What is the Inferno Tower?

The Inferno Tower is the flagship defensive structure introduced at Town Hall 10 with a distinctive fiery appearance matching the Town Hall 10 art style. The Inferno Tower emits either a single focused beam or 5 smaller beams of flame at the troops it is targetting.

It has two defensive modes; Single Target and Multi Target. At Town Hall 10, it is possible to build two Inferno Towers with a third being introduced at Town Hall 12. The Inferno Tower does not have a preferred target type and can target both air and ground troops.

Defence Modes

Similar to the Xbow, there are two modes that each Inferno Tower can be toggled between that controls how it defences your village. Each Inferno Tower can be set independently so that you can have different configurations.

Single Target

When set to single target mode, the Inferno Tower targets a single troop with its focused beam within 9 tiles. Damage is applied to that target that increases over time in 3 stages.

At each stage, the beam is visually more intensive allowing you to identify the damage increasing. This makes it ideal for taking out high HP troops such as the Golem, Lava Hound, P.E.K.K.A. and heroes.

Due to the stage 1 and 2 damage in single target mode being very low in comparison to stage 3 (around 3 - 4% and 10% respectively), it is weak against large numbers of troops that are able to overwhelm it. Placing it in range of a defence with splash damage/area of effect such as a Wizard tower, Mortar or Bomb Tower can help protect it.

If the Inferno Tower loses lock on its target, the flame will reset to the initial stage and will need to retain lock to increase intensity again.

Multi Target

When set to multi target mode, the Inferno Tower targets 5 targets simultaneously within a range of 10 tiles at a constant rate. If a target is destroyed or moves out of range, the tower will switch to a new target and continue to output damage at a constant rate.

Range Difference

There is a 1 tile range different between the two mode that can be seen below:

Which mode should you use?

It depends on the objectives of your base design, but a combination is best. For areas that have cover from Area of Effect defences (Wizard Tower, Bomb Tower or Mortar) a single target tower could be effective and near single target defences (Archer Tower, Cannon etc) a multi tower target could be best.

Inactive Inferno Towers

Like the Xbow, it requires its ammunition reloading periodically in order to continue to defend against multiple attacks, although it uses Dark Elixir rather than Elixir. It takes 2 mins 8 secs of activation to fully deplete it’s ammunition supply. Since April 2019, these are automatically reloaded each time you load your village rather than needing to reload them manually after each defence.

When the ammunition supply is depleted, the Inferno Tower become inactive and has a dull appearance.

How to attack an Inferno Tower

There are different strategies to attack Inferno Towers based on the configuration of the tower you are attacking.

Look at the Inferno Towers before attacking:

1. Is the tower active? If it requires reloading or is upgrading it will appear dull in colour and won’t attack troops.
2. Which attack mode is are they to? Look at the appearance of the focusing lense at the top of the tower. In single target mode it is a large solitary lense and in multi target mode it is a prism of multiple lenses.

A tactic sometimes used on base designs of players in clans with long names is to place the clan castle next to the Inferno Tower so the clan name obscures the tower mode is difficult to determine. For war attacks, you can look at the base before attacking and tap on the tower to show information. For farming attacks it’s a bit more difficult to identify the mode. It is possible to tell from the style of flame coming from the tower. For multi target, the flames are thin and remain so whereas single target beams quickly become thicker and direct.

Single Target

In single target mode, the tower will be greatest threat to single high HP troops such as the Golem, Lava Hound, P.E.K.K.A. and heroes. These troops will be able to withstand the damage from stages 1 and 2 from the flame however they will be destroyed quickly once the flame reaches stage 3.

Please note: These is no priority or preference in the tactic numberings, they are all viable and the most suitable will be dependant on the village you are attacking.

Tactic 1: Overwhelm the tower with many troops

As the tower can only attack 1 troop at a time, attacking the tower with multiple troops can help minimise the damage to does to your army. For example, using 6 Giants instead of 1 Golem against a single target inferno can provider protection for your weaker damage dealing troops for longer with the same camp space used.

