| “ | Spike Storm ability: Shoots out a thick layer of spikes over the entire track. | ” |
| ~ In-game description |
Spike Storm is the fourth upgrade for Path 2 for the Spike Factory in Bloons TD 6. It grants an ability that produces a total of 200 piles over every lane on screen, evenly shot within the span of 1s. Unlike most attacks, the Spike Storm ability cannot be improved by attack speed buffs due to its ability attack internally having a speed cap of 0.005s, the default ability attack speed. Just like MOAB SHREDR, the previous upgrade, all spikes from this Spike Factory including those from the ability will deal +7 damage to MOAB-class bloons, inflicting 8 damage to them per spike. Cooldown for this ability is 50 seconds, and each spike pile spawned from the ability lasts for up to 2 rounds and has random lifespan, from 9s to 11s.
Spike Storm ability has a few special interactions with crosspathing. Bigger Stacks increases the pierce of each spike by +5, and White Hot Spikes allows it to damage Frozen and Lead. Long Reach increases the lifespan of the ability spikes by 100% (from 9-11s to 18-22s). Smart Spikes makes the Spike Storm ability only target active lanes.
This upgrade costs $5,100 on Easy, $6,000 on Medium, $6,480 on Hard, and $7,200 on Impoppable.
Description[]
Overview[]
Spike Storm activating its eponymous activated ability
This upgrade removes the two rectangular protrusions from the side, resulting in an tapering cylindrical shape. It loses its white three-tack decal on its side. The black opening becomes a black-gray swirl, it gains two curved lime-colored openings on its side, and four circular vents are situated at its base.
Crosspathing with path 1 first adds a red rim around the main spike port, then paints the entire factory red; the spike piles are also visibly denser, then white-hot. Crosspathing with path 2 paints most of the lower body blue, with a lighter shade of blue along the side facing the screen, then adds two light grey gears either side of the main port.
Spike Storm gains the Spike Storm ability, which produces 200 spike piles over the course of 1 second, distributing them evenly along the entire track, with a cooldown of 45 seconds. These spike piles have all the properties of the normal piles it launches with its main attack, including benefits from Bigger Stacks and White Hot Spikes, except for lasting only 9-11 seconds or between rounds. Spikes come out of the spout and simply travel to their respective locations on the lanes, not harming bloons until they reach the track.
Long Reach increases the ability spike pile lifespan by 100%, and Smart Spikes causes ability spikes to only target active lanes.
Activated Abilities[]
- See also: Activated Abilities (BTD6)#Spike Storm
Spike Storm Ability
Spike Storm produces spikes around the whole screen at 200 spike piles per second for 1 second. Unlike most abilities, Spike Storm spikes cannot be buffed by attack speed bonuses. The 0-4-2 Spike Storm crosspath is special in that its ability can benefit by targeting only paths with active lanes. Ability spikes last for an average of 10 seconds, or 20 with Long Reach. As a duration-based ability, the Spike Storm ability cannot be re-activated on the same Spike Storm until the duration has ended. Spike Storm ability has a cooldown of 50 seconds.
The Spike Storm Ability can gain reduced cooldowns from 
Global Ability Cooldowns (Monkey Knowledge), Abilitized (Relic Knowledge), and the global Energizer buff. Its ability can be reset with Geraldo's Rejuv Potion.
Targeting Priorities[]
Spike Storm defaults on Normal targeting priority, which dispenses the spikes onto nearby bloon track in a semi-sporadical behavior. If given Smart Spikes, it will also receive Close, Far, and Smart.
- Normal: Targets spike piles in a somewhat sporadical way, spreading spikes as evenly as possible within its range.
- Close: Targets the closest region(s) of track within range.
- Far: Targets the furthest region(s) of track within range.
- Smart: Prioritizes the track with the Bloon the farthest through it, then targets the spot on that track closest to the exit.
Spike Storm's ability is targeted across the whole screen and on the track. With 0-4-2, the tracks targeted are reduced to only the active lanes.
Full Popology[]
Statistics[]
- Updated as of Version 44.0
- Base stats
- Spike Pile:
- Lobbed spike pile, sharp type, detects and deploys on nearby track, 34 range, 1.05s attack cooldown, 1 damage, 7 bonus MOAB-class damage (8 MOAB-class damage), 5 pierce. Lifespan of 50s.
- Ability stats
- Spike Storm Ability:
- 50s cooldown, 16.6667s initial cooldown. When activated, activate Storm Spike Pile for 3s duration.
- Storm Spike Pile:
- Lobbed spike pile, sharp type, detects and deploys on all available track, infinite range, 0.005s non-buffable attack cooldown, 1 damage, 7 bonus MOAB-class damage (8 MOAB-class damage), 5 pierce, spike pile lifespan of 9-11s.
