Perma-Spike

BTD6

BTDB2

Perma-Spike
General Information
Game	Bloons TD 6
Tower	Spike Factory
Unlocked at	29,500 XP
Cost	$25,500 (Easy) $30,000 (Medium) $32,400 (Hard) $36,000 (Impoppable)
Targeting Options	Normal, Close, Far, Smart
Camo Detection	Yes
Other Names	Pspike
Popology
Damage Type(s)
Sharp Camo affected On Track Spike Lobbed Throw Erratic Movement Extra Damage
Statistics
Damage	10 (sharp type)
Pierce	50 (0-x-5 spike pile) 85(1+-0-5 spike pile)
Attack Speed	Every 6.06s, x-0-5 Every 4.85s, 0-1-5 Every 3.636s, 0-2-5 4x attack speed after the start of each round for 10s
Range	42
Status Effects	N/A
Tower Boosts	N/A
Income/Life Boosts	N/A
Path Upgrades
← Previous	Deadly Spikes
← Previous	Deadly Spikes
Current	Perma-Spike
Current	Perma-Spike
Next →	Mega Massive Munitions Factory (Paragon)
Next →	Mega Massive Munitions Factory (Paragon)
Path Info
Path	3
Path	3
Upgrade Tier	5
Upgrade Tier	5
[Source]

“	High damage spikes become almost permanent.	”
	~ In-game description

Perma-Spike (sometimes referred to as Permaspike) is the fifth and final upgrade of Path 3 for the Spike Factory in Bloons TD 6. Although it produces spike piles at a significantly slower rate (from every 1.75s to every 6.06s, excluding Path 2 crosspaths), it produces much more powerful spike piles that pop up to 50 bloons per pile (85 bloons with Bigger Stacks) and deal 10 damage per spike, making it extremely powerful for stockpiling spikes. Despite the name, but in accordance with the upgrade's description, the spikes are not actually permanent. The spikes last between rounds and have a longevity of 4 rounds each or 300 seconds, whichever comes first. Additionally, its Smart Spikes 4x start-of-round speed boost is increased from 3s to 10s, to account for its very slow production rate. Unlike all other Spike Factories, spikes from the Perma-Spike are able to save state in game saves.

This upgrade costs $25,500 on Easy, $30,000 on Medium, $32,400 on Hard, and $36,000 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

Perma-Spike with some pre-placed spike piles

Perma-Spike is a much larger tower than its predecessor, with a primarily yellow color scheme, particularly for its four supports and connecting ring surrounding a grey main body; it also retains the four gears of Deadly Spikes.

The spike piles themselves are now each a short yellow base bearing four vertical spikes and a spike on each corner; the base now also bears a few rivets.

These piles turn blue with glowing yellow and white when paired with White Hot Spikes.

Perma-Spike greatly improves the damage and pierce all its spike piles, dealing 10 damage per spike and having 50 spikes per spike pile (or 85 with Bigger Stacks). However, spike piles are produced much slower, down to 6.06s without Path 2 benefits. Spike piles become larger and can now carries over up to three rounds instead of two, and last for 300 seconds, lasting up to 4 rounds or 300 seconds, whichever comes first. The spike carryover benefit has no effect on Apopalypse, but has effect on Boss Bloon Events and CT Bosses. Perma-Spike also magnifies the benefits of Smart Spikes, inheriting its start-of-round attack speed boost and extending its duration up to 10 seconds; this helps offset the tower's otherwise abysmal attack rate.

Targeting Priorities

Perma-Spike defaults on Normal targeting priority, which dispenses the spikes onto nearby bloon track in a semi-sporadical behavior. Because it already has Smart Spikes, it will also receive Close, Smart, Automatic, and Set Target.

• Normal: Spreads spikes sporadically as evenly as possible within its range.
• Close: Targets the closest region(s) of track within range.
• Smart: Targets the region of track closest to exit, switches tracks when bloons are closer on other side.
• Automatic: Targets in front of the first-most bloon, or the start of the track if no bloons are in range.
• Set Target: Targets selected region within range of the tower itself.

Full Popology

Statistics

Updated as of Version 45.0

Base stats

• Spike Pile:
  • Lobbed spike pile, sharp type, detects and deploys on nearby track, 42 range, 6.06s attack cooldown, 10 damage, 50 pierce. Lifespan of 300s or 4 rounds, whichever comes first.
• Start-of-round Boost:
  • Upon start of a round, attack 4x faster (1.515s) for 10.0s. If already affected by Start-of-round Boost, reset its duration.

