See also - Predator's Base Building Guide: Chapter 3 - Defence Skills
Hi folks. A few may know me from coc, clashofclansbuilder.com or forums. Im a Defence only trophy player - usually cruise around
3400-3600 cups - pb 3764 defence only (rank 114). Being playing since March 2013 and now finally reached 1000 defence wins - mostly at champ - so wanted to do something to celebrate my personal milestone (champ defence wins are hard to come by lol). So here's a base building guide. Some of the concepts are tricky and the guide is targeted at building trophy or war bases not farming. But ive added a few farming base tips so there is something for everyone. As an advanced guide i've written it assuming you are TH10 but a lot of the concepts still apply at lower TH levels.
Note the guide is long as there is a lot to cover and wanted to give lots of examples. I've written it as a step by step guide to building a war or trophy base.
The guide has the following sections:
1. Base strategy - what attack combinations will your base target and what are you primarily defending (loot vs townhall vs 50%)?
2. Attack type defence strategies - how to adjust your base for a primary defence against common attack combinations, and what secondary defence to scare off other combos
3. Defence skills - Techniques for key elements of defence (eg. Preventing hero lure, jump spell defence, etc)
4. Base performance - How to tell when you base is good?
5. Tweaking - How to run a dynamic base design that progressively fixes weaknesses
I am progressively writing this guide so it is presently incomplete. I'll be adding sections progressively over the next few weeks.
1. BASE STRATEGY
As a first step to building your base work out your base strategy.
The first consideration is your trophy level. At high champ (3400+) you will mostly face Gowiz or Gowiwi, with a little hogs and dragons. In the
2400-3200 range you will still see gowiwi, less gowiz, a lot of ballooninions and some hogs. You will see barch raids at low cups and losts of hog raids at TH9.
Your cup level impacts what base strategy is optimal. So grabbing a good champ base (designed for Gowiwi drag and gowiz defence) and running it at say low master wompnt necessarily work well because its hog and balloonion defence might not be adequate. Your base strategy needs to be suited to your cup level.
The second consideration is your base's defensive power relative to your cup level. This impacts the base goal (protect from a 2 star vs winning defences). For example, a TH8 in crystal 1 or a TH9 in master 1 needs to focus on protecting against a two (or three) star - not winning.
The third consideration is your goal. If you are protecting loot of certain types - that will impact the positioning of your stores of course. Or if you are playing clan wars in high cup clans your goal may be to have a base thats hard to two star - because two one star defences in a clan war is pretty much a win.
Base strategy examples:-
So lets look at base strategy with a few examples.
First, my champ base strategy.
At high champ il face mostly gowiwi, gowiz and dragons. If i set infernos on single il also be hit with hogs (so i also need a hog defence if using singles). Mostly il face heros that are level 30-40 and routinely they will carry 2 rage 2 freeze and a lightening (for cc kill) or a jump. At the start of the attack they will mostly try and lure heros and kill them by drawing them to a corner dropping a few barbs 2-3 witches and a few wizards. They will often lightening my cc.
Now looking at my defensive power versus the attack power i face ... At champ attack dominates where you see max attack versus max defence - because the game is unbalanced heavily favouring attack at champ.
Finally, my goal is mostly clan wars so i want a base thats hard to two star - also i lose around 26 cups every two star (im currently 3600s) so really want to avoid losing my TH. Im max base so dont care much about loot.
So what does this mean for my base strategy.
- I need to focus on winning gowiz/gowiwi defence (I'l explain how to defend each attack type later in the guide). Rather than defend all attack types which is impossible - Il scare off dragon and hog attackers by only offering one star. And I'll set a few air and hog kill traps so my base wont be a definite one star for air attack or hogs. Given most carry freeze and will use freeze on the infernos I will need a freeze defence. And in the places where jump is easy to use I need a jump defence. And facing gowiz-gowiwi my wallbreaker defence has to be strong (3-5 layers) where i rely on my walls.
- With me facing overpowered attack relative to my defence I need to not give anything away. So i must protect my heros and cc from activation or I will be at a further disadvantage. This means an oval base with the TH, heros and cc centred - not just the TH in middle. Also, if i used a balanced base (mostly symmetrical from all sides) its likely i will lose because its weak on all sides. So I need to use a Southern Teaser style base and use hidden elements of the base to make it tricky.
- To avoid two stars i need to route troops sideways around the TH, make sure the TH is for the most part out of queen range and have very strong wallbreaker defence on the south on the wall protecting the area near the townhall.
see pic ... my base 18 June 2014 - Strategy of primary gowiwi and barch defence with secondary hog and air defence
http://i59.tinypic.com/29byf6x.jpg
To give you and idea of how much my base evolves (i tweak it after every defence base on what happens) here is the same base 12 days later on 30 June 2014
http://i57.tinypic.com/k97znq.jpg
Now lets look at another base at a different cup level and see how the strategy changes.
