Beste army comp/strategy per playstyle in new loot system

For the past week I have been experimenting with some of the widely known army comps, trying to find my farming groove in the new loot system. Regardless of some minor future tweaks, this new loot formula is now the law of the land, and we'll have to adapt accordingly.

At the same time my personal playing style has changed from mainly active to mainly intermittent. Bad timing, some would say. However, I don't want to discuss the flaws of the new loot system and the temporary or continuing lack of loot really. I'm wondering what fellow forumites experiences are with farming after one week, and see if I can learn something to maximize my farming in my new play style. At the same time I'm wondering what 'old' ways of farming still remain for the times I'm more active.

Regardless of loot system there has always been a sharp divide between the casual farmer and the active farmer. Both call for different strategies in order to maximize their effect. With the change, the casual farmer has to bite the bullet in losing loot on defense At the same time he finds more value in being able to attack 300+ storages which are way more abundant now, and have the time to build strong armies since they rarely do volume farming. In that sense the focus on casual farmers is % success vs. investment.

Note that this is mainly a call for TH9/10. Defense wise I don't have a lot of problems as a near maxed out TH9. Attack wise only TH9 and 10 have the troop levels to effectively pull of these attacks. In what way they translate to lowers TH's is up to the reader.

My personal experience so far:

Hogs (32 hogs, 5 wiz, rest barch)
Usage: I bully fellow TH8/9 farmers or weak TH10 with full storages. Preferably as weak as possible in order to limit spell usage. This has worked best for me for gold farming.
Pro's: Relatively fast (30 min), light on elixer, very high chance on 100%
Con's: At 1600 DE per attack, it effectively negates your DE gain. Also spell heavy, useless against TH10.

Balloonion (24 bloons, rest minion)
Usage: TH8/9/10 with exposed AA and bad WT placement and at least 2 x-bows down. It's easy to use but the succes rate is lower. Also searching for the right base costs time.
Pro's: Relatively light on DE, high chance on at least 3/4 storages.
Con's: at 45-60 minutes fairly long build time. Heavy on elixer. Spell heavy

Giant/healer (16 giants, 2 healers, 8 wb, rest barch few wiz)
Usage: Against weak-mid TH9 and lower with exposed AA. Third buff for giant is noticable but the return on the strategy is low for me. Do note that I suck big time with giant/healer.
Pro's: Low build time (~35 min) Relatively low on elixer, no DE cost, 1-2 spells at the most.
Con's: Very dodgy rate of succes. 2/4 storages often. Useless against TH10.

Personally I stopped using BAM since I want to hit fast and hard when I have time for playing. I'de love to hear people who just kept bamming-away and with succes post-update.

So, what is your favorite/most succesful army comp these days? Please note if your an casual or active player (or both depending on occasion). Sharing is caring!

I am a mid-late TH9, very active, farming 1700-1900.

I am using a combo, giant/healer, hog. Giant healers punches in one side, Hogs take another. I can wipe just about any TH8 with no spells, take mid-TH9 without many spells, high-TH9 with spells about 60-80% wins. TH10 with infernos are still a problem.

12 giant, 2 healers, 10 hog, 6 wiz, 42 archer, 8 WB. 3 Heal, 1 Rage.

TH9, Level 95, happily BARCHing my way to Crystal 1 in the Winter 2013 Trophy Hunting Competition. My barbs are level 6, archers are level 5.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Giggitygoo

For the past week I have been experimenting with some of the widely known army comps, trying to find my farming groove in the new loot system. Regardless of some minor future tweaks, this new loot formula is now the law of the land, and we'll have to adapt accordingly.

At the same time my personal playing style has changed from mainly active to mainly intermittent. Bad timing, some would say. However, I don't want to discuss the flaws of the new loot system and the temporary or continuing lack of loot really. I'm wondering what fellow forumites experiences are with farming after one week, and see if I can learn something to maximize my farming in my new play style. At the same time I'm wondering what 'old' ways of farming still remain for the times I'm more active.

Regardless of loot system there has always been a sharp divide between the casual farmer and the active farmer. Both call for different strategies in order to maximize their effect. With the change, the casual farmer has to bite the bullet in losing loot on defense At the same time he finds more value in being able to attack 300+ storages which are way more abundant now, and have the time to build strong armies since they rarely do volume farming. In that sense the focus on casual farmers is % success vs. investment.

Note that this is mainly a call for TH9/10. Defense wise I don't have a lot of problems as a near maxed out TH9. Attack wise only TH9 and 10 have the troop levels to effectively pull of these attacks. In what way they translate to lowers TH's is up to the reader.

