Bloons TD 6 - Laser Shock Buckshot gameplay...I would expect anyway
0I would have liked to have shown this with Adora, but unfortunately, as I'll get into, she just doesn't work with the B4/T2 Dartling Gunner well. However, Harlegwen comes to the rescue again. ...not...that I'm complaining. Just...observing. ...OKAY, FINE, I'LL GET INTO WHAT'S GOING ON.
What makes the Laser Shock crosspath upgrade a point of interest is that Laser Shock has each hit inflict a debuff where any further hits in the duration causes the bloon to take 1 HP extra damage. Well, at least any hits from laser shots from a Dartling Gunner. I labbed this after handling this video and found out that sadly, no, other damage sources won't deal extra damage, and the status doesn't stack with itself at all anyway. It would have been a nice way to provide gameplay.
It did have me realize that somebody like Adora would be a bigger beneficiary from defense enfeebling statusing than most other Heroes, just because of her high projectile count relative to her Damage. This point just doesn't come up because the current available methods have their flaws:
-Embrittlement/Super Brittle - Embrittlement doesn't attack blimps at all so it's overspecialized until Super Brittle is in play to be the mediocre Tier 5 that it is (and also, Ice's Tier 2 upgrades are so gimmicky)
-Glue Strike/Glue Storm - top path barely helps against Super Ceramics, while bottom path can't hit blimps at all
-Cripple MOAB - Crippling Overspecialization case that doesn't handle Super Ceramics; also is mediocre against blimp mixes because Strong won't target the lesser bloons that may need priority; and the stunned blimp is unlikely to start getting hit by Adora anyway
Of course, such a mechanic would definitely have boosted any Hero, but again, Adora would make use of her higher projectile count per attack to make more of it than average via burst damage. What a shame. Oh, and yeah, Gwendolin, with her rate of fire, involves a similar point.
This also showcases what becomes asinine about crosspathing Buckshot/BADS/BEZ with Laser Shock: the slower rate of fire. The issues is that Laser Shock has low duration in the first place for something that requires its source to hit it again to make decent use of it. Buckshot deals 4 Damage per hit so already the damage bonus gets attenuated. Oh, but it gets better, because Buckshot's time between attacks is longer than Laser Shock's duration, so Laser Shock goes away by the time the Buckshot is fired again. Literally any other Dartling Level that is capable of inflicting Laser Shock can keep applying Laser Shock to a given target. Laser Shock where it stands is effectively just a 25% damage boost at best, and in case the missed opportunity for interesting gameplay isn't the condemning indictment against this crosspath's mess, here's what is: M2 Dartling has 1.5 times the attack rate while ALREADY PROVIDING CAMO. It's just....why? I would expect the Camo crosspath to have enough comparative trade-off to encourage the other crosspath. Instead, obviously I'm seeing it be better against Super Ceramics partially because Buckshot also has a knockback attribute against non-blimps that the speed improvement helps with.
If Buckshot and its upgrades improved the Laser Shock status to have other towers deal extra damage to the target, this would provide gameplay depth. Etienne benefitting would be kept under control by the micromanagement demand, not to mention that B/M Dartling still would have the advantage of making better use of the knockback against Super Ceramics and general buddy system busting. Buckshot/Laser Shock would at least bolster the likes of Super Monkey Fan Club.
Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what brought this up, I caught sight of my previous guide about quick EXP for Dartling Gunner, which still works, more easily in fact thanks to price decreases, most notably to Buckshot, but also to Dartling itself, bringing its base cost to be only slightly more than that of what else but Ace. Lo and behold.
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