Clash of Clans Updates 07/03/2014 - Hero Changes

Finally! An update packed with battle improvements, balancing and content is here! Prepare for the comeback of melee-attacking masters, and intense hero-on-hero battles inside of enemy villages!


Bored Builders? Lazy Laboratory?

✔ P.E.K.K.A level 5 is here to prove its battle prowess: http://supr.cl/PEKKAlvl5

✔ Jump Spell level 3 is here to empower future Jump experts.

✔ Hidden Tesla level 8 will shock your enemies.

✔ Bomb level 6 packs a bit more punch into those pint-sized explosives.


Epic Battle Rebalancing - Show Your Skills and Triumph!

✔ Heroes version 2.0 are here with readjusted strengths, smarter defending, and stronger abilities! Read below for more info.

✔ The Jump Spell has been overhauled and is now amazingly effective! Read below for more info.

✔ Valkyries are now moving like no troop ever has before. Read below for more info.

✔ Inferno Tower multi-mode is now slower at burning through big hordes of attacking troops.

✔ Troops now work together to break through walls, targeting similar wall pieces instead of lots of different ones.

✔ Hog Riders now take increased damage from Giant Bombs.

✔ Training cost of P.E.K.K.A has been reduced.

✔ Hidden Tesla build times have been reduced.


Interface Improvements

✔ Can't stand the suspense of ongoing Clan War attacks? Tap them to watch a live replay of the battle as it happens!

✔ Re-arm your traps and reload all of your defenses easily by tapping your Town Hall.

✔ Clan mail messages can now be twice as long.

✔ You can now copy your current village layout to your Clan War base with one button.

✔ Interrupted War Base edits in progress are now properly recovered.

✔ The settings menu has been redesigned with dedicated News and More sections, separate from your Inbox.


Heroes: The New Battle Specialists

The time has come for a smarter, more strategic brand of heroes. Rather than being foolish, hulking brutes, the King and Queen are now much smarter on defense, have distinct strengths and weaknesses, and their abilities are more important than ever.

Check Chief Pat's official interview with Jonas from the development team: http://supr.cl/herochanges

✔ The heroes have gotten sick and tired of being lured out and squashed in the edges of the map. Now, they only attack targets in a limited territory around their platform and will retreat if they get drawn away too far.

✔ Both heroes now get a damage increase and recover health when activating an ability. Use the damage boost to get an edge over defending heroes, or the healing to save them from the clutches of defeat!

✔ Hero abilities now improve much more significantly with each new ability level and summon more supporting troops than before. The best way to make your hero stronger when attacking is to increase their ability level!

✔ Hitpoints and damage for the Queen and hitpoints for the King have been slightly increased at lower levels. However, hero hitpoints and damage have been decreased at higher levels in order to balance heroes on defense and allow for stronger abilities.

✔ The effect of Rage Spells on Heroes has been reduced to put more emphasis on the skillful use of hero abilities. For the Queen and later levels of the King, bonus damage from hero abilities will far exceed bonus damage from Rage Spells. As before, Rage Spell bonus damage and hero ability bonus damage will not stack (the greater of the two takes precedent).

✔ Heroes now specialize in a certain role:

Barbarian King: The Tank Specialist

✔ His damage has been reduced, but he now can heal himself greatly when using his Iron Fist ability.

✔ The Barbarian horde summoned by Iron Fist has doubled in size to cause even more mayhem!

✔ Use Iron Fist at the right time to help the King take more damage than he ever could before!


Archer Queen: The Damage Specialist

✔ Her hitpoints have been reduced in later levels, but the Queen now gains a tremendous damage boost while her Royal Cloak ability is active.

✔ The duration of Royal Cloak has been greatly increased in lower levels to help make sure the Queen has enough time to land her most powerful of shots.

✔ Use Royal Cloak at the right time to help the Queen hit important targets harder than she ever could before!


Jump Spell: Control the Battle Flow

The Jump Spell used to only affect troops it landed on, often leading to disappointing results. Now, the Jump Spell influences all troops in the battle. Masters of the Jump Spell will be able to direct their melee troops like never before!

✔ All troops you deploy can take advantage a Jump Spell, even if the troops are not directly hit by the spell.

✔ Casting a Jump Spell will now cause troops to redirect themselves immediately if it opens up a more advantageous route close by.

✔ The Jump Spell area has been slightly reduced to allow for more precise control of the spell.