Crosspathing interactions

• 1-0-5: Spike Pile pierce increased from 50 to 85
• 2-0-5: Spike Pile damage type changed from sharp to normal.
• 0-1-5: Spike Pile attack cooldown decreased from 6.06s to 4.85s, start-of-round attack cooldown decreased from 1.515s to 1.2125s.
• 0-2-5: Spike Pile attack cooldown decreased from 4.85s to 3.636s, start-of-round attack cooldown decreased from 1.2125s to 0.909s.

Attack Interactions

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Support

Updated as of Version 38.0

Base attack(s)

• Spike Pile:
  • Sharp
  • Camo Detection
  • Single Projectile
  • On Track
  • Spike
  • Lobbed Throw
  • Erratic Movement

Costs

Updated as of Version 51.0. 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-5)	$25,500	$30,000	$32,400	$36,000	-
Total (0-0-5)	$30,980	$36,450	$39,365	$43,740	$21,686	$25,515	$27,556	$30,618
Crosspath (1-0-5)	$31,660	$37,250	$40,230	$44,700	$22,162	$26,075	$28,161	$31,290
Crosspath (2-0-5)	$32,170	$37,850	$40,880	$45,420	$22,519	$26,495	$28,616	$31,794
Crosspath (0-1-5)	$31,490	$37,050	$40,015	$44,460	$22,043	$25,935	$28,011	$31,122
Crosspath (0-2-5)	$32,170	$37,850	$40,880	$45,420	$22,519	$26,495	$28,616	$31,794

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: First Last Line of Defense, Better Sell Deals

Strategy

Main article: Perma-Spike/Strategies

Summary

Perma-Spike is exceptionally powerful when very careful spending and stalling techniques are implemented, due to the nature of this tower. Spikes last extremely long, making optimization of stockpiling techniques a major necessity for maximizing the true power of Perma-Spike. The role of Perma-Spike mainly comes into play during the late-game to tank a substantial amount of bloons, working very well on maps with only one exit.

Perma-Spike relies heavily on stockpiling its spikes effectively through various means of stalling. Too little stalling and its stockpile depletes too quickly. Too much Bloons tanked at once and its stockpile depletes to dangerously low levels.

Certain synergies open up with Perma-Spike, both in terms of interactions to assist Perma-Spike and to act as a late-game leak-catcher in combination with defenses that are prone to leaks, particularly with micro-intensive options such as Corvus and Pop and Awe and/or high RBE removal towers with low uptime such as the maxed Orca. Perma-Spike works the best on maps with a single exit, such as Dark Castle and Glacial Trail, acting as the sole protector of an exit.

For Perma-Spike's buffing synergies, it benefits much from external pierce buffs, alongside simple attack speed buffs, to tank even more bloons. Berserker Brew and Stronger Stimulant provide a solid buff to its attack speed, damage, and pierce. Percentage pierce buffs such as a nearby Level 8+ Striker Jones and Abyssal Warrior.

