The bugged grab is because the reticle was technically placed on the end of the top entrance's path instead of the start of the bottom entrance's path. Necromancer can have a similar issue with it's zombie bloons
so it's basically not a bug as it won't move the balloon forwards in the track. always backwards. which kind of allows you to set the "put down" towards the end of the track and the owls/other birds won't shortcut balloons there, they will just attack faster as they won't need to transport the balloons (edit) ok after that sandbox testing i'm completely confused 😆
Yeah, double path maps were a bit weird, but it's should be fine if it's more towards the middle or further away from either end. EDIT: it's always so funny how many people don't seem to grab how these mechanics work.
As far as I can tell, when you target a location the reticule will 'snap' without much vagrancy to a bespoke point on that path. That means you could learn what path a reticule is on if you use it often For example on basalt / the hex map, target the bottom middle point of the top hex where the bloons cross: if it's a little left-of-center the bird drops the bloons so they go right path, if it's a little to the right dropped bloons go left path instead. You can never place it dead-center like you could with a mortar/gatling (OCD gang rise up). I've found that for any place the reticule can be placed, two or three more can be placed that overlap it, it's a bit sparse.
This tower also has an infinite duration debuff to all youtubers- having to always grab that custom "ā" character for the Pouākai in every single video title it's featured in.
It’s actually even better on maps where the path crosses over itself or the exit is right next to the entrance because then the pouākai barely has to move to send the balloons way back!
Exactly. It's also good for multi-lane maps because it can move bloons between lanes. Also it's pretty bad on two-way maps because it can move bloons to the front instead of back. Ironically Polyphemus is one of these maps.
@jameslutes7478 no it doesnt, it just doesn't pick it up. It is possible for it to accidentally pick things up from the back of the track and move it to the front though, splash damage.
@@kageekao5524 Did you watch the video? The bird was regularly going out of its way to pick up bloons and take them to the start, reversing the movement. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. I even tested it and it worked.
i think given that btd6 has harder bloons than btd5, most notably the bad, and that top path could (at least pre-nerf, haven't checked now) one shot a bad i'd almost say beast handler is more broken than chipper was. i can't think of a tower that has as much potential as top and bottom path beast handler has.
@@pascalthecurator3368 top path can still one shot but it needs the BAD to be under a certain amount of Max HP. This has been the behavior since release. The cut off point seems to be round 150 but may further testing
@@pascalthecurator3368 Fun fact, that "nerf" was actually a bug fix where top path dealt far more damage than intended. Apparently it never happened in their testing and didn't happen until they released the update. Otherwise, the mechanics are the same
Not sure if you noticed or not but the birds will actually attack bloons ahead of the reticle but once bloons pass that point it will then switch to picking them up and carrying them to that point. So the path can act as a dps if you move the reticle back from the edge of the map or move reticule up if you want to retrieve bloons.
When you inevitably do the ultra boosted Beast Handler video, can you please do it as a 0-0-0? I would love to see how fast it gets with the whacking stick.
I love watching ninja kiwi add things to their games that relate to NZ and it's cool that they added this using the traditional name instead of Haast's eagle. It makes me extremely happy.
The condor and the pouākai actually have bonus damage to MOABs (+11 and +110 resp.) and from what I've tested the bonus damage doesn't increase in beast power, that's why it increases the pouākai's damage by 40 (because it goes from 20 to 60 bloon damage).
