Sservis Theorycrafting

Hi Sservis.

I've read a lot about rushing recently and i can clearly see its advantages. I'd really want to rush, though i'm partial about it. What keeps me to go full berserk through th9 are clan wars, and more specifically issues connected to the war weight.

Right now i'm a low to mid th7, coming from a compleately maxed th6. My plan is to max collectors and storages (which i left behind, shame to me), max every lab upgrade except for goblins and dark elixir troops, then move to th8 while drags lv2 are upgrading, with full gold and elixir in storages.

But how about clan wars? To which degree will the increase of TH level affect matchmaking? Also i think i didn't understand how much gold i should dump into walls. Considering i stopped upgrading defenses, should i spend all that spare gold into walls? Won't this increse my war weight dramatically?

And wbat should i do once i reach th8? Should i buy new buildings or should i not, so that my war weight doesn't change so much?

Sorry for the wall of questione, but it would be really cool if you'll help me to make my decision.

thank you.

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Originally Posted by Genbu

Hi Sservis.

I've read a lot about rushing recently and i can clearly see its advantages. I'd really want to rush, though i'm partial about it. What keeps me to go full berserk through th9 are clan wars, and more specifically issues connected to the war weight.

Right now i'm a low to mid th7, coming from a compleately maxed th6. My plan is to max collectors and storages (which i left behind, shame to me), max every lab upgrade except for goblins and dark elixir troops, then move to th8 while drags lv2 are upgrading, with full gold and elixir in storages.

But how about clan wars? To which degree will the increase of TH level affect matchmaking? Also i think i didn't understand how much gold i should dump into walls. Considering i stopped upgrading defenses, should i spend all that spare gold into walls? Won't this increse my war weight dramatically?

And wbat should i do once i reach th8? Should i buy new buildings or should i not, so that my war weight doesn't change so much?

Sorry for the wall of questione, but it would be really cool if you'll help me to make my decision.

thank you.

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So im very much against rushing (also against maxing)....I'm for optimizing your advancement (like grind skulls at 9 not 8 but max everything else at 8...etc) but war can be tricky. If you max your offense and are good at it then yeah you can rush bc you'll net more stars for your clan but you need to be able to 3 star at least 2 if not 3 th levels above where you are ranked for it to work well. If not then you should upgrade in the most efficient manor possible.

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Originally Posted by Genbu

Hi Sservis.

I've read a lot about rushing recently and i can clearly see its advantages. I'd really want to rush, though i'm partial about it. What keeps me to go full berserk through th9 are clan wars, and more specifically issues connected to the war weight.

Right now i'm a low to mid th7, coming from a compleately maxed th6. My plan is to max collectors and storages (which i left behind, shame to me), max every lab upgrade except for goblins and dark elixir troops, then move to th8 while drags lv2 are upgrading, with full gold and elixir in storages.

But how about clan wars? To which degree will the increase of TH level affect matchmaking? Also i think i didn't understand how much gold i should dump into walls. Considering i stopped upgrading defenses, should i spend all that spare gold into walls? Won't this increse my war weight dramatically?

And wbat should i do once i reach th8? Should i buy new buildings or should i not, so that my war weight doesn't change so much?

Sorry for the wall of questione, but it would be really cool if you'll help me to make my decision.

thank you.

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Some of the commentary below is general, not necessarily for you. I'm assuming you're in a clan that would be fine with your plan, but it's a key thing to call out as needed for rushing.

Where do you want to end up?

Once you have that answer, you can formulate a development plan. Most players are somewhat aiming at THMax Max-All as this is the default answer.

It's not the only answer. For instance, if you're aiming to be a TH9 Hog specialist, you might only build Barracks up to Wizards because you don't foresee a need for Healers/Dragons/Pekkas and why get credit that counts against you in matchmaking for unlocking them? Current Queen walks/farming might be a defensible reason for Healers too, but why would you want Dragons and Pekka?

Make sure to have fun along the way

It's a long trip to THMax Max-All. Intermediate steps should be fun. My main account has level 1 Dragons and has low level Hogs because I was rushing to TH9. Had I been planning on spending time at TH7/TH8, I would have leveled Hogs earlier to enjoy that Clan Wars attack (and likely Dragons too)

Have an accepting clan
If you are in a clan with entrance requirements and "no rushed bases" is on there or anything like it, talk with your clan. They are likely to be more accepting (still may not agree to it) of an existing member. The requirement exists for two reasons, (a) it filters applications well/saves time and (b) rushed bases are not welcome. Your clan may have the rule primarily for the first reason.

A random rushed base that applies is likely to be premmie and very bad. In addition, rushed accounts need to be able to attack well and like the TH that they are. Ex a rushed TH9 should 3 star TH8 without effort and also 3 star low TH9 fairly regularly. A TH9 that maxed TH8 spent a lot of time doing so. They should have more CW experience than a TH9 rusher. The combination of these two factors make it a really good idea to have a blanket policy of "no rushed bases". The policy of "no badly rushed bases" is a pretty big hassle to implement.

Plan your build order

Once you know roughly where you're aiming your base both in the long term and short term, you can plan what to build when. More importantly, you can decide what not to build or what to delay.

Only what you build/upgrade matters

Specifically, offensive and defensive. Being TH7 or TH10 is not important. Nor are collectors and storages. However, leveling up farming troops for TH10 will likely have an impact (or unlocking Pekka at TH8, etc). How much is another question. Likewise if you build/upgrade defenses they will have an impact.

I would generally keep builders busy. If you're going to upgrade/build the defenses eventually, don't idle builders. If you have projects other than defenses, by all means deprioritize defenses.

Economy, build/upgrade everything. I would delay Gold/Elixir collectors (but not Dark Elixir ones) until just before you start working on defenses ie reach a TH level you're going to be at for a while and have the basic offenses completed (camps/barracks/etc) I think I reached TH9 with a mix of level 8/9 gold/elixir collectors.

Walls, if it's under your final desired levels, upgrade when you have resources. Wait until TH9/TH10 to farm unless you need/want higher levels.

