Paragon upgrades are the ultimate form of their tower. Extremely costly, they can only be unlocked once every Tier 5 upgrade is unlocked. Then, for a large sum of XP, they can be unlocked and utilized in-game, except in Sandbox.

To upgrade to the Paragon version, every Tier 5 upgrade of the tower must be placed somewhere on the track. Once this condition is met, every single tower matching the Paragon tower will be consumed, leaving only the Paragon tower. Towers can be replaced, including Tier 5 towers. There are a few restrictions on Paragon towers which are: it can't be buffed by other towers (e.g. Alchemist), they can't have their upgrade price reduced (besides through the difficulty), and they can't be moved by the Support Chinook's Redeploy ability. They also won't be sacrificed by Sun Temples, and can remain on water if placed there similarly to Sun Temples. All Paragon towers have innate camo detection and normal damage, allowing them to pop every bloon.

The power of the Paragon tower is based on its Degree, which is affected by different values of the towers sacrificed. The Paragon's Degree varies from 1 to 100 with higher level Degrees requiring higher amounts of sacrifices. Once a Paragon tower is created, its Degree can't be increased or decreased in any way without selling it.

Like the Sun Temple and its subsequent upgrades, a Paragon tower's Degree is dependent on the total cost of sacrificed towers. However, there are additional factors that affect the Degree which are the total pop count of sacrificed towers, the amount of upgrades of non-Tier 5 towers, and the amount of Tier 5 towers sacrificed. The first three Tier 5 towers will only affect the total pop count factor, meaning to boost the other factors requires placing down additional towers. Each factor contributes to the Paragon's power, which in turn affects the final Degree. To reach higher and higher a Degree requires exponentially more power.

Power specifics:
180 pops = 1 power (max of 90,000 power or 16,200,000 total pops)
$25 spent = 1 power (max of 10,000 power or $250,000 total spent*)
1 upgrade = 100 power (max of 10,000 power or 100 total upgrades*)
Another Tier 5 = 10,000 power (max of 90,000 power or 9 Tier 5's*)

When a Paragon is purchased, there is an option to inject extra cash which will affect the cash spent power. It is slightly less effective than tower cash, but provides a way to power up a Paragon without having a ton of cash used in towers.

*Doesn't include the three Tier 5 upgrades used to make the Paragon

Due to the way power is calculated, the max Degree for singleplayer is 76 (or 79 for Dart Monkey if "Master Double Cross" Monkey Knowledge is enabled). Therefore, co-op is required to reach higher Degrees. However, with the introduction of the hero Geraldo, reaching Degree 100 is possible while playing singleplayer. To do so you need to utilize his Paragon Power Totem which gives 1,500 power per totem. This can make up the difference needed to reach 200,000 power to get to Degree 100. If every other power is maxed, (110,000 power from pops, money spent, and total upgrades), then you will need 60 Paragon Tower Totems (or 54 if you are making the Apex Plasma Master). The less total power you have, the more totems you will need to purchase.

Besides affecting the tower's power, the Degree will affect the Paragon's appearance, changing every 20 Degrees.

Quick Introduction:
Breakpoints are essentially ideal Paragon Degree you want to achieve. In general, you want to go for the highest Paragon Degree you can, but calculating it is tedious and also fruitless as it's constantly changing. Therefore, this section is included as a quick cheat-sheet for getting certain Degrees.

Most stats increase linearly, or by a set certain amount each Degree. The only one that doesn't is the Paragon's fire rate which decreases exponentially, or gets faster by a lesser amount each Degree. However, the damage increase receives an extra bonus every 10 or 10+1* Degrees. As an example, the Apex Plasma Master does about 0.2 extra damage each Degree. At Degree 10, it'll do about 2 more damage than at Degree 1. When it gets to Degree 11, there's a bonus 1 damage added which makes it deal about 3.2 extra damage compared to Degree 1. This means that if your Paragon's Degree is 1 or 2 below a multiple of 10, then you should increase your Degree a little bit more for the extra boost.

*This doesn't mean every 11 Degrees, but instead 1 Degree after a multiple of 10 (11, 21, 31, etc.).

Breakpoints:
Just having all 3 Tier 5 towers with no pops will give you a Paragon with Degree 1. If you have all 3 Tier 5 towers with the max amount of pops, you get a Paragon of Degree 69.

