Glaive Lord surrounds itself in 3 special glaives that shred anything that comes near. Glaive Lord's glaives now rip through MOAB-class Bloons, slowly tearing them apart from the inside.
”
~ In-game description
Glaive Lord is the fifth upgrade of Path 1 for the Boomerang Monkey in Bloons TD 6. It gains orbiting glaives that deal constant damage while bloons are within range of them. They have 80 pierce, are able to pop camo, and deal 2 damage (+8 to Ceramics and +5 to MOAB-class) every 0.08s to nearby bloons. Red Hot Rangs adds +1 damage to the orbitals and allow them to pop Frozen and Lead, but they do not shred faster with Path 2 upgrades. Long Range Rangs increases the range of the orbiting glaives from 30 to 39.9.
Alongside orbiting glaives, the Glaive Lord's thrown glaives now deal 8 damage, additional +8 for Ceramics on hit (further +1 with 5-0-2 crosspath), instead of 1 or 2. They also apply Shred onto the first MOAB-Class Bloon hit, dealing 100 damage to it every 1.0s for up to 15s, inflicting up to 1,500 damage from the shredding effect alone. As with most damage-over-time sources, this effect cannot be stacked. Thrown glaives have infinite bounce distance and are thrown every 0.4s.
This upgrade costs $24,990 on Easy, $29,400 on Medium, $31,750 on Hard, and $35,280 on Impoppable.
This upgrade turns the Glaive Lord's hood and cloak purple, with a red arrow on top of the hood, while the rest of its outfit is black with red accents. Three spinning glaives with a blue center surround the Boomerang Monkey. The rotating glaives and hand-held glaives both become red-orange when crosspathed with Red Hot Rangs.
Glaive Lord gains a trio of orbiting glaives, which function as a 30 range source of Contact Damage, dealing 2 damage, +8 to ceramics (10) and +5 to MOABs, (7), with 80 pierce and a 0.1 second pierce refresh rate. These glaives pop camo but remain Sharp type, unless given Red Hot Rangs, which grants them +1 damage (for 3, 11 vs ceramics and 8 vs MOABs) and Normal damage type, allowing them to pop any bloon type. Long Range Rangs, additionally, increases the glaive ring's range to 34.5.
As well as adding orbital glaives, Glaive Lord's thrown glaive now deals 8 damage (9 with Red Hot Rangs), +8 ceramic damage (for 16, 17 with Red Hot Rangs), and inflicts a 100 damage per second Shred effect on the first blimp it hits for 15 seconds.
Targeting Priorities[]
Glaive Lord targets bloons using the standard targeting priorities. Glaive Lord has multiple attacks with different interactions with targeting priority.
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.
Glaive Lord's main glaive attack is a straight movement projectile that can sharply turn with aggressive seeking upon collision with a bloon. Glaive Lord's orbital glaives is a zone-based attack that is locked on Close.
Like all Boomerang Monkeys, Glaive Lord can access Change Hands secondary targeting priority to switch hands, changing the origin and direction of thrown glaives.
Full Popology[]
Statistics[]
Updated as of Version 41.1
Base stats
Glaives:
Projectile, sharp type, 43 range, 0.4s attack cooldown, 8 damage, +8 ceramic damage (16 total), 100 pierce, 297.5 projectile speed, 2s lifespan, 7.5 projectile radius. Also applies shred effect to first MOAB hit, dealing 100 damage per second for 15.1 seconds, for a total of 1500 damage. Projectile ignores Line of Sight. Projectile seeks to the closest bloon within infinite range with 0.05s delay.
Orbital Glaives:
Zone, normal type, affects camo bloons, 30 range, 0.08s passive attack cooldown, 2 damage, +8 damage to Ceramics (10 total), +5 damage to MOAB-Class Bloons (7 total), 80 pierce.
Crosspathing interactions
5-1-0:
Glaives attack faster, 0.3s (-25%) attack cooldown instead of 0.4s.
5-2-0:
Glaive attack faster, 0.225s (-25%) attack cooldown instead of 0.3s.
5-0-1:
Base range increased to 57.2 (+33%) units instead of 43.
Orbital Glaives range increased to 40 (+33%) units instead of 30.
5-0-2:
Glaives now deal normal damage type, damage increases to 9 (+1) The other stats accumulation increase.
Orbital Glaives now deal normal damage type, damage increases to 3 (+1). The other stats accumulation increase.
Monkey Knowledge interactions
Cheap 'Rangs: Base cost of Boomerang Thrower reduced by 50.