Offensive, build all camps/sf/lab and upgrade only the troops you need (farming troops) or want and ignore those you don't, especially the worthless ones (hello Pekka! also many others of lesser value). Build Barracks only as high as you need to unlock troops or to have a better queue length. I boost barracks when I farm, so I have max barracks as a boosted barbarian barracks really needs 75 queue length and I have Pekka unlocked even though I don't foresee using it.

Defense, Build what will help you most in Clan Wars. The biggest help to retaining your farming loot is playing in sessions and spending it. Even if it means keeping a builder free for walls. If you're worried about your base value, one simple way to structure things is to pretend you a TH7, even if you're a TH9. That would mean that you don't build the third or fourth AD and you don't upgrade your two ADs past level 5. ie you only have what a TH7 would have at the levels they would have. Then once you've "maxed" defenses for TH7 (as a TH9), you start working as if you upgraded to TH8, so you can build the third AD and upgrade existing ones to level 6, etc.

Clan Wars


I am a firm believer that how you perform defensively in Clan Wars is based on your position in the map (how you attack is based on how strong your offense is). If you build a base where people need to attack down to three star it, then you have a good base, even if it's a TH8 3 starring a TH9 base, as long as that TH9 base ranks below TH8 max and the attacker came down, it's good (or they're bad).

It is incredibly easy to move up the map really quickly when you rush. I would advise a no/minimal defense type approach (walls/traps/heros are fine) until you can 3 star the lower bases of your new TH level. You want to avoid the situation where your base ranks above what you can 3 star. As a rushed base you should always be attacking up the map, often significantly. If you build too many defenses you cut into how significant that increase is.

As an example,

Is a no defense TH9 that can clear TH8 an asset to a TH8 clan? Yes.

Is a rushed TH9 that ranks as a low TH8 or among the TH7 an asset to clan? Probably
Is a rushed TH9 that ranks among the TH8 that can clear TH8 an asset to a TH8 clan? Maybe not, but maybe

Is a TH9 that ranks as a TH9 that can clear TH8 an asset to a TH8 clan? No

Once the example rushed TH9 can 3 star low to mid TH9, then as long as their defenses aren't mid TH9 or higher, they will be an asset. (and as a rushed base that didn't prioritize defenses, it's hard to rank as mid TH9)

Finally, rushed bases should rank in the bottom half of the war map (or at least nowhere near the top). If the rusher can't attack up significantly, then the advanced offense is wasted and the base is not going to be as much of an asset in war. Rushing has less value in a small clan because of this.

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Originally Posted by 3lorian

So im very much against rushing (also against maxing)....I'm for optimizing your advancement (like grind skulls at 9 not 8 but max everything else at 8...etc) but war can be tricky. If you max your offense and are good at it then yeah you can rush bc you'll net more stars for your clan but you need to be able to 3 star at least 2 if not 3 th levels above where you are ranked for it to work well. If not then you should upgrade in the most efficient manor possible.

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I mostly agree. Blindly rushing leads to suboptimality, even if you're doing it "well". I wish I knew what I know now when I started. I pushed my defensive rank up too much too early. Given that my plan on Sservis is THMax Max-All it's not that big a deal.

I disagree on setting the 3 star target based on war map ranking. I separate the two portions of Clan Wars. I define clan wars success at attacking as doing well with the troops you have and success at defending as doing well for your given map placement. Ex. A TH9 rusher that ranks on the map as TH8 should try to defend well for TH8 and attack well for TH9. They don't need to target TH10 or TH11 to be doing well nor do they need to try to keep their defenses down to a TH6 or TH7 level so they're attacking sufficiently up. There's no harm in keeping defenses that low either, as long as their attack well for their TH and defend well for their base level, they're good.

At least that's my current understanding of how to evaluate Clan War performance. Feel free to improve my understanding by explaining yours.

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Defense, Build what will help you most in Clan Wars. The biggest help to retaining your farming loot is playing in sessions and spending it. Even if it means keeping a builder free for walls. If you're worried about your base value, one simple way to structure things is to pretend you a TH7, even if you're a TH9. That would mean that you don't build the third or fourth AD and you don't upgrade your two ADs past level 5. ie you only have what a TH7 would have at the levels they would have. Then once you've "maxed" defenses for TH7 (as a TH9), you start working as if you upgraded to TH8, so you can build the third AD and upgrade existing ones to level 6, etc.

Clan Wars


I am a firm believer that how you perform defensively in Clan Wars is based on your position in the map (how you attack is based on how strong your offense is). If you build a base where people need to attack down to three star it, then you have a good base, even if it's a TH8 3 starring a TH9 base, as long as that TH9 base ranks below TH8 max and the attacker came down, it's good (or they're bad).

It is incredibly easy to move up the map really quickly when you rush. I would advise a no/minimal defense type approach (walls/traps/heros are fine) until you can 3 star the lower bases of your new TH level. You want to avoid the situation where your base ranks above what you can 3 star. As a rushed base you should always be attacking up the map, often significantly. If you build too many defenses you cut into how significant that increase is.

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Basically this.

This is my goal, this is what i aim to become. I'd want to mostly be a th7 with th7 defenses, but i'd with to attack th8s and 9s. My final goal is THMax Max-all as you, but i know it will take a long time. That's why i decided to rush a little, because i want to get all the army composition and diversity before the game will bore me.

I also checked morgauth's guide to rushing, and i firmely believe that collectors are extreamely important for a rusher. That's why i'll stay in th7 for a couple of weeks more.
I won't rush blindly, and i'll stay in th8 for the time i need to learn how to gowipe, how to hog and how to ballon other bases. Then i'll move to th9 where i'll upgrade defenses as a maxed th8, but only after i will be able to attack as a th9. Only then i'll proceed to max all.
This is my plan, it seems gold to me and i'm very excited!

Right now i don't know if i'll ever go to th10, 'cause it seems to me that it takes some sort of effort i feel i can't put in this game. Maybe someday i'll go to th10 just to hit that +20 camp space, but i think i won't be able to fight other th10s.

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Rushing has less value in a small clan because of this.

