Vortex (BTD6)

Vortex Deadly Master of Air
NormalElite
Skulls 3 (normal) 7 (elite) Theme Primal One Introduced Version 31.0 Description • Vortex moves like lightning and speeds other Bloons along! • When each health bar skull is reached, Vortex shields itself and sends out a shockwave that stuns nearby Towers before retreating up the track. • Vortex emits a regular storm pulse, destroying projectiles, including any non-Powers on the track.

Vortex, titled Deadly Master of Air, is a Boss Bloon in Bloons TD 6, introduced in version 31.0. It is the third boss introduced to the game.

Vortex is one of the fastest bosses, but every time it reaches a skull on its health bar it is knocked backwards on the track. Additionally at the skulls, Vortex temporarily shields itself from most projectiles and stuns nearby Towers including Paragons. Vortex is capable of regularly destroying nearby projectiles. While Vortex is present on the map, all Bloons spawn with a speed boost until they touch Vortex.

Most Boss Bloon Events featuring Vortex have challenge rules that increase Bloon Speed and MOAB Speed.

Mechanics

Storm pulse

Vortex emits a storm pulse every 5 seconds, destroying nearby projectiles in a 60 unit radius including spikes placed by Spike Factories and collectibles from Banana Farm and Bloon Trap. Powers such as Camo Trap are unaffected.

Slipstream

While Vortex is alive on the map, all Bloons have a 2.5× speed boost that goes away upon reaching Vortex. On multi-lane maps, Bloons on a different path than Vortex may keep the speed boost all the way to the exit if their path does not reach Vortex. This is indicated by gusts of air surrounding the Bloons. The texture is much larger with MOAB class Bloons.

Skulls

Upon reaching a skull, Vortex stuns nearby towers, generates a temporary shield, and is knocked 100 units back on its track within 0.5 seconds. A single attack cannot damage past a skull; for example if an attack normally deals 4,500 damage and Vortex has only 1,000 health remaining to the next skull, that attack deals only 1,000 damage.

Shield

When a skull is reached, Vortex is protected by a shield for 6 seconds. The shield has radius of 80 units and causes projectiles to deflect away from Vortex, not harming it. Vortex is completely immune to damage in this state for 0.5s.

Shockwave

When a skull is reached, all towers nearby Vortex become stunned. While stunned, towers cannot attack, use abilities, charge ability cooldowns, generate income, or be sold normally. Items may still be purchased from Geraldo's Shop even if Geraldo is stunned. When a tower is stunned, all of its sub-towers also become stunned. Heli Pilots and Monkey Aces are only stunned if their heli-pad or runway is in range, respectively. Master Builder's Paragon Sentries cannot be stunned unless Master Builder itself is stunned, which may be a bug. The stun duration and radius of the shockwave increase at higher tiers.

Stats

Normal

Base health

Tier	1-player	2-player	3-player	4-player
1	20,000	24,000	28,000	32,000
2	62,800	75,360	87,920	100,480
3	294,000	352,800	411,600	470,400
4	628,000	753,600	879,200	1,004,800
5	2,512,000	3,014,400	3,516,800	4,019,200

Speed

Tier	Base speed	Red Bloon speed
1	3.6	0.144×
2	3.6	0.144×
3	3.9	0.156×
4	4.05	0.162×
5	4.2	0.168×

Shockwave

Tier	Duration	Radius
1	16s	60 units
2	19s	65 units
3	21s	70 units
4	24s	75 units
5	27s	80 units

Elite

Base health

Tier	1-player	2-player	3-player	4-player
1	41,800	50,160	58,520	66,880
2	251,000	301,200	351,400	401,600
3	1,675,000	2,010,000	2,345,000	2,680,000
4	6,700,000	8,040,000	9,380,000	10,720,000
5	33,500,000	40,200,000	46,900,000	53,600,000

Speed

Tier	Base speed	Red Bloon speed
1	3.75	0.15×
2	4.05	0.162×
3	4.5	0.18×
4	4.65	0.186×
5	4.8	0.192×

Shockwave

Tier	Duration	Radius
1	18s	60 units
2	21s	65 units
3	24s	70 units
4	27s	75 units
5	30s	80 units

Round changes

When facing Vortex, several rounds are changed from the standard roundset.

