New to TH 9, Ground or Air for Clan War?

Hello everyone,

I'm new to TH 9 and I'm looking for advices on laboratory upgrading priority for Clan War, mostly a choice between ground or air troops, or more specifically, hogs/golems/pekka/witch or balloon/minions/lava hound.

Now, I understand both ground and air troops can be useful at some point and a composition of both according to the base is the best attacking strategy as demonstrated in hulk's channel. But getting all these upgrades will take a while, and I want an army composition I can use in a few weeks.

Some factors to consider:
- The opponents I'll be facing will be mid-to-low TH 9's and strong TH 8's.
- I don't use programs that allows me to "practice" before actual raid.
- My clan mates mostly donate lvl 3 dragons, lvl 4+ hogs, lvl 6 balloons during Clan War, rarely golems.

Hogs was originally a common choice, but after several patches it seems too risky to use. But other ground troops compositions (like GoWiPe) seem to be very reliable to use (at least 2 star) and hogs can work well with them.

Balloons and other air troops take less total time and resources to upgrade, which is a really good thing, upgrading minions will allow me to do BAM farming, which is another good thing, but it seems more difficult to use and less reliable in general. (The best attackers in my clan use hogs and I have seen some loonion fails, so I'm may be biased in that aspect.)

How comfortable is it to start off with balloons? What's your favourite Clan War army composition?

Any advices/thoughts are welcome.

Dragons are allways a strong choise, but I think that GoWiPe is the best choise.
I personaly use hogs, becouse my pekka's arent very good.
Cheapest choise is probaly giants.
Good luck! ^_^

Thanks for the suggestion. I have been using mass dragons and it's working well against all TH 8's, but I find it losing its luster against reasonably designed TH 9's due to additional and stronger defences.

If you use hogs, does this mean you think hogs is still a good introductory troops to upgrade for TH 9 Clan War? Can you give a brief explanation on why you think GoWiPe is better than air troops?

Again, thanks for the suggestion. Any other thoughts/advices are welcome.

Really depends on the base, but if you are an early th9, you're best option is probably dragloon. In almost all cases dragloon will be more powerful than mass drags or loonian.

Go with 8-9 drags, about 16 loons and a mix of rage/heal. Use heros to clear left and right buildings to help funnel drags, then follow with loons. You can also use 2 drags to clear buildings if that works too, and save heros for later.

Gowipe is always a sure 1-2 stars for me even against a maxed th9 (troop level is also the same as th8-lvl1 golem, lvl5 wiz, lvl3 pekka). My 2nd option is loonion (lvl6 balloon, lvl5 minion) when my BK or both heroes are upgrading, I don't use gowipe if only my AQ is available. I haven't try using mass dragon after I got to th9- my dragon is only now for donation to my th8 and below clanmates.

GoWiWi is my preference over GoWiPe just because it's more consistent... but anyway, i prefer lava loonion as the best strategy for clan wars

if you're looking to 2 star ppl... gowipe or any troop combo will get you there... dragons and loon/minion strategies you will find to be very hard to 2 star even... i would not rec gowipe though...

if you want to 3 star... get your hogs maxed... loons help here also... after that.. you're going to wanna get your golems and finally witches lvl'ed...

Mass drags with four spells coupled with some lvl 6 loons on th8 gives u almost every time 3*.2* on th9s

Thanks everyone. Now that I have finished upgrading my barch to lvl 6, I have decided to pour my elixirs on upgrading lvl 6 balloon followed by minions to give air troops a try.

I believe it can handle some mid-to-low TH 9 base designs based on some TH 9 3-star replay videos and the fact it takes less upgrades (1 balloon upgrade, 3 - 5 minion upgrades, 2 dark barrack upgrades) and lower making cost (primarily elixirs) is a really good thing.

By the time I have finished these upgrades, I will most likely have two lvl 6 dark elixir drills up, which will give me an easier time to save up enough dark elixirs to upgrade more dark elixir-heavy troops.

This is my train of thought. Hopefully this will work out for me and be a reference to anyone with similar question as me in the future.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djphan

if you're looking to 2 star ppl... gowipe or any troop combo will get you there... dragons and loon/minion strategies you will find to be very hard to 2 star even... i would not rec gowipe though...

if you want to 3 star... get your hogs maxed... loons help here also... after that.. you're going to wanna get your golems and finally witches lvl'ed...

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What's your Hog strategy for Th9's? I've been on the fence regarding their upgrade to 5.