Hastur's TH8 (Crystal)

Thought I'd put my base out there for people to look at, before I change it around more... Some basic info before you get too carried away:

1. I'm currently at Crystal III, aiming to push to Cystal II - reason being simply that my troop upgrades will take longer than all my remaining base upgrades, so I want to have some fun improving my raiding skills (endless farming has always bored me, especially against weak bases, and I can find loot aplenty in Crystal).
2. I play twice a day - generally one or more raids in the morning, then a solid block in the evening. Typically, my first raid will be a set of heavies (e.g. something from pekka2, dragon2, golem1, wiz5, with support), then after that I switch to faster brewing armies (e.g. giant5, wb5, minion3, archer5).
3. My clan castle is generally full or archers around level 5, sometimes wizards 4-5, the occasional witch2 or dragon2-4.
4. My King is not in the picture, maybe because it was an air attack, or I left him asleep so I could be sure of raiding straight away later that day... anyway, he's level 9.
5. The intention of my design is not to win cups on defense, but to get 1-starred, twice a day, on average. So I don't want raids that hit me for < 40%, and hopefully very few hit me for 100% (except the odd crazy who doesn't mind using an army that costs three times what they can get out of my base - can't do much about that!) I can easily gain trophies through raiding (e.g. yesterday I went from 1870, to 2001, making back all the losses from farming the day before as well as my first 3-star loss).
6. The air def that's getting upgraded, would normally be on the inside ring, swapped with the cannon.
   I do not skimp on traps - I keep my spring traps refreshed, I do have three large bombs (placed way out to catch witches, mainly), I have air balloon and de balloons mostly central, and my tessla are in pretty obvious places (well, I think so).

So far, I think my design has held up well... While I've tinkered with it over the last two weeks, and had different pieces upgrading, roughly speaking it's been attacked about 20 times as follows:

• a single 3-star loss (as shown in the picture below - 10 dragons, 4 rage spells haha)
• two wins where I got no sheild and they stole some resource
• six wins where I did get a shield (some of these attacks included lots of heavy hitters like wizards, dragons etc - funny for me)
• the rest are a mix of 1 and 2-star losses (some of these attacks included heavy hitters like wizards, dragons, witches, but many were simple tier-1 troops that got around 60%)

Going forward, I intend to slowly max out my defenses (no more than 3 at a time), get my barracks up a little more (to make building bigger armies a little faster), max out my collectors, build a 3rd gold store, and max out my king and troops (except dark troops - will definitely keep doing minions, golem last if possible to get that much de). I do skull walls when I'm fosusing on collecting elixer and/or de, so I'm not hoarding too much of all 3 resources which makes everyone attack me on sight.

As an interesting side-note, every attack on me has come from a TH9 or TH10, with level 6 archers, barbs, etc.; almost always usually their king and queen come and join the party. No TH8 has tried to get me yet.

Questions, comments, suggestions etc most welcome. Thanks!
Attachment 14574

Nic base how does it perform against attackers at crystal usually I get wrecked up there but as a newish th8 I do VERY well at 1500 b/c all the farmers are at 1300 :P. I'm Vinnyxo of stormfront and at 1500 I win 8 out of 10

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Originally Posted by vinnyXo

Nic base how does it perform against attackers at crystal usually I get wrecked up there but as a newish th8 I do VERY well at 1500 b/c all the farmers are at 1300 :P. I'm Vinnyxo of stormfront and at 1500 I win 8 out of 10

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So far, it seems to perform as per my expectations - 90% of the time, I lose a few trophies, and about 50-100k of each resourse maybe some DE, and I get a sheild that lasts me until I'm ready to go raiding again. Sometimes I get smashed by huge armies, but I figure so what... they got a few trophies and spent more resources than they got... I raid enough to get it all back with interest e.g. yesterday I must have won about 15 in a row getting back into Crystal after some intensive farming dropped me down.

Many of my clan mates are quite wary of raising their trophies, becasue they fear their bases getting trashed. However, the way I play the game, I do not mind sharing a little of the wealth in my stores, and my collectors are never very full... so I'd rather give people a change to have a crack, and see what happens. For me, the worst thing that could happen is multiple raiders that all fail to get 40%... I'll get lots of trophies, but my stores will be getting pretty empty.

A few have asked why I don't put my TH outside my base, to which I can only say that 1) I like to give people a change to fail (ideally with 40-something % so I get a free shield and trophies); 2) endless replays of trophy hunters taking your TH get really boring, really fast!

Cheers, H.

not a fan,
1. CC not central
2. needs more segmentation(major one).
i cant see u winning against good raiders.

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Originally Posted by Nicatron1003

not a fan,
1. CC not central
2. needs more segmentation(major one).
i cant see u winning against good raiders.

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OK, thanks, but my intention isn't for my base to win, merely provide a suitable platform to support my raiding i.e. average a 1-star loss, each 12 hours, and ideally only give up about 50% of the available loot.

My old base (TH7&8) had a more central CC, and better segmentation, but I felt it gave me very boring defense replays, and still got looted by determined attackers.

Anyway, I will indeed give some thought to better segmentation, e.g. I know that a few well-placed wizards can easily take out my TH, so perhaps the ring around it isn't actually adding much value after all...

Just keep in mind that ANY TH 8 in crystal is, well, kind of gift wraped box of cups

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Originally Posted by YoN

Just keep in mind that ANY TH 8 in crystal is, well, kind of gift wraped box of cups

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My thoughts too, so i figure on celebrating the few wins especially ones that give me a shield, and trying to minimise the losses. All good fun.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YoN

Just keep in mind that ANY TH 8 in crystal is, well, kind of gift wraped box of cups

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true true, but a clanmate in our recent push was at 2590 with a TH8. he may have lost battles but with a solid base he would win up till 2300ish.

The base isn't too bad, could do with some tweaks but not totally terrible.

Fact is when you are in Crystal at TH8 you've got a target on your back no matter what your base is, even with popular pokeball or tesla theme park designs.

If a TH10 player throws it all at you - which they will for trophies up there - you're screwed no matter what.

When I pushed I only won 3 defences and I felt I had a decent design. But again, was only TH8 so was already handicapped against the guys in Crystal.

Getting Crystal at TH8 is about 95% offence - 5% defence.

Thanks, and yes, my thoughts too - raid well, and anyone can get their trophies up.

For example two days ago I got -30 cups from my only 3-star, then failed revenging someone else and lost another 7... that night, I put in a solid couple of sessions, and gained about 140 trophies from over a dozen wins in a row. Yesterday, I put in a shocker of a session, lost a number of my first battles, and finally clawed my way back to about +6 trophies for the day.