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I just don't get this. It seems there's no difference to me. I'm in a 10vs10 clan, i regularly occupy the 10th position, but if i rush and climb up one or two positions it does't matter at all, because my clan will get another player to attack in the higher end of the map. By now i never failed a dragon attack against th7s, but always get 3 starred back, so the situation will remain as it is now, with the addition that i won't essere my attacks on my mirror, but i'll bring stars attacking 8s and 9s.

I took a look at the clan #6ayMartians and it seems that their bases have a random assortment of defensive combinations, however, it seems that primarily they forgo splash def. Is it because they have found it to be weighted higher or do you still think that defensive structure weighting is primarily DPS based?

Sorry about the delay, had a busy weekend. Don't let my comments below dissuade you from your plan. It's a solid plan. This is a game and fun is the most important factor. It's a long long grind to max. The lab is 57/153/177/261 days in TH7/8/9/10.

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Originally Posted by Genbu

Basically this.

This is my goal, this is what i aim to become. I'd want to mostly be a th7 with th7 defenses, but i'd with to attack th8s and 9s. My final goal is THMax Max-all as you, but i know it will take a long time. That's why i decided to rush a little, because i want to get all the army composition and diversity before the game will bore me.

I also checked morgauth's guide to rushing, and i firmely believe that collectors are extreamely important for a rusher. That's why i'll stay in th7 for a couple of weeks more.

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I'd go up, as long as you are active, I wouldn't wait for collectors. They're 48 days of builder time at TH7 and 60 at TH8 that you can do at TH9. Use them as fillers for when you don't have time to farm. Farm up your needed farming upgrades at both TH, but otherwise if you're headed up, it's probably better to be there earlier.

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I won't rush blindly, and i'll stay in th8 for the time i need to learn how to gowipe, how to hog and how to ballon other bases. Then i'll move to th9 where i'll upgrade defenses as a maxed th8, but only after i will be able to attack as a th9. Only then i'll proceed to max all.
This is my plan, it seems gold to me and i'm very excited!

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You really won't need gowipe until TH10 (and then gowiwi or just gowi is probably better). Hogs are very useful to be good at and likely the easier 3 star attack at TH9. You can do hogs more reliably with just the BK/no AQ and he's easier to funnel these days.

I would suggest seriously considering TH9 instead of TH8 as your first pause point. Having and being able to level the AQ, along with the ability put elixir to walls are big boosts to reaching max heros/max walls sooner.

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Right now i don't know if i'll ever go to th10, 'cause it seems to me that it takes some sort of effort i feel i can't put in this game. Maybe someday i'll go to th10 just to hit that +20 camp space, but i think i won't be able to fight other th10s.

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If I had only one account, I'd probably stay TH9 forever.

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Rushing has less value in a small clan because of this.

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I just don't get this. It seems there's no difference to me. I'm in a 10vs10 clan, i regularly occupy the 10th position, but if i rush and climb up one or two positions it does't matter at all, because my clan will get another player to attack in the higher end of the map. By now i never failed a dragon attack against th7s, but always get 3 starred back, so the situation will remain as it is now, with the addition that i won't essere my attacks on my mirror, but i'll bring stars attacking 8s and 9s.

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Thinking this over, this is more a statement about larger clans (at least to medium size) being better for serious wars than 10v10 than one about rushing. Larger clans have more density (and diversity) of bases to attack and let you better target your offense. They also have more attackers and can better cover for failed attacks (which rushers are more likely to do if it's a first account).

It is definitely true if you are in a tightly packed clan and build new defenses. The path I took (not suggested, I'd do it differently) went from TH6 max on the map to TH8 max on the map in only 61 days of builder time!!! Taking the maxer route on defenses, the same movement up the map takes 370 days of builder time.

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Originally Posted by trillwill4

I took a look at the clan #6ayMartians and it seems that their bases have a random assortment of defensive combinations, however, it seems that primarily they forgo splash def. Is it because they have found it to be weighted higher or do you still think that defensive structure weighting is primarily DPS based?

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Splash defense is likely weighted heavier, but may be worth it. It depends on your goals.

In a clan war setting, base structure is very important, but in a good base design...

GoLaLoon - defeated by high level wizard towers (loon clumps) and air targeting point defense (hounds)
GoHo - defeated by high level point defense, wizard towers (hog clumps) and giant bombs (hog clumps).
GoWiPe - defeated by walls and ground targeting point defense (kill the golems)
Dragons - defeated by air targeting point defense.

Note: Seeking Air Mines count as air targeting point defense of a sort.

I personally do not like mortars as exactly which attack are they useful against? At TH10 they're somewhat useful versus Hocus Pocus (mass witches), but that attack is defeated very easily by a good base design.

As a general strategy, I would suggesting building up defenses, leveling a few to max and adding in count if you want more. It's hard to say what is too much for a given weight target without knowing the formulas.

I make the suggestion to level a few to max as when I went from TH6 max to TH9 with all defenses built and leveled to TH6 levels (plus traps and level 1 teslas) I went from TH6 max on the war map to TH8 max. This took only 61 builder days. Going from TH6 max to TH8 max the usual maxer route on defenses takes 370 builder days. Hence, if you want to keep weight lower, build a few defenses to max, not all defenses at lower levels.

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Originally Posted by trillwill4

I took a look at the clan #6ayMartians and it seems that their bases have a random assortment of defensive combinations, however, it seems that primarily they forgo splash def. Is it because they have found it to be weighted higher or do you still think that defensive structure weighting is primarily DPS based?

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Nothing is random at #6aymartians. Everything is upgraded for a reason.
Our record of 80-0-1 is certainly not random...

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Originally Posted by TangoFever

Nothing is random at #6aymartians. Everything is upgraded for a reason.
Our record of 80-0-1 is certainly not random...

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Sorry, wasn't intending to imply that #6aymartians upgrades randomly because I'm sure you all know exactly what you're doing which is why I looked at your bases in the first place. Just meant that it appears random to someone such as me outside of the clan.

@sservis I have rushed to th9 and plan to go up to th10 after my offense is mostly upgraded. I am trying to decide what troops to upgrade in order to set myself up to be able to attack th10's when I get there. At th9 I realize there are many options such as diffferent variations of laloon, hogs, even back end loons. Are hogs viable at all at th10 or would upgrading them at th9 be wasteful? I should note that this is a second account so I am not missing out on all of the attacks available at th9. I mostly just want to have the capability to 2 star th10's (i know gowipe is regularly used, but would rather avoid upgrading pekkas because I personally think they are bad) routinely while being able to 3 star if the base is suitable to my ability.

