Friday, December 23, 2016

Ballooning Basics

These are just some general tips on attacking with balloons.  I will try to expand on these later in more detail.

Level 6 balloons are essential for attacking TH9 and above.  The damage and health increase between level 5 and 6 balloons is enormous, so if you want to use balloons in your attacks, I highly suggest upgrading them to level 6 first.

Balloons have two key weaknesses: clan castle troops and the queen.  An attack CANNOT get three stars if the clan castle troops or queen is left alive.   Clan castle troops will chase balloons all around the map and balloons will not retaliate.  The queen will chase balloons in her range and mow them down in seconds.  This cannot be said enough: find a way to kill the CC and queen first if you want a three star attack.


There are two types of balloon attacks I like to use: balloon spam and lavaloon.

Balloon Spam

  • Good for raids and looting bases
  • Easy to get 2 stars, difficult to get 3
  • 20-30 minions, the rest balloons.
  • 2 rage, 4 haste, 1 poison (to use on clan castle troops or queen)
  • CC: Balloons and haste or skelly (to distract queen)

Drop all of your balloons over two adjacent sides of a base, trying to spread them out liberally (balloons are less effective in clumps).  Use hastes to speed balloons into the base, and rages near the core or near air defenses.  This will usually eliminate a good 70-80% of the defensive structures, at which point you can let loose your minions and your king and queen to loot the undefended portions of the base, or even try to three star the base if the balloons took out a big enough chunk of the defenses.


Lavaloon

  • War attack, more difficult to use successfully than balloon spam
  • Better chance of 3 star, but lower chance of 2 stars (high risk, high reward)
  • 3 lavaloons, the rest balloons
  • 2 rage, 4 haste, 1 poison (to use on clan castle troops or queen)
  • CC: Lava hound and haste or skelly (to distract queen)
The first step in this attack is finding a way to take out the clan castle troops.  If there is no way to safely take out the clan castle troops, I would recommend not using this attack, as it will not lead to 3 stars.  If the enemy clan castle is close enough to the edge to lure the troops out, I would send out something to lure them (a giant or hog perhaps), and then lure the troops out to the edge and kill them with your queen.  You'll most likely have to use your queen's ability to kill the clan castle troops, and you might even sacrifice the queen early, but it's a necessary step.

The next concern is the enemy queen.  If the queen is close enough to the edge of the base, sometimes the king can actually close the distance and eliminate the queen.  If the queen is nested deep in the base, however, you can use a poison and a skeleton spell to take her out.  But the timing of these spell drops is key: you must drop it after the queen has been surrounded by balloons, lava hounds, and lava pups.  With all these troops around to distract her (and any nearby defenses), the poison will slow down her rate of fire, and the skeletons will quickly shred her.

So, after the CC has been eliminated (and if you're lucky, the enemy queen too), deploy all of your lava hounds to cover two sides of a base.  Deploy them WIDE, so that they can sweep up any air traps in their path, and so they can draw the attention of as many defenses as possible.  The primary purpose of the lava hound is to protect your balloons.

Quickly follow up with all of your balloons, also spread wide to maximize destruction (try your best to avoid clumping balloons).  Deploy the balloons to cover two sides of a base, don't deploy them over all 4 sides.  Use haste spells to speed up the balloons from the outer fringes of the base quickly into the core, and use rage on balloons to take out air defenses or large clusters of defenses.  Drop poison and skelly over the enemy queen once your army has swarmed her to take her out.

If your balloons can manage to eliminate all of the defenses, there's a good chance of getting 3 stars.  Practice makes perfect, good luck!