Strategy for getting a th8 through crystal?

I'm a lvl 76 th8 who is mostly a farmer. I have 1000 gems and if I go to master league I can afford a fifth builder. I sniped to crystal 3, but now there's too few farmers to rely on sniping. I have a little underleveled troops, like lvl 2 drags, lvl 4 balloons, lvl 4 giants ect. I found I'm good with gowipe, though it's a long wait to train and it drains my dark elixir, and while I'm waiting for it to train, people from as far as 500 trophies below me revenge me! I'm looking for a strategy cheap in dark elixir (idc about regular elixir, I came here with millions,) that doesn't take long to train. I look forward to responses. Thanks!

Snipe. Just th snipe with barch.

mass drags and 3 zaps for 50%, you could look for base with down AD while sniping

i looned to c3.

How about you upgrade your troops? That would make things easier. If your army is underpowered I have to think your defenses are weak too, level 6 walls and stuff.

Work on your offense and raid often.

I did this last week. U simply have to snipe THs and stay online majority of the process, if u can gem boost ur raxes then it is the way to go.

Crystal was quite easy. Army comp was 8 giants and wallbreakers and the rest barch with four backup wizards for percentage points if it was 40+%. Only needed about one spell each raid but did bring at least 2 heal to make sure I didn't lose.

In addition to attack strategies, I would also focus on picking the right bases to attack in the first place.

Learn how to recognize poor bases, premature THs, exposed THs.

Just being more patient in the base selection process can get you further.

If you are good with GoWiPe, a cheaper strategy is GiWiPe, where you use giants instead of golems. Otherwise, probably just get used to hitting that next button looking for exposed town halls.

I sniped to 2600 in 3-4 days. It was a bit of a grind, but if you want to get the 1000 gems then it's worth it.