Thanks

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Originally Posted by trillwill4

@sservis I have rushed to th9 and plan to go up to th10 after my offense is mostly upgraded. I am trying to decide what troops to upgrade in order to set myself up to be able to attack th10's when I get there. At th9 I realize there are many options such as diffferent variations of laloon, hogs, even back end loons. Are hogs viable at all at th10 or would upgrading them at th9 be wasteful? I should note that this is a second account so I am not missing out on all of the attacks available at th9. I mostly just want to have the capability to 2 star th10's (i know gowipe is regularly used, but would rather avoid upgrading pekkas because I personally think they are bad) routinely while being able to 3 star if the base is suitable to my ability.

Thanks

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Farm - Your current farm strategy will continue to work.

CW - With rare exceptions (fairplay) TH10 wars are 2 star affairs. The TH10 in Turtles tend to use wiwi (or just wiz) instead of wipe and bring a significant number of golems (I've seen as many as 6 or 7) rather than pekka. We do have rare 3 stars with GoLaLoon or mass Witches (on open bases). Usually the base has some sort of weakness that an amazing attacker exploits. It takes both for golaloon generally, weak base and amazing attacker. Sometimes the base is so weak that a semi-spam strategy like mass witches will work.

Sservis,
I have 65 lava walls and rest legos.In a few hours I will be a th10.While wall farming should I upgrade lavas to zapps or legos to lavas?
Which would be better for a lower war weight?I love the look of lego+zaps.
Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Coleader

Sservis,
I have 65 lava walls and rest legos.In a few hours I will be a th10.While wall farming should I upgrade lavas to zapps or legos to lavas?
Which would be better for a lower war weight?I love the look of lego+zaps.
Thanks.

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I don't know which is more beneficial for war weight reasons. If you want to be the most resource efficient it's better to go straight to zaps while spending as much as possible (minimize the risk of nonsnipe while maintaining cheaper wall upgrades for the future)

I'm currently doing a bit of testing. I took 10 accounts, all offense > defense by a good bit, and tossed them in a war. Below are some statistics from the match (it's prep day). I'm going to do a second war back to back as a simplistic check on variance in matches.

Match took 17 minutes for a 10v10 war which seems long. I will update war weights once the war begins. Troops will remain as of matching. Note that the no def account does have walls. The numbers are the upgrade levels left to right barbs to pekka for elixir troops and others are similar. Weight is Storage Gold (plus TH) in thousands with the decimal being the DE amount.

My Team (Temp Clan = War Gym, #YROJQ9Q8)

Account	TH	Weight	Army Camp	CC	Spells	BK	AQ	Elixir Troops	Dark Troops	Elixir Spells	Dark Spells	Notes
Sservis	10	57.220	240	35	11	15	12	7753565111	321412	56531	112
Sservis - 1	9	49.170	220	30	9	8	5	6663565131	351111	55520	111
Sservis - 2	9	48.170	220	30	9	6	3	5553565131	321110	45420	100	dsf on upgrade
Sservis - 3	8	37.090	200	20	6	2		4444444220	210000	44400	0
Sservis - 5	7	35.070	200	20	6	1		4444444220	110000	44400	0
Sservis - 7	7	34.050	200	20	6	1		4444444220	110000	44400	0
Sservis - 8	7	34.050	200	20	6			4444444220	110000	44400	0
Sservis - 4	7	34.050	200	20	6			4444444210	110000	44400	0
Sservis - 6	7	33.???	200	20	6			4444444220	110000	44400	0
Sservis - no D	9	23.000	220	30	9	10	7	6644464221	221111	44510	100

Opponents in Round 1 (Record is 55 - 11 - 3, going to preserve their anonymity unless they join the thread)

Account	TH	Weight	Camp	CC	Spells	BK	AQ	Elixir Troops	Dark Troops	Elixir Spells	Dark Spells	Notes
1	9	62.250	220	25	9	8	5	5554545331	241110	45510	110
2	9	55.210	200	20	9	3		5444434130	100000	33210	100
3	8	54.200	200	25	7	10		5555555333	241100	55500	110
4	8	52.190	200	25	7	6		5554445332	231100	55400	100
5	7	39.120	200	20	6	4		4444444220	110000	44400	0
6	7	38.100	200	20	6	1		4441222120	110000	33100	0
7	7	36.080	200	20	6	2		4442333120	110000	44100	0
8	7	35.060	190	20	6			4442333220	110000	43300	0
9	7	35.060	195	20	4			3333433110	100000	43000	0
10	7	34.050	185	20	4			3333333100	100000	33000	0

If you're from the opponents checking this out, good luck. You have an awesome record.

These are just random accounts of mine, not a fully properly structured test. I should level them all to be TH6.5, TH7.5, etc for a better picture of the impact of X.5 matchmaking

Updated the bases with Defensive figures. As expected they're ahead, the top couple bases by about 5k. However that shouldn't be a problem. It's going to come down to stars on #1 as the rest of the board should be cleared (by both sides).

10 characters

Ended up winning 30-29. Strategically their #1 made a mistake that may have cost them the tie. He took out #2 early on. My #2 and #3 are mid TH8 weight and could have been taken by any of their 2-4 potentially. Their #1 also took my #1. However all of their 2-4 failed on #3. If their #1 had waited, it's possible some of 2-4 might have succeeded on #2 allowing #1 to clear my #3 instead.

It took me 11 real attacks to get the 30 stars (+ 2 scouts and +1 attack that never had much of a chance). Shamefully failed on #2 with my #1. AQ poorly handled in CC kill and 2 of 3 hounds never popped, 99% on time. GoHo-ed the base with #2.


Overall it looks like my combination of
1 TH10 with TH10 space, TH9 troops, TH8 max + 2k defense
2 TH9 with mid TH8 weight and early TH9 offense
6 TH6.5
1 TH9 (early) no D

pulled an average of about 5k-7k up and each account is at least one level of offense ahead of their defense. That's not a big price to pay for the amount of offense that is gained.

