Originally Posted by
mikeyen
I'll have to respectfully disagree. Generally speaking, maxing defenses and troops should be the priority - but if you're waiting on upgrades and have excess of gold/elixir, you might as well farm DE so you have less to farm later. While it's easier to farm DE at TH8 (often it comes along with normal raids), it's not very difficult to farm DE at TH7 either as long as you're in the right trophy range. I maxed out my BK at TH7 in a couple of weeks while hanging around 1400-1600 range, but I did have to drop back down to 1100-1300 whenever I needed to farm gold/elixir. One benefit of farming DE at TH7 is that you have loot penalty on your side - you get bonus when you raid TH9 bases for DE, and they won't be able to revenge you for very much at all (50% penalty).
Mike