My personal experience so far:

Hogs (32 hogs, 5 wiz, rest barch)
Usage: I bully fellow TH8/9 farmers or weak TH10 with full storages. Preferably as weak as possible in order to limit spell usage. This has worked best for me for gold farming.
Pro's: Relatively fast (30 min), light on elixer, very high chance on 100%
Con's: At 1600 DE per attack, it effectively negates your DE gain. Also spell heavy, useless against TH10.

Balloonion (24 bloons, rest minion)
Usage: TH8/9/10 with exposed AA and bad WT placement and at least 2 x-bows down. It's easy to use but the succes rate is lower. Also searching for the right base costs time.
Pro's: Relatively light on DE, high chance on at least 3/4 storages.
Con's: at 45-60 minutes fairly long build time. Heavy on elixer. Spell heavy

Giant/healer (16 giants, 2 healers, 8 wb, rest barch few wiz)
Usage: Against weak-mid TH9 and lower with exposed AA. Third buff for giant is noticable but the return on the strategy is low for me. Do note that I suck big time with giant/healer.
Pro's: Low build time (~35 min) Relatively low on elixer, no DE cost, 1-2 spells at the most.
Con's: Very dodgy rate of succes. 2/4 storages often. Useless against TH10.

Personally I stopped using BAM since I want to hit fast and hard when I have time for playing. I'de love to hear people who just kept bamming-away and with succes post-update.

So, what is your favorite/most succesful army comp these days? Please note if your an casual or active player (or both depending on occasion). Sharing is caring!

---

Thanks for sharing your farming combo!

The loot system change has brought a fairly significant impact. due to the removal of loot bonus, collector raids are less efficient as those raids are the main loot income for TH7&8. also, a reduced percentage on storages also made the weak base a less chance to get raided as they usually do not offer as much resource in storage to reach even close to the camp. Meanwhile, the loot available increased for those full storages as the cap goes up. The conflict is reflected in chasing max loot at the risk of failure of getting it.

I am using giant-healer and sometimes barch before the new loot system, it works well. under the new system, these two strategies works not bad but I have to admit it is sometimes less efficient as 200K moderately defended base does not appear so often now.

I am trying different combo now. one is balloonion (my last trophy push combo), and the second is some combo I saw from my defense: enhanced giant healer. which consist of 4 healers and 12 giants, reset are archers. that strategy almost 3-starred me and get all the available loot out of my base. how does my base look like? well, it is a nearly maxed TH9 with all skull walls and the inner layer level 9 walls. I don't comment, but just post my defense picture FYI:

http://i1360.photobucket.com/albums/...ps85224628.png

Still using BAM.. Taking out collectors and storages when needed..
Have no problems, loot have never been better..

Im on 1700-2100 cups

TH10, very causal, always log off between raids. In decreasing order of preference:

• Ballons and minions, enhanced with dragons (2 feel best ATM) and freeze spell and AQ - guaranteed win, usually 2 star, on weak to intermediate TH10. May be used for trophy hunting.
• Plain old Balloons/minions/heal w/o heroes - aims at TH9, very weak TH10, and inactives
• Hogs - on rare occasions, obviously against TH9 only after the last update

If you build those expensive armies, you will FORCED to find bases with lots of loot.

People are so scared of gigantic 300k losses that they are beginning to exhibit following behaviors:
1. Putting town halls outside to get cheap shield
2. Riding out shields
3. Staying online until their funding needs have been met
4. Draining resources when they log off

All these behaviors result in much fewer available bases and loot, and we are witnessing a collapse in CoC ecosystem.

When an ecosystem collapses, dinosaurs and other biggies die out, only small creatures survive.

What you need is a cheap army that builds fast and makes reasonable profit even in sub 50k raids.

Only after enough people give up and turn inactive, loot will start to increase.

I feel like I need an army comp that is more flexible now. One that can collector raid when the opportunity presents itself, and storage raid with a little skill.


Back in Th 7 I used a blended strategy to do this
Giants/Healers/pair of drags/archers

I could drop the giants and archers to collector raid, and deposit my full force if needed.


As a Th9 I am in a dilemma in this regard

1) I am getting heros upgraded - so I am shying away from DE troops
2) The 30 minute drags don't seem that effective.


Has anyone mixed up balloons with a giant/healer combo? I want to try this but don't want to invest in healers if they are a waste of time. It still wouldn't give me as much flexibility as I would like though....


I don't want to use PEKKA because of the 45 minute wait and because they are only lvl 1.


In lower ranges Giant/Healer was always a good tactic for a mid-level attack. Now I feel its too big a risk with all those seeking mines everywhere...

Thanks for the input so far guys. I will give some of them a try. Particulary interested in that 4 healer combo..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Inquisitor

If you build those expensive armies, you will FORCED to find bases with lots of loot.