Tips

• Perma-Spike is very effective on single-exit maps when placed near the end of the bloon track. Then, spikes will not be used up immediately, allowing spike stockpiling to slowly make the tower more and more valuable.
• The difference between the two crosspaths is generally very minimal. Without any external buffs, Bigger Stacks would grant 2% more damage output than Even Faster Production (1.7x output vs 1.667x). However, Even Faster Production scales better with flat pierce buffs. With a flat pierce buff of at least 3 (such as from Stronger Stimulant), Even Faster Production would start outputting slightly more damage than Bigger Stacks, though the difference at +3 pierce is only 0.4% output. It's also worth noting that a 1-0-5 Perma-Spike is slightly cheaper than a 0-2-5 Perma-Spike.
  • Generally, White Hot Spikes is unnecessary since Perma-Spike attacks so slow that even a single Acidic Mixture Dip can maintain full uptime if no other towers are in range, even if the Perma-Spike is Overclocked. While this is a little more expensive than White Hot Spikes, Acidic Mixture Dip also grants a +1 damage buff to MOAB Class Bloons and Ceramics on top of lead popping power, and it can also be upgraded into a Berserker Brew or Stronger Stimulant to grant even more buffs.
    • However, even though Perma-Spike spike piles are saved upon leaving and re-entering a game save, any buffs applied to the spikes are not saved. This can potentially make external sources of lead popping power such as Acidic Mixture Dip unreliable, especially in Co-Op Mode where players may need to occasionally reconnect to the server, depending on how much lag they're experiencing. This can be quite problematic on rounds with DDTs, especially if you were relying on your Perma-Spike to deal with them. In these situations, it may be worth purchasing White Hot Spikes to ensure all spikes can always pop lead.
    • White Hot Spikes may also be useful if utilizing towers that freeze bloons, such as Snowstorm, as without this upgrade, a poorly timed ability could potentially wipe out your spike pile, especially if not using the normal targeting option, which would spread out the spikes over a larger area.
    • A Monkey Intelligence Bureau is another option, though compared to White Hot Spikes, it is quite expensive.
• Overclock works exceptionally well with Perma-Spike and even more so when paired with Stronger Stimulant.
• Due to all Ceramic bloons becoming Super Ceramics past round 80, this upgrade is usually much more efficient past round 80, as regular Ceramics can cause a lot of extra pierce usage if they pop into a lot of smaller bloons.
• For Ranked Bosses, Perma-Spike formerly had a dominant role, especially against Bloonarius, Gravelord Lych, and Dreadbloon, as it can instakill bosses extremely quickly if placed not at the very spawn point of the Boss. Since Bosses now clear all projectiles on screen before starting each boss battle, Permaspike's relevancy in ranked runs is no longer extremely dominant.
  • Spike piles can only use up one pierce per frame, thus 0-2-5 is always better for optimized runs. 2-0-5 is better for more casual tier 1 Dreadbloon runs, though, as spikes lose all buffs when reloading a save.
• Getting a full stockpile from a Perma-Spike that doesn't utilize its Smart Spikes start-of-round bonus isn't super advantageous compared to one that does, but it is still worth doing large stalls to restore old spikes.
  • Assuming no speed buffs were added, without Path 2 crosspaths is roughly 49.50 spikes, 0-1-5 is roughly 61.85 spikes, and 0-2-5 is roughly 82.42 spikes.
• Abyssal Warrior's +20% pierce is a strong buff for Perma-Spike, alongside the benefit of slowing down up to MOABs and BFBs and doing decent damage to non-blimps.

Version History

Balance Changes

Overall, Perma-Spike has been nerfed heavily overall since it was first released. Initially, it was considered one of the most overpowered upgrades in the game due to the 0-2-5 Perma-Spike's capability to solo until around the early 90's when given sufficient lead-popping support, all for a very low cost. Its power was reduced drastically in Version 2.0, but remained a useful upgrade for tanking various types of bloons in the late-game. Throughout later updates, it got a few nerfs but gained a few quality-of-life buffs for Perma-Spike itself, plus steady pierce buffs for the weaker 2-0-5 crosspath.

v36.0 nerfed it with an overall 25% damage reduction through reduced pierce but increased damage, which had a side effect of making the Perma-Spike significantly worse against ceramics by spawning more children bloons with its damage, but consuming more pierce as a result, weakening the Perma-Spike's pre-freeplay potential if unsupported. This can be circumvented by giving the Perma-Spike Stronger Stimulant, and then because the alchemist also provides Acidic Mixture Dip for a total of +2 damage against ceramics, weakening ceramics with at least one point of damage causes only one pierce to be consumed and turning the nerf into a strength. Likewise, it became less effective at destroying Super Ceramics, taking more overall pierce consumption per full-health Super Ceramic. This rework was reverted in v38.0, instead favoring a bigger speed penalty with only a longer duration Smart Spikes bonus to compensate.

The above changes would eventually be reverted in v38.0, as Ninja Kiwi instead opted to nerf Perma-Spike's attack speed instead, giving an overall increase in DPS while maintaining similar damage consistency, whilst discouraging extreme stalling.

Permaspike was previously an extremely popular option against T1 Bosses (specifically Bloonarius, Lych, and Dreadbloon) for speedrunning, even after the v36.0 rework, but has since become irrelevant in v37.0 where Bosses instantly destroy projectiles upon spawning.

Permaspike got some more nerfs aimed at its crosspathing benefits, in v44.0 and v45.0.

2.0

• Perma-Spike price increased ($22,000 → $25,000)
• Perma-Spike now attacks twice as slow (3.0s → 6.0s)

8.0

• Permaspike with Bigger Stacks now has larger stacks (60 → 70; effectively now up to 700 damage per spike pile for Permaspike with Bigger Stacks).

12.0

• Perma-Spike duration decreased (350s → 300s)
• Perma-Spike price increased ($25,000 → $30,000)
• Perma Spike max rounds reduced (4 → 3)
• Perma-Spike spike piles can now be saved (i.e. on any type of game save, including Co-Op saves)

14.0

• Perma-Spike now attacks 4x as fast for the first 2.5s of a round.

21.0

• [Undocumented] Perma-Spike lifespan increased (3 → 4) by the Deadly Spikes round duration buff.