Round	Change
5	6 additional Yellow Bloons
12	Blue, Green, and Yellow Bloons replaced by Green, Yellow, and Pink Bloons respectively
24	Camo Green Bloon replaced by Camo Yellow Bloon, Blue Bloons replaced by Pink Bloons
30	4 additional Yellow Bloons, 5 additional Pink Bloons
40	MOAB replaced by 6 Ceramic Bloons
41	60 additional Pink Bloons
60	BFB replaced by 6 MOABs
80	ZOMG replaced by 6 BFBs
100	BAD replaced by 4 ZOMGs and 6 DDTs

Strategy

For more in-depth strategies, see Strategy:Vortex (BTD6).

Vortex is a boss that challenges centralized defenses or defenses that rely on a small number of towers, making the best counters to it the towers that can attack from afar or follow him along the track due its high speed.

Common defenses for Tier 1 and 2 are Elite Defender, Master Bomber, M.A.D, First Strike Capability, multiple Triple Guns / Armor Piercing Darts with Advanced Intel crosspath, Aircraft Carrier / Carrier Flagship and Monkey Aces / Heli Pilots in general. The idea is that those towers can attack Vortex using their infinite range to avoid being stunned when Vortex reaches a skull and can defend against the speedy bloons if they run past Vortex.

Like other bosses, higher tiers can be defended with Paragons and other expensive towers, among them Nautic Siege Core, Ascended Shadow and Goliath Doomship are more suited to fight Vortex due being able to do heavy damage to it while avoiding getting stunned. Other important towers can also be moved around by using a Support Chinook to remove them from the boss stun range just before a skull is reached.

In the middle and late game you can also use other towers closer to Vortex and just accept they will be stunned but is important to have additional defenses in other sections of the track so the Bloons can't reach the exit while your main defenses are incapacitated. In some maps avoiding stuns is very hard or impossible, so the defenses should be spread along the track to avoid having all of them stunned at the same time. Put special attention the tracks where Vortex doesn't spawn, as the boost that Vortex provides will not be lifted.

In later tiers you can also ease the pressure the speedy Bloons give to your defenses, specially when stunned, by stalling the rounds using towers such as Bloon Crush and placing it at the very start of the track so it can stop the Bloons that enter the screen, the extra speed they gain does not matter if they can't move on the first place, and as Vortex moves further into the track it won't stun your stalling towers.

Currently Vortex does not appear in Boss Rush mode.

Update history

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Version 31.2

•  Vortex deflection shield should now save in saves (bug fix)

Version 32.0

“

Vortex’s Stun radius has proved to be a little too small allowing for some cheesier strategies than intended, but instead of a flat increase at all tiers we have decide to trial a slight increase up throughout each tier. — Update notes

”

•  Tier 2: Stun radius increased ― 60 → 65
•  Tier 3: Stun radius increased ― 60 → 70
•  Tier 4: Stun radius increased ― 60 → 75
•  Tier 5: Stun radius increased ― 60 → 80

Version 37.0

•  Bosses on spawn will now clear the map of all existing projectiles

Version 38.0

•  Paragons no longer have 50% reduced stun duration
•  Stun duration reworked at all tiers for generally reduced durations
  •  Normal tier 2 ― 16s → 19s
  •  Normal tier 3 ― 20s → 21s
  •  Normal tier 4 ― 25s → 24s
  •  Normal tier 5 ― 30s → 27s
  •  Elite tier 1 ― 20s → 18s
  •  Elite tier 2 ― 25s → 21s
  •  Elite tier 3 ― 30s → 24s
  •  Elite tier 4 ― 36s → 27s
  •  Elite tier 5 ― 40s → 30s

Version 46.0

•  Attacks can no longer damage through its shield (bug fix)
  • Note: added a 6.5s duration of invulnerability upon reaching a skull

Version 46.2

•  Reverted the changes made in v46.0, Vortex can be damaged again by some attacks during its shield phase (undocumented)
  • Note: invulnerability duration reduced to 0.5 seconds, matching the knockback duration

Version 48.1

•  Slipstream should now wear off correctly for Bloons on the same path (bug fix)

Version 52.0

•  Towers now remain stunned after reloading a game (bug fix)

Version 53.0

• Resolved some unintended interactions with Beast Handlers (bug fix)
  • Note: Details unknown

Gallery

Screenshots

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• 
  Normal Vortex in the boss menu
• 
  Elite Vortex in the boss menu

Assets

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  Vortex
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  Elite Vortex
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  Vortex (defeated)
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  Elite Vortex (defeated)
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  Event icon
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  Vortex menu icon
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  Elite Vortex menu icon
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  Vortex medal
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  Elite Vortex medal
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  Logo
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  Banner