Riptide Champion

Riptide Champion
General Information
Game	Bloons TD 6
Tower	Mermonkey
Unlocked at	2,500 XP
Cost	$2,380 (Easy) $2,800 (Medium) $3,025 (Hard) $3,360 (Impoppable)
Activated Ability	N/A
Targeting Options	First, Last, Close, Strong
Camo Detection	Restricted (upgradable to 0-3-1)
Popology
Damage Type(s)
Energy For specific details, refer to #Attack Interactions
Statistics
Damage	TBA
Pierce	TBA
Attack Speed	TBA
Range	TBA
Status Effects	TBA
Tower Boosts	N/A
Income/Life Boosts	N/A
Path Upgrades
← Previous	Tidal Chill
← Previous	Tidal Chill
Current	Riptide Champion
Current	Riptide Champion
Next →	Arctic Knight
Next →	Arctic Knight
Path Info
Path	2
Path	2
Upgrade Tier	3
Upgrade Tier	3
[Source]

“	Mermonkey draws energy from the sea. Tridents grow in size and power as they travel, and crash with devastating force.	”
	~ In-game descripion

Riptide Champion is the third upgrade of Path 2 for the Mermonkey in Bloons TD 6. Instead of creating multiple area-of-effects from piercing through bloons, Riptide Champion's tridents directly deal damage and gradually improve in power, and generate two waves shot laterally upon expiration. The damage, projectile size and pierce of freezing waves improves as the trident travels. Additionally, Riptide Champion increases trident's pierce to 8, and causes the tridents to split into 2 wave projectiles upon expiring or impact obstacles. However, it can no longer pop Purples, as the damage type changes from Shatter to Energy. Riptide Champion’s base range also increases from 28 to 35, 35 to 43.75 when placed in water. The trident has longer projectile lifespan but a slower projectile speed.

Initially, the trident deals 4 damage, +2 Frozen damage, and 8 pierce. Continously, the damage scaling increases by 50% per second, rounded to the nearest integer, up to 2x damage, maxing out at 8 damage and +4 Frozen damage. Upon expiring or impacting obstacles, the trident splits into two freezing waves that are shot in a perpendicular spray, each wave having 8 pierce and 4 damage, but lose projectile size while travelling.

This upgrade costs $2,380 on Easy, $2,800 on Medium, $3,025 on Hard, and $3,360 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

Placeholder description

Riptide Champion becomes an expert at summoning freezing waves. His fur is now aqua, his horns and headfin are now turquoise, eyebrows also now turquoise, and the scales leading to his tailfin scale from aqua to aquamarine. Around his head, he wears a golden crown with a large light green octahedral gem in the middle. He wields a spear with a glass-like (but not transparent) arrowhead and a greyish-blue grip and a light grey base. Along the Riptide Champion's arms are long upper collars that are similar to Adora's collars on her cloak. Riptide Champion's teeth are also sharpened similarly to a shark's set of teeth.

In the upgrade portrait, Riptide Champion holds his spear as if to canoe a boat with a paddle, splashing waves around in the process, while the Riptide Champion looks slightly irritated and focusing to a subject on his right (or, in this case, the player's left side).

Crosspathing changes appearance of the Riptide Champion With Path 1 crosspathing, the color scheme gradually goes to dark blue. The Mermonkey's horns are dark blue with Trident Efficiency, and with Trident Swiftness the Mermonkey gains dark blue fur. With Path 2 crosspathing, the color scheme is mostly pink. Echosense Precision blackens Riptide Champions's eyes, his tailfin is now color pink, and the spear's arrowhead is tinted pink nearest the base. A small change is given compared to Echosense Precision when given Echosense Network, changing color of the swirls of the spear from blue to pink, and the horns have two ends each.

Riptide Champion causes tridents thrown to increase the damage and size as they move, then after the projectile expires, the Riptide Champion causes 2 wave projectiles to spawn in a perpendicular spray. The trident no longer generates "piercing prongs" of area-of-effect, instead having all its damage placed in the main trident projectile. The trident has much more pierce, and deals even more damage to Frozen Bloons, but can no longer pop Purple Bloons, as the trident's magical water waves are considered "magic", rather than a true freezing attack like those deriving from an Ice Monkey. Both the trident and the wavelets can freeze bloons.

Targeting Priorities

Riptide Champion targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. Its trident attack shoots straight movement projectiles.

• 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.

Adding Echosense Precision grants camo detection to the Mermonkey, but does not add the Camo Prioritization targeting option.

