Downdraft (BTD6)

For other uses, see Downdraft (disambiguation).

Downdraft

Blows Bloons away from the Heli, back toward the entrance.

Tower	Heli Pilot — Path 2 — Tier 3
XP cost	3,300
Cash cost	$2,975 — Easy $3,500 — Medium $3,780 — Hard $4,200 — Impoppable

← IFR

Support Chinook →

Downdraft is the Heli Pilot's path 2 tier 3 upgrade in Bloons TD 6. It grants Heli Pilot a new downdraft aura attack. This new attack deals no damage, but sends Bloons backwards 32-150 units. This attack has a cooldown of 0.18 seconds, and a pierce of 2. Blowing back a Ceramic Bloon uses up 2 pierce. The downdraft cannot affect MOAB-Class Bloons or Lead Bloons.

Bloons which get blown back lose their glued and frozen properties if they had it.

Stats

For a complete list of Heli Pilot stats, see Stats:Heli Pilot (BTD6).

This data was last updated for: version 55.1

Tower
Display range 22 units Movement speed 70 units/s Targeting options Follow Touch Lock in Place Patrol Points

Attack
Cooldown 0.57s Offset (X, Y, Z) 4.5, 18, 4 (side 1) -4.5, 18, 4 (side 2) Targeting range 42 units
Ignores blockers
Projectile Count 2 Pierce 3 Damage 1 Damage type Sharp Speed 260 units/s Lifespan 1s Radius 3 units Ignores blockers

Downdraft
Cooldown 0.18s Offset (X, Y, Z) 0, 0, 0 Targeting range ∞ units
Ignores blockers Can fire without a target
Projectile Pierce 2 Ceramic pierce penalty +1 Lifespan 0.1s Radius 32 units Filters Cannot hit MOAB-Class Cannot hit Bloons with Blowback Ignores blockers Blowback Chance 100% Min distance 32 units Max distance 150 units

1-3-0

Attack
Copies of this attack 1 → 2 Offset (X, Y, Z) 4.5, 18, 4 (side 1) -4.5, 18, 4 (side 2) ↓ 4.5, 18, 4 (primary 1) -4.5, 18, 4 (primary 2) 9.2, 9.2, 4 (secondary 1) -9.2, 9.2, 4 (secondary 2)

2-3-0

Tower
Targeting options Pursuit

0-3-1

Attack
Targeting range 42 units → 54.6 units
Projectile Speed 260 units/s → 416 units/s

0-3-2

Attack
Cooldown 0.57s → 0.456s

Downdraft
Cooldown 0.18s → 0.144s

Costs and sell values

Note: this list does not factor in Monkey Knowledge or other discounts.

Tiers	Total cost				Sell value
	Easy	Medium	Hard	Impoppable	Easy	Medium	Hard	Impoppable
0-3-0	$5,015	$5,900	$6,375	$7,080	$3,511	$4,130	$4,463	$4,956
1-3-0	$5,695	$6,700	$7,240	$8,040	$3,987	$4,690	$5,068	$5,628
2-3-0	$6,120	$7,200	$7,780	$8,640	$4,284	$5,040	$5,446	$6,048
0-3-1	$5,225	$6,150	$6,645	$7,380	$3,658	$4,305	$4,652	$5,166
0-3-2	$5,520	$6,500	$7,025	$7,800	$3,864	$4,550	$4,918	$5,460

Strategy

This section was last updated for: version 51.2

Downdraft is a reliable midgame support for blowing back Bloons and managing the children of early MOABs. It stands out more for Boss Bloon Events that require stalling, particularly Least Tiers. It becomes the main tower in CHIMPS for global Ceramic stalling, but is more expensive than other options. For crosspaths, 0-3-0 is usually sufficient, but if more blowback is necessary 0-3-2 is preferred, while 2-3-0 only offers convenience.

Update history

For a complete list of Heli Pilot changes, see Update history:Heli Pilot (BTD6).

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Version 11.0

•  Lock in Place and Patrol Points no longer immediately prompt to choose target positions and instead have default positions
•  After changing targeting off of Lock in Place or Patrol Points, changing back returns the target(s) to how it was previously
• "Heli Pilots should no longer cause save files to not load sometimes" (bug fix)

Version 17.0

•  Overall cost increased by $100 (due to cost changes for previous tiers)

Version 20.0

“

Pursuit Downdraft has felt like an overperformer for a very long time, but instead of outright nerfing it we increased crosspath potential for those who manually take control over their heli micro.
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: rate reduced ― 0.125s → 0.15s

0-3-2

•  Downdraft: rate increased ― 0.125s → 0.12s

Version 21.0

“

Heli Pilot manages on pursuit far too easily without any need to consider Bigger Jets unless camo or downdraft is required. For more crosspath variety than just ‘camo’ we moved more of the base Heli speed out and back into Bigger Jets with an overall buff to Bigger Jets. This should allow Bigger Jets to scale a little better than other helis through early speed ramping.
— Update notes

”

•  Movement speed increased ― 67.5 → 70

Version 32.0

“

Heli’s blowback has always been extremely effective from early on, and as players have become more knowledgeable the use into lategame as well only seems to go up especially moving into Super Ceramics. This change shouldn’t really have as large an impact at higher level gameplay as total map length is so much shorter you will often still be blowing back the entire track, but the blowback range has been reduced at T3 leading back into the old value at T4
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: Blowback distance reduced ― 32-300 → 32-150
  • Note: Support Chinook unchanged

