Perma-Spike (BTD6): Difference between revisions

'''Perma-Spike''' is the [[Spike Factory (BTD6)|Spike Factory]]'s path 3 tier 5 [[upgrade]] in ''[[Bloons TD 6]]''. Spike piles are produced about 3.46x slower<!--6.06/1.75--> (without crosspaths, every 1.75s to 6.06s), but deal 10 damage, have 50 pierce (85 with 1-0-5), last up to 300 seconds, and carry over up to 3 rounds. Additionally, the 4x start-of-round speed boost now lasts for 10 seconds. Uniquely, spikes placed by a Perma-Spike are preserved when loading a save, though any buffs the spikes had will be lost.

{{BTD6 last updated|51.1|section=y}}

Perma-Spike is a perfectly consistent cleanup tower that is exceptionally effective on maps where it can cover every exit, most notably for [[CHIMPS]] on maps such as [[Glacial Trail]] and [[Dark Castle (BTD6)|Dark Castle]]. Since the tower only cares about how much Bloon HP it has to absorb, it is very potent against [[DDT (BTD6)|DDTs]] and [[Super Ceramic Bloon (BTD6)|Super Ceramics]], and can handle every single DDT through round 100 as long as other Bloons and the Fortified MOABs on those rounds are dealt with. By contrast, it is fairly weak against hyperdense rounds such as 96 and 98, and needs heavy damage sources that can shave off most of the RBE from these rounds for it.

Pair Perma-Spike with [[Stronger Stimulant (BTD6)|Stronger Stimulant]], [[Abyssal Warrior]], and [[Jungle Drums (BTD6)|Jungle Drums]] to improve its capacity, and if the Perma-Spike is surrounded with more than 6 towers, add an extra [[Acidic Mixture Dip (BTD6)|Acidic Mixture Dip]] for full buff uptime. Both crosspaths are about equal, but 1-0-5 is slightly cheaper, very marginally stronger (1.7x damage output instead of 1.667x), and has the option of upgrading into 2-0-5 in Ice-centric strategies. If frozen Bloons are not a concern, then stop at 1-0-5, as AMD covers lead. [[Overclock (BTD6)|Overclock]] is another, more expensive support option that can further boost its capacity.

At base, Perma-Spike gets an effective 140. DPS, which goes up to 288 average DPS with a standard buff set and 479 DPS with Overclock included. In a vacuum, this is very low for its price range, competing cleanup towers like [[The Bloon Solver (BTD6)|The Bloon Solver]] and [[The Biggest One (BTD6)|The Biggest One]], which can reach thousands of DPS on a hyperdense round before applying additional buffs, and therefore Permaspike has to focus on building up its spike pile to effectively handle incoming Bloons. Without stalling, Perma-Spike still benefits from its start-of-round attack speed boost giving it a temporary 4x attack speed increase, and can still easily handle all DDTs and Super Ceramics that head its way provided Bloon density is kept low enough, but will also easily get overrun if a horde of blimps crashes into the pile.

 

Its real power comes through when stalling is used to stockpile up to 5 minutes of spikes at the end of each round. [[Horned Owl]] and [[MOAB Shove (BTD6)|MOAB Shove]] are very effective stalls, while [[Cryo Cannon (BTD6)|Cryo Cannon]] and [[Maim MOAB (BTD6)|Maim MOAB]] can work as easier alternatives. If the player can get a full 5 minute spike pile, and accounting for the increased attack speed at the start of the round, Perma-Spike can absorb 95,000 RBE with a basic buff setup. Only rounds 92, 94, 96, and 98 have more RBE than this during normal play.

 

Since Perma-Spike cannot leak Bloons before reaching its pierce limit, damage towers paired with it should focus on how much raw damage they can do against dense late game rounds. [[Unstable Concoction (BTD6)|Unstable Concoction]] is very cost-efficient extra damage, and its usual downside of creating huge [[MOAB (BTD6)|MOAB]] and [[Ceramic Bloon (BTD6)|Ceramic]] rushes is not a problem for Perma-Spike. For Heroes, [[Admiral Brickell (BTD6)|Brickell]], [[Corvus (BTD6)|Corvus]], and [[Ezili (BTD6)|Ezili]] pair well with Perma-Spike as well, being able to cut away huge amounts of RBE from dense rounds via their abilities. [[Benjamin (BTD6)|Benjamin]] can also use Syphon Funding to drastically reduce the threat levels of the densest rounds, with his synergy with Perma-Spike being the primary reason to ever consider him in CHIMPS.<!-- It shouldn't be recommended to pair a wincon with another T5 unless its a unique interaction imo -->

 

Some maps have too much distance between lanes for Perma-Spike to reach every exit, such as [[Muddy Puddles]]. In this case, a [[Support Chinook (BTD6)|Support Chinook]] can carry the Perma-Spike to each lane to build separate stockpiles.

 

In [[Freeplay]], Perma-Spike suffers partially from increasing blimp HP but mainly from the incredibly high density of many late game rounds, severely limiting its ability to handle cleanup. Outside of normal play and CHIMPS, its main use case is in [[Race (BTD6)|Races]], where it can be used after the bulk of round clearing is done in order to quash the last Bloon spawns as soon as they spawn.