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My failed attempt at Penta lavaloon. I thought I followed the recommendations by the One Hive guys, and others, but it didn't work out for me. Not sure if it was a poor game plan, or if my hounds are just too weak at level 1. Would love any feedback any of you penta pros could offer.
https://youtu.be/o9KsqVwIAeU
I'm no penta expert, but here's the little that I know: lava hounds travel at twice the speed of balloons (20 vs. 10). So, you're really going to want to get your balloons released as early as possible so that your hounds aren't getting battered for so long - especially with level 1 balloons. I've seen some videos where the attacker actually gets the loons down first, followed by the lava hounds but since the loons are so slow, the lava hounds overtake the loons and tank for them before the loons even reach the range of the defenses. Also, you might try going heavy on one side with balloons (i.e., spamming) to clear out enough of the defenses so that your pups can take out the town hall. It won't be a 3 star, but with your queen down, IMO you should try to aim a little lower.
No expert either, but pretty sure without taking down the aq and clan castle, laloon will likely fail. Looks like the enemy aq took a real bite out of your troops before going down. I believe this is necessary because the pups don't target the aq as well as they used to.
With cb or shattered, try using 1 less hound, replace with golem, and try to take down the aq, clan castle, and an ad in the area with a kill squad before launching into your main attack.
Regarding the attack, the base itself is probably not the best base to use a pentaloon on. When I was watching successful pentaloon videos on youtube/pentaloon guides, it seems that the successful attacks are all when the air defenses are placed such that there are 2 sets of AD's, and they only cover each other. Looking at your attack, when the lava hounds reached the 2 ADs, they were also getting shot by the 2 ADs not covered by the hound, and that, in conjunction to your hounds being level 1, just made them melt so much faster.
I'm in an area with crappy signal so I can't pull up the YouTube vid at the moment.
I have to ask first though, how old are your sources for this strat? Pentalaloon got hit hard the last major update, the aggro radius on troops is reduced so the pups don't reliably kill the queen any more.
The only way this will work is if you can pull the cc and kill the queen without a kill squad. So it really is only an option on terrible bases.
I'll give you specific feedback when I can watch the video.
your CC kill was perfect, so kudos on that. Your deployment from there was awful.
2 hounds on the AD next to Queen. Dont release any more hounds from there until you're ready to start circling the base. Deploy loons behind these 2 hounds, drop a rage as the first hound is about to pop, pups need to take out AQ. Once this AD goes down and the 2nd hound starts heading for the next AD, you deploy another hound from the perimeter to meet at the AD, drop targeted loons behind the hound to start taking defenses. Rinse and repeat for remaining ADs.
There are tons of videos out there, watch a few and pay close attention to deployment of troops.
See comment above, +1Quote:
Originally Posted by XelnagaY
Further, you missed your first two rage spells (loons weren't initially raged, which you often want them to be), likely should have saved your CC hound for the AD at ~12:00, L1 hounds are likely not strong enough (more like definitely not strong enough) to handle four AD6s and L7 AQ, in general, only use 2 loons per defensive target, and you were missing your AQ, which meant you had to use troop space to kill dragon.
Further, I likely would have pulled the drag to the hut at 6:00 so the wizards get to clean up behind you.
Castles just published a Penta video, which could be helpful for you.
That base smells a lot to me like a GoLoWiWi or GoHoWiWi
No penta needed, 4 lavas is enough - besides your lava hounds are lvl 1 once you have lvl 2 you'll see the difference.
You used really few balloons (15) 20 loons should be the minimum for an effective attack.
All the rage spells were used incorrectly in the lava hounds, they are supposed to be used with the loons.
The lavahound has an useless DPS attack.
8 seconds after the lavas were deployed you sent some loons, that's not how it's supposed to be done, 1 sec after you send the lavas send the loons immediately -1 sec-
The rage spells are supposed to be use once your loons are near the air defenses circling as many enemy's defenses as possible.
cC kill was great but pent is (IMHO) broken now. It really is a spray and pray attack. If pups don't agro AQ its GG...and I wouldn't have tried it without the queen. Without King...sure but queen is helpful now that pups are space cadets.
15 loons is plenty you don't need 20....but that was completely the wrong base to spam hound. With centralized ADs like that and you missing your AQ you should have VaLooned it.
Draw CC just like you did but anchor at 6 o'clock with an archer dragon flies down drop a golem archers dies dragon agro golem and you drop 4 wizzies to kill and another 5 wizzies to clear a path for 3 wall breakers and 11 valks....jump them valks into the core rage/heal (might need final heal since yours are level 1)...oh and King goes in as well...
ADs down drop loons 1-3 per defense as needed (you'll have 18). Sit back and watch the carnage. Poison air skellies
I respectfully disagree with the comment above. Penta is definitely still alive and kicking, you just need to execute it on the right base.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3lorian
Just this morning, I tore up a base with an L4 AQ, AD6664 using Penta. The AQ was, essentially, ignored & she contributed little to stopping the attack.
I'm still mastering the attack, but if a tool like me can pull off 4 straight 3* attacks using Penta, it can't be a crapshoot. Just need to do it on the right base.
With all due respect...