- Crosspathing interactions
- 1-4-0: Pierce of Spike Pile and Storm Spike Pile increased from 5 to 10.
- 2-4-0: Damage type of Spike Pile and Storm Spike Pile changed from sharp to normal.
- 0-4-1: Lifespan Spike Pile increased from 50s to 100s, and lifespan of Storm Spike Pile increased by 100% (18s-22s).
- 0-4-2: At the start of a round, Spike Pile attack is 4x faster (0.245s) for 3s, does not affect Storm Spike Pile. Storm Spike Pile only targets currently active lanes.
Attack Interactions[]
- See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Support
- Updated as of Version 39.0
- Base attack(s)
- Spike Pile
Normal- Camo Detection
- Single Projectile
- On Track
- Spike
- Lobbed Throw
- Erratic Movement
- Extra Damage to Blimps (+7)
- Abilities
- Storm Spike Pile
- Normal
- Camo Detection
- On Track
- Spike
- Lobbed Throw
- Beyond Range
- Erratic Movement
- Extra Damage to Blimps (+7)
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-4-X) | $5,100 | $6,000 | $6,480 | $7,200 | - | |||
| Total (0-4-0) | $9,265 | $10,900 | $11,775 | $13,080 | $6,486 | $7,630 | $8,243 | $9,156 |
| Crosspath (1-4-0) | $9,945 | $11,700 | $12,640 | $14,040 | $6,962 | $8,190 | $8,848 | $9,828 |
| Crosspath (2-4-0) | $10,455 | $12,300 | $13,290 | $14,760 | $7,319 | $8,610 | $9,303 | $10,332 |
| Crosspath (0-4-1) | $9,390 | $11,050 | $11,935 | $13,260 | $6,573 | $7,735 | $8,355 | $9,282 |
| Crosspath (0-4-2) | $9,730 | $11,450 | $12,365 | $13,740 | $6,811 | $8,015 | $8,656 | $9,618 |
This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: 
First Last Line of Defense, 
Better Sell Deals
Strategy[]
Summary[]
Spike Storm is a powerful option for covering spikes across the screen for widespread damage. Due to inheriting the properties of MOAB SHREDR, which allows it to deal increased damage to MOAB-class bloons, its ability is a good option for severely damaging small groups of weaker MOAB-class. Although most effective at breaking down MOAB-class layers, it still serves a purpose as an emergency stopper against leaking bloons. The Spike Storm ability is stronger versus normal bloons compared to MOAB SHREDR, but it is not a fully reliable option for handling them.
The main use for Spike Storm is its incredible power at breaking down MOAB-class bloons, most especially on rounds where the main issues are spaced blimps. Both crosspathed Spike Storm options are equally viable versus singular BADs in their own right, with the 2-4-0 being more effective overall, but 0-4-2 excelling better against the BAD on non-simultaneous multi-lane maps due to the Spike Factory funneling all its ability spikes onto the BAD lane. When paired with Bigger Stacks and White Hot Spikes, the Spike Storm's main strength comes from countering DDT layers and countering the DDT offspring of singular BADs, provided that other defenses handle all other bloon types so that its spikes do not waste on much weaker bloons, as well as for handling singular BADs themselves.
Tips[]
- It is usually recommended to go for Path 1 crosspathing, as the extra spikes and Lead-popping power typically outweigh the benefits of increased spike lifespan and early-round speed boost. However, adding Smart Spikes allows the ability to only target active lanes, which is useful on maps like Chutes, Muddy Puddles, and Bloody Puddles, but this special interaction will not work on maps with only simultaneous lanes, such as #Ouch or Cargo. With Workshop, this map should be taken with extra caution when using 0-4-2.
- Certain maps are very suitable for utilizing 0-4-2 Spike Storm's directed spike storms against MOAB-class bloons. These include, but are not limited to: Chutes, Bazaar, High Finance, Infernal, Bloody Puddles, Muddy Puddles, and Ravine. The directedness of 0-4-2 Spike Storm is also affected by Adora's Temple, but only very insignificantly.
- 0-4-2 Spike Storm lane targeting has strange interactions with Workshop.
- In Version 23.0, the 0-4-2 Spike Storm ability went to 90% MOAB chute and 10% bloon path.
- Starting from Version 24.0, the 0-4-2 Spike Storm ability now targets the entire main conveyor and the blimp chute, but still have a large enough bias towards the chute to still be good.
- 0-4-2 Spike Storm ability can never target on track extensions, so that can be a detriment in some cases.
