouse temporarily, unless manually re-targeted via Set Target, and snap back to their old Set Target option once the ability is finished.
Full Popology[]
- Updated as of Version 41.2
- Base stats
- Explosion:
- Lobbed projectile, explosion type, targets at a custom-aimed location with deviation of 8, 0.5s deployment cooldown, 2.0s attack cooldown, 58 blast radius, 8 damage, 85 pierce. Upon expiry, create Stunwave and Shockwave.
- Stunwave:
- 29 blast radius, 85 pierce, stuns bloons for 0.5s, does not affect Black bloons or MOAB-class bloons.
- Shockwave:
- Burst, normal type, 87 blast radius, 85 pierce, 2 bloon-unpenetrating damage plus +1 Ceramic damage, cannot affect bloons within half of the radius.
- Crosspathing interactions
- 4-1-0: Explosion attack cooldown reduced from 2.0s to 1.5s
- 4-2-0: Explosion attack cooldown reduced from 1.5s to 1.08s.
- 4-0-1: Target deviation of Explosion reduced from 18 to 8.
- 4-0-2: Explosion inflicts a Burn status effect that deals 7 damage per 0.625s for up to 1.875s.
- Monkey Knowledge Interactions
Extra Burny Stuff: Napalm pops Bloons every second instead of every 1.5 seconds.- Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more.
- Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
Attack Interactions[]
 |
WIP Beginning to add more and more into this section as time goes past |
- See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Military
- Updated as of Version 36.2
- Base attack(s)
- Explosion:
- Explosion
- Area of Effect
- Full Range
- Erratic Movement
- Extra Damage (8)
- Shockwave (stun):
- Normal
- Burst (source: Explosion)
- Area of Effect
- Erratic Movement
- No Damage
- Stun (duration: 0.75s)
- Shockwave (damage):
- Normal
- Burst (source: Explosion)
- Area of Effect
- Erratic Movement
- Extra Damage (2)
- Extra Damage to Ceramics (+1)
- Cannot Penetrate Multiple Layers
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 (4-X-X) | $5,525 | $6,500 | $7,020 | $7,800 | - | |||
| Total (4-0-0) | $7,775 | $9,150 | $9,880 | $10,980 | $5,443 | $6,405 | $6,916 | $7,686 |
| Crosspath (4-1-0) | $8,030 | $9,450 | $10,205 | $11,340 | $5,621 | $6,615 | $7,144 | $7,938 |
| Crosspath (4-2-0) | $8,455 | $9,950 | $10,745 | $11,940 | $5,919 | $6,965 | $7,522 | $8,358 |
| Crosspath (4-0-1) | $7,945 | $9,350 | $10,095 | $11,220 | $5,562 | $6,545 | $7,067 | $7,854 |
| Crosspath (4-0-2) | $8,370 | $9,850 | $10,635 | $11,820 | $5,859 | $6,895 | $7,445 | $8,274 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
Military Conscription, 
Advanced Logistics, 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
Summary[]
The Big One is a rather expensive tower, but it is a good option for dealing big damage to grouped bloons, as well as a fair amount of damage to early MOABs. It is mostly used on maps where global range crowd control is required, or if planning to purchase The Biggest One later on in the game. Compared to Artillery Battery, which is better against MOAB-class, The Big One is far superior against grouped regular bloons, and particularly Ceramics on pre-freeplay rounds.
Crosspathing choice for The Big One depends on its long-term role. Adding the Rapid Reload crosspath lets the Mortar create explosions at a faster rate, damaging and stunning bloons more often and simply dealing more damage per second. However, Burny Stuff increases The Big One's raw DPS, having a significant effect against dense groups of bloons touched by its napalm because the damage-over-time from the Burny Stuff crosspath can quickly disintegrate affected bloons. Both crosspaths favor supports and proper positioning in order to maximize their true damage potentials.
Tips[]
- The Big One is a great option for midgame due to its cheap price. It is mainly specialized against bloons, and tends to be good on Rounds like 63, 76 and 78.
- Due to its bloon specialisation it is highly recommended to bring other DPS with decent MOAB popping power such as Arcane Spike or Quincy.
- During Round 81+, when superceramics begin to spawn, it stops being a solo DPS tower. While retaining passable damage its role shifts towards that of stalling superceramics with its stun.
- Infinite range, being able to negate Line of Sight, and maneuverability are some notable benefits of using The Big One. It benefits especially on maps with large rounded bends such as Moon Landing or Spillway.
- With the Mortar Monkey reworks on Version 21.0, 28.0, and 30.0, 4-2-0 will have an easier time hitting bloons, as well as applying stuns with more frequency; however, 4-0-2 will have a great DPS advantage when against ceramics, or a dense clump of bloons.