For Dart Monkey, if you have the Monkey Knowledge "Master Double Cross", you can get to Degree 30 with just the 2nd Crossbow Master.

You can easily get to Degree 30 by simply fulfilling the max amount of money spent and non-Tier 5 upgrades bought. The list shows the amount of towers you need, with specified upgrades, for Easy/Medium/Hard/Impoppable, for singleplayer. If purchased upgrades have their prices reduced from normal difficulty prices, the required amount will increase. Numbers may not be exact.

• Dart Monkey: 33/28/26/23 of 2/4/0 OR 29/24/22/20 of 2/4/0 with 2nd Crossbow Master
  
• Boomerang Monkey: 45/38/36/32 of 2/4/0
  
• Ninja Monkey: 34/29/27/24 of 0/2/4

To get to max Degree, you will need the listed amount of towers along with 16.2 million bloon pops.

What? The Dart Monkey is evolving!

"Fill the area with Bloon shredding plasma juggernaut balls, leaving nothing behind..."

Upgrade cost: $127,500/$150,000/$162,000/$180,000

Utilizes Ultra Juggernaut's split balls, Plasma Monkey Fan Club's Triple Shot and Plasma, and Crossbow Master's crits.

Description:
The Apex Plasma Master sits upon a ballista machine which shoots 3 extremely fast plasma spiked balls. These spiked balls split similarly to the Ultra Juggernaut's, and each spiked ball does humongous guaranteed crit damage. It's best to allow the Apex Plasma Master to fire along straight paths due to its high pierce, although isn't necessary due to its extreme fire rate and splitting of spiked balls. The tower's Degree affects its fire rate, pierce, damage, bonus damage against ceramic bloons, and bonus damage to boss bloons.

What? The Boomerang Monkey is evolving!

"The Bloons will look upon my Glaives, and they will know fear."

Upgrade cost: $233,750/$275,000/$297,000/$330,000

Utilizes Glaive Lord's ricocheting glaives and orbital glaive ring, Perma Charge's high attack speed, and MOAB Domination's exploding knockback ability.

Descrption:
The Glaive Dominus sports a tribal-themed costume with a bionic eye and arm. It throws sonic fast glaives which ricochet among bloons and will also apply a damage over time (DoT) to blimps. It'll also throw MOAB press glaives at blimps, which knocks back the blimp and stunning them briefly afterwards. The press glaive will also cause an explosion, which will set everything it hits on fire. Finally, the orbital glaive ring spins faster as bloons near it. Due to its high attack speed and ability to shred through bloons and blimps alike, placement isn't a high priority, except to maximize its orbital glaive ring damage. The Glaive Dominus also boosts the attack speed of other towers, including other Paragon towers, by 11.1%. Due to the numerous attacks and effects of the Glaive Dominus, the Degree affects a lot of its power. For the ricocheting glaive, it changes fire rate, damage, pierce, and bonus damage against boss bloons. The orbital glaive ring has its spin rate, damage, and pierce changed, as well as dealing extra damage to ceramics, blimps, and boss bloons. The MOAB press glaive has its fire rate, pierce, damage, additional damage to blimps, and additional damage to boss bloons increased. Finally, The explosion has its pierce, damage, bonus damage to blimps, and bonus damage to boss bloons being affected by its Degree.

What? The Monkey Sub is evolving!

"Unfathomable range, power, and synergies with all other Monkey Towers and Heroes put all Bloons under assault."

Upgrade cost: $340,000/$400,000/$432,000/$480,000

Utilizes Energizer's buffing abilities and submerged radiation attack, Pre-Emptive Strike's automatic missile attacks and ability, and Sub Commander's airburst attack.

