Shell Shock

[Source]

Shell Shock is the third upgrade of Path 1 for the Mortar Monkey in Bloons TD 6. An exploded shell will now produce another two new AoE effects, one of which stuns bloons and the other pops bloons. Blast radius of the explosions are larger than those from Bigger Blast, from 28 to 38 for the main explosion. The blast radius of stunwave is 19, and the shockwave is 57. The stunwave can not affect Black or Zebra bloons. The shockwave doesn't affect bloons within half of the radius or DDTs.

Bloons hit by the stunwave will be stunned for 0.5 seconds and those that are hit by the shockwave will take 1 damage. Both of the two new effects separately have 45 pierce, which are the same as the main explosion. The same bloon can be damaged by both the primary explosion and secondary shockwave all in one attack.

Crosspathing with Burny Stuff improves burn damage from 1 damage to 2 damage per tick, and burns at twice the rate at the full duration, equating to every 0.625s for 3.75s. As the napalm only applies for the main explosion, a single explosion can inflict a total of 16 damage, 12 from the napalm, 3 from the main explosion, and 1 from the secondary shockwave's damage.

This upgrade costs $700 on Easy, $825 on Medium, $890 on Hard, and $990 on Impoppable.

Description

Overview

Shell Shock upgrades the mortar cannon by widening its barrel, and now receives two green bands around the lower end of the barrel instead of two yellow bands as its previous upgrade does. The operator now wears experimental goggles with green lenses, as well as dark grey gloves with thin white stripes. Crosspathing adds the usual visual changes to this type of Mortar Monkey. In the official upgrade portrait, the operator is grimacing and carrying a heavy artillery shell.

Shell Shock blasts are bigger and deadlier. An additional explosion is added that can independently deal 1 damage and/or stun bloons for a short time. When crosspathed with Burny Stuff, the burning ticks deal 2 damage instead of 1 and ticks twice as fast for the same dueation.

Targeting Priorities

Mortar Monkey has only one target priority, "Set Target". This allows the Mortar Monkey to land shells within anywhere inside the target reticle. Tapping on the "Set Target" button prompts the player to change the target position of where the Mortar Monkey will land its shells. By default, once the Mortar Monkey is bought, the Mortar Monkey's target reticle is placed near the start of the first bloon track.

If Striker Jones's Level 7+ Target Focus ability is activated, all Mortar Monkeys are automatically set to Follow Touch / Follow Mouse temporarily, unless manually re-targeted via Set Target, and snap back to their old Set Target option once the ability is finished.

Full Popology

Updated as of Version 43.3

Base stats

• Explosion:
  • Lobbed projectile, explosion type, targets at a custom-aimed location with deviation of 18, 0.5s deployment cooldown, 2.0s attack cooldown, 38 blast radius, 3 damage, 45 pierce. Upon expiry, create Stunwave and Shockwave.
• Stunwave:
  • 19 blast radius, 45 pierce, stuns bloons for 0.5s, does not affect Black bloons or MOAB-class bloons.
• Shockwave:
  • Burst, explosion type, 57 blast radius, 45 pierce, 1 bloon-unpenetrating damage, cannot affect bloons within half of the radius or DDTs.

Crosspathing interactions

• 3-1-0: Explosion attack cooldown reduced from 2.0s to 1.5s
• 3-2-0: Explosion attack cooldown reduced from 1.5s to 1.08s.
• 3-0-1: Target deviation of Explosion reduced from 18 to 8.
• 3-0-2: Explosion inflicts a Burn status effect that deals 2 damage per 0.625s for up to 1.875s.

Monkey Knowledge Interactions

• Elite Military Training: All Military Monkeys get a one-off +1000 XP and earn XP in-game 5% faster permanently.
• Extra Burny Stuff: Napalm pops Bloons every 0.375 seconds instead of every 0.625 seconds.
• Military Conscription: First military tower costs only ⅔ of the original cost.
  • Mortar Monkey base cost from $640, $750, $810, and $900 → $425, $500, $545, and $605 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
• Advanced Logistics: All Military Monkeys base costs reduced by 5%.
  • Mortar Monkey base cost from $640, $750, $810, and $900 → $605, $710, $770, and $855 on Easy, Medium, Hard, and Impoppable, respectively.
    • If Military Conscription is also enabled, the final cost will be $395, $465, $500, and $560.
• 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%.