One of my minis - 2676 cups. TH10 max infernos level 3 bows. Level 1 walls (lol). Level 84. Defence only mini that runs with no clan castle troops.
At 2676 cups it will face mostly balloonions and hogs - and if i put collectors on perimiter and let them fill il also face barch raids. My base power is ok for the cup level - but my walls are very weak (surprisingly with the right base style for the walls this doesnt matter much - particularly as il mostly face balloonions and hog attacks). And my goal is defensive cups and saving loot from collectors to build my heros and base.
So my base strategy...
- I need a defence building setup so that hogs will circle the infernos and if they get to centre wont kill both infernos (slightly difference to a hog defence ring - il explain later). And il need a balloon trap (also later). My traps will need to be focused on hog defence (between defence buildings). As my defence is relatively even with the attack im facing i can use a fairly symmetrical base. But with weak walls i need to use my walls to guide troops around the townhall rather than using wall power as a defence. And i need to set boss to ground to protect my perimiter against barch and keep my loot protected by my infernos - as the typical approach of putting all my loot stores in different pockets wont work given my walls a re so weak.
Pic - Strategy of Hog defence base with troop routing style wall setup to suit low level walls
http://i61.tinypic.com/fdubyg.jpg
Now a low cup TH8 pushing strategy. Say we have a TH8 at gold 1 - pushing, so less focus on loot for a bit. If any high level attacker hits me I'll be three starred. I should be lower cups to be safe but im pushing. But i can beat some attack types - like giants and barch. So a base strategy might be to have a perimiter wall with some buildings outside and inside and all my splash damage in the middle protected by lots of pockets. And an open circle of buildings in between perimiter wall and centred splash damage. The idea is when troops funnel through the perimiter wall they will bunch - so be more susceptible to splash damage. And with lots of free buildings without walls surrounding the walled centred splash damage the troops should favour circling the splash damage rather than breaking the walls to destroy the splash damage and the TH.
Pic - A TH8 pushing base targeted at giants, barch and wizards - base strategy to route troops around the centred splash damage and also route giants away from bombs and other troops towards the bombs. No hog defence because a solid hog attack will wipe ANY TH8
http://i62.tinypic.com/2ilesyc.jpg
The key to these three examples is that taking a base suited to one cup level and player, and copying it and expecting it to work for you at a different cup level, base power and goal - that often wont work. Using my champ base designed for gowiwi and expecting it to work for my mini that faces hogs and balloonions at master - of course it wouldn't work.
Tips -
Pick base designs that suit your cup level, relative base power and your goals. Look at bases with high win rates around your cup level rather than picking a champ base that wont necessarily work at your cup level.
2. ATTACK TYPE DEFENCE STRATEGIES
The next step in working out a base strategy is to understand what characteristics your base needs to defend the likely attack types you will face.
This section looks at how to defence the common trophy winning attack types in the game. your base should have a primary defence against the common attack types for your cups level. But it also needs a secondary defence to trap or scare off attack types that your base is not primarily targeting - otherwise you will leak cups to the uncommon attack types at your level.
2.1 HOG DEFENCE
A hog attack at TH10 will typically target bases where the cc and heros are easily lureable and where either one or both infernos are on single or the infernos are close so both can be frozen with a single spell.
So for a secondary hog defence - to reduce your hog attacks by making your base less attractive for hogs:-
- Make your clan castle troops hard to lure (explained below)
- Make your heros hard to lure
- Set both infernos to multi and far enough apart so both cannot be frozen with one freeze spell
For a primary hog defence follow the following rules -
- Circle your defence buildings at the outer perimeter range of you multi infernos. Im the gap place non-defence buildings. This concept is similar to the hog ring concept that is the standard hog defence. The difference is the defences ring your infernos so the result is more like a figure 8 (with the middle bit of the 8 being your townhall).
Pic - Defence buildings circled around the edge of multi-inferno range with non defence buildings in between
http://i59.tinypic.com/jqouaa.jpg
- Split your middle defences so that a hog bunch wont take down both infernos. For example, an inferno and a wiz tower on opposite sides of your townhall separated by stores between each inferno xbow bunch.
- Use a slow release clan castle (explained below). For example 3 wizards 23 archers.
- Place your spring traps between defence buildings - as a single trap between defences.
- Place your small bombs between defence buildings im 3s.
- Use four of your bombs to make two double bomb hog traps and your fifth bomb between two defences where a heal spell is unlikely to be deployed (heal spells usually target bunches (3-4) of defence buildings).
Hog traps
The main hog traps involve a double bomb - two bombs in combination is capable of taking down a hog bunch. The common trap is two defences side by side with two spaces in between with two large bombs in between and no defence buildings that will draw the hogs im another direction. This is often easy to spot so a heal over the trap can neutralise its effect.