Recurring 'Rangs: Boomerangs that return to the Boomerang Monkey will be thrown a second time.
Extra Bounce: Pierce cap of thrown glaives increases from 80 to 110 pierce.
Come On Everybody!: Primary towers attack 5% faster if all are below tier 3, and cost 5% less if all are tier 3 or 4.
Glaive Lord excels at popping dense groups of non-MOAB Bloons, but may have problems with countering Super Ceramics without proper placement.
Alongside a fast-shredding area-of-effect range, Glaive Lord comes with an effective secondary attack with its main glaives, where the first hit of its regular glaives can inflict a shredding damage-over-time effect, making it highly useful against multiple high HP targets, such as ZOMGs.
It still requires support against large groups of stronger bloons, but the Glaive Lord remains a somewhat decent option against polar opposites of the bloon spawns spectrum: weaker grouped bloons, and stronger high HP bloons (considering they are not clumped).
Tips[]
The direction the orbital glaives spin does not matter; it only serves as a visual indicator of the continuous fixed area-of-effect radius. If placed in the correct spot, like a loop in the map In the Loop, it can completely destroy any non-MOAB Class Bloon currently in the game (at least for rounds 100 and earlier, since afterwards the extra speed will make it struggle).
As of Version 27.0, in general cases, the 5-0-2 crosspath will have a slight advantage against super ceramics and be able to damage bloons and MOABs with Frozen and/or Lead properties. 5-2-0 will have an advantage against MOAB-class, particularly when "Close" targeting is being used to apply the shred DoT effect to multiple blimps passing by.
Most of the damage done to super ceramics will come from the orbital glaives, which is only improved with the 5-0-2 crosspath, which also gives its attacks the normal damage type, allowing it to damage any bloon type (e.g. frozen and lead).
The Shred DoT is a huge part of the damage done to MOAB-class bloons, the extra attack speed from the 5-2-0 crosspath allows the tower to hit a bigger variety of MOAB-class, which can be maximized with "close" targeting option.
However, several factors such as the tower's position, buffs received, and slowdowns or debuffs on bloons or MOAB-class will change which crosspath will perform better, with both doing similarly well in some cases.
Glaive Lord can be used to comfortably combat the masses of BFBs spewed out by Tier 2 Elite Bloonarius when passing a skull, much like how the preceding upgrade M.O.A.R. Glaives cleans up the Ceramic Bloons spawned by Tier 1.
Add slows such as MOAB Glue or Glue Hose to allow more time for the Glaive Lord's orbital glaive to damage bloons. Add a 0-1-2 Ice Monkey or two to freeze down bloons, especially Super Ceramics, but be sure to allow Glaive Lord to affect Frozen Bloons before adding Ice Monkeys or else this synergy will not work.
If Lead Bloons or DDTs reach within range of a Glaive Lord without Red Hot Rangs or other forms of lead-popping power, the glaive ring will be completely blockaded and never damage bloons until the bloons are out of the way. The same applies to Frozen Bloons.
Set targeting to Strong so that Glaive Lord will focus on applying its shredding effect to stronger blimps.
Version History[]
Balance Changes[]
To make Glaive Lord stand out as a Tier 5 upgrade, the upgrade has been buffed multiple times. Starting from 26.0, nerfs began to be introduced alongside buffs, mainly to require synergies to maximize its potential. The orbital glaives formerly had truly infinite pierce, now reduced to a lower amount in compensation for higher damage, likely to minimize its power as a cleanup tower in Regrow Farming. Version 41.0 reworked Upper Path 1 Boomerang Monkeys including Glaive Lord with a bigger focus on consistency.
4.0
Orbital Glaives' damage increased from 2 to 7 against ceramics and MOAB class bloons.
17.0
Glaive Lord's main ricochet attack's homing algorithm improved
Glaive Lord main ricochet now leaves fragments in the first Bloon hit which slowly slash it apart dealing 150 damage over 15 seconds. This can stack multiple times.
21.0
“
Glaive Lord's 502 gives no use over 520 with how the main attack currently works, so now 502 will additionally apply damage to the secondary revolving attack to target a different niche. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Orbiting glaives damage increases by +1 with Red Hot Rangs.
23.0
“
Small price adjustment to push when you get this tower a little closer to when it's useful.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord cost decreased ($40,000 → $35,000)
24.0
“
Rotating Glaives aren't quite enough for higher tier rounds, and especially struggle against Fortified Super Ceramics so we have added a small bonus to combat these.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord's rotating glaives now deal +2 bonus damage to Fortified
26.0
“
[...] Glaive Lord's innate lead popping has been removed to allow that meaning to remain in the crosspath along with price being reduced to compensate. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord price reduced from $35,000 → $32,400
Glaive Lord no longer passively pops Lead or Frozen without Red Hot Rangs. Effectively, their damage type was changed from Normal to Sharp.
