Apex Plasma Master: Difference between revisions

The Apex Plasma Master [[attack]]s by rapidly firing volleys of three plasma juggernaut balls at a time, which produce 6 smaller juggernaut balls two times once the larger juggernauts lose enough pierce or expire, for up to twelve projectiles per ball or 36 projectiles per volley of three. All of its juggernauts are capable of rehitting bloons after bouncing off obstacles. Despite being made of "plasma", the juggernaut balls deal [[damage type|normal-type damage]], and they deal increased damage to [[Ceramic Bloon (BTD6)|Ceramic Bloon]]s and [[Boss Bloon]]s.

The Apex Plasma Master stands out as the Paragon with the lowest overall cost, but just like [[Ultra-Juggernaut (BTD6)|Ultra-Juggernaut]], its DPS is very dependent on its projectiles bouncing to rehit targets. On maps with lots of dense walls ([[Sulfur Springs]], [[Encrypted]], [[Dark Path]], etc.), its DPS can easily trump Paragons that're more expensive than it, but the more open the map is, the weaker it gets. Unlike most Paragons, its relatively low base damage and high projectile count pairs well with Bloon debuffs (such as [[Cripple MOAB (BTD6)|Cripple MOAB]] and [[Super Brittle (BTD6)|Super Brittle]]), and higher Degrees and good positioning can greatly improve its damage.

The Apex Plasma Master's low cost makes it very affordable in [[Boss Rush]] and lower boss tiers in [[Boss Bloon Event]]s. It doesn't help much against higher-tier bosses unless heavily favored by the map and boss matchup, so in least time events, it's usually better to sell it to invest in more farms after clearing the boss tier. While still map-dependent, it does perform better on open maps than in Freeplay if its range can cover a lot of the track and it can bounce its projectiles off of at least a few walls to rehit the boss (such as on [[Winter Park]]).

Its best boss matchup is [[Blastapopoulos (BTD6)|Blastapopoulos]], whose pyroclastic rocks can actually allow its projectiles to bounce into it a lot, even on maps without many walls, though the positions of the rocks can sometimes prevent it from taking advantage of this. Additionally, since it doesn't have an [[Activated Ability]], it doesn't suffer from Blastapopoulos's ability debuffs. It also performs well against [[Bloonarius (BTD6)|Bloonarius]], destroying both it and its spawns very effectively even on maps where it can't bounce projectiles very well, and it can also shred [[Dreadbloon (BTD6)|Dreadbloon]]'s Ceramic Armor Shell relatively quickly due to its extra damage to Ceramics and bosses stacking. Map dependency aside, it has decent matchups against all other bosses thanks to its Normal-type damage and [[Camo detection]]. However, its range makes it very susceptible to {{BTD6|Vortex}}'s stuns at higher tiers; while it's possible to place it far away enough to still reach Vortex while avoiding getting stunned, it may have to give up a position that's better for maximizing its bounces.

In [[Freeplay]], the Apex Plasma Master is similarly very map-dependent. On open maps, it's usually suboptimal and its DPS falls behind non-Paragon towers with the same footprint size (such as [[Bloonjitsu (BTD6)|Bloonjitsu]] in the Freeplay Ninja strategy). Its niche is on maps like [[No Harvest]] [[Cornfield]] where it can outdamage several other Paragons, despite being cheaper than them and having a small footprint.

The bonus tier 5 tower from {{BTD6 mk|Master Double Cross}} is enough to reach Degree 11 without pops or additional sacrifices, which does help save costs on higher Degrees, but is insignificant by itself. Placing 25 0-2-2 Darts fulfils exactly 100 tiers for the lowest cost. If space and max Monkeys are an issue, the cheapest max crosspaths at higher tiers can be used instead: 0-3-2 Darts for T3 sacrifices, and 4-2-0 for T4 sacrifices. For the most cash sacrifices without the cash slider, the 2-4-0 Dart is the most expensive crosspath. Given enough time to set up cash sacrifices, place as many 2-4-0 Darts as possible, preferably at least 17 to fulfil at least 100 tiers.