Video: http://supr.cl/NewJumpSpell


Valkyrie: The Wild Whirlwind

The Valkyrie rarely used to put her area-damage to any good use. Now, that has changed in a big way, and you might be shocked by her effectiveness in battle.

✔ Valkyries now charge around and position between pairs of buildings to find the best spots to attack.

See her in action: http://supr.cl/ValkyrieSneakPeek

How to create hybrid base in clash of clans?

Creating TH8 hybrids can be extremely hard as there are always flaws when creating one, and making a farming or defence base is much easier. I roughly talked about what building should go where on hybrids in How to put the right buildings in the right place. Here will be a more detailed response to that.

Your Town Hall should go where how much you value it. If you want to stay in the same league and not drop trophies madly, it should not be exactly centred but somewhere within the Walls. Find a symmetrical place to put is say with the other Gold Storages and traps to make it 4x4. Putting your lab symmetrically inside your Walls with your Town Hall is a complete waste, as labs don't do anything defensively and are easy to destroy, I recommend put a 3x3 building there but walling it like it would be a 4x4, leaving space for traps.

For your dark elixer it should always be near the centre, if not very close-by. Dark elixer is more important than normal elixer in the higher leagues thanks to heroes and dark elixer troops. Elixer storages can be placed around the second layer and if you want the third. Gold Storagesare very important, try placing them in the 2nd layer or 1st. If you don't desire gold as much, 3rd layer could be an option.

For your defences, splash central. The most important defence for taking out hordes, commonly used in most leagues. Wizard Towers are perfect against Goblins and Witches keep them central to protect your resources and cups. Air defence is always, ALWAYS, a 2nd or 3rd Layer. The reason I say this is because most air attacks come from all sides, keep them spread out. The things that usually go in the middle that can attack air are Inferno Towers, xbows if desired and Wizard Towers. These will protect the Town Hall if the air defences fail, but the air defences should protect the middle and perimeter of the base. Archer Towers can protect the perimeter and the outside of the base from flying units too, so keep that in mind. Cannons are always 3rd layer unless you have room for 1 or 2 in the 2nd layer. NEVER EVER put a Cannon in the middle or 1st layer next to your Town Hall or dark elixer storage. Same goes with Hidden Teslas, mainly 2nd layer and 3rd layer. As I said beforeHidden Teslas are great at surprise, use them wisely.

Gold Mines and Elixer collectors are usually on the outside, 3rd layer if you have room. They should only be on the 2nd layer if you are retiring for a month or so and want loot when you come back. Same goes with dark elixer drills.

Barracks, Army Camps, labs and spell factories are always to keep on the outside. Builder huts can go in the corner if you like.

What defences to upgrade first?

Here is the order on what defences you should upgrade first:

Wizard Towers Mortars Walls 1 level below max Inferno Tower Xbow Air Defence Hidden Tesla 1 Level below max Cannon Archer Tower Walls Max Hidden Tesla Max

Wizard Towers and Mortars and vital to upgrade as they can do splash damage, self explanatory. Walls keep out attackers extremely well, highly recommended to keep at a good level. Inferno Tower and xbow pretty much decides the battle with hogriders and Golems/Wizards. Air defence = No air what-so-ever. Hidden Tesla is the ultimate element of surprise, if you have a few empty 2x2 spaces to throw off the enemy.Cannons are more important then Archer Towers because Archer Towers cost a lot more and require more time to upgrade but they are both point defence. The only upside to Archer Towers is that they can target air, but if your air defences are up to date you don't need worry about the Archer Towers until most other things are upgraded. Walls should be maxed for intimidation and successful defences. And Hidden Teslasshould be upgraded last as the higher levels they go are very expensive and you have 4 by TH9.

Factors of defence bases

If you're down near Silver 2 - Gold 2 you will probably not come across many defence bases until you reach Crystal, Masters and Champions. Most of these bases have Inferno Towers, xbows and splash towers MAXED and their storages on the outside. When you reach these leagues you really need to have most of your troops maxed as well as Army Camps. If you have a good army composition at a high level, you can do well in the high leagues.

Mostly in Masters and champions are huge gemmers, where they don't even need to store loot, they keep their storages on the outside, full of resources. This opens up a hole new way of farming, known as storage farming. An army of all Archers usually does the job, Giants and wallbreakers are just a luxury. The strategy is to use the Archers to pick of the storages and get around 500k of each and use the rest of theArchers to "steal buildings" and get a star to not lose trophies. This is probably one of the most efficient ways of farming, but you need a good base level to stay in Masters and have a level 6 Archers. This would be the fastest way to get a maxed base if you are NOT planning on spending hundreds of dollars on gems.

