Lava Launcher

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

Missing maximum damage per second and splash radius

"Hurls molten rock over great distances. Sets the ground on fire, which really turns up the heat for enemy ground troops!"

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Level 1-2

Level 3-4

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7-8

Level 9

Level 10

Summary

• The Lava Launcher is a defensive building that throws powerful balls of lava that do a small amount of damage on impact, but leaves the ground scorched, which inflicts increasing damage-over-time effect (similar to the Poison Spell) on ground troops. The effect of the lava remains for 20 seconds after impact.
• It is unlocked at Builder Hall level 9.
• It has a very large range, but also a very large blind spot as well. Due to the high arc of its volleys, the Lava Launcher's payload impact faster at a close range and slower at a long range.

Strategy

Offensive

• Using air troops is advantageous, as the Lava Launcher cannot attack air units. For this purpose, Baby Dragons or Drop Ships paired with Beta Minions work very well, though in the case of Drop Ships, their Skeletons' effect may be nullified by the Lava Launcher.
• If your only option of attacking is by ground then the best way to proceed would be to distract the Lava Launcher with expendable units such as a single Raged Barbarian, and ensure it fires away from the line of attack until the main attacking force has safely entered the Lava Launcher's blind spot. If done correctly the lava will not impede the attack's progress.
• Power P.E.K.K.As are also useful as their very high health means that they can survive for much longer in the lava compared to other troops.
• The Battle Machine is largely immune to the damage over time effect (like how Heroes are minimally affected by Poison Spells), so having the Battle Machine be targeted will minimize the DPS of the Lava Launcher.

Defensive

• Often it is not the damage of the lava shot itself that is devastating, but rather the massive DPS from the damage over time effect of the resulting lava. If allowed to reach maximum DPS the lava can easily make short work of many smaller troops, such as Raged Barbarians, Sneaky Archers, Cannon Carts, and Night Witches. To increase the chances of this happening it is often advantageous to stall attacking troops behind Walls so that they will stay in the lava for as long as possible, racking up damage, but make sure that the Walls can cover the Lava Launcher's blind spot.
  • It is also useful to protect these Walls as Bombers can easily clear them, allowing for other troops to rush into the blind spot.
• The biggest weakness of the Lava Launcher is its blind spot. Cover it with other defenses to protect it and try to use traps to keep troops in the range of the Launcher, as many troops, especially melees, can easily reach the blind spot if there is no protection.

Upgrade Differences

• When initially constructed, a hexagonal frustum stone barrel filled with lava sitting on top, with a pipe at the back of the frustum and a footing on the opposite side, it sit on a gear with dark metal rivet on each teeth and floats above a pool of lava. The gear is connected to another iron gear on the left side which spins to aim the slanted barrel, and there are crushed stones scattered around the lava pool.
  • At level 3, the crushed stones become roughly cut paving stones.
  • At level 5, the roughly cut stones are cut better and merged to be more uniform, with the corners being a straight piece.
  • At level 6, the barrel becomes larger, an iron band is added around the muzzle with a gold rivet on each side, another pipe is added to the back and other sides have a golden L-shaped bracket with dark metal rivets securing the barrel to the gear, with the footing being replaced by the bracket and the rivets on the gear shifted to connect the bracket and the gear.
  • At level 7, the paving stones have more defined edges and the stones become darker, with the corners slightly curves.
  • At level 9, the barrel becomes larger again, the iron band turns gold and the rivets are iron, the pipes are merged into a bigger one, and the gear on which it sits on turns gold as well, the brackets are now made of dark metal and the rivets are gold. The paving stones are now reinforced and secured with metal riveted metal plates, with the stone of the long side being merged into one.
  • At level 10, the barrel becomes taller, an extension is added over the gold band, which has a gold band at the bottom and a thin reinforcing plate on the corners of the muzzle, held together by some gold plates on the side and gold bolts, the brackets has dark metal rivets again. The base and side gear is slightly rotated.
• It does not undergo visual changes at levels 2, 4, and 8.

