M.A.D

[Source]

M.A.D (MOAB Assured Destroyer, mostly abbreviated as MAD) is the Tier 5 upgrade of Path 2 for the Dartling Gunner in Bloons TD 6. Its much larger missiles now deal extreme damage to MOAB-class bloons. Initial missile collisions inflict a massive 450 MOAB-class damage, and each missile can explode multiple times, dealing 3 damage to all bloons including the initial target each time. However, it attacks much slower and missile shots alternate between each arm, reducing its overall accuracy. It fires missiles every 0.4s alternating between each arm, and each missile has 12 pierce each and explodes up to 6 times (+2 pierce and +1 explosion with Powerful Darts) due to its multi-explosion mechanic.

In addition, the M.A.D improves its Rocket Storm ability further, shooting 15 waves of larger missiles for 8 seconds, with 0.5s between each wave, and allows each rocket storm missile explosion to damage up to 18 bloons instead of 8. Every ability missile deals 5 damage per missile, improved to 10 Ceramic damage and 255 MOAB-class damage. Blast radius for each ability missile also increases from 8 to 12. This ability clears Super Ceramics quite effectively, demolishes clusters of MOAB-class bloons, and can deal single-target damage even surpassing the main attack if enough missiles hit (easier with Focused Firing or at close range).

This upgrade costs $55,250 on Easy, $65,000 on Medium, $70,200 on Hard, and $78,000 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

The M.A.D is no longer the Dartling Gunner it used to be. It now wears a huge, dark mech suit, making it much larger than its predecessors. The M.A.D’s mask has two foreboding green eyes with a triangular “mouth” with two green gas-mask-esque cylinders and two purple pipes either side. It has a green crystal on its forehead and two purple crystals either side of its head, with a green circular design on top that resembles a bicycle helmet’s design. The helmet sits atop a metal pod with a cyan interior that forms the torso of the robot, with another green crystal in front of the belly. Its two “arms” have purple box-shaped cannons with green rings that begin at the elbow, with a neon-green glow coming from within. Its feet are purple with grey bolts on the sides, and it has a black tail with grey rings throughout.

The tower itself is significantly different than its predecessor, now having two arms to alternately shoot rockets, switching between the right and left arms. Both the main attack and the Rocket Storm ability have much bigger rockets than those of the previous upgrade. In exchange for accuracy and much attack speed, the main rockets also gain massively increased damage towards MOAB-Class Bloons, as well as +2 extra damage to regular bloons. The ability's larger rockets have more pierce and blast radius, and also has increased Ceramic and MOAB-class damage.

Targeting Priorities

M.A.D customly aims based on direction and angle of where the Dartling points towards, and uses alternate targeting to shoot missiles between each arm. It shoots straight movement projectiles controlled in a aim-based mobile style guided by touch-based mobility, albeit with some erratic angular deviation.

• Normal: Rotates towards the direction of where the player last tapped. On desktop versions, always rotates towards direction of the cursor inside the game.
• Locked: Locks the Dartling in place. By default, locks at center of map, but can be adjusted in the same way as a Mortar Monkey. On desktop versions, using a hotkey to switch to Locked will default to wherever the mouse currently is pointing.

Ability rockets not only have erratic angular deviation, they also erratically move in a serpentine motion as they travel through the air.

Since all Dartlings already attack based on custom aim, Dartlings don't receive Camo Prioritization even with Advanced Targeting.

Full Popology

Updated as of Version 44.2

Base stats

• Dartling persistently aims towards the pointer whenever active; aims towards where last tapped (Mobile versions) or current location of cursor inside the game window (Desktop and Console versions). Rotation speed of 180 degrees per second. Creates Missile projectiles from left and right arms of Dartling, with 23° deviation from the spawnpoints. Alternate between Left Arm and Right Arm; from centerpoint of Dartling, Left Arm is 13.4 units to the left, Right Arm is 13 units to the right.
• Missile:
  • Projectile, normal type, camo detection, 0.4s attack cooldown, 0 damage, +450 MOAB-class damage, 3 projectile size, 12 pierce. 350 projectile speed, 1.14285719s projectile lifespan. Upon collision, consume 2 pierce to produce Explosion at a 0.05s cooldown per Explosion, can still activate even if less than required pierce.
• Blast:
  • Burst, normal type, camo detection, 3 damage, 8 blast radius, 8 pierce.