- The incapability for the main explosion to pop Black and Zebra Bloons, in addition to the shockwave popping only 1 layer despite dealing 2 damage, makes The Big One unreliable against explosive-immune layers unless supported with Striker Jones.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
The Big One has overall been buffed, attributed the price decrease and increased blast radius. It received a damage buff in Version 30.0 to improve its bloon-popping power in competition to Artillery Battery, and also received various burning buffs in the past to make the 4-0-2 crosspath actually viable. It was buffed again in 37.0 to account for the dominance of 4-0-2 crosspath for damage over general stunning support.
- 7.0
- The Big One cost reduced ($10,000 → $8,000).
- The Big One blast radius increased.
- The Big One will now (correctly) damage DDTs when given camo detection.
- 21.0
| “ | Mortar's Faster Reload feels like a 'required' as a crosspath with Burny Stuff never scaling well on any path but its own. We like choices not requirements so to counter this we have made Burny Stuff scale with top-path damage & shifted a small amount of the speed from Faster Reload onto the base mortar and reduced base accuracy considerably. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Explosion random deviation radius increased (18 → 30).
- Attack speed without Path 2 upgrades increased (2.2s → 2.0s).
- Attack speed with Faster Reload increased (1.54s → 1.5s).
- Attack speed with Rapid Reload decreased (1.07s → 1.08s).
- 4-0-2 The Biggest One's Burny Stuff effect deals more damage (1 → 3).
- 22.0
- Reverted random deviation radius change.
- 28.0
- 4-0-2 indirectly affected by Burny Stuff rework, increasing tick rate and total damage of the improved burn damage
- 30.0
| “ | Mortar top path feels too weak for the lead up to the Tier 5, so it along with the T5 have had some general number increases. Additionally the 302 crosspath has failed to ever see a great deal of use compared to much faster firing, to make it easier to to use up power from the DoT this path will now burn through faster | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- The Big One main explosion damage increased (5 → 7)
- Burny Stuff damage over time increased from 3 → 5 when used as a Big One crosspath
- 4-0-2 The Big One napalm burns twice as fast but also lasts twice as short
- [undocumented] 4-0-2 The Big One napalm with Extra Burny Stuff burns faster (1.0s → 0.375s)
- 33.0
- The Big One shockwave gains +1 Ceramic damage
- 37.0
| “ | As the Rapid Reload crosspath has actually fallen behind in value compared to Burny Stuff for top path Mortars we want to try a slight stun duration increase as this buffs the base path with a larger benefit to Rapid Reload mortars as a stalling option. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- The Big One stun duration non-MOABs increased 0.5s → 0.75s
- 41.0
| “ | Such a heavily explosive based tower upgrade to ignore its explosive weakness on every path didn’t sit right, some of the Normal damage type on top path is now trading in to make it stronger in other ways. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- The Big One damage increased from 7 to 8
- The Big One shockwave damage increased from 1 to 2
- The Big One cost reduced from $8000 to $6500
- The Big One main center explosion damage type changed from Normal to Explosion. Does not affect secondary explosions. Also affects The Biggest One.
- 4-0-2 The Big One's Burny Stuff damage increased from 5 to 7
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
- 21.0
- Description changed from "Devastating explosions pop 5 layers of bloon." to "Devastating explosions pop 5 layers of bloon, plus increases Burny Stuff damage further."
- 31.0
- Corrected "5" to "7" to accommodate new description for the Version 30.0 Burny stats
- 39.0
- Changed description from "Devastating explosions pop 7 layers of bloon, plus increases Burny Stuff damage further." to "Devastating explosions pop 7 layers of any Bloon type. Increases Burny Stuff damage further."
Extra Notes (Version History)[]
- Although Version 30.0 buffed The Big One's damage, the description was not corrected until version 31.0.
- Version 41.0 did not update the upgrade description for The Big One after increasing damage from 7 to 8 and removing black-popping for the primary explosion.
Gallery[]
Official artwork[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- The artwork for The Big One does not feature the radioactive symbol on the thick mortar barrel, but the in-game model does.
- In the game's files, the upgrade icon for The Biggest One is named "TheBIgOneUpgradeIcon.png" with a capital l - possibly a typo.
- The upgrade icon for The Big One shows destroyed parts of a red, blue, green and zebra bloon, and fortified bands flying off from the explosion. Not only is both the pink and white/black layer missing, but fortified zebra bloons both do not exist in BTD6, and would not be able to be popped by a single explosion from The Big One, as it deals only 7 damage. While the Big One was buffed to fully pop a regular zebra bloon, taking exactly 7 damage, the fortification removal is inaccurate.
- Unlike BTD5, The Big One comes with secondary shockwaves, gained via Shell Shock, which stun bloons in the epicenter and damage bloons further out.
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