Should upgrading barch to level 6 be the highest priority?

I only ever barch for farming and more often than not I do collector raids with the occasional storage raids. I have been finding lvl 5 sufficient. (note I upgraded to th9 fairly recently).

As such I decided to upgrade balloons to open up another potential clan war attack instead of my barch. And now that my lab is almost free (3days) and incidentally one of my builders working on dark barracks is almost free (2 days) too I am left with a couple of interesting options for upgrades.

I currently have 35k de and 2.9 mill elixir and I can easily farm enough for the following two options:

Option 1: Archer Queen to lvl 6 and either barbarian or archers to lvl 6

Option 2: dark barracks to lvl 6 (unlock hounds) or 2nd barracks to lvl 5 and either hogs or minions to lvl 5

My gut instinct is to go with option 1 as that seems to be the most sensible choice. But the little voice inside me that loves clan wars is calling out for option 2.

Any thoughts or opinions to add?

I would say option 1 sounds the best to me. I hear the lava hounds aren't that amazing. Well, not amazing enough to be worth choosing over an option that would benefit you every day in farming.

Option one would be my suggestion... sensibility always wins out in the end.

I'd always wany my every day army to be as strong as possible as soon as possible and it may open up better raids as time goes by.

Aren't there already enough of these, "Are lvl 6 archers worth it/should I do first?" type of threads? lol

Anyway, I wouldn't be so quick to upgrade Barb/Arch first as a new TH9. Lvl 5 for the most part is already sufficient for farming/collector raiding as is so apart from doing barbs first (because they are cheaper) I would do something much more valuable like Giants/Loons for instance.

Giants/Loons receive a massive boost over their lvl 5 counterparts. They're drastically better, whereas barb/arch is fairly minimal at best.

Aside from wanting lvl 6 arch for donating, that would probably be one of my last troop upgrades, even with the decreased research cost post-update. They cost 100 more elix each at lvl 6, and receive a very minimal hp and dps increase. Barbs get a slightly nice boost in Hp which in turn makes them a little more tankier. They are also your cheapest troop upgrade as a new fresh TH9.

But if it were me I'd do Giants/Loons. At the very least giants, if you don't have any intention on using loons.

If all you ever do is Barch (I'd imagine that would be quite boring), I suppose you might want them to lvl 6 asap though however....

You also aren't gaining much taking the AQ up to 6. If it were me, I'd be saving to upgrade Hogs/Golems/Witches (especially if you war at all). High lvl rocks and witches are essential in pretty much every higher tier raid/war.

Queen at lvl 5 is good enough for now, until you want to focus on getting her up to lvl 10.

Since you like CW and have balloons 6 coming up, I recommend option 3:

Spend DE on hogs to lvl 5, spend elixir on DE drills.

As a newish TH9 DE drills will give you long-term payoffs (eg. AQ in long run). Hogs 5 + Balloons 6 gives you access to the very useful HoLo attacks in CW, or just straight mass hogs. I would say these 2 are the likeliest way to 3-star other TH9s in CW for an early-mid TH9 youself.

Upgrading barch isn't very significant against weak collector bases, it might even be non-cost-efficient.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KOEWen

Since you like CW and have balloons 6 coming up, I recommend option 3:

Spend DE on hogs to lvl 5, spend elixir on DE drills.

As a newish TH9 DE drills will give you long-term payoffs (eg. AQ in long run). Hogs 5 + Balloons 6 gives you access to the very useful HoLo attacks in CW, or just straight mass hogs. I would say these 2 are the likeliest way to 3-star other TH9s in CW for an early-mid TH9 youself.

Upgrading barch isn't very significant against weak collector bases, it might even be non-cost-efficient.

---

+1.

Agreed.

Upgrade barch. for me, farming troops > war troops. So I maxed out Barch first since I use them way too often than the war troops.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pipoy

Upgrade barch. for me, farming troops > war troops. So I maxed out Barch first since I use them way too often than the war troops.

---

Except giants and loons are often used for farming as well (especially higher leagues), while also being a great troop for pushing and war so why people think getting lvl 6 barch first is so important is beyond me.

....Especially when lvl 5 barch is fine as is for low tier/gold league collector raiding anyway.

Then again to each their own. You use what you use I guess.

Opinion 1. BARCH is great anyways, a strong archer queen would be great for farming!

AQ is certainly an important long-term upgrade. But 1 lvl of AQ won't allow you to do what you couldn't do before. 1 lvl of hogs certainly can.

I can see barch 6 if you intend to barch for trophies up to a high level. Barch farming of collectors, not much difference.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KOEWen

Since you like CW and have balloons 6 coming up, I recommend option 3:

Spend DE on hogs to lvl 5, spend elixir on DE drills.

As a newish TH9 DE drills will give you long-term payoffs (eg. AQ in long run). Hogs 5 + Balloons 6 gives you access to the very useful HoLo attacks in CW, or just straight mass hogs. I would say these 2 are the likeliest way to 3-star other TH9s in CW for an early-mid TH9 youself.

Upgrading barch isn't very significant against weak collector bases, it might even be non-cost-efficient.

---

Ahhh fantastic idea. I will go with this one. Thanks for all the other replies, certainly helped think and rethink a few things through, especially on the topic of lava hounds.

Upgrade only the archer to lvl6.