Version 33.0

“

Downdraft has more general use throughout the game and scales better than the more expensive MOAB Shove upgrade though they both see use, so the price of these upgrades has been swapped around.
— Update notes

”

•  Upgrade cost increased ― $3,000 → $3,500

Version 35.0

•  Heli 'patrol point' markers now visually update immediately after setting new points (bug fix)

Version 36.0

“

For how powerful downdraft is in comparison to other blowback effects, it didn’t feel right that it wasn’t blowing off status effects as should be normal there.
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: Now removes ice and glue mutators from affected Bloons

Version 38.0

“

Given Downdraft has competed as one of the most debated best towers in the game basically for its entire life for both early and late game we are reducing some of the extreme effectiveness against late game Super Ceramics by reworking it to have an overall increased effect of blowing back multiple smaller children at a time but now requiring 2 pierce to blow back ceramics.
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: Attack cooldown increased ― 0.15s → 0.225s (attack speed reduced by 33.33%)
  • Note: Support Chinook unchanged
•  Downdraft: Pierce increased ― 1 → 2
•  Downdraft: Ceramics now consume +1 pierce
•  Blowback no longer works on Bloons near the entrance (bug fix)

Version 45.0

•  Downdraft: attack cooldown reduced ― 0.225s → 0.2s
  • Note: Also affects 0-3-2 crosspath ― 0.18s → 0.16s. Support Chinook unchanged.

Version 48.0

“

Some price is moving out from base Heli into the T3s to make progression up through low heli tiers easier, however Downdraft is retaining the current price as a small buff.
— Update notes

”

•  Overall cost reduced by $100 (due to cost changes for previous tiers)

Version 49.0

“

In order to improve potential synergies, we have finally decided to do away with the pierce cap on Downdraft. This means that, yes, you can now properly Alch buff your Downdraft support
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: Pierce cap removed ― 2 → ∞
  • Note: This does not affect its regular pierce, but now allows it to receive pierce buffs.

Version 54.0

“

Downdraft’s blowback rate is being increased to improve consistency [...]
— Update notes

”

•  Downdraft: Attack cooldown reduced ― 0.2s → 0.18s (attack speed increased by 11.11%)
  • Stacks with X-X-2 Faster Firing ― 0.16s → 0.144s

Gallery

For more Heli Pilot images, see Gallery:Heli Pilot.

Screenshots

• 
  Downdraft with no crosspath
• 
  Downdraft with 130 crosspath
• 
  Downdraft with 230 crosspath
• 
  Downdraft with 031 crosspath
• 
  Downdraft with 032 crosspath
• 
  Downdraft blowing back a ceramic

Assets

• 
  Portrait
• 
  Upgrade icon
• 
  Insta Monkey icon

In other languages

Language	Name / Description	Notes
Arabic	داوندرافت إبعاد البالونات بعيدًا عن الطائرة المروحية، لتعود إلى المدخل.	—
Danish	Faldstrøm Blæser bloons væk fra helikopteren og tilbage mod indgangen.	—
German	Fallwind Wirft Bloons vom Heli zurück zum Eingang.	—
Spanish	Corriente de aire Aleja a los bloons del helicóptero y los hace retroceder hacia la entrada.	—
Spanish (LA)	Corriente de aire Aleja a los bloons del helicóptero y los hace retroceder hacia la entrada.	—
Finnish	Ilmavirtaus Puhaltaa blooneja pois kopterin luota takaisin alkua kohti.	—
French	Courant rabattant Fait s'envoler les Bloons, les repoussant de l'hélicoptère vers l'entrée.	—
Italian	Vuoto d'aria Allontana i bloon dall'elicottero spingendoli verso il varco di ingresso.	—
Japanese	ダウンドラフト ブルーンをヘリから吹き飛ばし、入り口方向へ戻す。	—
Korean	하강 기류 풍선을 헬기에서 입구 쪽으로 밀어냅니다.	—
Dutch	Afvoer Blaast Bloons weg van de Heli, terug naar de ingang.	—
Norwegian	Trekkraft Blåser bloons bort fra helikopteret og tilbake mot inngangen.	—
Polish	Prąd zstępujący Wybuch odpycha blony od helikoptera w stronę wejścia.	—
Portuguese (Brazil)	Repelente Afasta Bloons do Helicóptero em direção à entrada.	—
Russian	Нисходящий поток Сдувает шары от вертолёта обратно к входу.	—
Swedish	Nedåtsug Blåser bort Bloons från helikoptern, i riktning mot ingången.	—
Thai	กระแสอากาศไหลลง พัดบลูนให้กระเด็นออกไปจากเฮลิคอปเตอร์ ถอยหลังไปยังทิศของทางเข้า	—
Turkish	Aşağı İtme Bloon’ları Helikopterden uzağa, girişe geri uçurur.	—
Chinese (simplified)	下冲流 将气球从直升机面前吹走，吹回入口处。	—
Chinese (traditional)	气流向下 將氣球從直升機跟前向入口方向吹走。	—
This list was last updated for: version 43.1