Inferno Dragon

"Shoots a focused beam of fire that increases in damage over time. Wears a helmet because flying can be dangerous."

Summary

 * The Inferno Dragon is unlocked from the P.E.K.K.A.'s Playhouse (Arena 4).
 * It is a single-target, short-ranged, flying troop with both high hitpoints and damage.
 * An Inferno Dragon card costs 4 Elixir to deploy.
 * The Inferno Dragon's damage increases over time as it remains focused on a single target, similar to the Inferno Tower.
 * He seems to be wearing a barrel full of an unknown substance on his back which looks like a jetpack. The substance could possibly be fuel.
 * Its card picture looks like a Baby Dragon with a Helmet and its in-game appearance looks like a slightly bigger Baby Dragon with a Helmet and a Barrel on its back which looks like a jetpack.

Strategy

 * Pairing the Inferno Dragon with the Baby Dragon may be a good strategy since they cover each other's weaknesses. This is known as the Double Dragon combo, which is the air troop analogue of the Double Prince combo (single target high damage + area damage). The Baby Dragon kills the low-hitpoint troops while the Inferno Dragon deals the high damage
 * However this combo is vunerable to a Rocket as both dragons cannot survive a rocket.


 * When defending, it is advised to never let the Inferno Dragon lock onto a Crown Tower.
 * If it does manage to attack a tower, one of the best methods to stall its attack is by using Freeze or the Ice Spirit. They can prevent it from dealing massive damage per second for a few seconds, which could easily save most of the health of a Crown Tower.
 * A Zap also works, as it will reset the Inferno Dragon's beam and may cause it to change targets.
 * A Minion Horde can also easily destroy an Inferno Dragon but at a 1 Elixir loss.
 * However, the opponent will have to counter the remaining Minions to prevent a large amount of damage from being dealt upon the Crown Tower, which will put the opponent at an Elixir disadvantage.
 * Minions can do the same thing for a 1 Elixir profit as the Inferno Dragon takes relatively long to re-target after killing one of them, but you will be left with few, if any, minions to make a counter push.
 * The Mega Minion is less effective at dealing with Inferno Dragon due to it being a single troop, as well as dealing less overall damage per second compared to three Minions.
 * The Witch can deal with the Inferno Dragon too because it continuously spawns skeletons that the Inferno Dragon gets distracted on. The Witch will also be at full health, making a counter-push easy. Plus, the added time it takes to kill the Inferno Dragon gives you a lot of extra elixir.
 * An Inferno Dragon can be countered with an Inferno Tower, but also at a 1 Elixir loss. However, the Inferno Tower will attack first, due to the longer range.
 * Small groups of weak troops like Goblins or even Skeletons are useful for distracting an Inferno Dragon due to its low base damage and slow re-targeting.
 * A Tombstone or any spawner may be very useful to stall an Inferno Dragon.
 * An Inferno Dragon can take out tanks, such as Giants and Golems, and can be an advantage because it can be used to create a push. However, the player should be sure to take out any counters to the Inferno Dragon if it prevents killing the tanks or if they want to create a push with it.
 * Even though Arrows do little damage on the Inferno Dragon, it deals enough damage to enable a tower to eliminate the Inferno Dragon before it can deal its maximum damage. It can prove to be a handy alternative if the player does not have the Zap in their hand, possibly saving the tower from massive damage.
 * Once the Inferno Dragon has locked on to a target, it will not move. If the target moves out of range, the Inferno Dragon may move to keep up with it, but by doing so will reset the damage progression. Use this fact and be sure to deploy your Inferno Dragon close to your towers or troops to ensure that it will damage the target for as long as possible.
 * The damage of the Inferno Dragon functions almost the same as the Inferno Tower. For the first two seconds, it deals 9% damage (Tier 1). For the next two seconds, it burns at 20% damage (Tier 2). After that, it will incinerate the enemy with its full 100% damage (Tier 3). Due to the 1-second server delay, the optimal time to stun/freeze the Inferno Dragon is at 3 seconds, right before it reaches Tier 3 damage.
 * Due to the fact that it cannot pull ground or building-targeting troops, it is not a replacement for the Inferno Tower.
 * Use an Inferno Dragon to take out heavy hitpoint troops. Once the high hitpoint troop is taken out, use another card with the Inferno Dragon to start a counter-push.
 * The Electro Wizard is a great counter. Due to his ability to stun troops with each hit, he will prevent the Inferno Dragon from reaching maximum damage.

History

 * The Inferno Dragon was released on 30/9/16.
 * The Inferno Dragon's arena was changed from P.E.K.K.A.'s Playhouse to Frozen Peak on the November 2016 Update on 1/11/2016. However, Supercell confirmed on Reddit that this change was unintentional. This change was reverted the next day, on 2/11/16, in a maintenance break.
 * On 15/12/16, a Balance Update increased the Inferno Dragon's hitpoints by 5% and decreased its re-targeting time by 0.4 seconds.

Trivia

 * The Inferno Dragon is the fastest attacking troop card with a hit speed of 0.4 sec.
 * The Inferno Dragon's attack is same as that of the Inferno Tower, in which it builds up damage over time. However, the Inferno Dragon can re-target faster than an Inferno Tower yet it has significantly less health and damage compared to the Inferno Tower.
 * Despite the Inferno Dragon wearing a helmet and being bigger than the Baby Dragon, it has slightly fewer hitpoints than the Baby Dragon at tournament levels.
 * The Inferno Dragon is slower than the Baby Dragon despite them being both the same type of dragon.
 * This could be because the Inferno Dragon is bigger and is carrying a jetpack and helmet.
 * Ironically, the Inferno Dragon has less health than the Baby Dragon.
 * Because the Baby Dragon and Inferno Dragon are the same breed of Dragon, they make the same deploy sound. They also have the same flying animations.
 * The barrel in the back is most likely used as inferno fuel so the Inferno Dragon can shoot out an inferno beam.
 * When an Inferno Dragon reaches its maximum damage capability, it has the second highest damage per second of any troop card, twice as high as that of the P.E.K.K.A. This damage per second is surpassed by only the Skeleton Army, which does 1372 damage per second.
 * The Inferno Dragon has the same hitpoints as an equal level Miner.

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