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 80 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.

Skulls

Upon reaching a skull, Vortex stuns nearby towers, generates a temporary shield, and is knocked 100 units back on its track. 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

This section is incomplete. You can help out by expanding it. The editor who added this notice elaborates: Incomplete list of attacks that damage through shield

When a skull is reached, Vortex is protected by a shield for 6 seconds which causes most projectiles to deflect away from Vortex, not harming it. Some attacks can penetrate the shield, including:

• Any attacks that deal damage to the target directly without using a projectile, such as Sniper Monkey shots and Captain Churchill's Machine Gun
• Mortar Monkey shells
• Ballistic Missile's missiles
• The First Strike Capability and Final Strike abilities
• Plasma Accelerator and Ray of Doom's beams (not Plasma Accelerator's focus point)
• Tech Terror and The Anti-Bloon's abilities
• Heart of Thunder lightning

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).

This strategy section is empty or incomplete. See the strategy guidelines for more information on how to write strategy sections. The editor who added this notice elaborates: this section should have a few basic pointers, while the strategy page should go in-depth

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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Artwork and icons

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