23.0

“	Like a few other towers before it, the attack speed crosspath for Spike Factory has outshined the others. We have reworked the lower Spike Factory tiers to distribute this power more evenly while keeping high tier factories at a similar level of power.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• [Undocumented] 0-1-5 Perma-Spike attack cooldown increased (3.6s → 4.8s)
• [Undocumented] 0-2-5 Perma-Spike attack cooldown increased (2.7s → 3.36s)
• Note: Perma-Spike's base attack speed remained the same, which meant the attack speed crosspaths were nerfed.

23.2

• Base Perma-Spike attacks faster (6.0s → 4.85s)
• 0-1-5 Perma-Spike attack cooldown decreased (4.8s → 3.88s)
• 0-2-5 Perma-Spike attack cooldown decreased (3.36s → 2.72s)

24.0

“	[...] In addition, Permaspike's neglected crosspath has had a small pierce increase as currently their only real use is under custom challenge rules.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• 1-0-5 Perma-Spike pile pierce increased again (70 → 80)
• [Undocumented] Affected by Smart target priority changes from obtaining the Smart Spikes upgrade

28.0

“	Some minor changes to a few upgrades on Spike Factory evening out some aspects of it.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• 1-0-5 Permaspike pierce increased from 80 to 90

36.0

“	[...] Permaspike, while admittedly not often utilized to its max potential, has sat in a dominant high end position for a long time so we are shifting it away from such high pierce into more damage per pierce.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• 0-x-5 Permaspike pierce reduced from 50 to 25
• 1-0-5 Permaspike pierce reduced from 90 to 45
• Permaspike damage increased from 10 to 15

38.0

“	[...] Finally, we enjoyed the hard hitting nerf to Permaspike’s early game, but admittedly this change didn’t really change much of anything for its endgame power while impacting pre r80 rounds far more, so we’re redoing the nerf into a pure attack speed nerf along with an increased benefit to the start of round rate buff to reduce the necessity in playing slowly with it	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• Base Perma-Spike pierce increased from 25 to 50
• 1-0-5 Perma-Spike pierce increased from 45 to 90
• Perma-Spike damage decreased from 15 to 10
• x-0-5 Permaspike attack rate reduced from 4.85s to 6.0625s
  • 0-1-5: 3.38s → 4.85s
  • 0-2-5: 2.72s → 3.40s
• Perma-Spike's start-of-round attack speed duration increased (2.5s → 10s)

44.0

“	Spike Factory is currently overperforming on every path, and as it also happens to have one very dominant crosspath choice we’ve opted to nerf that crosspath as an overall nerf to every path. [...]	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Even Faster Production

• 0-2-5 Perma-Spike attack cooldown increased from 3.3936s to 3.6360s

45.0

“	[...] Permaspike is seeing a small crosspath fix, as the x2x rate change threw this balance out.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to 1-0-5 Permaspike

• 1-0-5 Permaspike pierce reduced from 90 to 85

47.0

“	After much deliberation we still don’t particularly feel like making any large overhauls to the popular Permaspike upgrade right now, so we have decided that in order to follow through on this vision the best course of action would be to not do anything. This lack of attempt to make any change should in theory prevent any alterations from occurring to this particular upgrade in this update and thus leaves Permaspike extremely similar as to how it currently is. For now.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• Perma-Spike remains unchanged

Bug Fixes and General Changes

21.0

• Description changed from "Spikes become almost permanent." to "High damage spikes become almost permanent."
  • Undocumented in Patch Notes.

Extra Notes (Version History)

• If the v36.0 Perma-Spike's spike pile tanks a healthy Super Ceramic, compared to a pre-v36.0 Perma-Spike's spike pile it will take:
  • Super Ceramics: 5 hits, 4 for the outer shell and 1 for the Rainbow, rather than 7 hits total; for a non-crosspathed spike pile, the v36.0 variant consumes 20% of a spike pile and the pre-v36.0 variant consumes 14% of a spike pile. If AMD + Stronger Simulant is available, consumes 4 pierce and 14.28% of a spike pile. with v36.0, and 6 and 11.32% pre-v36.0.
  • Fortified Super Ceramics: 9 hits, 8 for the outer shell and 1 for the Rainbow, rather than 13 hits total; for a non-crosspathed spike pile, the v36.0 variant consumes 36% of a spike pile and the pre-v36.0 variant consumes 26% of a spike pile. If AMD + Stronger Simulant is available, consumes 8 pierce and 28.57% of a spike pile. with v36.0, and 11 and 20.75% pre-v36.0.
• Abyssal Warrior + 1-0-5 Perma-Spike in 45.0 would still have less pierce than in 44.0, as the +5% extra percentage pierce via Abyssal Warrior (+15% to +20%) is less than the flat -5 pierce loss to 1-0-5 Perma-Spike. This is also the case with Abyss Dweller (+5% to +10%) but not for Lord of the Abyss (+30% to +40%).
  • 1-0-5 Perma-Spike + Abyss Dweller: 94.5 (90 * 1.05) → 93.5 (85 * 1.1)
  • 1-0-5 Perma-Spike + Abyssal Warrior: 103.5 (90 * 1.15) → 102 (85 * 1.2)
  • 1-0-5 Perma-Spike + Lord of the Abyss: 117 (90 * 1.3) → 119 (85 * 1.4)