27.0
“
Due to large memory leak issues with Glaive Lord's stacking DoT which could not be resolved this upgrade has seen a rework to the DoT.
”
The damage-over-time effect is no longer stackable.
The damage-over-time effect deals 100 damage instead of 10.
[Undocumented] Glaive Lord's orbital glaives now have 1,000 pierce instead of infinite.
Just a cool/fun factor and "because it should" reasoning here honestly, not necessarily necessary but we think it fits.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord with Long Range Rangs now increases area of orbital glaives by +15%
30.0
“
To buff Glaive Lords middle crosspath as a choice & utilize more of an attack that is mostly rendered useless by this tier, the base damage of the thrown ricochet attack has been increased. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord ricochet attack damage increased from 1 → 8
31.0
Glaive Lord now correctly increase +1 damage to main glaives when crosspath with Red Hot Rangs
34.0
“
[...] In efforts to cut down on unnecessarily high pierce for more reliable base stats Glaive Lord is having its excessive orbit pierce converted into high base ceramic damage bonus on the orbit & an added bonus to the main attack as well [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord main attack now deals +8 Ceramic damage
Glaive Lord Rotating Glaives bonus to ceramic increased +5 → +8
Glaive Lord Rotating Glaives pierce reduced 1000 → 80
Glaive Lord's projectiles now ignores Line of Sight
36.0
“
[...] Glaive lord is too expensive for so low a single target tower so this is going down. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord price reduced $32,400 → $29,400
38.0
“
Long Range Rangs is increasing its benefit to be more meaningful of a crosspath choice for the range rather than purely the Red Hot Rangs. [...]
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
5-0-1 Glaive Lord radius increase from Long Range Rangs increased (15% → 33%), range increased from 34.5 to 40.
41.0
“
[...] As Glaive Lord is a more heavily concentrated version of the previous tiers we are increasing its bounce distance to a map wide ricochet and increasing the orbital attack consistency.
”
~ Ninja Kiwi
Glaive Lord bounce distance increased from 180 to infinite
Glaive Lord orbital attack no longer deals +2 bonus Fortified damage
Glaive Lord orbital attack cooldown reduced from 0.1s to 0.08s
Affected by MOAR Glaives attack speed buff, main attack attack cooldown reduced from 0.6s to 0.4s
Affected by MOAR Glaives pierce nerf, main attack pierce reduced from 100 to 80
Bug Fixes and General Changes[]
This section is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.
24.0
Description changed from "Glaive Lord surrounds itself in 3 special glaives that shred anything that comes near." to "Glaive Lord surrounds itself in 3 special glaives that shred anything that comes near. Glaive Lord's glaives now rip through MOAB-class Bloons, slowly tearing them apart from the inside."
34.0
5xx Glaive Lord DoT can no longer be applied to DDTs from a camo village without being able to deal damage to lead
Gallery[]
In-game model
Glaive Lord with the Red Hot Rangs crosspath (pre-28.0)
Glaive Lord's shredding ring inflicting damage to bloons within the Glaive Lord's immediate range
Shred effect on a BAD
Glaive Lord versus extreme amounts of normal MOABs (tested on Sandbox)
Glaive Lord versus extreme amounts of freeplay MOABs (tested on Sandbox)
Official artwork[]
Upgrade portrait
Upgrade icon
Instamonkey icon
Projectiles[]
Glaive Lord glaive
Glaive Lord glaive with Red Hot Rangs
Videos[]
520 Glaive Lord doesn’t affect rotating Glaives
Tested in 28.0
Trivia[]
The Glaive Lord, along with Absolute Zero, Cripple MOAB and Ray of Doom are the only Tier 4 towers in BTD5 that were moved to Tier 5 and are currently playable in BTD6.
Rotating Glaives speed up when bloons are within range, the effect is purely visual, however.
Glaive Lord, Bloontonium Reactor (by extension Energizer), and The Tack Zone are all Tier 4+ towers that had their damage type changed from Normal to either Sharp or Shatter , which both cannot affect lead bloons for the sake of being more realistic to the real world.
The Glaive Lord is one of the only Tier 5 upgrades that changes appearance with its crosspath as when crosspathed with Red Hot Rangs the glaives rotating around its body becomes orange and they also become further away from the Glaive Lord's body.