Statistics

Gold Pass modifiers

Input Gold Pass boost to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly

ApplyReset

Number Available	Builder Hall Level
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Total	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1

Size
3x3

Level	Lava Damage per Second	Damage per Shot	Hitpoints	Build Cost	Build Time	Experience Gained	Builder Hall Level Required
1	15	50	500	3,000,000	2d	415	9
2	17	55	575	3,100,000	3d	509	9
3	20	61	660	3,200,000	4d	587	9
4	22	67	760	3,400,000	5d	657	9
5	25	73	875	3,700,000	6d	720	9
6	27	81	1,050	4,000,000	7d	777	9
7	30	89	1,250	4,300,000	8d	831	9
8	32	97	1,450	4,600,000	10d	929	9
9	35	107	1,650	4,900,000	11d	974	9
10	37	118	1,850	5,900,000	12d	1,018	10

Range	Attack Speed	Damage Type	Unit Type Targeted
6-13 tiles	7 seconds	Splash - ? tiles	Ground

Icon Descriptions

	Tapping this icon displays information about the Lava Launcher, such as Level, Damage Per Second, Hitpoints, Range, Damage Type and Targets.
	Tapping this icon begins upgrading the Lava Launcher to the next level, if you have enough resources and a free Master Builder or O.T.T.O. When the Lava Launcher is at maximum level, this icon is not shown.
	Tapping this icon instantly upgrades the Lava Launcher to the next level, at the cost of one Hammer of Building if you have one. When the Lava Launcher is at maximum level, or the Builder Hall requirements for the next level are not met, this icon is not shown.
	Tapping this icon, which is displayed only while an upgrade is in progress, instantly finishes that upgrade at the cost of the displayed number of Gems.
	Tapping this icon, which is displayed only while an upgrade is in progress, instantly finishes that upgrade at the cost of one Book of Building. This icon is only shown if you have at least one Book of Building.
	Tapping this icon, which is displayed only while an upgrade is in progress, instantly finishes that upgrade at the cost of one Book of Everything. This icon is only shown if you have at least one Book of Everything but do not have a Book of Building.
	Tapping this icon, which is displayed only while an upgrade is in progress, cancels the current upgrade and refunds half of the upgrade cost.

History

Patch	Description
June 18, 2019	Added the Lava Launcher, with 9 levels.
December 9, 2019	Fixed a bug where the maximum damage per second did not match with what was shown in the info screen - all levels of Lava Launcher had a maximum lava DPS of 200 (as opposed to 200-360 in the info screen). The lava's maximum damage per second was reduced to 160-200.
December 19, 2019	Fixed Lava Launcher's idle animations.
May 15, 2023	Added the level 10 Lava Launcher. Drastically changed the Lava Launcher's damage statistics. Decreased range from 10-20 to 6-13 tiles.

Trivia

• The Lava Launcher is the only building in the Builder Base not to have upgrade differences at certain levels. However, it is not the only structure in the entire game where this is the case:
  • The Blacksmith in the Home Village has no upgrade differences at certain levels.
  • The Super Dragon Post in the Clan Capital has no upgrade differences between levels 4 and 5, possibly due to a bug.
  • The Elixir Collector formerly had no upgrade differences between levels 1 and 2 due to a bug.
  • Traps in the Home Village only gain upgrade differences at every other level.
• The defense was originally named the 'Poison Mortar' during its concept stage, due to it having Poison Spell-like effects on troops.
• The Lava Launcher has the greatest levels accessible at one Builder Hall level, being 9.
• The Lava Launcher is the only defense to have a damage-over-time effect, aside from Town Hall 14's Poison Bomb.
• The Lava Launcher is comparable to the Eagle Artillery, both have a slow fire rate, high damage on impact, some splash damage, and a large blind spot. However, it does not have a housing space activation cap.