The Lava Hound is one of the largest units in Clash of Clans (along
with the Golem), taking up 30 housing spaces in Army Camps and the Clan
Castle. Fortunately, the Lava Hound is a little cheaper than the Golem,
running only 390 Dark Elixir at level 1 and 510 Dark Elixir at level 3.
In this guide to the Lava Hound in Clash of Clans, we will cover unit
stats, training and research costs, upgrade levels, and strategies for
using this unit to your advantage.
Lava Hound Basic Information, Stats, and Levels
Training Time: 45 minutes
Supply Cost: 30
Movement Speed: 20
Targets: Ground & Air
Preferred Target: Air Defense Towers
Dark Barracks Required: Level 6
Supply Cost: 30
Movement Speed: 20
Targets: Ground & Air
Preferred Target: Air Defense Towers
Dark Barracks Required: Level 6
Level
|
Damage Per Second (DPS)
|
Attack Speed
|
Damage Per Hit
|
Hitpoints
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 1 attack per 2 seconds | 20 | 5700 |
| 2 | 12 | 1 attack per 2 seconds | 24 | 6200 |
| 3 | 14 | 1 attack per 2 seconds | 28 | 6700 |
| Level | Training Cost (Dark Elixir) | Upgrade Cost (Dark Elixir) | Laboratory Level | Town Hall Requirement |
| 1 | 390 | None | None | 9 |
| 2 | 450 | 60,000 (10 Days) | 7 | 9 |
| 3 | 510 | 70,000 (12 days) | 8 | 10 |
| Level | Lava Pups Produced | Lava Pup DPS | Lava Pup Damage Per Hit | Lava Pup Health |
| 1 | 8 | 35 | 35 | 55 |
| 2 | 10 | 35 | 35 | 55 |
| 3 | 12 | 35 | 35 | 55 |
The Lava Hound is the only true air tanking unit in Clash of Clans.
It does virtually no damage, but possesses a large amount of health and
parks itself over top of an enemy’s Air Defense towers. Consider a Lava
Hound versus an enemy level 7 Air Defense tower. While this high level
tower does massive a massive 280 damage per second, the Lava Hound has
5,700 health at level 1. It will take this Air Defense tower just over
20 seconds to take out the Lava Hound.
While the Lava Hound is distracting the opponent with its high health
pool, players can flood in with high damage (per housing cost) units
like Minions or Balloons. The Lava Hound also has the advantage of
clearing out traps so that your Minions do not get hit by Air Bombs.
Upon death, the Lava Hound splits into a number of “Lava Pups”. These
are light flying air units similar to Minions. The Lava Pups will then
attack the nearest target. The Lava Hound itself does not deal any
damage upon death (unlike the Golem).
CoC Lava Hound Strategy
As mentioned above, the Lava Hound is meant to be a flying tank. Its
very large health (even higher than the Golem’s) is meant to soak up
damage from Air Defense towers to give your other flying units a chance
to deal damage. The only problem with the Lava Hound is that it takes up
a large amount of housing space; if you build too many, you will not
have enough units available to do the damage you need to in order to
have a successful raid.
Due to the Lava Hound requiring a level 6 Dark Barracks and having a
relatively high Dark Elixir cost, the Lava Hound is not a unit typically
used by most players. While it requires Town Hall 9, only late TH9
players and primarily TH10 players are likely to use the Lava Hound with
any regularity. Newer TH9s will likely find their Dark Elixir better
spent on upgrading through their early hero levels. New TH9s will also
likely need to spend some time upgrading Minions, Balloons, or Dragons
to a high level as well; Lava Hounds are only as good as the
damage-dealing units backing them up.
Lava Hounds in War Battles and Trophy Pushing
Lava Hounds are a solid alternative to Golem-based armies for
high-level trophy farming or War battles. They can be used to take down
high TH9 and TH10 players, revitalizing some of the air-based armies
which otherwise lost effectiveness as players began to max out their
bases and get Inferno Towers.
There are multiple combinations of units that can be used with the
Lava Hound. If multiple (2-3) Lava Hounds are used, they will be able to
soak up enemy tower fire for quite a long time. After dropping a few
Lava Hounds, follow with a wave of Minions, Balloons, Dragons, or some
combination of the three.