I also have to say...it's a really fun attack. Just power-through the damn base...haha
Penta is a ♥♥♥♥ty attack, it doesnt work now and it should have never worked in the past. But at some point it did, and that's because it wasnt the same lava pups AI. They used to focus heroes very easily, but one of the latest update change their vision of heroes from 2 tiles, so now the Queen easily takes care of all the pups plus the loons.
Its a good thing it does too, penta is a cheesy attack that shouldn't work, work on some GoHogs instead
A patently false statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaynes
I love it when people come on here and proclaim things as fact that are either bizarre or hit the extreme of flat out nonsense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41J2zqaZqjM
Ok ill rephrase, it doesnt work on half decent base with a half decent AQ. It you attack very bad bases like the guy before me it could work. But anything could work against those ugly weak bases
Yeah, I get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaynes
It's like saying that dragon attacks suck at TH8 because they don't work nearly as well against upper TH8s as they do against lower TH8s... :rolleyes:
The bottom line is that many, many people at TH9 will run into these bases that are not, "half decent with a half decent AQ" & this is simply an option, a fun option at that.
Just because a particular attack doesn't work well in certain situations doesn't mean it isn't a worthy attack, to discuss or perform, nor does it mean it's a sh*tty attack. All attacks strategies are base specific, including this one.
Penta is just a version of lavaloon attack, which is one of the strongest overall attacks for all of TH9s (cold-blooded, shattered, penta, etc.). It should not be summarily dismissed, as a penta helps teach how to execute a lavaloon for other, later versions of the attack.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunaticfringe
it is a fun attack and it does work but I wasn't kidding about the queen....yes at lvl 4 she won't pose much of a threat but if she gets much higher you really do need to worry about pups agroing her (this attack is the sole reason they changed pup agro....) before she machine guns them down.
you do need to learn the attack. That much is true! It will help you get a feel for hound pathing and help you learn to tactically deploy loons (instead of spamming them). It also works wonders on bases wth lower lvl ADs... But again I have to stress the part about the queen....you really need to get lucky there. I mean any attack requires some luck (When I was a 9 I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throw my phone at wall when my gingers would make a b-line towards Saks and go shopping instead of melting the core/queen/ADs(or dgb)!!!) but this attack has a larger luck factor than most.
regardless it it was still the wrong base to penthound :p
Dragon attacks do suck and for effectively the same reason.
Someone who draglooned all the Mid th8s then penta all the low 9s Will Just be way too far back in his understanding of both hogs pathing and loons pathing.
I sais it many times, ill say it again, the more important thing is the learning curve. Its utterly useless to do drag attacks at th8 then penta on premmie 9s cause you dont learn anything useful to attack Max 9s then 10s. GoHogs and GoLaLoon all the bases because you use these same strats later on and it is actually useful to know those. Nobody cares about those premmie 9s, they are too easy to wreck so having a base specific attack on them is Just a waste. Use those base to practice real 3 star attacks that could also take down maxed bases, thats what makes the difference in every war
Drag attack are good. Go wipe sucks for sure. Drag is a 3 star attack so is penta. If you do not use it correctly then it is wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaynes
Its not because you 3 starred some bases that your attack strat is good.
Omfg these forum guys
Exactly my thoughts when reading most of your comments Kaynes. I have a pretty good feel for hogs already, as max hogs were my first upgrade when I hit TH9, and I had already used them a ton (lvl4s) when trophy pushing as a TH8. Now I'm trying to learn lavaloon since those troops are new to me. The fact that you flippantly dismiss a powerful attack that is used frequently by strong players/clans shows that your opinion is to be ignored. The idea that someone shouldn't drag attack at TH8 or lavaloon at TH9 because then they won't be good at ground attacks is idiotic. If you're going to be a solid player, you need to know how to do ALL attacks well, both ground and air.
Anyway, I appreciate much of the feedback. I've clearly still got much to learn on this attack (as well as others), and look forward to continuing to work on it.
Does AQ L10 count? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by 3lorian
This cracked me up. Dude, I know that pain... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by 3lorian
Very well said, sir.Quote:
Originally Posted by J15hu4
The idiocy of his comment goes even deeper than that. The idea that one should only learn an attack style that can be used on max TH bases (be it 8 or 9 in these examples) has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever read on this forum. So, there is a far easier attack to be had, but no, I should avoid it because it won't work on max TH bases?? Unbelievable.
What's even funnier is the idea that dragon attacks (overall) suck at TH8, yet ask just about anyone on this forum what the first upgrade should be (for war) when moving from TH7 to TH8 and the answer is a resounding dragon to L3.
OMFG these forum guys...
Your balloons take too long to travel to the core. Your hounds are thus taking in a lot of damage from the air defenses. While pentaloon is a good strategy, it doesn't work as well on the lower TH9s. I can recommend quadraloon. Wait till you face opponents with L3 x-bows before you do Pentaloon. Also, you can try deploying your hounds faster and in this special case, balloons first
base is not good for penta lavaloon...if I were to attack that base, im gonna use Gowiwi/Gowipe with back-end balloons
You need lvl 2 hounds for more tanking, also, the 5 wiz took away from the amount of balloons you could have. It's better to take roughly 20 loons to clear out all the defences. That's why you need your queen to take out the CC drag.