A group of damage dealing troops such as Valkyries, Bowlers, Miners or Hog Riders will be able to take out the tower before too many of the troops are destroyed. Witches, Skeleton Spell or Bat Spell can also be used as a distraction for the single flame.

Tactic 2: Disrupt the flame with a Freeze spell

A Freeze spell can be used to disrupt the flame and reset the build up time. To maximise the value of your Freeze spell, wait until a few seconds into the second stage flame before deploying the Freeze spell. By not immediately deploying the Freeze spell during the lower damage stages of the flame, you can gain up to an additional 5 seconds before the flame is able to charge up to stage 3.

Tactic 3: Use the Archer Queen’s Royal Cloak Ability

When the Archer Queen activates her Royal Cloak Ability, she is unable to be targeted by defences. This will reset the flame of the Inferno Tower and cause it to switch to another target, usually the Archers that her ability spawns. As when using the Freeze Spell tactic, you should wait until towards the end of stage 2 to activate the ability although during attacks with a lot of going on, sometimes it is better to play it safe and activate the ability sooner rather than later.

Tactic 4: Use the Grand Warden’s Eternal Tome Ability (TH11+)

For Town Hall 11 and 12 players, the Grand Warden’s Eternal Tome Ability provides the Grand Warden and troops within his Life Aura with temporary invincibility for a few seconds. This will prevent the target of the Inferno Tower from taking any further damage, however it will not break the lock so the flame will continue to increase to stage 3. If the tower isn’t destroyed before the invincibility comes to an end, the target will receive the maximum amount of damage and likely be destroyed quickly after. Deploying a Freeze spell as the Eternal Tome comes to an end would reset the flame stage.

Multi Target

In multi target mode, high HP troops that would be quickly destroyed are able to comfortably handle the damage for an extended period of time. Smaller troops with lower HP will be quickly wiped out. Originally Inferno Towers would block healing on the troops/heroes they were targeting, however this was changed in the December 2017 update. This opens up various forms of healing your troops while attacking the structure.

Low HP troops such as Barbarians, Archers, Goblins, Wizards, Wall Breakers and Minions will quickly be destroyed by a tower in multi target mode. It is key to ensure 5 higher HP troops are tanking the damage of the tower before deploying them. This is especially true for Wall Breakers as without suitable tanking, all the Wall Breakers will be destroyed before they can detonate on the walls which could have a large impact on the success of your attack.

Please note: These is no priority or preference in the tactic numberings, they are all viable and the most suitable will be dependant on the village you are attacking.

Tactic 1: Queen Walk

A Queen Walk can be a great tactic for taking down targeted objectives and a multi target Inferno Tower is no exception. The Queen can comfortably tank the damage from a multi target Inferno Tower and destroy it within seconds. If the Inferno Tower is out of range of the Queen and she walks around the tower, the Healers can be at risk of slowly taking damage, so plan ahead for this when considering your Queen pathing.

Tactic 2: Heal Spell

Troops under a Heal Spell will be able to survive incoming damage from a multi target Inferno Tower. Mid HP troops such as Valkyries, Bowlers, Hogs and Wizards would slowly lose their health against the tower, however under a Heal Spell they will be able to destroy it first.

Tactic 3: Use an army supported by Healers

A number of army compositions include using Healers for the main group of troops. Two Healers will be able to heal most troops sufficiently to be able to destroy the Inferno Tower.

Tactic 4: Hero Push

If the Inferno Towers are near the edge of the village you are attacking, a hero push can be an effective method for destroying a multi target Inferno Tower. The Barbarian King can be deployed first to soak up any other single target defence damage and the Archer Queen can be deployed behind the King. With her ranged attack, she will be able to take out the multi target Inferno Tower before you send in any lower HP troops.

Summary

The Inferno Tower is a key defence at TH10 and above and is a great defence asset when teamed up with other defences. Ensure that the defence mode is suitable for the defences around it and avoid having it near the edge of your village to make it harder to destroy.

When attacking an Inferno Tower, check the tower mode by looking at the lense of the tower and attack with an appropriate tactic to ensure it does minimal damage to your army.