Attack Interactions

WIP Beginning to add more and more into this section as time goes past

See also: Attack Interactions/Bloons TD 6/Military

Updated as of Version 36.2

Base attack(s)

• Explosion:
  • Explosion
  • Area of Effect
  • Full Range
  • Erratic Movement
  • Extra Damage (3)

• Shockwave (stun):
  • Explosion
  • Burst (source: Explosion)
  • Area of Effect
  • Erratic Movement
  • No Damage
  • Stun (duration: 0.5s)

• Shockwave (damage):
  • Explosion
  • Burst (source: Explosion)
  • Area of Effect
  • Erratic Movement
  • Cannot Penetrate Multiple Layers

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 cheapest tower capable of producing stun effects currently belongs to Shell Shock. Combined with its global range potential, Shell Shock is a decent option for simply stunning bloons, although it has rather low accuracy without Increased Accuracy. Target it around bends and use the Rapid Reload crosspath for the most effective stun effects, or crosspath with Burny Stuff for general increased damage to affected bloons.

Compared to other T3 Mortars, Shell Shock is better against fast-moving bloons, because it can stun them, and the shockwave does collateral damage over a wide area. For instance, Shell Shock can be used on most maps that support Mortar (including Ravine) to deal with Round 36's Pink rushes. However, it is unreliable against Rainbow Bloons, because its shockwave messes up precise damage against them to allow layer-skipping. It is effective against Ceramic Bloons, however.

Tips

• As the cheapest tower with stunning capabilities, it can be used as cheap stunners of regular bloons. It becomes most beneficial for reducing progress of Ceramic Bloons from any range.
• The relatively low price of Shell Shock makes effective but affordable synergy with Heavy Shells, which benefits greatly from being able to deal extra damage versus stunned bloons.
• The main advantage of Shell Shock compared to alternate options such as Bloon Impact is that Shell Shock Mortars can be targeted around anywhere on the map.
• The only major disadvantage of Shell Shock compared to Bloon Impact is that Shell Shock cannot affect Black Bloons without further upgrading to The Big One or without gaining special black-popping grants, as well as that Shell Shock only stuns bloons for half the time that Bloon Impact would.
• For most occasions, 3-2-0 Shell Shock is often preferred for its increased attack speed, which maximizes stun rate. 3-0-2 Shell Shock deals more damage through the burning effects of Burny Stuff, sacrificing the stunning benefits in exchange for heavy damage against groups of bloons.
  • The burning effects are much more noticeable with Extra Burny Stuff, reducing the cooldown of the burning by 0.25s changes the rate of burn from every 0.675s to every 0.375s. That way, a full duration of the burn deals up to 5 damage ticks instead of 3.
• Shell Shock actually does worse against Rainbow Bloons without Striker Level 5+, since the secondary explosion damage can mess up the popping of Rainbow layers with the main explosion to bypass the explosion-immune layers.
• It may be helpful to pair Shell Shock with Heavy Shells to deal with pesky black-immune layers while also taking advantage of Heavy Shells' bonus damage to stunned bloons.

Version History

Balance Changes

Bug Fixes and General Changes

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21.0

• Description changed from "Each blast creates a shockwave that stuns Bloons at impact point and pops Bloons further out." to "Blast shockwave stuns bloons at impact, pops bloons in a wider area, and increases Burny Stuff damage."

Extra Notes (Version History)

Gallery

Crosspathing (Top: Path 2, Bottom: Path 3)

Shockwave stunning bloons in action

Shockwave effect with the napalm upgrade

Shell Shock's explosion radius for both main and secondary explosions, tested on Rainbows (pre-39.0)

Shell Shock's main explosion

Shell Shock's main and secondary explosions damaging groups of Rainbows

Just the outer shockwave doing 1 damage

Shell Shock main explosion dealing 3 damage, bypassing explosion-immunes completely

Simultaneous main explosion and outer shockwave hit almost the same time, in some cases...

Enough XP to unlock Shell Shock

Official artwork

Upgrade portrait

Upgrade icon

Instamonkey

Videos

Trivia

• The name is a reference to actual shell shock, though that applies to people induced with trauma rather than referring to stunning bloons.
• 3-0-2 Shell Shock does not apply napalm through its secondary shockwave explosions. Only the main explosion can apply napalm. This is because the shockwave explosions aren't coded to apply Burny Stuff.
• Shell Shock cannot stun Black or Zebra Bloons regardless of whether it can pop them or not. It can still stun the children if the bloon was popped by the main blast.
• The stun can affect bloons that were not damaged due to the pierce cap, however the stun still has its own pierce cap.
• The upgrade icons for Shell Shock and Bloon Impact are very similar, but the bloon shown in the Shell Shock upgrade icon is vibrating and leaned a little more to its left side.
• The goggles worn by the Shell Shock monkey bear resemblance to the goggles worn by Engineer from the game Team Fortress 2, the only major difference being that the lenses are green instead of black with an orange tinge.
• Shell Shock is the 111st unique upgrade to get a 2MPC.^[1]
• The stun effect of Shell Shock is likely inspired by the Tier 3 Mortar Emplacement from BTD5, a Specialty Building for the Mortar Tower in that game, which has an upgrade that allows the Mortar Tower to briefly stun bloons hit.

References