- 2-4-0 Spike Storm is useful for countering DDTs and inflicting large damage against singular BADs.
- Caution should be made with 0-4-2 Spike Storm on alternating lane maps versus Boss Bloon Events, CT Boss rulesets, and Boss Rush, as the 0-4-2 Spike Storm only considers which lanes are actively sending bloons, not which lanes do have bloons. Hence, the Spike Storm ability may fail to hit the lane containing the Boss Bloon in some cases, and notably on the map Water Park where the T1 Boss spawns on the pool instead of the hydroslide where the natural bloons spawn.
- Alchemist buffs without Permanent Brew are ineffective for boosting the Spike Storm ability, as each individual spike dispensed during the ability deducts shot counts, thereby not adding much boost to any of its stats overall due to using up the Alch buffs too quickly. At best, up to 50 spikes out of the 200 spikes will receive the Alch buffs, and even worse with using up Acidic Mixture Dips.
- The Spike Storm ability is more effective on shorter maps and maps with no multiple entries and/or exits, as the spike storms are densely packed. This makes it a very viable option for maps like #Ouch or Geared.
- Spike Storm and its ability is weak against Super Ceramics, so use this with caution in the late-game.
- External damage buffs such as Pat Fusty's Rallying Roar, Gwendolin's Heat It Up, and Benjamin's Biohack are extremely potent on Spike Storms, as the increase in damage per individual spike will make each spike pile far more powerful.
- Spike Storm's rate of dispersal of storm spikes is completely unaffected by Time Stop. It will still produce at the same rate and for the same duration.
- In terms of usage against Boss Bloons, Spike Storm is an effective method for high burst damage. It particularly stands out when beating Gravelord Lych, as it and its minions are MOAB-class, thereby optimizing its own MOAB-class damage bonus, and similarly so for Reality Warper Phayze's relatively low RBE and evasion of Phayze's anti-Camo and tower slowdown strengths, but is weakest against Vortex. However, it can be somewhat map-dependent (shorter maps with a preference for single-lane maps) and has inconsistent damage, especially while on cooldown. It does pair well with Geraldo's Rejuv Potion if spamming Spike Storm abilities, and also buffs from a maximized Support Sacrifices True Sun God.
- Spike Storm's total damage to single-target blimps varies depending on map. Generally speaking, the optimum for Spike Storm is a single-entry-single-exit map with a short distance and maximum coverage of nearby areas of lane where the blimp(s) can hit. Blons is a perfect example.
- Assuming Hard Mode (bloons move +15% faster than on Medium), when tested on Town Center, the amount of singular BAD damage a single 1-4-0 Spike Storm ability can perform is roughly 3500 damage if the spikes only target a straight region of track without much track overlap nearby the hitbox of the affected blimp(s). If there are a sufficient amount of track overlaps, this can average about 4500 damage. For 0-4-1, rough damage is about 2500, or about 4000 if there are sufficient amounts of track overlaps.
Bugs[]
- Current
- [32.2] 0-4-2 Spike Storm does not benefit from Smart Spikes' start-of-round benefit even though it was buffed in Version 29.0 to benefit from the start-of-round benefit and have no attack speed cap on its ability during the start of a round. It is related to a bug fix in Version 32.2 that patched an exploit that allowed the start-of-round benefit to be applied to other towers.
- Patched
None (so far)
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
Spike Storm is widely used as a widespread anti-MOAB-class option, even in the initial release of the game. It received some noteworthy buffs to push the Spike Factory's popularity outside of just Perma-Spike. Crosspathing benefits for its weaker 0-4-2 crosspath have also been implemented to compete with the traditionally popular 1-4-0 and 2-4-0 crosspaths. Version 27.0 nerfed Spike Storm ability to no longer become affected by attack speed buffs of any kind, which greatly reduced its synergy with any speed-boosting upgrades or even with the buffed Smart Spikes upgrade's start-of-round benefit, though the crosspath benefit was added back in v29.0, then subsequently removed in v32.2 and never made a return again. Spike Storm had its bonus blimp damage buffed to compensate for a removal of an interaction involving "deathzoning" the spikes from the spout, but also got nerfed in cooldown and base duration later on. However, in the early 40s updates, Spike Storm has been nerfed for its very strong MOAB-class damage in various game modes, with an increased ability cooldown, reduced power, and increased cost.
- 4.0 (possible?)
- [Undocumented] Spike Storm costs less ($6500 → $6000).
- 7.0
- Spike Storm costs less ($6000 → $5000).
- Spike Storm (as well as MOAB SHREDR) deals increased damage to MOAB-class (4 → 5).
- 11.0
- Spike Storm ability now (correctly) deals +1 damage to MOAB-class as intended.
