PentaLavaLoon Is Not Dead - Don't Believe the Hype

Hey guys,

Some of you will know that I've got a bit of history with Penta (my original Penta guide is still the most watched one of YouTube). I've not been using it (or anything) much since the Sweeper/Pup AI update, due to a lack of Clashing time. However I've heard repeatedly of the demise of my once go-to strategy so I decided I'd give it a shot in my first ever live attack for my YouTube channel.

If you think that Penta is now unusable since the update this might interest you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foQfQVZo-WU

Penta has been limited somewhat - the Pups don't track to the Queen from the same range as before and the Sweeper can cause issues if you don't account for it. However those things can be ameliorated simply through careful planning.

• In order to reliably kill the Queen just wait until she gets right on top of the AD closest to her, as she makes her route around her platform, before deploying your hounds. This will only cost you a matter of seconds during the raid but will allow you to dramatically increase the success rate of the Queen kill with your Pups.
• Try to attack behind the Sweeper. If that isn't possible, try to place one Hound first, away from the main deployment, to distract it.
• Carefully select bases to Penta which have 1) a lurable CC 2) a Queen close to an AD 3) a Sweeper which won't totally ruin your Hound/Loon deployment.

Bottomline; Penta isn't dead! It can still be used. It simply requires a little more planning and adaptation that before. But that's what makes those 3 stars all the sweeter!

Happy clashing all!

Interesting, thanks for the tips. Need beefier heroes myself only have 10/9 at the moment so my attempts at most laloon attacks are still a slight miss because I can't handle CC with my heroes only just yet.

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Originally Posted by GeneralMayhem

Interesting, thanks for the tips. Need beefier heroes myself only have 10/9 at the moment so my attempts at most laloon attacks are still a slight miss because I can't handle CC with my heroes only just yet.

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10/9 should be fine. My original lavaloon tutorial (in my sig) had players with similar heroes wiping CCs. The key is to make sure the order is right for the heroes. It is always thus;

Lure,
Deploy Queen to pull,
As CC gets to Queen and begins firing (but before she takes more than 10% damage) cloak,
Deploy King and rage immediately.

If there is a witch or wizards try to place the King directly on them when you deploy him.

The only exception is in the event of a CC Dragon. If it's a Dragon simply lure with the Queen and BEFORE he fires, cloak the Queen. She'll kill it from behind her cloak.

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

10/9 should be fine. My original lavaloon tutorial (in my sig) had players with similar heroes wiping CCs. The key is to make sure the order is right for the heroes. It is always thus;

Lure,
Deploy Queen to pull,
As CC gets to Queen and begins firing (but before she takes more than 10% damage) cloak,
Deploy King and rage immediately.

If there is a witch or wizards try to place the King directly on them when you deploy him.

The only exception is in the event of a CC Dragon. If it's a Dragon simply lure with the Queen and BEFORE he fires, cloak the Queen. She'll kill it from behind her cloak.

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Thanks again! Glad you are always willing to help the little guys out! Will put this into practice before bringing it to the war arena.

Incredible war attack! Congrats for that! I would never think you could 3-star that with only 19 balloons :O

When I'll start cupping I'll definnetely (<- is that spelled right? :/ ) try this out!!!

To be honest, that sweeper was facing the wrong direction. If it were facing directly south, it would have probably stopped penta. Attacking from the north won't be ideal because the AQ will be on the far end of the base.

I will probably just stick to my golaloon strats. Good video though.

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Originally Posted by Vshin

To be honest, that sweeper was facing the wrong direction. If it were facing directly south, it would have probably stopped penta. Attacking from the north won't be ideal because the AQ will be on the far end of the base.

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Well if the Sweeper were facing south I'd have lured to the top of the base, used a few WB to open the wall, killed the CC with my Royals and let them kill the Sweeper before I deployed.

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Originally Posted by Lightburb

I will probably just stick to my golaloon strats. Good video though.

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That's fine and thank you. Also you might be interested in my next video. It will feature defensive tips to teach anyone who is interested how to prevent GoLava from 3 starring their base!

Pentalavaloon still valid! I did 3 Start attack in last war using it. But the sweeper was outside the walls:p

Good to hear from you and see some new material post-LaLoon nerf. I will definitely take this information into consideration.

There are people out there preaching the superiority of GoLava when it seems more complicated in general to me. There are a lot more moving parts to GoLava, and you often have to burn two spells just on CC and AQ. And I would probably be faced with a CC that can't be zapped or screw up the CC zap itself anyway.