Factors of farming bases

When you're farming, your base is unique to hybrid and defence. Usually your Town Hall is in the corner or on the outside of your Walls (If you want you can keep your Town Hall behind one wall) and your storages should be roughly central.

Farming Bases are probably the easiest to attack if you are farming. The Town Hall is on the outside so you don't lose any trophies and the mines and collectors are usually easy to get to. The only downside is that some farming bases usually have their Gold Mines and elixer collectors protected by Walls or defences. For Example, Pingfao's Tesla Town TH8 Farming Base.

When you are going around looking for loot, sometimes you come across farming bases with all the loot inside of the storages. There are some great strategies out there to get to the storages (BARCH, BAM, HAM, GARCH just to name a few) and you should seriously take those into consideration.

Are you farming or not?

Farming is when you usually want to stay in a middle trophy range (Bronze 1 - Gold 2) and use Goblins to steal from mines and collectors of players who have retired, giving hundreds of thousands of loot. Farming is the number one strategy of getting loot for free, as the easiest way to get the loot is to just buy it with gems.

Usually an army of farming attacks consists of Goblins, Archers, Giants, wallbreakers, Barbarians and Minions.

The way to tell if you are not farming is when you are looking for trophies and have a defensive base and your Town Hall is well protected, usually in the centre of your base. Usually an army of defence consists of Archers, Giants, wallbreakers, Barbarians, Balloons, Wizards, Healers,Dragons, PEKKAS, hogriders, Minions and Golems.

Now the trickiest status you can have is a hybrid, is when you don't want to drop trophies a lot and you're not farming, but you still want to save your resources and keep them safe. Usually you can find hybrids from Bronze 2 - Silver 1 (Low level TH) and Silver 1 - Crystal 1 (Higher levelTH). Most hybrid armies consist of the army compositions of defensive armies.

How to put the right buildings in the right place?

When you are creating a base design, hybrid, farming and defence, you MUST put the right buildings in the right place. Here is a list of what should be where on what type of base you want.

Hybrid: 1st Layer: Town Hall - Dark Elixer - Gold Storage (Optional and must have if no Dark Elixer) - Mortar (Optional) - Wizard Tower (Optional) - Elixer Storage (Optional) - Xbow (If Unlocked) - Inferno Tower (Optional) 2nd Layer: Air Defence - Gold Storage - Elixer Storage - Wizard Tower - Mortar - Archer Tower (Optional) - Cannon (Optional) - Hidden Tesla(Optional) 3rd Layer: Cannon - Archer Tower - Hidden Tesla - Gold Mine (Optional) - Elixer Collector (Optional) - Dark Elixer Drill (Optional)

Farming: 1st Layer: Dark Elixer - Gold Storage (Optional) - Elixer Storage (Optional) - Wizard Tower (Optional) - Mortar (Optional) - Xbow (If Unlocked) -Inferno Tower (If Unlocked) 2nd Layer: Mortar - Gold Storage - Elixer Storage - Wizard Tower - Air Defence - Archer Tower (Optional) - Cannon (Optional) - Hidden Tesla(Optional) 3rd Layer: Cannon - Archer Tower - Gold Mine (Optional) - Elixer Collector (Optional) - Hidden Tesla - Dark Elixer Drill (Optional)

Defence: 1st Layer: Town Hall - Mortar - Wizard Tower (Optional) - Xbow (If Unlocked) - Inferno Tower (If Unlocked) - Archer Tower (Not Recommended) - Hidden Tesla (Optional) 2nd Layer: Elixer Storage (Optional) - Gold Storage (Optional) - Hidden Tesla - Wizard Tower - Cannon (Optional) - Archer Tower (Optional) 3rd Layer: Archer Tower - Cannon - Gold Storage and Elixer Storage (If you're a gemmer then it's your decision if you want to keep them on the outside) - Dark Elixer Drill (Not Recommended if you are going defence, likewise with the collectors and mines)

This list roughly outlines what should go where but if you have any suggestions on what might be wrong just comment. If you are in the higher leagues I extremely recommend having your Inferno Tower in the middle, they are much more important than xbows (xbows still need to be central) because they can take out armies of Hog Riders when they are on multiple target.