Blade Maelstrom is the Tack Shooter's path 2 tier 4 upgrade in Bloons TD 6. This upgrade adds the a Blade Maelstrom ability, which causes the Tack Shooter to fire blades with high pierce rapidly in all directions. The main attack can still be used during the ability. Blade Maelstrom and other tier 4 and above Tack Shooters also have slightly elevated lines of sight compared to tier 3 and below Tack Shooters. Additionally, all blades now deal 2 damage instead of 1.
The Blade Maelstrom ability has a cooldown of 20 seconds, with an initial cooldown of 6.67 seconds. When activated, it fires extra-high pierce blades every 0.045 seconds in two opposite directions[fn 1] for 3 seconds, and the angle it shoots blades at rapidly rotates clockwise, creating a spiral pattern. Each blade deals 2 Shatter damage and has 100 pierce. This attack can be affected by all types of buffs (damage, attack speed, pierce, etc.).
Blade Maelstrom is one of the strongest towers in Race Events, due to its extremely high pierce and ability to wipe out extraordinary amounts of Bloons and make large amounts of cash that can be used to purchase other towers. It also excels at wiping out large quantity of spawns from Bloonarius. When using it in Race Events, fullsend immediately after purchasing it, purchase a 0-2-0 Alchemist next to it, and upgrade the Alchemist to a 3-2-0 Berserker Brew immediately after using the ability to allow it to pop Lead Bloons and greatly boost its popping power. Although the Acidic Mixture Dip will be used up very quickly, this will likely pop all Lead Bloons on screen and prevent them from blocking the rest of the ability (unless more Leads spawn afterwards).
Outside of Race Events, Blade Maelstrom is useful to wipe out Round 76, Round 78 (with Camo detection), and the 1st and 3rd wave of Ceramic Bloons on Round 63, but is not very useful on other rounds and becomes significantly weaker after Round 80 due to Super Ceramics.
Thunder's Decree can further enhance Blade Maelstrom's effectiveness against grouped bloons, by making ability blades ricochet to better utilize their high pierce, and potentially having them trigger the second Lightning Combo effect for extra chain lightning damage. Its stun also helps cover Blade Maelstrom's weakness against single targets. However, Blade Maelstrom is generally lacking in firepower for later rounds unless upgraded to Super Maelstrom or spammed.
2-4-0 and 0-4-2 are on roughly equal footing, the former being preferred for burst damage and the latter for more reliable damage regardless of the game setting, though this difference is not very pronounced unless upgraded to Super Maelstrom. 2-4-0's ability creates roughly 3.7% more blades in total. The difference in rotation direction from bottom path rarely matters, only the longer duration.
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Maelstrom upgrades are in a good spot overall, but specifically for the low cost of this tower with such a rapid cooldown it was able to hit too many targets under race conditions. This targeted nerf is to the value of it under those race conditions and should be negligible in other game areas. — Update notes
We liked Maelstrom’s pierce change, however want to ease off a little as higher density rounds feel a lot more position & timing dependent now than they need to be. — Update notes
Blade Shooter has always struggled to find much value without MK or as a step to Maelstrom, so to give it build value on its own we feel like this should be a part of the base value on the upgrade. — Update notes
Maelstrom crosspathing? Why not, feels that this could be cool to try out, and more consistency on bottom crosspath may be able to make it the preferred ability crosspath while top path which already improves the base tower more will give back the massive pierce amount for times where the greater punch per use is required. — Update notes
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Ability: Pierce reduced ― 200 → 120
1-4-0
Faster Shooting now grants +40 pierce to Blade Maelstrom's ability
Stacks with a nerf to the ability's base pierce; overall pierce with this crosspath reduced ― 200 → 160
2-4-0
Even Faster Shooting now grants +40 pierce to Blade Maelstrom's ability
Stacks with Faster Shooting and a nerf to the ability's base pierce; overall pierce with this crosspath is the same as before
0-4-1, 0-4-2
More Tacks now causes the ability to rotate counter-clockwise
0-4-1
More Tacks now increases Blade Maelstrom's ability duration by 0.5s
0-4-2
Even More Tacks now increases Blade Maelstrom's ability duration by 0.5s
Stacks with More Tacks; overall duration with this crosspath increased ― 3s → 4s
The recent ability crosspathing for Tack Shooter was fun but feels too lopsided as pierce concerns are very niche on Maelstrom, instead we want to shift this entire focus around for top path to be the rate crosspath for more damage in a shorter amount of time and leaving bottom mainly about greater overall uptime. — Update notes
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Ability: Pierce increased ― 120 → 200
Main attack: Damage type changed ― Sharp → Shatter
1-4-0
Ability: Faster Shooting no longer increases pierce
Overall pierce is unchanged (due to changes to the base pierce)
Ability: Faster Shooting now reduces attack cooldown by 15%
Overall attack cooldown of this crosspath increased ― 0.03s → 0.03825s (due to changes to the base attack cooldown)
Additionally, while we’ve held out on this change as there are strong use cases in prior upgrades, Blade Maelstrom lacks the single target punch to last late in Modern Bloons. While it is designed as a high pierce cleanup of low tier Bloons we want to try shifting some pierce to single target damage to feel good for longer. — Update notes
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Overall cost reduced by $20 (due to cost changes for previous tiers)
Blade Shooter has always visually increased the projectile size considerably but not actually changed this value at all, Blades will now actually be bigger. — Update notes
Bıçak Girdabı yeteneği: Bıçak fırtınasıyla alanı korur.
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Chinese (simplified)
利刃漩涡技能：对目标区域发起利刃风暴。
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Chinese (traditional)
刀刃漩渦技能：刀刃風暴覆蓋整個區域。
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Footnotes
↑It is treated as a type of spread attack with a 180° angle of separation between projectiles. Buffs like Deadeye's Take Aim ability can reduce the angle between blades.
Blade Maelstrom ability: Covers the area in a storm of blades.
Ability: Duration increased ― 2s → 3s
Ability: Pierce reduced ― ∞ → 100
Stacks with Faster Shooting and a nerf to the ability's base pierce; overall pierce with this crosspath is the same as before
Activation of the 040 ability
Activation of the 140 ability
Activation of the 240 ability
Activation of the 041 ability
Activation of the 042 ability
Portrait
Upgrade icon
Ability icon
Insta Monkey icon