Thanks for the update, good to know someone is able to make it work.

If u want to make a tutorial, then u need to explain each part what to do, where u need to be carefull and so on. Sure u gave some good points, but add that into video.

Hey Hex,

As always, thanks for the support bud.

It's funny you should mention GoLava actually. I'm just about to release what I'm calling my Defensive Bible which I'm hoping might actually kill GoLava. Or at the very least give my subs a really good idea of how to stop it. So maybe we'll be able to win a few back to LavaLoon again!

Take care mate.

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Originally Posted by IlDiavolo

If u want to make a tutorial, then u need to explain each part what to do, where u need to be carefull and so on. Sure u gave some good points, but add that into video.

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Thanks for the tips but this wasn't a tutorial. It was a live attack. As it happens I'm fairly experienced in making tutorials. My PentaLavaLoon tutorial series has over 150,000 views and my initial 'How to Penta' guide is the most watched Penta tutorial on YouTube.

You should check the series out. Thanks again for the advice.

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

Thanks for the tips but this wasn't a tutorial. It was a live attack. As it happens I'm fairly experienced in making tutorials. My PentaLavaLoon tutorial series has over 150,000 views and my initial 'How to Penta' guide is the most watched Penta tutorial on YouTube.

You should check the series out. Thanks again for the advice.

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Oh tnx...i will check it.

Realy good guide...i will start using.

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Originally Posted by IlDiavolo

Oh tnx...i will check it.

Realy good guide...i will start using.

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Thanks man, let me know if you have any issues.

with your high level heroes, it is better to change strategy to shattered laloon. push in deep into the enemy base, confirm AQ and cc kill. higher 3 stars success rate.

need skill and luck too to bank on the pups to kill the enemy AQ the risky part of not killing the queen. especially those high level queen.

I actually didn't hear that it is dead after air sweeper update. Still it is awesome and from the best attacks

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Originally Posted by OwenHanZ

with your high level heroes, it is better to change strategy to shattered laloon. push in deep into the enemy base, confirm AQ and cc kill. higher 3 stars success rate.

need skill and luck too to bank on the pups to kill the enemy AQ the risky part of not killing the queen. especially those high level queen.

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That simply isn't true. It's entirely base dependant. And Penta if done well, is the most powerful TH9 strategy in terms of the amount of the army you can finish an attack with - I've 3 starred maxed TH9 bases with 3 Hounds and 10+ Balloons intact.

In terms of consistency, at one point I was on an 18 war streak of 6 star wars with Penta. The Queen kill isn't about luck. It's about timing. If you watch this video carefully you'll notice that I wait to deploy my Hounds until the AQ moves so that she is standing on top of one of the ADs. So when I send the Balloons in she's going to die one way or another.

I can see why you have these misconceptions about Penta but that is exactly what I'm trying to address.

Nb. Regarding Shattered, I'll be releasing a video tonight which will teach anyone how to stop Shattered working on their TH9 war base and I'll be giving away my war base (which stops Shattered using my technique) at the same time. You might find it interesting.

Here's the problem I have with Penthound <br>
<br>
any base that Penthound can work on has a better chance of being three starred by shattered/CB LaLoons or Hogs, VaLoon, or HGH. It's just a really inefficient attack with a high rate of failure. <br>
<br>
<br>

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Originally Posted by 3lorian

Here's the problem with Penthound

any base that Penthound can work on has a better chance of being three starred by shattered/CB LaLoons or Hogs, VaLoon, or HGH. It's just a really inefficient attack with a high rate of failure.


Ps
You can't stop Shattered/CB easily most people who try end up making their bases GoLo or VaLoon able.

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This isn't true and I'll give you a one word teaser as to the reason which you can stop GoLava (or Valks) which doesn't affect Penta; Storages! You'll say 'Oh I know all about storages' but if you don't think you can prevent GoLava then you might find you like some of the stuff I use in my designs which I've gleaned during my visits to most of the top mixed war clans in Clash! It'll be up tonight if you're interested.

I'm looking forward to the defense video. There are several concepts that can deter shattered drops. Offsetting your queen always helps and then stacking ADs away from her but then you run the risk of GoLo, besides a good Shattered LaLooner will get you now matter what. Last war I completely left an off center AQ alone and my KS took out 3 ADs and 2 teslas...not much they could do after that...