Using Rage Spells after initial deployment is key to the success of
this strategy. The Lava Hounds will not live forever and deal very
little damage, so it is important to clear as much of the enemy’s base
as possible while the Lava Hounds are still alive.
Freeze Spells work great with the Lava Hound, particularly if the
enemy has Inferno Towers set to single target. You cannot allow a
single-target Inferno Tower to target a high-health Lava Hound; that
will work out very poorly for you. Use a Freeze Spell to interrupt the
Inferno Tower until your other units can come in and finish the job.
A Lightning Spell is also extremely useful to pair with Lava Hound
and air-based armies. When the Lava Hound triggers the Clan Castle, the
most dangerous units that can spill out of the Clan Castle are Wizards.
Enemy Wizards do massive DPS, and if 6 or 7 Wizards spill out of the
Clan Castle, they will take down your Lava Hounds in a matter of
seconds. Use a LIghtning Spell to wipe the Wizards out.
Air armies generally do not play well with heroes, but heroes can be
deployed strategically after the air attack to push you over the edge on
a close clear. You may find yourself with a 45% clear or the Town Hall
still alive. Placing your heroes intelligently can allow you to get up
to a 50% clear or to nab the Town Hall.
Lava Hounds in Farming
Town Hall 9/10 players can get some use out of the Lava Hound for
farming battles; a combination of 2 Lava Hounds could be used to support
a typical Balloonion (Balloon and Minion) composition. Make sure that
the extra supply count for the Lava Hounds comes at the expense of
Balloons; you will not need nearly as many Balloons if you have Lava
Hounds tanking the fire.
Drop 2 Lava Hounds, slightly staggered, then follow in with a line of
Balloons. Use a Rage Spell or two to boost your Balloons further into
the enemy’s base, and immediately follow with a wave of Minions. This
composition is very effective at coring towards an enemy’s Dark Elixir
storage – just make sure there is 2,000+ DE available to make the attack
worth it.
Lava Hounds usage in farming is the same as their use in trophy
pushing and war battles. At the very top echelons of play where Lava
Hounds are most likely to be used, there is not much difference between
farming and trophy pushing. Not only do many players keep some of
their resources exposed in an effort to better protect their Town Hall,
but the match bonus itself provides a large amount of resources.
Lava Hound Weaknesses
The Lava Hound has three main weaknesses: its low damage, single-target Inferno Towers, and Wizards in the Clan Castle.
- Damage: The Lava Hound does almost no damage. You will need to support it with high-damage air units like Minions or Balloons in order to make the Lava Hound a useful unit.
- Inferno Tower: The Inferno Tower set to single-target mode will tear up a Lava Hound. Use Freeze Spells and make sure your offensive units are right behind the Lava Hound in order to take down the Inferno Towers before they can do any harm.
- Wizards: Wizards in the enemy’s Clan Castle are dangerous. Use a Lightning Spell to take the Wizards out. A few shots from a group of Wizards will take out a Lava Hound.
Lava Hounds and Spells
The Lava Hound is not a direct beneficiary of spells. The Rage Spell
is not very useful, given how little damage the Lava Hound does. The
Lava Hound has too much health to benefit from the Healing Spell.
The Lava Hound does benefit indirectly from spells. The Freeze Spell
can lock down Inferno Towers while the Lightning Spell can take out Clan
Castle units. Damage-dealing units supporting the Lava Hound will also
benefit from the Rage Spell.
Lava Hounds as a Clan Castle Unit
The Lava Hound is not much of a defensive unit in the Clan Castle. It
does very little damage and as a result can be taken out fairly easily.
However, it is useful for offensive purposes. If you have an alt
account, you can donate yourself a Lava Hound to save a lot of training
time.
Donating yourself Lava Hounds can make a Balloon/Minion/Lava Hound
composition much easier to pull together for farming purposes. At your
main base, 1 Dark Barracks can train a Lava Hound, one can train
Minions, and the 4 Barracks can train Balloons. By donating yourself a
Lava Hound from an alt account, you can save yourself quite a bit of
training time. Having only two Dark Barracks is the biggest time limiter
of the Balloon/Minion/Lava Hound combination, so donating a Lava Hound
can save a large amount of training time.
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