"These fiery beasts can't resist chasing after Air Defenses, providing excellent protection for other troops. Once destroyed, they erupt into many smaller, weaker menaces."
The Lava Hound is the sixth Dark Elixir Troop unlocked in the Dark Barracks when it has been upgraded to level 6, which requires Town Hall level 9. He is a high-hitpoint aerial tank with low damage and moderate speed.
The Lava Hound is a fiery, canine beast with a pair of small wings and limbs. He is encased with multiple hardened rock plates over his body and lava flows through every seam.
When defeated, the Lava Hound explodes, inflicting a small amount of damage in the area while spawning numerous Lava Pups, which will continue to attack nearby targets.
Lava Hounds prioritize Air Defenses above all other targets, and will bypass all other enemy buildings and troops while any Air Defenses remain on the battlefield. This is true even if they are under attack by enemy Clan Castle troops, Heroes or Skeleton Trap skeletons. Once all Air Defenses are destroyed, they will continue to attack any other remaining defenses. Note that like all troops that prioritize defenses, Lava Hounds do not consider the Clan Castle to be a defense regardless of whether or not it contains enemy troops, but do consider the activated Town Hall weapon (if any) to be defensive buildings. Once all remaining defenses are destroyed, Lava Hounds 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 and can fight back against them.
Strategies
Offensive Strategies
Lava Hounds have high health and are essentially the aerial equivalent of the Golem. They can be used to protect Dragons, Minions, Healers and Balloons, much like how Golems can protect a group of Wizards or Witches. Due to their priority against Air Defenses, they can easily occupy them while other troops decimate the base - they deal little damage on their own, and almost always require support from something else.
However, it is not a good idea to use Baby Dragons with them as they cannot activate their Tantrum ability while near other aerial allies.
Be sure to keep him away from single-targeting Inferno Towers, which can kill him with ease.
However, it may also be helpful if the Lava Hound pops on top of the Inferno Tower since the Lava Pups can distract the single-target Inferno for some time.
It is a good idea to bring a Freeze Spell if a single-target Inferno Tower is present, since the tower will go down easily if frozen and then bombarded with attacks from allied troops.
Against a multi-target Inferno Tower, Lava Hounds will be fine, but the Lava Pups and a large number of allied units that come after it will be decimated, so keep an eye out for them too.
Do not use too many Lava Hounds, as they are extremely weak offensive units and will be destroyed before they do too much damage to your enemy, even given their prodigious hitpoints.
The Lava Hound can tank for Battle Blimp, especially if the latter is filled with units such as Super Archers, Sneaky Goblins, or Balloons, therefore improving the Blimp's survivability.
However, Seeking Mines, if placed far enough from Air Defenses to be triggered by Lava Hounds, will severely damage the Battle Blimp, if not destroy it prematurely, which may result in a one-star or a loss of a battle.
Lava Hounds may make high-level Giant-Healer strategies more viable, but they are still one or the weakest strategies at TH9+. This is because Giants hold the least hitpoints for any tank and unlike the Barbarian King, they do not have a Hero ability to get them out of a big doom-circle. Besides, they are intended to absorb fire from anti-air defenses, making ground attackers pointless anyway.
It is advisable to have a Clone Spell ready in Lava Hound attacks. Clone the support troops to drastically increase the Lava Hound's effectiveness as it holds off air defenses while other units destroy the buildings. A Rage/Haste Spell can be even better since most of the units that work well with Lava Hound tend to move slowly.
It is best to strategically place them around several defenses so they can absorb enemy fire better.
While Dragons work well with Lava Hounds, you need to watch out for Seeking Air Mines since they are incredibly effective against strong individuals.
Defensive Strategies
Spreading your Air Defenses out is a good idea. This forces attackers to keep their air troops near the Lava Hounds for protection, making Air Bombs and Wizard Towers more effective. Also have Seeking Air Mines close near your Air Defenses so they will be more likely to be triggered by Lava Hounds.
Be sure to use at least one single-targeting Inferno Tower, which will destroy a Lava Hound with ease, just like they destroy Golems with ease.