The Poūkai(If you didn’t know) was a massive NZ bird which hunted Moa, it was Mythological and probably based on legends about the Haast’s eagles which actually existed but when all the Moa died out, the haast’s eagle lost its prey and died out with it
I prefer using druid farming or sniper farming when using bottom path beast handler because you can insane stall rounds and get multiple uses of them per round
The reticle likely defaults to thinking it's on the top path, making it think that every bloon hasn't reached the reticle yet, so it scratches instead of grabbing
I think one of the reasons so many things were leaking on top is (partly) because you had all the defence on the bottom and (partly) because there was no beast handler on the bottom, so the Pouākai couldn't see balloons in that range
4:02 the grab mechanic is a little weird but from what I understand, the birds will only grab when it’s very close to or past the reticle. Because the ceramic wasn’t close to the end of its own path nor close to the bird’s drop reticle, it wasn’t grabbed Edit: Also the new map is weird as hell because it’s a double path
There's a huge bug where all birds will only leave 1 child bloon if the land the final hit (ex. 1 moab left over after popping a BFB). This makes the Pouakai way stronger than it's supposed to be at handling massive dense rounds like 98 and 60 FZOMG insides (but doesn't change its power against DDTs)
For those wondering about the eyes any difficulty except impoppable and chips for reasons starting on round 6 it’ll close on around 6 and start at 0 dollars And will close every 10 rounds and pricing going up every 500$ I could be wrong this is just from my testing
I imagine birb would be good paired with short range high dps towers like bombs, rex, sharks, and the inferno ring? Havent used 5tier fire tack for a while forgot the name. But it is an interesting thought to opt out of range buffs in favor of raw power now what with that crisp birb hoarding all the bloons to them
This tower is superb when the bloons start and end in the same place. Like resort for example. You remove any flying time and just make it reset bloons back to the start from picking a dropping them in the same place.
I think you would have been fine if you put the Puoākai on first and put the reticle on the far left of the map, where both paths cross at the same track length. You would have stunlocked everything on that spot
the eye open lasts 10 rounds. increases price every 500$ regardless if you spend the money to keep it open, or if it is closed the whole game. also after 10 rounds it closes and doesnt open again unless you spend the money to re-open the eye
For the bird to grab a bloon it has to go past the reticle, that’s why when Bloons come from the upper track they don’t get grabbed, they didn’t go past the reticle, once they do go past the reticle the bird will grab them and drop them at the reticle, you can test this in sandbox and it’s easier to see with MOABs
I think the best maps for the Pouakai is where the end loops close to some part of the track further to the front. Like the map, End of the Road. Otherwise, the bird will spend way too much time chasing after loons.
You probably already know the answer but I'll try to explain it anyways: The Golden Eagle didn't pick up the cerams (or any other bloons) because the drop destination is technically further ahead when the bloons come from the top lane. And the birds only pick up bloons when the drop destination is further BEHIND them. You'll see that the bloons coming from the bottom do get picked up, but not the ones from the top. On maps like this one it's a little bit wonky, since the game seems to decide randomly which of the 2 lanes you've put the marker on.
I had a bug with the Condor on Candy Falls, where it would pick up moabs and bfbs, then fly them along the track at the condor's speed without damaging them, which is much faster than the blimp speed. I got an inconsistent way of stopping the bug once it started by either damaging the blimp or popping it. Died to it the first couple of times though
Another bug is that if you move the marker ahead of the track and the track overlaps a previous point afterward, a bird can accidentally carry bloons farther down the track with the pierce
Bird is a pretty fun and effective stalling option, I wonder how it would do paired with close range/melee stuff like Tack and Sauda since you can make bloons go through their tiny but deadly range multiple times?
For the testing at the end, I'm pretty sure the farther the ZOMGs get, the better the stalling power will be, since flight time only increases with the straight line distance but the path is curved. Imagine it just carrying the zomgs from the end to the entrance on logs, it could probably stall hundreds of zomgs at once
Anywhere in the beast handler's range BEFORE the reticle, the bird will attack the bloons with melee. Anywhere AFTER the reticle, the bird will try to move the bloons back to the reticle.
if you think about it the bottom path of the beast handler is like a bloonchipper where it sucks in bloons then spits them back out of it does not do enough damage to pop it
I’ve found a really good strat with this path with things like mortar, tech terror, and bloon trap. It’s a pretty obvious strat but it’s so fun to use.
Two megapops was pretty fun with the beast handler. I did the Orca. Plan was for megalodon, but I couldn't afford it, however the orca did pretty well. Crosspathing 4-0-2 was nice because the owl would many times save me from death, picking up leaks. Did it post nerf.
The Pouakai on End of the Road is OP because it doesn't matter where the other handlers are, the bird can put any non-BAD back to the beginning, forcing them to go through your defense again, only to repeat again and again.
I tested different targeting options and it seemed to only pick up Bloons when set to first. Strong and last are the same in it attacking the last bloon and close also only attacks, but here it actually attacks the closest bloon.
