Should I max dark troops at TH8?

Hi, I'm a late(ish) TH8 currently working on my BK, he's at 7 and will be starting 8 shortly. I am going to get him to 10. Barbs, archers, giants, wbs, wiz, healers, drags, pekkas are all maxed. Loons will be maxed tomorrow. Going straight onto gobs to 5 once loons are done. Heal, lightning and rage all need to go to 5(currently at 4). So offensively I'm pretty set for farming troops and war. I'm definitely going to be maxing walls to skull level. The question I need answering is do I definitely need to do Dark Troops at this level? Currently, Hogs are level 3, minions are level 3 and both valks and golems are level 1. Any advice will be welcomed 😃

I think so. They added a de drill. I did Barb King to 10 first though. still working on the troops while i do walls.

lot of ppl skip the valk i think though

I went to TH9 before the update of 2 DE drills at TH8.

I'd recommend maxing as many units as you use in the upgrade factory before upgrading to th9. I'm wasting time now doing minions & spells I could have done earlier. There's that much more pressure on a TH9 to do well in war, and I feel I'm at a disadvantage because my spells & war troops (golems, hogs, pekkas) are not maxed.

I completely maxed out TH8 except for DE troops and I only got my king to 9. I can't tell you how that worked for me because I'm still going to TH9 as we speak. I got minions maxed, lvl 1 Golem and Valk, and lvl 3 hogs.

You should max Hogs or GoWiPe before hitting TH9 so you are not suddenly lost for War strategies when you hit TH9.

If you care about your war performance at all, absolutely get Hogs to 4 and ideally Golems to 2 before going TH9. You are going to use both extensively when attacking TH9 bases in war at least until you get Lavas unlocked and Loons upgraded, so not having either will make you a liability for war attacking for the first couple of months of your TH9 career.

Wiz are at 5 and pekkas are at level 3, just golems to do but at 60k, they are steep and hanging onto that amount of de at th8 is tough! Same with valks at 50k de. All spells will be maxed and I'm definitely going to do minions and hogs to max level, just golems and valks to think about. As for war, I won't be warring, will that change whether I should do all de troops?

I am in the same boat. My GoWiPe is completely maxed with level 3 pekka and level 2 golems. My king is level 10. Now I still cannot decide if I should upgrade my minions to max and do hogs at TH9, or the other way around. But I will not have enough time to do both, as my defenses are close to max.

As you work on your defenses and walls try to make sure the lab stays busy.

But don't exclusively focus on DE troop upgrades at TH8, the king and elixir upgrades are better value for your resource at TH8.

Depends on how much you use them? I just started my upgrade to TH9. Maxed all troops except Golem, Valk, and Healer. I never used Valks or Healer. I would love to have upgraded Golem, but I'm out of things to spend gold/elixir on so I'm moving on. I think the AQ will improve my attacks more than golems will so that's the route I'm going at first. I'd like to start upgrading golems right after I get Balloons and Giants done at TH9.