I would suggest that this is best done with a base that won't push up into a new TH too far. ie a 50k base to begin with at TH8 or about a 67k base at TH9 before going 0.5. Since those bases won't pull something in their own TH level, but rather then TH of their defenses.

Time for war #2

Current war. Premmies. #1 does have infernos and xbows, #2 just has xbows. Their record is 24-34-1

Account	TH	Weight	Camp	CC	Spells	BK	AQ	Elixir Troops	Dark Troops	Elixir Spells	Dark Spells
1	10	75.330	220	25	11	10	7	6554555332	111000	44411	100
2	10	58.230	220	25	9	7		5564444320	440000	34410	100
3	8	47.160	200	25	7	5		5553545321	111100	34400	100
4	7	37.090	200	20	6	1		3443333110	110000	42100
5	7	37.080	200	20	6	1		4443333200	110000	43200
6	7	36.070	200	20	6			4443333200	110000	43300
7	7	35.070	200	20	6			4442223100		43300
8	7	36.070	200	20	6			4443434110		43300
9	6	22.000	140	15	4			3333223000		31000
10	3	5.000	70	10				1111000000

I've seen a lot of talk about THX.5 lately and there's a point I want to add to the conversation. The point below is made assuming you actually want max D and aren't doing engineering.

Upgrade before max D if you care about offense > defense Everyone agrees that you should try to keep offense + margin = defense (ie offense > defense). How big you set the margin is a choice based how often do you want a bad matchup to be bigger than the chosen margin.

Whenever you max a TH, you bring your defense up to your offense. This is why there is a hump to cross each time TH is upgraded. A bad matchup shows up in mirrors because defense has been brought up to offense rather than kept a small, but comfortable margin behind.

It's much easier if you upgrade your TH before you max your defenses, upgrade offenses (increase the margin) before or while you finish upgrading to max the prior TH defenses.

I am not saying "rush TH", here. Decide what margin provides the best trade off between maxing current TH and keeping offense sufficiently ahead of defense and go up in TH at that point in time.

See attached graph of war matchups. 74k is max TH9 and 55k is max TH8.

Attachment 129261

The blue line are my accounts, which all have offense well ahead of their defensive rating.

In the first war the opponents had higher ratings across the board, but not by much. They were a bit more ahead on the top 4 bases. In this war I ended up using 11 real attacks (and 2 scouts) to achieve 30 stars.

In the second war their #1 and #2 were significantly ahead of my bases and the rest of the lineup was mostly in line with their bottom two bases being below mine defensively. I used 10 attacks to achieve 28 stars (1 star on #1 where I poorly handled the double infernos).

On the top 3 bases they averaged about 7k ahead of mine defensively. Across the board, it's only an average of 3k between both wars.

Given that my bases generally have offense significantly ahead of defense, this disparity wasn't a major challenge. Only one base wasn't cleared. I wouldn't advise any clan concerned about winning to have their #1 with more offense than defense, so this sort of bad match might be less likely in practice.

Overall, very little data with just two wars. Wish I had accounts I was willing to idle to run the test over and over.

Here's a solution that would stop practice/simulation on hard attacks that I posted in another thread. It won't help much on reliable attacks (TH9 level), but finicky/brittle attacks should be able to be stopped.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Ghosting/practicing can be stopped of the device is not able to perform the attack without input from the server. This however would introduce latency into accounts if queried in real time (logic on server).

One "solution" that might work would be to change attacks to include randomness. This would greatly change the feel of attacking as "luck" would now factor in. Done sufficiently in advance it wouldn't introduce latency requirement*. This would mean that attacks couldn't be done in advance with surety. It could still be practiced, and a measure of how likely the attack to succeed could be generated, but unless it was a 100% always 3 star attack on the base, there would be a proportional chance it would fail.

The downside to this "fix" is that it in order for it to be effective, the impact of randomness on the attack has to be sufficiently that it breaks high level attacks in a way that has to be manually recovered. This would impact the much larger base of players who play "normally".

However, to say that there aren't solutions is to deny this one. The solutions might not be worth the game impact.

PS- I haven't seen this suggested before, I'd appreciate knowing if it's been suggested before (removing determinism/simulation/practice by adding randomness with short duration seeds provided interactively so that any offline simulation won't be replicated exactly when done online)

* Consider if the seed is only valid for a 5 second window and the client receives them every 15 seconds. ie at start, receives one seed for the first 0:20 seconds, then at 0:05 into attack, receives seed for 0:20 - 0:25, at 0:10 into the attack, receives seed for 0:25 - 0:30, etc. In this fashion the client has a 15 second latency lead time on getting the seed and practice isn't assured to receive the same random seeds when the attack is done for real.

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My thoughts on Infernos at TH10 from a different thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

If you don't war, Infernos are the way to go. If you do, I'm going to potentially disagree with SinOfDusk about Infernos. (there are rushed TH10 that should do it and rushed TH10 that should not, SinOfDusk was in the "should do it" case)

For Clan Wars, the time to build infernos* is when one of the following is true (they both happen about the same time)

• When it will change your base from 3 stars on defense to 2 stars versus good fairplay clans. You need enough other defenses to support them well. If you'd be 3 starred with them (depending on how rushed), don't build them. But if you'd stop being 3 starred because of them, build them. That extra star is worth it in hard wars.

• When you are already pulling a TH10 for clan wars. This is hard to gauge as the base you pull is not your mirror. Once you have enough TH10 offense that the combination of the TH10 offense with your existing defenses is counted as a new TH10, that is another point to build infernos. If you are sufficiently rushed (see my base, ranks as 59k), that is a while after you go TH10. As a completely unsubstantiated guess, I'd say that point is somewhere in 65k - 70k. (late mid TH9) I'd probably lean towards the higher end of that if your offense is specialized and the earlier end if you have full max TH10 troops (all lab).