Lava Hounds are a great choice as a Clan Castle troop for Clan Castle levels 5 or higher, particularly at higher leagues. While he does virtually no damage on his own, his tremendous hitpoints allow him to soak up a lot of damage from the attacker while the defenses fire upon him, and upon dying, he breaks down into many Lava Pups which can deal a good amount of damage to the attackers. Poison Spells are not as always effective against the Lava Pups, because they often scatter too far apart to be caught by a single Poison Spell, which gives the Lava Hound some stalling potential on defense.
However, the Lava Hound will only be deployed if there are ground units such as the Barbarian King near the trigger range of the Clan Castle, since he cannot target aerial units.
Upgrade Differences
The Lava Hound undergoes significant visual changes at all levels.
Initially, the Lava Hound is a large, winged, dog-like creature with a body made of molten rock. On his body are cracks filled with lava. He attacks by spitting a single lava ball that deals very low damage. When he dies, he explodes into Lava Pups that deal more damage and have very low hitpoints.
At level 3, the spikes on his back turn into a lava color. His eyes also become larger and oranger. The lava under the skin of the forearms also disappears, and his wings grow in size as well as his body. His glow changes a bit.
At level 4, the lava on his body turns deep orange.
At level 5, the spikes on his back turn dark brown. The wings are now bronze-colored.
At level 6, the spikes on his back turn dark red, along with the wings.
At level 7, his body becomes slightly bluish, along with his spikes. The lava on his body becomes thicker and starts to glow, and his wings turn navy. His head also becomes gold.
Statistics
Statistic Modifiers
Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly
The Sneak Peek picture of the Lava Hound features his head, bearing the words "I smell fireworks...".
This alludes to the fact that Air Defenses' warheads are quite literally fireworks.
You can have a maximum of 11 Lava Hounds at one time in a complete set of fully upgraded Army Camps. This number increases to 12 if you include 1 that can fit into a level 5 or higher Clan Castle. On the battlefield, you can clone an additional 4 Lava Hounds with four level 5 or higher Clone Spells (three from the regular spell inventory and one from a level 10 or higher Clan Castle). These total to a maximum of 16 Lava Hounds.
However, because they have insufficient amount of DPS, having that many Lava Hounds would not be a practical move, and will result in a time fail, especially at higher Town Hall levels.
The Lava Hound bears a strong resemblance to Korath from Backyard Monsters at level 5 and 6 in particular.
The Lava Hound in Squad Busters resembles the level 1 Lava Hound in Clash of Clans.
The Lava Hound is confirmed to be a male in "The Last Lava Pup" where a guy asked the storyteller if the Lava Pup's dad was gone too. It also says that the Lava Hound is the father of the Lava Pups.
The Lava Hound is often compared to the Golem due to his similar statistics and concept (e.g. they both have a lot of health but low damage, take 30 housing space, and once defeated, they do death damage and spawn smaller sub-troops to continue the fight).
However, their main difference is the amount of sub-troops they can spawn.
When tapping on an Army Camp, all Lava Hounds stationed there will briefly turn away from the screen.
Although the Lava Hound shoots fireballs, he cannot inflict area damage.
Unlike his counterpart in Clash Royale, the stats of the Lava Pups do not increase when the Lava Hound is upgraded. Instead, their amount increases.
The level 5 Lava Hound has been enlarged in size as of 2018 and has become the largest troop in the game (tied with Heroes).
Comparisons
The level 6 Lava Hound has the second highest hitpoints among all regular troops; (the first one being the level 13 Golem) however, he has lower DPS per housing space (about 0.67) than any other regular troop (excluding the Healer, Unicorn and Druid in his human form, which do not deal any damage), even lower than the level 1 Golem at 1.27 DPS per housing space. When troops at maximum level are compared, it has the second lowest DPS per housing space of all troops, with only the Ice Hound having the lowest DPS per housing space (0.375 at max level).
He is one of the five troops that has three preferred target stages, the others being the Headhunter (if Heroes and Clan Castle troops are present), Broom Witch, and the Ice Hound.
The Lava Hound and the Ice Hound are the only troops that have a specific preferred target. In their case, they prioritize Air Defenses.
The Lava Hound, Ice Hound, Healer, Balloon, and Rocket Balloon are the only aerial units in the Home Village that can only target things on the ground.
