| “ | Pop and Awe Ability: Rains explosions over the whole screen, popping and immobilizing all bloons for a few seconds. | ” |
| ~ BTD6 description |
Pop and Awe is the final upgrade of Path 2 for the Mortar Monkey in BTD6. It grants the Mortar Monkey an ability to stun bloons and blimps, excluding BADs, at 1-second intervals 8 times during approximately 8 seconds, with bloons only moving for very short time in between. During the ability, all bloons are damaged at a rate of 20 damage per second. Cooldown for the ability is 60 seconds. It also grants the Mortar Monkey +10 damage to stunned bloons with the main attack.
It costs $25,500 on Easy, $30,000 on Medium, $32,400 on Hard, and $36,000 on Impoppable.
Appearance
Pop and Awe has a commander look to it, with a monkey saluting as the mortar shells get shot. The three mortars are now displayed in a line instead of a triangle position. The two lines on the mortars also look a lot bigger and sightly brighter compared to the Artillery Battery. The monkey does not have many changes, however, as only his hat is now white and the super thin yellow rim on the Artillery Battery's sleeves is gone.
Strategy
Summary
Pop and Awe is generally a mediocre tower due to the fact that many cheaper alternatives exist. While not able to completely stun bloons, MOAB Glue and Bloon Sabotage are much cheaper than Pop and Awe and still provide invaluable support. Furthermore, multiple MOAB Glues and Bloon Sabotages can be placed for greater effectiveness than an 8 second stun. Icicle Impale also offers far more damage and consistent support at the cost of global effect, although still at a high pierce value of 30. Overall, Pop and Awe is outclassed by the aforementioned options.
Tips
- When paired with Striker Jones, Pop and Awe makes an excellent global stun tower. This will cause MOAB-class bloons to be stunned for much longer than 10 seconds, which is very useful in dire emergencies.
- In gamemodes where selling is possible, selling the Pop and Awe and buying a new one shortens the ability cooldown, providing an interesting usage of the Pop and Awe tower.
Version History (BTD6)
- 11.0
Pop and Awe ability damage increased (2 -> 10)
- 12.0
- Pop and Awe damage per second during ability increased from 10 to 20
- Pop and Awe cost reduced ($33k --> $30k)
- 17.0
- Now deal +10 damage to stunned bloons with its base attack
Gallery
Trivia
- This upgrade is currently the second Tier 5 upgrade that grants an ability, after Special Poperations.
- The Mortar Monkey is the second tower that has ever had an upgrade path with only tier 5 having an ability, the first one being Soulbind for the Wizard Monkey.
- The global explosions animation of Pop and Awe ability is the same animation as the Bomb Blitz ability.
- The ability activation sound effect is a high-pitched bleep sound (alongside explosive shell sounds), possibly to denote the pressing of a handheld radio button.
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