Description:
The Nautic Siege Core is a giant submarine with a navy blue finish and yellow highlights. It features multiple wings on the side, 3 cannons out the front, and side ports to launch missiles. The captain wears a blue cape and cap, and sits on top of the submarine when it is not submerged. When the Nautic Siege Core goes submerged, the captain enters the sub and the exposed weapons close up. Another port in the middle of the submarine opens up exposing the Bloontonium reactor. The Nautic Siege Core has a new button to submerge and emerge, as well as the Final Strike ability. The Pre-Emptive Strike attack now launches against bloons along with blimps, dealing a delayed 1,000 damage and an explosion. It retains Advanced Intel, allowing it to fire upon any bloons in range of other towers. Its main attack quickly fires airburst missiles that track bloons and deal 40 damage. When submerged, it emits a radiation aura that remove camo and regrow properties along with dealing quick damage. It will provide 20% cooldown reduction for abilities, a 50% reduction for water towers in range, and also a 10% ability cooldown reduction for Paragons in range of it. Heroes and Monkey Subs in range will get their damage and pierce buffed, while Heroes will also get a buff in their attack speed and XP rate. The ability can be activated whenever and will start a 15 second cooldown, during which the Nautic Siege Core is disabled. Afterwards, it will launch 3 Final Strike rockets that deal tremendous damage, has an aftershock effect that stuns bloons that weren't popped, and leaves pools of bloontonium radiation behind.

What? The Monkey Buccaneer is evolving!

"The greatest thing ever to float on water."

Upgrade cost: $467,500/$550,000/$594,000/$660,000

Utilizes Carrier Flagship's mini planes and landing pads, Pirate Lord's cannons and ability to hook blimps, and Trade Empire's money generation.

Description:
The Navarch of the Seas is heavy bearded pirate captain that openly pilots a giant aircraft carrier. He wears an orange outfit that has gold trims, along with a skull on his cap. He also has an eye patch covering his left eye. Both the ship and mini planes are white and orange with green accents. Each side of the ship has 3 sets of gun batteries that each shoot 10 purple arrow-shaped cannons that explode on contact. There are 3 mini planes that fly around their targets, each one shooting darts and firing 4 missiles against blimps. The boat can automatically pull in any blimp, except BADs, and instantly destroy them. It also gains an ability which will hook the strongest blimps visible, grabbing multiple blimps or even a BAD. It has a super quick cooldown, but also can only be used a limited amount of times in a round. Finally, the Navarch gives cash at the end of the round, can boost Merchantmen, and has 2 platforms to place towers on. If there are towers placed on the Carrier Flagship platforms and the Navarch is created, the towers will be relocated to the new platforms on the Navarch. The Degree affects the damage of all attacks, the bonus damage to boss bloons, additional bonus damage to elite boss bloons, pierce, and the fire rate.

What? The Monkey Ace is evolving!

"A flying shadow of darkness spells Bloon obliteration."

Upgrade cost: $680,000/$800,000/$864,000/$960,000

Utilizes Sky Shredder's ability to shoot many projectiles, Tsar Bomba's ability to drop bombs, and Flying Fortress's ability to fire homing projectiles.

Description:
The Goliath Doomship is a large red ship with black accents. It features two cockpits with a massive wingspan. It also has 3 mini Doomships that appear upon using the ability. The Goliath Doomship has 3 different attacks along with an active ability. First, it fires off 16 non-homing missiles in a ring around it. It also can shoot homing missiles that home in on blimps. The non-homing missiles have a purple trail while the homing ones have a green trail. The final attack is a volley of twin darts that only fires when it's facing bloons. The Doomship has an ability that will launch mini Doomships that will follow a path, carpet bombing the whole trail that has been targeted. The bombs stun every bloon except BADs.

What? The Wizard Monkey is evolving!

"Only the most perfect Wizard can channel the ancient powers of the beyond."

Upgrade cost: $637,500/$750,000/$810,000/$900,000

Utilizes the Archmage's Arcane Spike and flame attack, Wizard Lord Phoenix's Phoenix and Wall of Fire, and Prince Of Darkness's summoning of zombie bloons.

Description:The Magus Perfectus is the ultimate wizard and sits atop a thundercloud and sports light-purple robes and wizard hat. With white hair and bright white eyes, it wields a dark orb. It also controls a big Dark Phoenix that circles around it. The Magus Perfectus has two main attacks that it can switch between. The first is a powerful Arcane Spike that allows it to revive the bloons popped while the Dark Phoenix attacks with a dark purple flame and fires out fireballs. This form of attack consumes graveyard mana. The other attack is a Drain Beam that does less damage, but allows the Magus Perfectus to absorb more graveyard mana. If there is no more mana in the graveyard, the Magus Perfectus will automatically switch to the Drain Beam. The Magus Perfectus also has 2 different abilities which can't be activated at the same time. The first is First Phoenix Explosion which consumes the entire graveyard mana to set all bloons on fire as well as summon a zombie ZOMG for every 9,000 mana used. These zombie ZOMGs also have their own personal graveyard of mana which they can use to summon zombie BFBs. The second ability is Arcane Metamorphosis which also consumes all graveyard mana, transforming the Magus Perfectus into an alternate form that uses a flame cascade attack. Popping bloons will cause effects similar to Wall of Fires to spawn, and lasts longer for every 5,000 mana used.