- 19.0
- x-4-0 Spike Storm no longer gains a pointless targeting option
- 21.0
| “ | Since launch xx2 has never brought enough to the table as a crosspath. Working into the long life trend of the bottom path we felt that introducing longer life at a 'cross-pathable stage' may work in some new niche. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi, referring to Long Reach buffs |
- Spike Storm ability spikes now lasts 50% longer with Long Reach.
- 22.0
| “ | We quite liked how the lifespan changes for xx1 spikes went previously, though this still wasn't enough to make the path competitive and increasing this number further wouldn't have much of an impact since most earlier rounds aren't long enough. [...] We have also made changes to give more purpose to 042 Spike Storm and [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Base projectile lifespan reduced from 70s to 50s.
- 0-4-2 Spike Storm now targets only active paths (e.g. on Bloody Puddles).
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- 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, referring to Spike Factory attack speed rework |
- Spike Factory attack speed increased (0.99s → 0.98s).
- 27.0
| “ | Due to a number of performance concerns, the ability for the Spike Storm factory will no longer be able to benefit from a denser storm of spikes via stacking speed buffs on the base tower. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm ability no longer benefits from increases to rate of fire.
- 29.0
| “ | While we feel speed interactions for Spike Storm was a necessary evil for performance related concerns, we did not want to kill off self synergy contained local to the tower, so we are trying out an exception to this rule for the 042 crosspath. Additionally, due to the large annoyance in using spike storm in bosses due to the persistent rounds a boss will last for, Spike Storm will now be allowed to carry over one round before being cleaned up. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- 0-4-2 Spike Storm now increases attack speed with the Smart Spikes' start-of-round functionality
- Spike Storm ability spikes now carry over one extra round.
- 32.2
- [bug] 0-4-2 Spike Storm ability no longer benefits from start-of-round removal of attack speed cap and speed increase.
- 39.0
| “ | The mid spike factory by many players has been ignored outside of few very specific situations for a long time and after fixing some issues, mainly a bug with the shotgunning of projectiles as they spawn, we’re trying a large power increase to more effectively balance the Shredder for its MOAB Damage purpose. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm main spikes and ability spikes bonus damage to MOAB-class increased (+4 → +9)
- All Spike Factory spikes no longer can damage bloons for exactly 1 frame after being created from the spawning origin.
- 40.0
| “ | [...] Similar to Mortar it’s great to see the fresh love for middle path Spike Factory, however as they are feeling exceptionally good now for the intended pure MOAB damage role we want to cut it back very slightly so it doesn’t stay quite so crazy over our holiday break. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm base attack and ability bonus MOAB-class damage reduced (+9 → +8)
- 41.0
| “ | Middle spactory buffs were a fair amount overdone, cutting back more on this. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm base spike bonus MOAB-class damage reduced from +8 to +7
- Spike Storm ability bonus MOAB-class damage reduced from +8 to +7
- Spike Storm ability cooldown increased from 40s to 45s
- 43.0
| “ | Spike Storm is now exceptionally strong so the ability cooldown is increasing a small amount along with the T5 cost. This comes along with a crosspath rebalance granting more 042 lifespan. [...] | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm cooldown increased from 45s to 50s. Also affects Carpet of Spikes.
- Spike Storm ability spikes duration reduced from 10s-13s to 9s-11s. Carpet of Spikes remains at 18s-22s.
- 0-4-1 Spike Storm duration bonus for ability spikes increased from 50% to 100%. Total duration increased from 15s-19.5s to 18s-22s.
- 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. As Spike Storm stands out even moreso than the other paths it is the only one seeing an additional price increase ontop of this. | ” |
| ~ Ninja Kiwi |
- Spike Storm cost increased from $5000 to $6000
- Spike Storm main spike attack cooldown increased from 0.98s to 1.05s
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
 |
This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it. |
Extra Notes (Version History)[]
- Spike Storm cooldown was decreased overall since initial release of BTD6. Instead of 60 seconds in BTD5, it is now 40 seconds.
- The Version 29.0 buff also causes 0-4-2 to accept all speed buffs only within the start-of-round speed bonus.
Sounds[]
When activating Spike Storm Ability:
- [Spikes producing]
Gallery[]
.PNG "Qwertyxp2000 unlock 2023-01-05 (1).PNG (2.43 MB)")
Official artwork[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- On earlier versions of BTD6, particularly on initial release, Spike Storm with Bigger Stacks or White Hot Spikes only featured a larger spout with a black color instead of red, without the change in the body color.
- There is a bug with 0-4-2 Spike Storm that causes all Spike Storms to distribute at the beginning of the bloon track on the Workshop map.
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