* once you run out of offense/economy buildings

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Sservis, I know the update just dropped but do you have any opinion on adding walls for a th9.5? I haven't built the old th10 walls or the new 25. I rarely give up 3 but seen some uninspired gowiwi's get uncomfortably close due to the spread out anti3 base i use. Existing walls about 2/3 lego 1/3 lava, defenses th9 maxxed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TankSinatra

Sservis, I know the update just dropped but do you have any opinion on adding walls for a th9.5? I haven't built the old th10 walls or the new 25. I rarely give up 3 but seen some uninspired gowiwi's get uncomfortably close due to the spread out anti3 base i use. Existing walls about 2/3 lego 1/3 lava, defenses th9 maxxed.

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You're right to try to reduce close calls as they signal that if the attack was just slightly better, it might have worked. If your long term plan includes the walls, they're definitely buildable. Are they your best defensive upgrade in terms of stopping the 3 star in close wars when compared to their war weight?

The impact of +10% walls is likely around +10% of wall weight. This is going to be a small (ish) increase. In aggregate walls weigh a lot, 10% of them do not. I tend not to get too hung up on micromanaging which defenses to upgrade as you progress towards your target base defenses. It's much more important to manage which defenses you build at all.*

There is a case for never building the walls. However, if your eventual base looks anything close to "max everything", then it's better to build everything also.


* Yes, delaying mortars/xbows until late in the sequence is often better, but overall it's not a big deal if you build them earlier.

Sservis,
Thank you for all the insite I'm glad I found you on tbe forums. Your knowledge and theories are well planned and thought out.
What to upgrade next is my question.
Currently my th10 account is about done getting all defenses to a max th9 with the exception of xbow which are level 1.
I have been able to farm enough de to keep both heros constantly upgrading (thanks for the insite on needing to up my de)
I have 1 builder upgrading walls all lavas are done.
This leaves 2 builders left. Should I upgrade my xbows next or start with other defenses? I will not be putting down new defenses onky upgrading existing.
Thanks for all your help,
Jack

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrJackrabbit

Sservis,
Thank you for all the insite I'm glad I found you on tbe forums. Your knowledge and theories are well planned and thought out.
What to upgrade next is my question.
Currently my th10 account is about done getting all defenses to a max th9 with the exception of xbow which are level 1.
I have been able to farm enough de to keep both heros constantly upgrading (thanks for the insite on needing to up my de)
I have 1 builder upgrading walls all lavas are done.
This leaves 2 builders left. Should I upgrade my xbows next or start with other defenses? I will not be putting down new defenses onky upgrading existing.
Thanks for all your help,
Jack

---

Figure out what defenses you are sure that you want. Build those first when you work on defenses. Build the ones you're not sure about later.


Advice below is for war.


Anything you build at all should be upgraded to max level available.


If your eventual base is anything close to max TH10, you want everything. There's a cap on defenses and if you're close to the cap, you will match with people at the cap and having less doesn't help you much, so go for it all and be one of the people at the cap.


If your current base is close to max TH9 on defense, and you've done offense at TH10, you want infernos too. Once you have enough offense you will regularly pull TH10 with infernos and cost your clan a star if you don't have infernos too.


If you've upgraded to TH10 with near max TH9 defenses, you're going to want to be a max TH10. The eventual infernos that you build (and max) are enough to tip your base towards max TH10 eventually.


I wouldn't stress about the order too much. I would build infernos fairly early and upgrade as you have resources. Upgrade the most expensive thing that you can afford. I would focus on point defenses when you have a choice.

if i can help
war weighting is not linear

i have a TH10 with no defense only lv1 cannon
the base is rated 1K with archer5 and dragon3
adding 1 xbow during preparation day will raise your base for 10K
(add xbow when youre TH9 with 50k+ rating wil raise your base from 3k)

adding barbare king when youre base is rated 1K will raise youre base for 5K
(add king when TH7 rated as 30k+ will raise for 3K)

addind inferno tower when your base is rated 22k will raise your base for 10K
(when you add when youre base is 60k it will raise for 4K)

so the weight or the cost is not the same

the weighting base seems to be linear (when you add any defense structure it will add everytime 1K) and exponentiel (add dps and hitlife of structure)

sorry for my english

Quote:

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Originally Posted by startstream

if i can help
war weighting is not linear

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This is something I have long suspected might be true. Lots of good examples of what you've seen that support this summary.

From a purely theoretical basis, grossly simplified, the power of a single defense is related to it's hp * dps and the power of a base is related to (total hp) * (total dps). In the presence of defensive targeting troops, the totals are of only defenses. With ambivalent troops, the relevant total hp is everything.

Given those theoretical underpinnings, it makes sense that the relative delta is bigger if the same things are added to lower base score than a higher base score.

Edit: I would not be surprised at all if the base score was related to the square root of some sum of individual weights. Maybe with a product too. Something like sqrt ((total def hp) * sum (weight factor * defense dps)) makes a lot of sense from a purely theoretical standpoint.

Posted elsewhere. Model showing where a few TH10 are a good idea, but if you get too many, it's a bad idea unless the clan is all TH10. I do not know what constitutes the tipping point or what the clan distribution looks like, but I am confident that there is such a tipping point where you can have too many TH10 for your own good. Note that the win % listed for the 0 TH10 clan bracket isn't accurate as the model does not include any clans lower than them for them to match against (so their win % is understated versus reality)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Think about how players are distributed from TH3 no defense to TH10 max.

There's a peak of players somewhere in the TH7 - TH9 range that is the middle of the distribution. I don't know where it is exactly, but it's not this group that I'm really talking about in this post.

There's a second peak of players at TH10 max. Consider, are there more players who are within 10 weeks of maxing their TH10 or players who have maxed their TH10 in the last 100 weeks (and are still playing?). I'd bet on the second group being larger by a significant margin.

Hence, if you asked a nearly maxed TH10 if they were more likely to max with another nearly maxed TH10 or a full max TH10, I'd bet on the full max TH10 as being the more likely match.

Once you have max defense and decent walls, you're likely to be in the 95k ballpark with heros like yours. Which means that the full max TH10 at 100k (or just doing walls with 40/40 at 95k - 99k) is not really a big mismatch.

This is extra true if you're the #1 base in your clan, since the highest ranked opponent is sorted to be opposite you.


