Megalodon

[Source]

Megalodon is the fifth and final upgrade of Path 1 for the Beast Handler in Bloons TD 6. It transforms the Orca into a Megalodon, which is able to pull down up to BADs with low enough RBE, in addition to massive bonuses to damage, pierce, range, and grappling speed. As a water-dweller, the Beast Handler requires water to place a Megalodon. The Megalodon requires merging with 3 other Orcas to unlock the Megalodon upgrade. The tower now has a limit of 132 Beast Power instead of 64 and base has 84 (although it is merged with three other Orcas by default, you can sell those to change the Megalodon's Beast Power to 36).

The Megalodon immensely increases its splash damage (30 to 700), radius (24 to 48), pierce (20 to 50), beast range (50 to 60), splash speed (cooldown multiplier from 1.1x to 0.8x, cooldown from 0.55s to 0.4s), MOAB-class knockback strength (MOAB-class now get knocked back at 50% speed rather than slowed by 50%), and grappling speed. It can also drag in BADs, but the target must be less than 500,000 RBE, ignoring HP modifications from Fortified properties but taking into account health scaling from all other sources, and not be a Boss Bloon. By default, under standard health rules, the blimp instakill starts capping at Round 166 (Round 169 with Big Bloon Sabotage), becoming unable to drag BADs or Fortified BADs at that point, but can still drag a Fortified BAD on Round 140.

Megalodon's splash attack's damage increases at a ratio of 14-15 every power, and splash attack's pierce by 1 every 2 power. Because of the three extra Orcas, the default Megalodon's splash attack stats are 1400 damage and 62 pierce. Maxed power Megalodon does not change the max RBE cap for instakilling any blimp, although it does greatly improve other stats. Damage is increased to 2100, pierce to 90, and cooldown multiplier to 0.4561x (-0.3439x cooldown reduction).

This upgrade costs $38,250 on Easy, $45,000 on Medium, $48,600 on Hard, and $54,000 on Impoppable.

Quick Answers

What does the Beast Handler transform into in the final upgrade of Path 1 in Bloons TD 6?

The Beast Handler in Bloons TD 6 morphs into a Megalodon in the final upgrade of Path 1. This transformation enhances the Beast Handler's abilities, enabling it to pull down BADs with low RBE and providing substantial bonuses to damage, pierce, range, and grappling speed. To place a Megalodon, the Beast Handler needs a water body and must merge with three Orcas. The Beast Power limit of the tower increases to 132 from 64 after the upgrade.

Provided by: Fandom

What are the enhancements the Megalodon receives in Bloons TD 6?

The Megalodon in Bloons TD 6 is an upgrade of the Beast Handler, transforming the Orca into a Megalodon. This upgrade enhances its abilities, including damage, pierce, range, and grappling speed. It can pull down BADs with low RBE. To place a Megalodon, the Beast Handler needs water and must merge with three other Orcas. The Beast Power limit of the tower increases to 132 from 64 with a base of 84.

Provided by: Fandom

What is the requirement for placing a Megalodon in Bloons TD 6?

In Bloons TD 6, placing a Megalodon requires the Beast Handler to be at the fifth level of the top path, transforming the Orca into a Megalodon. This transformation necessitates merging with three other Orcas. The Beast Handler must be situated in water to deploy a Megalodon. The upgrade cost fluctuates based on the difficulty level, from $38,250 on Easy to $54,000 on Impoppable.

Provided by: Fandom

How many Orcas are needed to unlock the Megalodon upgrade in Bloons TD 6?

To unlock the Megalodon upgrade in Bloons TD 6, you need to merge with three other Orcas. This upgrade transforms the Orca into a Megalodon, a powerful shark capable of pulling down up to BADs with low RBE. The Beast Handler, who controls the Megalodon, must be placed in water. The Megalodon boasts significant enhancements to damage, pierce, range, and grappling speed.

Provided by: Fandom

What is the limit of Beast Power for the Megalodon in Bloons TD 6?

The Megalodon in Bloons TD 6, an upgrade of the Beast Handler, has a Beast Power limit of 132, increased from the base 64. This upgrade is unlocked by merging with three Orcas. The Megalodon offers substantial boosts to damage, pierce, range, and grappling speed, and has the ability to pull down up to BADs with low enough RBE. Placement of a Megalodon requires water.

Provided by: Fandom

Description

Overview

WIP Add a further descriptor on appearance and general overview of the handler

The Megalodon Handler handles a new beast, the Megalodon, instead of a Orca. Its jacket has been upgraded to have a large navy collar with darker Xs on the edges. It also gains sleeves that reach its hands. It loses the lantern and its goggles have been upgraded to a brass diving helmet with three fin-like frills on the top. The front part of the helmet appears to be glowing aquamarine, as well as the two holes on the left and right of the helmet. Its hook becomes massive and rigid and it sits on the ground on its longest side.