People are so scared of gigantic 300k losses that they are beginning to exhibit following behaviors:
1. Putting town halls outside to get cheap shield
2. Riding out shields
3. Staying online until their funding needs have been met
4. Draining resources when they log off

All these behaviors result in much fewer available bases and loot, and we are witnessing a collapse in CoC ecosystem.

When an ecosystem collapses, dinosaurs and other biggies die out, only small creatures survive.

What you need is a cheap army that builds fast and makes reasonable profit even in sub 50k raids.

Only after enough people give up and turn inactive, loot will start to increase.

---

I see your point, but in my case it's not so much being forced to build expensive armies, it's just that I have the time for them now that I rarely spend several hours playing. So when I use a strong army, I damn well want a return on investement. When you don't play often, you have to maximize result every time you start up the game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NioTheDreamer

I feel like I need an army comp that is more flexible now. One that can collector raid when the opportunity presents itself, and storage raid with a little skill.

Has anyone mixed up balloons with a giant/healer combo? I want to try this but don't want to invest in healers if they are a waste of time. It still wouldn't give me as much flexibility as I would like though....

In lower ranges Giant/Healer was always a good tactic for a mid-level attack. Now I feel its too big a risk with all those seeking mines everywhere...

---

Giant/healer with balloons will take up too much camp space at the cost of units with random targets. You'll be stuck with slow moving units that only target defences and will run out of time. Stick with either giants or balloons, not both.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Inquisitor

If you build those expensive armies, you will FORCED to find bases with lots of loot.

People are so scared of gigantic 300k losses that they are beginning to exhibit following behaviors:
1. Putting town halls outside to get cheap shield
2. Riding out shields
3. Staying online until their funding needs have been met
4. Draining resources when they log off

All these behaviors result in much fewer available bases and loot, and we are witnessing a collapse in CoC ecosystem.

When an ecosystem collapses, dinosaurs and other biggies die out, only small creatures survive.

What you need is a cheap army that builds fast and makes reasonable profit even in sub 50k raids.

Only after enough people give up and turn inactive, loot will start to increase.

---

The only big behavior change I've noticed is more people getting on-line to check their bases and review the update. Some folks may initially be afraid to lose big bucks, but they have no choice. When an upgrade to a defensive structure costs 5 million gold or more, you're not going to get that in a single period of playing. Collector raiding has not really changed and BAM still works. After a few more days, things will return to normal and collector raiding will still be quick, easy and profitable.

I use quite an odd strategy (TH9) but it's extremely effective at 100% weaker town halls
24 Giants
6 WB
1 Healer
74 Archers
3 Heal
1 Damage

Normally you only need one healing spell.

I'm pretty much the same as I always have been for months now... active twice a day, most days. A couple of raids in the morning, maybe up to 4, then a longer session in the evening. Ride my shield in between. I don't usually log off in between raids, because I'm farming at the upper end of my TH9's defensive capabilities - pretty much every attacker gets at least half my available resources, unless they are just sniping my TH. But I manage to keep most of my millions, and add to them...

I've been using the same armies as before the update, with good results (TH9, currently just over 2400 cups):

1. 20-16 balloons, 60-70 minions, 0-2 rage spells. Great for DE, even better after the update, and potentially great for storages too depending on layout, and can farm abandoned collector bases too. If it cooked that little bit faster, I'd use nothing else. If I want to push trophies up, I wear the 32 minute build time and use 16+70 every raid for a whole night. I do have to be quite picky on who I attack, but that's always been the case for me, nothing new.
2. BAM - for a longer evening session, this is where I get best bang for my buck, after a couple of ballonian raids. I have to look hard for a good raid, usually just collectors but not always, but it still works well under the new rules (it's still my go-to for my TH7, too, in lower gold).

In the upper reaches of Crystal, I've found these work just as well as before, if not better. The only problem with BAM, is you sometimes see amazing storage raids that you have to skip, especially as I'm usually out of spells and/or heroes, having spent these earlier with ballinions. So while I find BAM still a good strategy, depending on your luck you might find yourself wishing you had a different army sometimes...

I also keep a close eye on my revenge targets, as a near-maxed TH10 with millions in the stores is now quite a viable target, whereas I'd have skipped them earlier.

p.s. for fun I use 2 golems, 2 witches, 8 wall breakers, 10 barbarians, 10 archers, and the rest wizards, up to 2 rage spells... but it's hard to make a lot of profit from of that. Great fun, though, and I've taken out good TH10 with it (e.g. over 80% on one with level 3 infernos this morning, had to use my heroes tho).

My overnight army consists of 2 golems 8 wb, 1 healer, 4 giants and rest archers. Tears into th10 with inferno on multi.

Normal army is 15 giants, 1 healer, 10 minions, 8 wb and rest archers. Minions distract air defense while giants take it down so my healer stays alive. I use 2 lights to take out the far mortar so my archers don't get splashed. Very successful at 1900 trophy