I've been debating a matchmaking theory that says this player distribution fact manifests itself in TH10 war matchups (a few is ok, too many and you start to tend to match versus clans with more since "more" is a more common clan type than however many you have since the probability distribution has a second peak). I'm not sure I agree with the theory yet. It definitely is true near the all TH10 max clan situation, but how far down it goes, I'm not sure.


Example -
Consider 100 10 player clans that are all TH10/TH9. Assume the distribution of clans looks like the following

10 TH10 - 16
9 TH10 - 8
8 TH10 - 4
7 TH10 - 2
6 TH10 - 1
5 TH10 - 1
4 TH10 - 2
3 TH10 - 4
2 TH10 - 8
1 TH10 - 16
0 TH10 - 38

Let's assume that to make the match mostly fair, matchmaking only matches you with clans with the same number of TH10 +/- 1. I don't think it does this explicitly, but the base weights will enforce some sort of this in the absence of engineering.

See the table below. Note that the clans in the example/model that the 10 TH10 clans have good matches. Any clan with 1-5 TH10 experiences generally favorable matches and the clans with 6-9 TH10 experience generally bad matches. Note that for the clan with 0 TH10, I've excluded their favorable matchups from this example, they likely match even lower clans more frequently and have a better than 50% win rate. Note that I don't know the distribution or how things work, but I'd expect some version of this to be true if the configuration parameters were accurate to reality.

TH10	bad	fair	good	win %
10	0%	67%	33%	67%
9	57%	29%	14%	29%
8	57%	29%	14%	29%
7	57%	29%	14%	29%
6	50%	25%	25%	38%
5	25%	25%	50%	63%
4	14%	29%	57%	71%
3	14%	29%	57%	71%
2	14%	29%	57%	71%
1	13%	26%	61%	74%
0	30%	70%	0%	35%

A matchup is bad if the other clan has 1 more TH10
A matchup is fair if the other clan has the same # of TH10
A matchup is good if the other clan has 1 fewer TH10.

win % is the expected winning percentage if the clan wins all good matchups and half of fair ones. Clans with above average skill will do better, but the model doesn't incorporate that factor

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Hey Sservis,

Just wanna say I really enjoy the advice you give out.

But just a question regarding walls and war weight, I haven't really found any solid evidence about how much they weigh in war after the update a couple months ago that supposedly nerfed the TH8.5 and TH9.5 strategy.

I've seen Moskri's video, but have heard mixed opinions about the wall weight there and other buildings weight as well.

Any information regarding this?

Thanks!

Posted elsewhere answering what type of weight test I would believe for comparing defenses to see which is heavier.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

The type of test that I will believe is as follows. Note that all of this is invalid if the base's weight is not based on an order preserving transformation from the total of the weight of the individual components.

How to compare defenses to figure out which is "heavier"

1. Take a few defenseless accounts, preferably heroless, CC at level 1 also
2. Build a given defense to a given level on each defenseless account.
3. Compare war weights.

I would not trust the ratio of the weights to mean anything, but I would trust the relative weights.

Given what I know about math and the additive nature of defenses, I would be tempted to believe that

if and only if
defenseless + wizard tower 8 >= defensesless + inferno tower 3
then
wizard tower 8 >= inferno tower 3

However due to nonlinearities, I wouldn't extrapolate from say defenseless + wizard tower 8 = 20k and defenseless + inferno tower 3 = 30k that the inferno tower costs 50% more (numbers made up). I would only be willing to provisionally trust that it costs more. It could be 1% more, it could be 1000% more.

It would take a lot of work, but you could create a clan (or two or more) with many accounts and war test them to find relative weights by checking how they sort on the war map. A lot of these could be low level and fairly quick, but you're going to need a lot of high level accounts. This is something I've thought about doing from time to time at least on a small scale, but haven't yet had the patience to create and level all the accounts (or even to start the process).

CC - 5 (note that these only measure the relative cost of the upgrade from CC-1 to CC-X)
Cannon - 13 (to be fair these all need a Cannon 1 AND a Cannon of the level being tested)
Archer Tower - 13
Mortar - 8
Air Defense - 8
Wizard Tower - 8
Air Sweeper - 6
Tesla - 8
Xbow - 4
Inferno - 3
Bomb - 6
Spring Trap - 1
Giant Bomb - 4
Air Bomb - 4
Seeking Air Mine - 3
Skeleton Trap - 3
BK - 40
AQ - 40


Total - 177 (not counting walls if you want to test those too)

If you want to check what 25 walls of each level rate as, that's another 11 items. (25 might be too many or too few, if you want to check all groups of 25 (25, 50, 75 ...)) of all wall levels, it's 121 item.


If you really want to answer questions like which upgrade costs more, Item A from level M to N or Item B from level X to Y, build a base with Item A at level M and Item B at level Y and compare it to a base with Item A at level N and Item B at level X. The ordering will give you which upgrade is more expensive.


PS- If you really wanted to get specific, you could use walls somehow to equalize the weights until items swapped positions and then you'd have a wall based measure on weight distance. ie Wiz Tower 8 + 20 level 11 and 13 level 1 walls rates below Inferno Tower 3, but Wiz Tower 8 + 20 level 11 and 14 level 1 walls rates above, etc. If you figured out the wall equivalence ratios you could maybe even state that they were 10,727 or 10728 level 1 walls apart and start to measure defenses in the smallest possible unit. (level 1 walls, or maybe in terms of # of spring traps or whichever level 1 trap is lightest, I'm partial to walls because there are 275 of them)

PPS- If anyone wants to go to the trouble of creating a few hundred gmail accounts, I'll go to the trouble of starting to do this.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Exceed

Hey Sservis,

Just wanna say I really enjoy the advice you give out.

But just a question regarding walls and war weight, I haven't really found any solid evidence about how much they weigh in war after the update a couple months ago that supposedly nerfed the TH8.5 and TH9.5 strategy.

I've seen Moskri's video, but have heard mixed opinions about the wall weight there and other buildings weight as well.

Any information regarding this?

Thanks!

---

Sorry about not responding sooner, I've been off the forums most of the last week.