Ability stats

• Rocket Storm Ability:
  • 40s cooldown, 16.67s initial cooldown. When activated, trigger Rocket Storm for 8 seconds.
• Rocket Storm:
  • 0.5s attack cooldown, trigger Storm Missile in a spray of 10 equally at 90° spread, serpentine movement.
• Storm Missile:
  • Projectile, normal type, camo detection, 1 impact. Projectile radius of 4. Once collided, create Storm Missile Blast.
• Storm Missile Blast:
  • Burst, normal type, camo detection, 5 damage, +5 Ceramic damage, +250 MOAB-class damage, 12 blast radius, 18 pierce.

Crosspathing interactions

• 1-5-0: Projectile deviation angle of Missile decreased from 23° to 9.6°, spread of Rocket Storm decreased from 90° to 36°.
• 2-5-0: Missile applies Level 1 Laser Shock damage-over-time effect, dealing 1 damage every 1.0s for 1.0s, but Missile does not gain +1 shocked damage.
• 0-5-1: Rotation speed of Dartling increased from 180° per second to 440° per second.
• 0-5-2: Pierce of Missile increased from 12 to 14, pierce of Blast increased from 8 to 10, blast radius of Blast increased from 8 to 12, but Missile projectile radius remains at 3. Pierce of Storm Missile Blast increased from 18 to 20, but blast radius of Storm Missile Blast remains 12.

Monkey Knowledge interactions

• Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
• Emergency Unlock: Unlocks special ability that boost the Dartling Gunner swivel speed for a short time.
• Gorgon Storm: Rockets spawned from the Rocket Storm ability can stun any bloon for 0.5s, including MOAB-class for 0.1s, per rocket. The same applies to M.A.D.
• Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
  • Dartling Gunner base cost from $720, $850, $920, and $1,020 → $480, $570, $615, and $685 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
• Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
  • Dartling Gunner base cost from $720, $850, $920, and $1,020 → $685, $805, $875, and $970 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
    • If Military Conscription is also enabled, the final cost will be $450, $535, $570, and $630.
• Monkey Education: All Monkeys XP earn rate increased by 8%.
• Better Sell Deals: All Monkeys sell for 5% more. Increases sell potency from 70% to 75%.
• Veteran Monkey Training: All Monkeys reload time reduced by 3%.
• Global Ability Cooldowns: All Ability cooldowns for all Monkeys reduced by 3%.

Attack Interactions

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Military

Updated as of Version 44.2

Base attack(s)

• Missile:
  • Normal
  • Camo Detection
  • Single Projectile
  • Alternating Weapons (arms: left + right)
  • Full Range
  • Aim-Based Mobility
  • Erratic Movement
  • No Damage
  • Extra Damage to Blimps (+450)
• Explosions:
  • Normal
  • Camo Detection
  • Burst 6x
  • Area of Effect
  • Extra Damage (3)

Ability attack(s)

• Ability Rocket:
  • Normal
  • Camo Detection
  • Angular Spray 15x10
  • Aim-Based Mobility
  • Full Range
  • Erratic Movement
  • Area of Effect
  • Extra Damage
  • Extra Damage (+5)
  • Extra Damage (+250)

Costs

Updated as of Version 46.0. Listed prices exclude external buffs, any sacrifices, and Monkey Knowledge.

This upgrade's prices (or included crosspath's prices) are affected by the following MK: Military Conscription, Advanced Logistics, Better Sell Deals

Strategy

Summary

The M.A.D is extremely effective at demolishing MOAB-class bloons. Even a single hit to MOAB-class bloons can fully eliminate the layers off MOABs and DDTs, (that is, before freeplay ramping) and it can quickly destroy much stronger bloons, even BADs.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, it is much, much weaker versus regular bloons, due to its much slower attack speed, even to the extent that its main attacks are weaker than Hydra Rocket Pods versus anything that is not a MOAB-class bloon. In a real game, pair a M.A.D with good counters to Super Ceramics or anything that does not have great MOAB-Class damage with the some examples being Prince of Darkness, The Bloon Solver, The Biggest One, and Ray of Doom.

While expensive, the M.A.D is a good option to speed up the process of anti-stalling for purposes of quicker Round 100 Insta Reward runs, because of its extremely high MOAB-class damage without need for an ability. On CHIMPS games, however, it will be very difficult to afford the M.A.D upgrade until at least Round 90 or so, so a cheap but effective defense with Rocket Storm is necessary before then.