The Megalodon is a representation of the eponymous real-life prehistoric gigantic shark, specifically the Otodus megalodon that lived between 23-3.6 million years ago. It is an extremely large shark that is much larger than the handler. It has pinhole eyes, thin nostrils, and a white mouth with many large shark teeth, and blue skin. Like many large aquatic beasts commanded by the Beast Handler, the Megalodon has a rope across its waist. At higher degrees, the Megalodon gains more patterns on its back with contrasting aquamarine colors, including extra stripes (middle stage) and star-shaped scars (max power). When idle, the Megalodon briefly opens its jaws slightly, and occasionally looks up at the player when doing so.

The Megalodon has the largest of splashes, deals much more damage, knocks back bloons and blimps even harder, and is big enough to pull down BADs with less than 500,000 non-Fortified RBE.

Targeting Priorities

As an upgraded Beast Handler, the Megalodon Handler controls a Megalodon. This beast can be merged from weaker-tier aquatic beasts to add energy, empowering the Megalodon via a network of other Beast Handlers. This system utilises the Merge button to select a valid Beast Handler given sufficient energy capacity.

The Megalodon leaps out of the water to grab a Bloon via a single-target trap-like attack that latches onto the Bloon, instakilling the Bloon in the process if the Bloon has low enough RBE. It acts similarly to Monkey Pirates’ hook ability, except it also damages other nearby bloons and follows standard targeting priorities:

• First: Targets the first bloon visible within its range.
• Last: Targets the last bloon visible within its range.
• Close: Targets the closest bloon visible within its range.
• Strong: Targets the strongest bloon visible within its range.

Additionally, the Megalodon Handler has a button called "Place Beast" that places the Megalodon and repositions it anywhere within valid range of the Beast Handler, or any Beast Handlers merged with it. Any contributing Beast Handlers will also grant range that allows repositioning of that beast.

Full Popology

WIP Need more confirmation about further stats such as the grappling speeds and so on, but got some stuff in so far... Also a lot of information was gotten from Great White article

Statistics

Updated as of Version 43.2

Base Stats

• Megalodon:
  • Projectile, normal type, 60 range, 1s attack cooldown, 1 impact. Spends 0.4s to jump to the target and creates a splash, which applies a 0.2s knockback to damaged non-blimp bloons that moves bloons at -150% speed, -125% speed if Ceramic or Lead. Megalodon attempts to calculate for Takedown. While latching on a bloon, creates a regular Splash centered at the Megalodon. Latches up to 5 seconds before disappearing. Target being latched moves at 60% speed if can't be instantly killed, including MOAB-class bloons, which is calculated after knockback.
• Takedown:
  • Triggered from Megalodon, instakill, normal type, targets up to BADs but requires the target to have up to 500,000 non-modified RBE. Spends 1s to take down a bloon, and spends (hp/5000)s to take down a blimp. Minimum takedown time is 1s. Maximum takedown time is 6s for non-BADs, and 30s for BADs.
• Splash:
  • Burst, normal type, 36 blast radius, 0.5s attack cooldown, 700 damage, 50 pierce. Applies a 0.3s knockback to damaged non-blimp bloons that moves bloons at -200% speed, -175% speed if Ceramic or Lead, or applies -150% speed to damaged MOAB-class.

Crosspathing interactions

Unlike the majority of towers in BTD6, the Beast Handler does not benefit from crosspathing. Each path spawns or upgrades a beast, rather than directly affecting the other crosspaths.

Merging interactions

• Default Power: 84
• Min Power: 36
• Max Power: 132
• Bonus Stat Changes: Damage increases by 14 or 15 every power, pierce increases by 1 every 2 or 3 power. At the default 36 power, starts with 700 damage and 50 pierce.
  • Equations: Where p is power, floor() function is rounding down, and ceil() function is rounding up:
    • Damage (grapple and splash): floor((14+7/12)*p+175)
    • Pierce (grapple and splash): floor(5/12*p+35)
    • Splash cooldown: floor(0.5*(0.9296-0.036*p)
  • Minimum Power (36, grapple and splash): 700 damage, 50 pierce.
  • Default Power (84, grapple and splash): 1400 damage, 70 pierce.
  • Max Power (132, grapple and splash): Damage increased to 2100, pierce increased to 90.

Portions of this page are semi-automated on Python, specifically from here: https://github.com/qwertyxp2000/Wikistuff/blob/main/beastpower.py

Attack Interactions

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Support

Updated as of Version 41.2

WIP This section is yet to be updated... Interactions relating to how it grabs onto bloons may need some tweaking; currently only know a couple of really noticeable elements

• Place Fish:
  • Passive
  • Deploy Beast
• Merge Into:
  • Passive
  • Target Tower(s) (Target: own Megalodon, other 5-x-x handlers)
  • Merge
• Merge From:
  • Passive
  • Target Tower(s) (Target: own Megalodon, other fish handlers up to 5-x-x)
  • Merge
• Megalodon:
  • Normal
  • Latch To Bloon
  • Extra Damage (700)
  • Knockback (-40%, on top of splash)
• Megalodon Takedown:
  • Normal
  • Latch To Bloon
  • Extra Damage (500,000)
  • Targets up to BAD (capped at 250k non-modified HP)
• Megalodon Splash:
  • Normal
  • Extra Damage (700)
  • Knockback (-200% Bloon, -175% Lead/Ceramic, -50% MOAB-class)

Costs

Note: The table does not take into account Beast Handler merges, nor does it take into account the four Orca requirements. See below for further details.

