Lava Hounds are 30 housing space areal troops made for one thing and one thing only… battling Air Defenses. The moment that you deploy your Lava Hound it ignores everything and heads straight for the nearest Air Defense where it hovers over until it either destroys it and moves on to the next AD or it gets destroyed. If the Lava hound looses all of its Hit Points it bursts into a multitude of smaller units called Lava Pups. The Lava Pups continue the fight, no longer singling out and attacking Air defenses but attacking anything that stands in their way without prejudice. The closest building or troop gets the mild but constant bombardment from the glowing orange fire slugs. Lava Hounds are Dark Elixir Troops and very expensive troops at that. Their attack I fairly weak considering that they are not available until TH9 therefor players must use Lava Hounds in cooperation with other troops.

       On offense the Lave Hound has several roles it must play during one attack. It must 1st cover the Air Defenses up so the AD can not attack other troops but that is not the only thing that must be taken into consideration if you want to have a successful Lava Hound attack. 1st thing is you must use other troops in combination with the Lava Hound like the Dragon or Balloon or Minions to name some of the more popular troops used with the Hounds. The Lava Hounds will not do nearly enough damage to the Air Defenses to

destroy it never mind the rest of the base after the AD

is gone, so the use of other areal troops help the Lava

Hound clear the defenses. Even with the help of

Balloons or Dragons the attack must be timed correctly

because the Lava hounds are 30 housing space and

most players will build 2-3 per attack. This does not

leave a lot of remaining troops to make up the rest of

the army composition. Many Lava Hound attacks fall

short of 3 stars because of the lack of supporting

numbers of troops. Advanced players will try to keep

the Lava Hound alive until all of the AD have been destroyed but as soon as they AD are destroyed attacking players are hoping that the Lava Hound also gets destroyed. This will cause the Lava Hound to burst into Lava Pups which causes Death Damage similar to the Golem and Balloon. Once the Lava Hounds is reduced down to Lava Pups the single unit turns to many and starts doing considerable damage in comparison to the Hound itself. If the attacking player can "pop" the Lava Hound they have a much higher chance clearing out the entire base.

       On defense the Lava Hound is a very popular Defensive Clan Castle troop. They love to fly out of the CC and park over the tanking troops and patiently wait for the troops that can shoot into the air to bring up the rear. Once those troops (like the Wizard for example) lock onto the Lava Hound it takes them a considerable amount of time to destroy the Lava Hound all the while the defenses are taking free shots at the troops targeting the Hound in the sky. Once the Lava Hound finally pops and bursts into Lava Pups (between 8 and 14 depending on the level of the Lava Hound) the Pups make a valiant effort to eliminate as many of the attacking troops as possible. This has killed many good attacks dead in their tracks. Dragons have an especially hard time with the Lava Hound. 1st the Lava Hound does not attack Air troops so it will stay in the CC until the Heroes or Loons are deployed. Then, the Dragons see the Lava Hound and chase it down. They lock onto the Lava Hound and stop damaging the bases building and defenses, the defenses of the base will continue to pound on the Dragons position, further damaging the winged Giants of the sky. As soon as the Dragons do enough damage to the Lava Hound and it finally pops the dragons will begin to try to clear out the Lava Pups.  This is difficult for the Dragon because when the Lava Hound pops the Pups are disbursed in a circular formation which causes the Dragons to spin around chasing after the Pups on at a time due to their spacing. Unlike the adult Lava Hound, the Lava Pups will attack the dragons with their mild yet fast attack. Also, if the troops are within the Air Defenses range then the Air Defenses will record significant damage of the troops as they slowly remove the Lava Hound and even more as they polish off the Lava Pups. Like I said Dragons do not do well against the Lava Hound…

     EZE Hint: If you are attacking a base with a Lava Hound in the Clan Castle try using less troops that can attack the Lava Hounds position. By allowing the Lava Hound to remain in the air whole, doing between 10-16 DPS (often on the tanking troops like the Golem that has thousands of HP) players can clear the entire base without having to deal with the pesky Lava Pups.

       Upgrading the Lava Hound is very expensive.

The cost is between 60,000-150,000 Dark Elixer.

My suggestion is to prioritize this particular

troops upgrades to match up to how often you

use it in resource hunting raids and war attacks.

I would always suggest maxing out all of your

troops in your present Town Hall before you

advance to the Next Town Hall level but if the

Lava Hound is not part of any attack that you use then upgrading it last would not be the worst idea. However, if you use attacks like the Laloon or Laloonian (Lava Hound/ Balloons or Lava Hound/ Balloons/ Minions) or you use a hybrid attack with them like the Golaloon (Golem/ Lava Hound/ Loons) then try upgrading the Lava Hound as soon as the Balloons and Minions are complete (see our ATTACKS 101 Page for all of these attacks!). Lava Hounds already have such considerable hit points that they can still be fairly effective at lvl 1 or 2 where the Balloons undergo some MAJOR transformations in the final 2 upgrades… Minions have similar leaps on the last couple of upgrades So getting them done before the Lava Hound would also be a great help.

     Overall the Lava Hound is one of Clash of Clans specialized troops that are the masters of their unique niche. There is no better troop to help keep those air troops alive during a raid  than the Lava Hound. Remember that timing is everything with the Lava Hound. If you deploy them too soon the Air Defense will destroy them before you backup troops arrive to help them crush the AD. Remember not to try to use them by themselves on offense. A pair of Lava Hound will help insure that they stay alive long enough for the assisting troops to reach the Air Defenses and destroy it.