Full Popology

Statistics

Updated as of Version 44.0

Base stats

• Trident:
  • Projectile, energy type, 35 range (43.75 range if placed on water), 1.2s attack cooldown, 8 pierce, 4 damage, +2 frozen damage. Damage grows by 50% every second, for a maximum of 8 damage. Freezes bloons for 0.3 seconds on damage. Creates 2 tide splits on expiry. Projectile speed of 100, projectile lifespan of 2s.
• Tide Split:
  • Projectile, energy type, 4 damage, 8 pierce, freezes bloons for 0.3 seconds on damage.

Crosspathing interactions

• 1-3-0: Trident cooldown reduced to 1.02s.
• 2-3-0: Trident cooldown reduced to 0.804s, damage grows from 50% to 75% every second, projectile speed increased by 50%, projectile lifespan of 1.33s.
• 0-3-1: Gains camo detection, tridents now home.
• 0-3-2: Gains camo detection, tridents now home, can receive Echosense Network range buffs.

Monkey Knowledge interactions

• Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
• Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more. Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
• Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.

Attack Interactions

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Magic

Updated as of Version 44.0

Base attack(s)

• Trident:
  • TBA
  • TBA

Costs

Updated as of Version 44.0. 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-3-X)	$2,380	$2,800	$3,025	$3,360	-
Total (0-3-0)	$3,185	$3,750	$4,050	$4,500	$2,230	$2,625	$2,835	$3,150
Crosspath (1-3-0)	$3,395	$4,000	$4,320	$4,800	$2,377	$2,800	$3,024	$3,360
Crosspath (2-3-0)	$3,650	$4,300	$4,645	$5,160	$2,555	$3,010	$3,252	$3,612
Crosspath (0-3-1)	$3,355	$3,950	$4,265	$4,740	$2,349	$2,765	$2,986	$3,318
Crosspath (0-3-2)	$3,680	$4,330	$4,675	$5,195	$2,576	$3,031	$3,273	$3,637

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

Strategy

Summary

Riptide Champion takes advantage of scaling damage over projectile distance, in addition to accessing synergies with dealing more damage to already frozen bloons. At the cost of not popping Purples, the Riptide Champion excels at high damage if allowed to let the waves grow before depleting pierce of the waves. Additionally, the freezing effects allow it to have some crowd control versus bloons.

Tips

• Because Riptide Champion can receive pierce buffs from all sources, it works well with Abyss Dweller's percentage pierce buffs.
• For crosspathing, the 0-3-2 crosspath is usually better than 2-3-0, as the homing waves allow the waves to keep growing as they travel, and much of the strength of the waves is hidden in the damage scaling per second. 2-3-0 attacks much faster and grows waves faster, which works better in shorter distances where waves have little time to grow, but generally less consistent at high damage.
• As Riptide Champion cannot pop Purples, try to add towers that pop Purples, preferably from a tower that does non-magic freezing (e.g. Arctic Wind) and/or can pop Frozen (e.g. Abyss Dweller).

Version History

Balance Changes

44.0

• Released

44.1

“	While we’re not jumping into any full on balance changes, there’s a few corrections that we wanted to make for type-fixes and other intended play.	”
	~ Ninja Kiwi

• Riptide Champion split projectiles can now also Freeze Bloons

Gallery

Camo Purples blocking a 0-3-2 Riptide

Big wave

Riptide Warrior's tridents piercing Zebra Bloons

Riptide Warrior's tridents piercing White Bloons

Crosspathing (Top: Path 1, Bottom: Path 3)

Enough XP to unlock Riptide Champion

Official artwork

Upgrade portrait

Upgrade icon

Instamonkey icon

Videos

Riptide Champion, Arctic Knight, Middle Druid, 44.0

Riptide Champion's wavelets not freezing bloons

Other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
English	TBA
German	TBA
Polish	TBA

Trivia

• When first released, the Riptide upgrade costs the same as Alluring Melody.
• Arctic Knight is the successor of the Riptide Champion, which is unlike Dark Champion compared to Dark Knight. However, it could be argued that being a defender of the Arctic is more honorable than mastering the magic of summoning a mere riptide.
• Riptide Champion lacks any "id": "TridentAOE" in its game data, unlike its predecessor upgrade, and additionally the main trident projectile has a projectile behavior with an additional parameter specific to damage.
• The unique damage scaling over time mechanic that Riptide Champion uses is ScaleDamageWithTimeModel, and likewise for ScaleProjectileOverTimeModel manages the scaling projectile size.