Dragon Rider

[[File:{{{Alt}}}|28px|link=]]

"This aerial engine of destruction readily and frankly, quite excitedly lays waste to any defense it comes across. The skeleton onboard swears he's not touching the controls."

---

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3

Summary

• The Dragon Rider is a mechanized dragon ridden by a skeleton that prioritizes defenses. It is unlocked once the Barracks is upgraded to level 15, which requires Town Hall level 13.
• Dragon Riders prioritize defensive structures above all other targets, and will bypass all other types of enemy buildings and troops while any defenses remain on the battlefield. This is true even if they are under attack by enemy Clan Castle troops, heroes or Skeleton Trap skeletons. Note that like all troops that prioritize defenses, Dragon Riders do not consider the Clan Castle to be a defense regardless of whether or not it contains enemy troops, but do consider the defending Grand Warden and the activated Town Hall weapon (if any) to be defensive buildings.
  Once all defenses are destroyed, Dragon Riders become like any other troop with no preferred target; they will attack the nearest building to them regardless of type, and will turn and attack enemy units if they become aware of any nearby.

Strategies

Offensive Strategy

• The Dragon Rider can be used to hunt down defensive buildings far away from each other to take them out. It is better than a Dragon in that aspect due to the extra speed, health and damage.
• The Dragon Rider has more hitpoints than Dragon and even the Electro Dragon, which makes them tankier.
• The Dragon Rider has faster speed, higher DPS, higher hitpoints, and lower housing space than the Electro Dragon of a similar level, making them a better alternative. They also target defenses, however, they cannot damage multiple buildings in one attack, unlike the Electro Dragon.
• Adding Invisibility Spell and Rage Spell along with an army of Dragon Riders will destroy most of the Air Defenses, making way for the weaker troops, Electro Dragon and Dragon to easily raid the place.
• It can be paired with Lava Hounds, as they are able to distract the defenses while the Dragon Rider destroys them. However, this is dependent on the combination's proximity to an Air Defense, as the Lava Hounds target them and thus can only tank defenses around that area.

Defensive Strategy

• It is pretty difficult to stop a Dragon Rider from reaching a certain defense because of its high damage and hitpoints. One way to stop a Dragon Rider is by using a Skeleton Trap (set to air mode). This is because of the Dragon Rider preferred target, thus ignoring the Skeletons. Even if all defenses are destroyed, the Dragon Rider can only shoot at one at a time, thus hindering the Dragon Rider.
• Seeking Air Mines can heavily damage, or kill Dragon Riders. Placing one near defenses that Dragon Riders are likely to target can ruin the attacker's plan. This is especially valuable to the defender, as a death of one Dragon Rider is a 25 housing space loss.
• Dragon Riders is not the best choice as a Clan Castle troop, as it can only attack a single target at a time, which makes it easy to overwhelm with hordes of units. However, it's high hitpoints means that it can take a while to kill, depending on the army the attacker is using. It can also stop unprepared attackers, such as one using an all-P.E.K.K.A. army.

History

• The Dragon Rider was added in the June 15, 2021 update, along with 3 levels.

Trivia

• You can have a maximum of 12 Dragon Riders at one time in a complete set of fully upgraded Army Camps. This number increases to 13 if you include the 1 that can fit into a level 4 or higher Clan Castle. On the battlefield, you can clone an additional 4 Dragon Riders with four level 4 or higher Clone Spells (three from the regular spell inventory and one from a max-level Clan Castle).
• The Balloon is a "promoted" version of the Wall breaker. The Dragon Rider may be another "promoted" version of the Balloon.

Comparisons

• The Dragon Rider is one of the several troops, along with the Healer, Dragon, Miner, Electro Dragon, Yeti, Golem, Bowler, Ice Golem and Headhunter not to have a Builder Base Troop or Super Troop counterpart.
• It is one of the three "vehicle" troops that are manned by wall breaker-like skeletons, the others being the Balloon and the Rocket Balloon.
  • It is also the only dragon variant not to be organic.
• The Dragon Rider, along with the Dragon, P.E.K.K.A, Yeti, and the Headhunter are the only troops to have upgrade differences at each level.
• The Dragon Rider, Yeti and Headhunter are the three troops with the least amount of levels.
• The Dragon Rider, along with the Grand Warden, Mighty Yak, Hog Glider and Battle Machine are the only units not to appear in loading screen images, excluding the Super Troops.
• The Dragon Rider, along with the Dragon, Yeti, and Headhunter are the only Home Village troops not to appear in Clash Royale, excluding Super Troops.
• The Dragon Rider is the only dragon variant that prioritize defenses.
• The Dragon Rider is the only wall breaker-like troop not to have a Super Troop and Builder Base counterparts.

Statistic Modifiers

Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly

	ⓘ		ⓘ
	ⓘ		ⓘ
	ⓘ		ⓘ
	ⓘ

Gold Pass modifiers

	ⓘ
	ⓘ

ApplyReset

Preferred Target	Attack Type	Housing Space	Movement Speed	Attack Speed	Range	Death Damage Radius	Barracks Level Required
Defenses	Single Target	25	20	1.2s	4.5 tiles	2 tiles	15

Training Time of Dragon Rider
1 Barracks	2 Barracks	3 Barracks	4 Barracks
16m 40s	8m 20s	5m 33s	4m 10s

Level	Damage per Second	Damage per Attack	Damage Upon Death	Hitpoints	Training Cost	Research Cost	Research Time	Laboratory Level Required
1	340	408	700	4,100	22,000	N/A	N/A	N/A
2	370	444	800	4,500	25,000	16,000,000	15d	11
3	400	480	900	4,900	28,000	17,500,000	17d	12