Tips

• The M.A.D is extremely effective against MOAB-class bloons, but it is absolutely underwhelming versus Super Ceramics. It is vital to provide the M.A.D with support versus regular bloons.
• Unlike the previous upgrades, the M.A.D. may benefit better with 2-5-0 than 0-5-2. Although extra pierce is desirable at demolishing groups of blimps, the powerful missiles are rather inaccurate and slow. Aiming at specific targets would benefit far better with Focused Firing. Not only that, the extra shock damage from Laser Shock will help pop regular bloons as well.
• Not too many buffs are required to maximize the performance of the M.A.D, but basic attack speed buffs like Jungle Drums, Berserker Brew, and Overclock are often sufficient enough to maximize its massive MOAB-class damage potential.
• Only target the M.A.D. at MOAB-class bloons, as this allows it to work with its strengths. The only exception is to clean up Super Ceramics with the ability if there is no other available tower suited for cleanup.
• Note that even though this tower has exploding missiles, its AOE is minimal.
• The M.A.D can be considered the second strongest late-game DPS tower, surpassed only by the VTSG. A fully buffed M.A.D while in Rocket Storm, with all rockets striking the same target, will achieve hundreds of thousands of DPS, perhaps even stronger than Paragons due to Paragons being unable to receive buffs.
• M.A.D is the perfect option for taking down higher-tier Boss Bloons due to their huge hitboxes and the M.A.D's immense blimp damage. While very expensive, it is very cost-efficient; it is cheaper than many other single powerful towers while dealing huge single-target damage to blimps. It still remains useful even at the final tiers of bosses.
  • M.A.D is an excellent option against Tier 2 Elite Bloonarius because of its extreme single-target MOAB-class damage and the large hitbox size of Boss Bloons. Pair with something to handle any skull sends, as MAD Rocket Storm ability is not sufficient for handling with offspring.

Version History

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes and General Changes

This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

24.0

• Updated description with more detail.
  • Previously was "Moab Assured Destroyer. Each missile does extreme damage to MOAB class bloons."

Extra Notes (Version History)

Sounds

When activating M.A.D. Rocket Storm Ability:

• [Rocket firing]

Gallery

M.A.D shooting a missile (note the expanded right launcher)

M.A.D missile

Laser Shock M.A.D missile

M.A.D shots alternating

M.A.D ability pulse

Two M.A.Ds in Co-Op Mode

M.A.D in front view (only possible via hacking)

One of MAD's idle animations, featuring the monkey looking up at the player

MAD's looking up animation from a side view, showing its tail and arms a bit more clearly

M.A.D ability ignoring Line of Sight blockers (pre-30.0)

M.A.D translation in Spanish

M.A.D hand check idle animation

Accuracy Comparison

1-5-0 M.A.D Rocket Storm (41.0-present)

1-5-0 M.A.D Rocket Storm (pre-41.0)

0-5-x M.A.D Rocket Storm (pre-41.0 but post-23.0)

0-5-x M.A.D Rocket Storm (41.0-present)

Teaser

M.A.D in the original Dartling reveal trailer

M.A.D, using its ability in the reveal trailer

Official artwork

Upgrade artwork

Upgrade icon

Ability icon

Instamonkey

Other languages

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Updated as of Version 32.3

Upgrade Name

Upgrade Description

Trivia

• MAD is also an acronym of "mutually assured destruction", a form of military strategy involving the threat of full-scale destruction against both opposing sides, usually with WMDs. This is further referenced with a preceding upgrade employing a radioactive element.
  • The D of M.A.D is notably missing a period.
• The M.A.D, the pilot, and the mech itself are all strong references to Vile and the Ride Armor in the Megaman X Series.
• Through hacking, the M.A.D is revealed to be the shortest of the Tier 5 Dartling Gunners in terms of 3D height.^[1]
• The missiles from the M.A.D are all 3D projectiles, whereas the missiles from Rocket Storm are all 2D.
• Technically speaking, the bonus extreme blimp damage for the main missile only applies on the initial hit of each missile explosion. Therefore, each main missile shot can apply the extreme blimp damage to up to 6 blimps, inflicting a total of around 3300 damage per shot, assuming it does not have pierce buffs via extra explosions.
• M.A.D's second 2MPC on an Expert Map is on Dark Castle, achieved on 20th May 2021.

References