Right now you really can't stop Shattered without making your base GoLo, HGH, or VaLoonable :(


oh. I don't want you to think I'm talking trash btw. I really like your channel!

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Originally Posted by 3lorian

Here's the problem I have with Penthound <br>
<br>
any base that Penthound can work on has a better chance of being three starred by shattered/CB LaLoons or Hogs, VaLoon, or HGH. It's just a really inefficient attack with a high rate of failure. <br>
<br>
<br>

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Like any strategy.

I would have to agree with 3lorian, there is too much variability in penta. Golaloon is much more consistent/predictable.

It isn't dead in the same way mass hog raids (no golem or AQ kill) aren't dead but will only work against poor bases unfortunately. For all serious war clans with somewhat close to maxed defenses and typical anti 3 star layouts it will practically never get the 3 star and is much weaker than the standard cb or shatter golaloon.

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Originally Posted by GodII

It isn't dead in the same way mass hog raids (no golem or AQ kill) aren't dead but will only work against poor bases unfortunately. For all serious war clans with somewhat close to maxed defenses and typical anti 3 star layouts it will practically never get the 3 star and is much weaker than the standard cb or shatter golaloon.

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Anti-3 star bases were pretty much ruled out when DaRT listed lurable CC as a major criterion. Luckily only a small percentage of clashers use these. Surgical hogs have picked up a lot of buzz, however, so I think it's only fair we start to see some surgical LaLoon footage. ��

And you're absolutely right, lurable cc = poor base design by many people's standards. Centralized CC lures have a way of being expensive in terms of camp space, and a standard PLL army doesn't have a lot of fat/camp space to sacrifice for said lure.

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Originally Posted by HexxenHammer

Anti-3 star bases were pretty much ruled out when DaRT listed lurable CC as a major criterion. Luckily only a small percentage of clashers use these. Surgical hogs have picked up a lot of buzz, however, so I think it's only fair we start to see some surgical LaLoon footage. 😉

And you're absolutely right, lurable cc = poor base design by many people's standards. Centralized CC lures have a way of being expensive in terms of camp space, and a standard LavaLoon army doesn't have a lot of fat/camp space to sacrifice for said lure.

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Ive always been been so confused over a lureable CC....all CCs can be pulled ;)

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Originally Posted by GodII

It isn't dead in the same way mass hog raids (no golem or AQ kill) aren't dead but will only work against poor bases unfortunately. For all serious war clans with somewhat close to maxed defenses and typical anti 3 star layouts it will practically never get the 3 star and is much weaker than the standard cb or shatter golaloon.

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I certainly don't dispute that you can prevent Penta being effective with optimal AQ & Sweeper placement but as I've already said, I'm about to release a video which I hope will change the way people view defending GoLava attacks and make Shattered far less effective.

Penta only became ineffective because (as I predicted back in Feb) defensive designs adapted to limit it's effectiveness. As yet no one has managed to do that (without drastically weakening their base in other ways). I'm hoping we can move that conversation forward with this video.

If that proves successful the question will be is it easier to get the lure and do a well-planned Penta or do you run the risk of attacking a base with a strategy (GoLava), that it was specially designed to prevent.

Nb. I reserve the right to be totally wrong and fall flat on my face...

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Originally Posted by HexxenHammer

Anti-3 star bases were pretty much ruled out when DaRT listed lurable CC as a major criterion. Luckily only a small percentage of clashers use these. Surgical hogs have picked up a lot of buzz, however, so I think it's only fair we start to see some surgical LaLoon footage. ��

And you're absolutely right, lurable cc = poor base design by many people's standards. Centralized CC lures have a way of being expensive in terms of camp space, and a standard PLL army doesn't have a lot of fat/camp space to sacrifice for said lure.

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If I can't lure the cc I swallow my plan and do nothing and line up the queen onAD and hope pups kill cc troops heck if it's an easy base I don't pull cc on purpose so I know my hounds will pop

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Originally Posted by shadowmeep88

If I can't lure the cc I swallow my plan and do nothing and line up the queen onAD and hope pups kill cc troops heck if it's an easy base I don't pull cc on purpose so I know my hounds will pop

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While attacking without a lure is, of course an option, during the month of trials I did with friends in Centum before releasing the first Penta tutorial which spoke about luring, I found success rates for 3 stars to be far, far lower if a lure wasn't achieved. I can't imagine the Sweeper has improved that percentage. If you can't lure I'd imagine it's imperative to kill the enemy royals with your heroes as early as possible.