Pic - Double bomb trap under Wiz tower fire
http://i58.tinypic.com/2u8a4xt.jpg
Pic - Double bomb trap with extra firepower to overpower a heal spell
http://i58.tinypic.com/2ez45xh.jpg
The second variant of the double bomb trap is on a diagonal. The two defence buildings are placed corner to corner and the bombs on the opposite diagonal corners between the defences. The advantage of this is that its hard to spot. And if other defences are not nearby then often a heal is not deployed on the trap and you kill a hog bunch.
Pic - Diagonal double bomb hog trap (note to make this work you need to path the hogs through the middle of the two bombs)
http://i62.tinypic.com/2vkkazd.jpg
Pic - a sample hog defence
http://i62.tinypic.com/o8553m.jpg
Follow the hog pathing from South ... Spring trap to cannon to archer tower to double bomb under wiz tower fire (trap that will kill a bunch).
From North ... Spring trap to telsa to wiz tower to air defence (in multi range) to mortar (in multi range) to telsa (in multi range) then bunch will split to outer archer tower and south archer tower (in multi range) then cannon then double bomb - wiz tower trap.
2.2 GOWIZ - GOWIWI - GOWIPE - GOWIWIPE DEFENCE
This attack type can take on any base and if the attacker is decent and has big heros usually two star. So there is no real 'secondary' defence to scare off this attack type.
My approach to this defence is as follows:
- Centre the clan castle townhall and heros. If you don't defend the hero and cc wins will be much harder to come by. I explain in detail how to make luring more difficult in the defence skills section below.
- Keep the townhall out of queen range by a wall circle with at least 4 spaces to townhall where level with townhall and three spaces to townhall on the corners. Use your max walls for the townhall defence circle
- Place high hit point buildings in multi-inferno range - like your de, gold and elixir stores. These buildings take much longer to destroy so provide sort of a freeze defence for your infernos - as often it takes longer to destroy the cluster of high hit point buildings surrounding your inferno than the duration of your freeze spell
- Place your infernos so both cannot be frozen at the same time. At a minimum the closest they can be is a one spot overlap with the corners of your townhall.
- Now they can attack both infernos head on or an inferno side on.
* For the head on attack your infernos will only activate late. I like to load up one head on side with wall defence with a bit of wiz tower splash making the walls harder to wbs bust and the other head on side with all my big bombs taking care to place all my big bombs outside multi-inferno range
* For the side on attack i like to place a mortar to hit the gowiwi while the gowiwi is out of mortar range and corner pockets to absorb 2-3 rounds of wbs before the centre wall. I also like to leave a little space inside the centre wall to the inferno so if the king gets to the centre wall they will target a nearby ur pocketed building rather than busting the th wall and going for the inferno. The trick to corner inferno defence is troop routing so u need to use building spacing and paths for troops to follow that direct them away from your townhall. Also i like to place high hitpoint buildings inside the inferno range to give your infernos a shot at waiting out a freeze spell
- i find a wiwi clan castle seems to work best. So i run 1 witch 5 wiz 3 barbs. There are pluses and minuses to all the cc combinations specifically running a witch and using slow troops with a troop that stays deep (like a witch) will draw the attack towards the townhall. But running a wiwi cc is a bit like fighting fire with fire except your cc doesnt have a golem for a meat shield. For me dragon and loon ccs seem to die fast to wizards and valkarie cc combos of course dont assist your air defence
- With your big bomb placement try to put them where Golems will not trigger them but witches and wizards will set them off. Golems will target defence buildings so path between the defences. So a gowiwi bomb placement is somewhat the opposite of a hog defence bomb placement - problematic if you want to defend both! As a compromise I often set three of my big bombs for gowiwi and throw in a double bomb hog trap to keep the hoggers honest.
Gowiz and gowiwi is hard to win consistently but i have found these strategies reasonably effective in delivering an acceptable win rate
BARCH DEFENCE
So you've build a strong gowiwi base and find yourself being picked off by barch perimeter attack? A common problem at champ :/ Fortunately a winning barch defence can be made often with only a few simple adjustments to your base. If you are losing to barch then your splash damage and rapid fire defences (bows) are too deep.
To beat barch:-
- Don't offer up any "free" buildings on the perimeter where an archer can destroy a building without being in range of any ground defences
- Place two of your Xbows to ground and make sure they are spread wide enough to cover the perimeter.
- If you have an open section to your base - like a Southern teaser style - then make sure the bombs aren't placed too deep
- Ensure your mortars arent too deep to provide perimiter defence
- if you are using any high hitpoint buildings on your perimiter - thats a great spot to place a wiz tower behind
The handy thing about these tips is they can usually be easily blended with a gowiwi defence or other defence type - so a few adjustments and your base should be a viable primary defence against barch and other defence types.
To follow:
Dragon defence
Balloonion defence
See also: Predator's base building guide: Chapter 3 - Defence Skills
Predator