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: Better Sell Deals

The following cost table below further details the costs for a Megalodon, including the required three additional Orcas:

Strategy

Summary

The Megalodon serves as an Orca that can produce even higher levels of damage, even able to instakill BADs entirely up until Round 166. Its capability to one-shot BADs is the Megalodon's main highlight, though its high-damage splashing upon grappling onto a target does a lot of damage to nearby targets, alongside slowly pushing back any slowable blimps caught in the radius.

Megalodons heavily fall off after round 170, since they can no longer consume BADs at that point. It can be used as a budget Buccaneer Paragon until you can afford it, provided you are able to get the paragon before round 150 ends. This isn't very practical, though, as you'll mostly be using it as a cheap kill for round 100 and nothing more, and you would have to farm heavily for this to be possible.

For very late Freeplay rounds, Megalodons fall off further in Round 258, where ZOMGs cannot be dragged down from that point onwards. By then, with the player likely making use of multiple Paragons, the thrashing damage is extremely lackluster, while the BFBs (and weaker blimps) it can still one-shot can be dealt with by other towers much faster than the Megalodon does. Either way, a Megalodon does a significant amount of splash damage that can rival most Paragons when superbuffed, so a Megalodon may still be worth adding for extreme freeplay; min-power Megalodon is the most space-efficient, and the extra 6 merged Orcas aren't often worth sacrificing space for spamming Shinobi Tactics and Bloonjitsus.

Tips

• In the transition from 4 Orcas into Megalodon, the maxed Orca will offer a considerably significant benefit in its capability to one-shot ZOMGs and DDTs and inflict much collateral damage along the way.
• It is possible to sell the three merged Orca beast handlers to get the cash back in non-CHIMPS. This will downgrade the Megalodon Handler's power from 84 to 36, but lets the player invest the cash/space into other towers.
• Attack speed buffs are recommended for the Megalodon, as it will affect how fast it bites and damages nearby bloons while dragging a bloon down.
  • Like Orca, it is a good idea to give Overclock to a Megalodon, to increase the rate of thrashing.
• Increasing the Megalodon's Beast Power will not change the RBE cap for the Megalodon’s instakill.
• Even a max Orca's splash can't one-shot Fortified Super Ceramics (max Orca deals 90 damage per splash), but a Megalodon's 700 base damage can assure one-shotting of Fortified Super Ceramics, assuming standard health.
• Max-merging a Megalodon is very much worth it, because it maximizes its splash damage, which deals the most DPS, and its beastpower-to-damage ratio is the highest of any Beast Handler in the game.

Bugs

Current

• None (so far)

Patched

• [36.0] Megalodon appeared to do far too much damage than was intended. Related to a bug where the Great White was dealing too much damage to single-target bloons, Ninja Kiwi patched all Upper Path 1 beasts dealing too much thrashing damage as a bug in 36.1.
• [36.0] Megalodon sometimes may permanently apply knockback effects on current layers of MOAB-class bloons even after recently unlatching from them. This is negligible outside of challenges containing extremely high MOAB-class HP or in extreme late-game runs when not targeting BADs (which obviously can't receive knockback). Patched in 37.0.

Version History

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes and General Changes

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

Extra Notes (Version History)

Sounds

When upgrading to Megalodon:

• [sustained wave rising from the water]

When relocating Megalodon:

• [quick foaming and bubbling into the water]

Gallery

Not enough images! There are not enough images on this page to sufficiently complete this page or section. You can help by uploading some images related to the article's subject(s).

Megalodon and its handler

Megalodon pulling in a Round 140 FBAD (1 XBM for reference)

Megalodon latching on a BAD

Megalodon pulling in a BAD

Enough XP to unlock Megalodon

Megalodon and three of the required Orca Handlers

Maxed Megalodon from six contributing Orca Handlers

Maxed Megalodon in its upgrade HUD

Megalodon instakilling a R144 BAD and pushing back ZOMGs and BFBs with some splash damage

Power Appearances

36/132 power Megalodon

100/132 power Megalodon

132/132 power Megalodon

Megalodon RBE Boundaries

MK lower boundary (R149)

MK upper boundary (R150)

No MK lower boundary (R145)

No MK upper boundary (R146)

Also no MK upper boundary (R146) but with a FBAD

Official artwork

Upgrade portrait

Upgrade icon

Instamonkey icon

Videos

Trivia

• The Megalodon's behavior resembles that of the shark from the Jaws franchise.
• The Megalodon functions similarly to the Bloonchipper's Super Wide Funnel upgrade.
• The Megalodon is one of the few upgrades that can completely instakill a Big Airship of Doom, along with the Navarch of the Seas and Legend of the Night.
• Megalodon is the second-most expensive Beast Handler in terms of both upgrade costs alone, cumulative costs, and the hidden costs of additional Beast Handlers to access the upgrade (aside from placing the Insta-Monkey variant).