What? The Ninja Monkey is evolving!

"The complete assassin package for dealing with any Bloon threat."

Upgrade cost: $450,000/$500,000/$540,000/$600,000

Utilizes Grandmaster Ninja's multiple projectiles and fast attack speed, Grand Saboteur's bloon slow, and Master Bomber's Flash Bomb and Sticky Bomb.

Description:
The Ascended Shadow is a bionic ninja wearing black ninja gear. It has horns and teeth resembling an Oni from Japanese myths. Petals and 2 green clouds circle around it and it carries one giant shuriken. It has 3 main attacks, the shuriken, flash bomb, and a sticky card bomb that targets blimps. It fires out 8 large shurikens which seek out bloons, have a 15% chance to distract bloons, and deal high amounts of damage. Occasionally, it will also throw out a set of 6 flash bombs which can stun blimps. They also explode into blue small shurikens which home in on bloons. Against blimps, it will throw a sticky bomb, which has infinite range that explodes shortly after, dealing massive damage to the blimp. Bloons are also permanently slowed to 50%, including the children bloons, and non-Boss blimps will spawn at 75% health. The Ascended Shadow grants global camo detection and does bonus damage to camo bloons. The Degree affects the damage of all attacks, the bonus damage to boss bloons, additional bonus damage to elite boss bloons, pierce, and the fire rate.

What? The Engineer Monkey is evolving!

"Monkey engineering developed to perfection. Creates three Mega Sentries that can build their own sentries."

Upgrade cost: $552,500/$650,000/$702,000/$780,000

Utilizes Sentry Champion's ability to build sentries, Ultraboost's ability to increase attack speed, and XXXL Trap's ability to pin bloons.

Description:

The Master Builder now wields a large, orange exoskeleton. Its left arm has a pincer while its right has a giant nail gun that features a siren. 2 additional arms extend from its back which have cannons attached. The Master Builder's nail gun shoots 3 nails at once which are able to pin ceramic bloons and also stun blimps. After a round, it will increase its attack speed by 10% up to a max of 600%, or after 60 rounds. Also, the Master Builder can manually deploy 3 Mega Sentries that can create their own Mini Sentries. The Mini Sentries created are all the same in that they shoot plasma balls and explode after 25 seconds of being created, similarly to the Champion Sentries. The Mega Sentries follow an order of Green, Red, Blue, when deployed. Any Mega Sentries deployed after the initial 3 will remove the previous one, causing the Mini Sentries it created to explode. The Green Mega Sentry attacks with a beam of purple plasma that can be manually aimed. The Red Mega Sentry shoots red sunrays in an angular spray. The Blue Mega Sentry fires rockets. Both the Master Builder and sentries can pop any type of bloon.

Did I mess something up or you are still confused? Let me know so I can help clear it. The guide will be updated whenever possible.

Information gathered from BTD6 Wiki, u/epicalex4444.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1616170689
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2536456970

2021
Aug. 8
-Released

Aug. 16
-Breakpoints section added
-Typos fixed

Oct. 13
-Ascended Shadow entry

Dec. 8
-Navarch of the Seas entry

2022
Apr. 14
-Solo Degree 100 now obtainable

Aug. 18
-Master Builder entry
-Navarch of the Seas price adjusted

Oct. 11
-Goliath Doomship entry

2023
Apr. 5
-Glaive Dominus attack speed boost
-Ascended Shadow price adjusted

June 9
-Magus Perfectus entry
-Ascended Shadow changes

July 26
-Glaive Dominus price adjusted
-Glaive Dominus orbit's loss of bonus fortified damage

Nov. 15
-General v39 changes

2024
Mar 14
-Nautic Siege Core entry