Yeah the pool closes every level that ends with 6. So 6, 16, 26 etc, hence the VI written there next to the pool. Luckily it doesn't close on every level in the 60's. At Lv 6 it costs $0 to open but increases $500 every time after.
Ok, as a suggestion to the Ninja Kiwi team, I'm writing this down before I forget. So as others have pointed out already, currently if you try to target an area with multiple overlapping tracks, you can't know which track or part of the track you're targeting before you place it down. What if, to fix this, the arrows you see when you start a map appear for the track you are targeting, but only for the track that you're targeting, so you know which one of the overlapping tracks you're targeting?
If you're on a map that finishes we're it starts like the new old Western map the you van place the retical right next to the entrance and it pretty much instantly places it from the end to the start
it wasn't moving them because they were coming from the top of the track. Moving them to the targeted location would move them further along the track, so its better that it doesn't move them at all in that scenario.
Can you do all 3 beast handlers at once to see how long they can survive? Do it with and without buffs? I think they can make it very far, with the grab of the shark, the push back of the bird and the damage/ stun of the dinosaur
I love combining the top path beast handler with the bottom path beast handler. You can literally have the birds feed the sharks moabs and have some anti ceramic towers later on in the track if needed
when i first tested the t5 beast handlers, I could already tell they were going to be nerfed to death because of how powerful they are, we should enjoy it while it lasts
i like the bird the most i bet that the condor is great value for its cost like imagine that knockback on r98 also its far better to keep your birds unmerged until you have enough money for the fifth tier and even then it needs some help with cleanup i like an arcane spike, 012 ice, and a downdraft
I noticed on Quad, if a condor grabs a BFB or MOAB from one path and moves it to another, it still has to move all the way around again. Insane stalling for just 16k.
This makes me realise a thing, i can go in coop, focus on a way, put an alchemist, and use the condor to bring the bloons and the Moab on my way stealing from the player 1
i was looking at the pouakai slying pretty slow and wondered if anything in the game could buff fly speed. And nothig can do that. So i tried to imagine a tower or hero that could have that as an ability. And i landed on the bloonchipper hero. Like, its probably my most wanted concept ever. but it always felt bland. Not really adding to the conept. So because it would likely take on an egenier style, What about it having a turbulence pylone or something. not an ability just a permanent structure you can chose to place in her range. that would buff fly speed in the zone and also buff blowback of anybloons being blowed back through it. Maybe it could even increase projectile speed idk.
It was not grabbing the ceramics because they were on the path 1 (top to bottom) and the reticle was placed at the end of said path, so it would have basically boosted the ceramics to the end of the path edit: nvm at 5:00 he shows that the grab can switch the path that the bloons take
It wasn’t a problem neither a bug. If the bird would pick bloons up and bring them to the exit, you would die very quickly and the bird would actually make you lose quicker. This is why the bird didn’t grab the bloons
I wonder if you are able to create an infinite loop in multiplayer, with two big birds always moving the bloons from the end of one path to the start of the other.
I just had a thought... The display for beast handler shows that T5 monkeys are obtainable as insta monkeys. But considering the whole point being that you need 4 other beast handlers, how would that work?
Can you beat BTD6 with birds only? Bottom path Beast Handler, Middle Path Wizard (plus crosspath), plus any tower or hero that has a bird on/around them (pets included).
If the condor reticle was in the middle of the oasis track, would that maybe help it move and pop bloons and ddts fast enough to beat the round without Wiz Lord Phoenix?
Great video. I think if you wanted to show how good it is as it is without distruptions you should have done it on a multiple lane map that every round uses only one lane
Watching more of the video I see the later upgrades allow it to actually make the balloons switch lanes I assume it just comes with a higher level upgrade and the tier 2 just can't make the balloons switch lanes
Can't wait for "Can You Beat Btd6 With Only Birds??" featuring Bird Handler, Summon Phoenix, (and maybe towers/heros with bird pets like Sauda, Pirate Brickell, Ninja, Heli, Farm, etc.) Maybe the bird pet towers can't be used for DPS and ONLY for utility like Sabo, Chinook, and Farming