Gallery

In-game model

Permaspike tower producing normal spikes

Perma-Spike with the White Hot Spikes upgrade

3 Perma-Spikes on Co-Op, one with 2-0-5

Raw Perma-Spike versus Ceramics pre-36.0, popping them into Rainbows in one hit each

Raw Perma-Spike versus Fortified Ceramics pre-36.0, popping them into Rainbows in two hits each

Permaspike popping Ceramics into Greens with 15 damage, v36.x

2-0-5 Perma-Spike spike pile coming out

Permaspike with Set Target

Official artwork

Upgrade portrait

Upgrade icon

Instamonkey icon

Projectiles

Permaspike projectile

"White Hot Permaspike" projectile

Videos

Spike Factory round lifespan

Proof that Perma-Spike spikes last 4 rounds (tested on 26.0)

2-0-5 Tack Zone, 0-0-5 Permaspike, 2-0-5 Permaspike, Version 35.3

2-0-5 and 0-0-5 Permaspike pierce consumptions versus Reds, 35.3

Trivia

• Contrary to popular belief, the Perma-Spike does not have a cap on the number of spikes, or a spike pile limit. The only limit is from the spikes decaying.
• Between Version 2.0 and 11.2, a 0-2-5 can achieve a spike pile that can store around 65,000 pops worth of spikes if allowed to create a full stack.
• Contrary to popular belief, x-0-5 Permaspike did not have the same attack speed as x-0-4 Deadly Spikes in v1.0 at the game's launch. The attack cooldown actually dropped from 2.2 seconds to 3.0 seconds, later to be nerfed to the current value of 6.0 seconds.
  • Interestingly enough, before Overclock became nerfed in Version 14.0, activating the Overclock ability onto a Perma-Spike would cause the Perma-Spike to attack at the same rate as before the pre-2.0 nerf, as the former +100% attack speed bonus balances out the halved attack speed nerf to Perma-Spike.
• Although Perma-Spike was not specifically stated to be buffed, it got indirectly buffed by the Deadly Spikes round lifespan buff by +1 round.
• Prior to the Overclock reworks, a 0-2-5 Perma-Spike where the 0-2-3 Spike Factory portion was discounted by two Monkey Commerce villages would allow Overclock to last 45 seconds instead of 30 seconds. This strategy was used popularly by other players on CHIMPS, but this no longer works as of Version 21.0 and later because of the reworks.
• The Version 23.0 Spike Factory attack speed overhaul has improved Path 1 crosspathing while retaining viability for 0-2-5. So overall, this is a buff to the opposite crosspath. Similar occurs for Super Mines.
  • Ninja Kiwi addressed that Permaspike was bugged to not inherit the base Spike Factory speed buff, so it did not actually attack every 4.77s without Path 2 crosspaths. In that case, it nerfed the 0-2-5 unexpectedly. This was fixed on Version 23.2, but to 4.85s instead of what calculationally should be 4.77s, although this was likely to balance out the 0-2-5 attack speed back to what it was formerly.
    • Mathematically, 0-1-5 should have received an attack cooldown of 3.82s, and for 0-2-5 it should have been 2.67s.
    • So technically speaking, the 0-2-5 crosspath is still overall nerfed, albeit just by 0.02s, which generally speaking makes little difference to its overall stockpiling power.
    • If the 0-2-5 Perma-Spike attack speed was the basis for the Perma-Spike's attack cooldown, where 0-2-5 would be kept as 2.7s, 0-1-5 would have an attack cooldown of 3.86s, and x-0-5 would be 4.82s. The above theoretical calculation is for the basis of buffing the non-Path-2 Perma-Spike based off the general Spike Factory attack speed buff.
• The pierce of the 1-0-5 Perma-Spike crosspath has been buffed for a total of 3 times, and it always received +10 pierce on each update it was buffed. The pierce buffs, however, were changed drastically in 36.0 (but reverted in 38.0) due to the base Perma-Spike pierce nerfs, although the proportional pierce increase remains similar.