I'd rather use something like golaloon

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Originally Posted by The1Spartan

I'd rather use something like golaloon

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Check out this video; GoLaLoon can be stopped pretty easily;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPtiOaHJ0qs&lc=z13bvbw4dtyqexrz504cjjxxfrz pd3cxjfc

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

While attacking without a lure is, of course an option, during the month of trials I did with friends in Centum before releasing the first Penta tutorial which spoke about luring, I found success rates for 3 stars to be far, far lower if a lure wasn't achieved. I can't imagine the Sweeper has improved that percentage. If you can't lure I'd imagine it's imperative to kill the enemy royals with your heroes as early as possible.

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it's quite difficult to pull a three but if it's an easier base I don't lure so hounds pop but if I want a 3 against a mid to late th9 I lure and kill almost all cc I neglected heroes so AQ is 4 and BK is 5 which is why I use penta I have weak heroes so I cant golava

after watching that video of how to stop golava how long did it take you to
figure out that concept

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Originally Posted by shadowmeep88

after watching that video of how to stop golava how long did it take you to
figure out that concept

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Not going to lie, I watch a LOT of replays. I don't get to war much these days (maybe one a week) but when I do I try to make it as high quality as I can. The base I gave away in the video was a month in development. The Sweeper concept is something I've been working on & testing since its introduction.

The irony with theory crafting is if you work really hard, do your research and explain your idea really well... everyone will use it and pretty soon everyone forgets you're the one that started it!

But it's still the most fun thing for me in the game, so hopefully some of the stuff in that video will catch on and become ubiquitous in the way anti 3 star bases are built.

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

Not going to lie, I watch a LOT of replays. I don't get to war much these days (maybe one a week) but when I do I try to make it as high quality as I can. The base I gave away in the video was a month in development. The Sweeper concept is something I've been working on & testing since its introduction.

The irony with theory crafting is if you work really hard, do your research and explain your idea really well... everyone will use it and pretty soon everyone forgets you're the one that started it!

But it's still the most fun thing for me in the game, so hopefully some of the stuff in that video will catch on and become ubiquitous in the way anti 3 star bases are built.

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I personally am a healer-goblin-wallbreaker fan it's funny to see new members use it then I kick them

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Originally Posted by shadowmeep88

I personally am a healer-goblin-wallbreaker fan it's funny to see new members use it then I kick them

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You sound like a hard task master.

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

Hey guys,



Happy clashing all!

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BOOOM
very well executed attack still trying to pull it off u make it look so easy

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

Check out this video; GoLaLoon can be stopped pretty easily;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPtiOaHJ0qs&lc=z13bvbw4dtyqexrz504cjjxxfrz pd3cxjfc

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Wow. I love this video. Definitely gonna rework my base some to fit some of your tactics in your tactics in.

The outer Tesla is my favorite I didn't know the power. Messed up the golems and the hogs and the balloons that tried to lure lol genious.

Do you mind if I send you a screenshot of the base when I'm done for some feedback. I don't want to copy it because like any famous base it runs the risk of someone putting a tutorial of how to 3 star it on youtube

Thanks man! Love your videos. Keep on doing what your doing!

I have watched and used your strategy even before the air sweeper release and still using it depends on the base layout of my enemy in war specially when the air sweeper is not positioned very well.

I must say that your guide is the best I have seen specially on the part where taking out the CC troops first and not using the rage spell on balloons but for the pups to kill the queen faster instead, still works but not as good as before.

So yeah, pentaLavaLoon is still alive and kickin!

So, now that there is a second air sweeper, is pentalavaloon truly and finally dead? Or is it still an option if haste spells are used?

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Originally Posted by ChiefDaRT

Check out this video; GoLaLoon can be stopped pretty easily;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPtiOaHJ0qs&lc=z13bvbw4dtyqexrz504cjjxxfrz pd3cxjfc

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Dart, I've used this base in 3 wars and twice it has been 3 stared by Th9s.

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Originally Posted by TADP0LE

Dart, I've used this base in 3 wars and twice it has been 3 stared by Th9s.

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What army setup did they use to attack it and from which side?

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Originally Posted by Toadster

What army setup did they use to attack it and from which side?

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Once was with 5 witches from the bottom, once with shattered laloon