Inferno Dragon

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

The Inferno Dragon card is unlocked from the Builder's Workshop (Arena 6). It is a single-target, short-ranged, flying troop with moderate hitpoints and has various damage stages. 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. It resembles a Baby Dragon with a helmet and a barrel on its back which appears to be some form of jetpack or fuel storage.

Strategy

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. Placing the Inferno Dragon too far away from the unit will result in them running out of range and is possible that the Inferno Dragon will ignore it completely if the unit is fast enough.
The damage of the Inferno Dragon functions generally 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). The optimal time to stun/freeze the Inferno Dragon is at 4 seconds, right before it reaches Tier 3 damage.
The Inferno Dragon can be considered a better alternative for the Inferno Tower due to its lower cost and the ability to counter-push.
Due to the fact that it cannot pull ground or building-targeting troops, it doesn't have as much pull strength as 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 Inferno Dragon is delicate and in the heat of the battle, it's best to pair the Inferno Dragon with higher hitpoint troops, such as a Giant.
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. However, the Electro Wizard will take quite a beating from it.
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 takes out the low-hitpoint troops while the Inferno Dragon takes out higher hitpoint units. However, this combo is vulnerable to a Rocket since both dragons will still die to it.
When defending, it is advised to never let the Inferno Dragon lock onto a Crown Tower.
- If it does manage to lock onto a Tower, one of the best methods to stall its attack is by using Freeze, the Ice Spirit, or Zap. 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. There is also a possibility that the Inferno Dragon will retarget onto another unit.
A Minion Horde can also easily destroy an Inferno Dragon but for a negative Elixir trade.
- 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 form 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 a bit less damage per second compared to three Minions. However, it can still take out the Inferno Dragon if paired with a Zap, the Princess Tower, or the Ice Spirit.
- The Witch can deal with the Inferno Dragon because it continuously spawns skeletons that the Inferno Dragon gets distracted by. The Witch will also be at full health, making a counter-push easy. Due to the time it takes to destroy the Inferno Dragon, a lot of Elixir will be generated while this is happening.
An Inferno Dragon can be countered with an Inferno Tower, but this is a negative Elixir trade. 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.

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.
On 12/6/17, a Balance Update increased the Inferno Dragon's hitpoints by 7%, and decreased its re-targeting speed by 0.2 seconds.
On 9/10/17, the October 2017 Update fixed a bug where the Inferno Dragon's damage did not reset after breaking a shield. This change was reverted two days later, on 11/10/17.
On 12/2/18, a Balance Update increased the Inferno Dragon’s re-targeting time.
The 20/6/18 Update moved the Arena to unlock the Inferno Dragon from P.E.K.K.A's Playhouse (Arena 4) to Builder's Workshop (Arena 6).

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, damage, and range compared to the Inferno Tower.
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/fuel storage barrel and helmet.
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 only difference is that the Baby Dragon is faster.
The barrel in the back is most likely used as inferno fuel storage 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 is one of the eleven cards who are cheered for by the audience upon spawning and booed when killed, the others include Sparky, Giant Skeleton, P.E.K.K.A., Giant, Night Witch, Bowler, Electro Wizard, Royal Giant, Lava Hound and Golem.