Walls individually don't weigh much, but together they weigh a lot. There are 275 of them and 11 levels. That's a total of 3025 upgrades. I am not suggesting that they are all equal, but with 100k as the max base weight it takes many wall upgrades to move defensive rating even 1k. In contrast typically for a new TH9 Xbow 1 is 2k and for a new TH10 Inferno 1 is 4k (just one upgrade for multiple k versus many walls before the number changes).

My advice would be to figure out what level of walls you want eventually. As long as you keep your walls under that level, I wouldn't hesitate to spend spare resources on walls. I would suggest farming for DE and never farm for walls until that is the only thing left.

If it turns out you want to farm for walls after you complete everything else, that's fine, but if you've farmed for walls and start wasting gold/elixir, that means you wasted time earlier.


Edit as an example, for a TH9, I'd say that the skulls to lavas transition on 250 walls total probably counts for about 3k. This is a massive guess, but something in the 2-5k range feels about right (max defense bases with 10/10 heros and full skulls are somewhere around 69k. If half of the remaining 6k weight is walls, it's 3k)

Hi, Sservis

I'm planning to rush my alt to th10 and keep defenses low,while upgrading war army. I want my weight to be around low-mid th9 so I will use only th8 defenses. I wont build the 4th mortar and keep the other ones at lvl 4.

What do you think? Is it worth? Which defenses should I upgrade?

P.S sry for my english

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

rhymquimghyf (original rusher? no longer updated)

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I quit in 2013 after 2 weeks long exhausting clan trophy push.
Returned to the game 6 weeks ago.
There was no CW when I decided to rush (I skipped TH8 entirely), so, when I returned, I had only troops that I used for farming - lvl5 BARCH and lvl1 heroes, with TH7 defenses.
Needless to say, I found myself not ready for CW.

Now, 6 weeks later, I have lvl6 GBArch, 12/12 heroes, lavaloon, my hogs are almost lvl5, minions lvl4. Gemmed my lab time a bit.

I farm in Champions, loot is amazing. DE is overflowing.
All my splash defenses are at max level, XBows are lvl2, 80% of walls are legos. ADs and point defenses are still TH7, so I don't participate in wars yet. I think I'll be ready in a month.
In the meantime, I have 2 other accounts in CW, TH7 and TH6. I plan to rush lowest one (TH6) straight to TH9 just for CW.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rhymquimghyf

I quit in 2013 after 2 weeks long exhausting clan trophy push.
Returned to the game 6 weeks ago.
There was no CW when I decided to rush (I skipped TH8 entirely), so, when I returned, I had only troops that I used for farming - lvl5 BARCH and lvl1 heroes, with TH7 defenses.
Needless to say, I found myself not ready for CW.

Now, 6 weeks later, I have lvl6 GBArch, 12/12 heroes, lavaloon, my hogs are almost lvl5, minions lvl4. Gemmed my lab time a bit.

I farm in Champions, loot is amazing. DE is overflowing.
All my splash defenses are at max level, XBows are lvl2, 80% of walls are legos. ADs and point defenses are still TH7, so I don't participate in wars yet. I think I'll be ready in a month.
In the meantime, I have 2 other accounts in CW, TH7 and TH6. I plan to rush lowest one (TH6) straight to TH9 just for CW.

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Welcome back, I found your comments about loot % available from storages (and it being more spread out) particularly enlightening. I hadn't considered that before, although it's a minor advantage when you're usually sniped. I came on your thread mostly after I decided to rush*, but it had a lot of salient points.

From a pure farming aspect there is no reason not to rush as long as you have the appropriate troops. Many have found that loot is simply better at the higher THs, especially since they changed matchmaking. Before that you had to find the appropriate league, now they give you the right level of bases in all leagues.

There is a bit of an open question on the war perspective. As long as you can get as many stars from your own TH level as you give up, it's a positive. Another way to put this is that if you're TH9 (or TH8 or lower) and can 3 star max TH9 (or TH8 or lower), defenses don't matter.** Some will argue that lower is better for matchmaking and some will argue that higher is better to prevent the enemy from easily gaining stars. They both have valid points.

For your lower accounts, point defenses often beats splash in war efficacy. Some splash is useful or witches can be used to overrun you. However, point defense definitely wins in value per defensive war weight. Until your point defense is TH8+ gowi can brute force a base as it doesn't have enough dps to take down a bunch of golems. At least that's what I've found. It was frustrating for a long time until my point defense reached sufficient levels to be easily 3 starred by bad clans, even if I was 3 starring bases much higher.


* Hulk's manifesto #7 was my trigger.

** If you're TH10 and get 3 starred by TH10 (or worse TH9), but don't 3 star TH10 yourself there is the possibility that you hurt your clan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rhyax

Hi, Sservis

I'm planning to rush my alt to th10 and keep defenses low,while upgrading war army. I want my weight to be around low-mid th9 so I will use only th8 defenses. I wont build the 4th mortar and keep the other ones at lvl 4.

What do you think? Is it worth? Which defenses should I upgrade?

P.S sry for my english

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I'm not sure that rushing to TH10 is a good move for war currently. It likely will be fine once TH11 is out. The problem is that decent clans will 3 star your base and you won't be as easily able to return the favor within your own TH level at TH10. You'll be able to easily 3 star TH9 however.

I would suggest upgrading every defense that you build to the maximum level and building fewer defenses if you want to defend the best in clan wars. I would avoid building too much splash if you can, although you need some. I built all TH9 defenses (no Xbows) to TH6 levels and was max TH8 war weight defensively. This happened much much faster than if I had maxed TH8. Your war weight will go up slower if you max fewer buildings than if you build more buildings to a lower level (in the same # of builder days). This is mostly due to the fact that the lower level upgrades take so little time so that when you do the war weight/builder time math, the smaller denominator outweighs any difference in the numerator.

Posted this in a "When should a player upgrade his town hall?" thread. It's my current advice. I'd advise getting both war army options starting with A (but going for B first is fine too).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

I would suggest rushing in an amount (maybe zero) that meets your own personal level of comfort.

There is no undo in clash, be sure of any building/upgrading decision, especially your TH upgrades. This is rule 1 to upgrading. Maxing may not be "optimal" if you know what you're doing. However, it is an easy/safe strategy that works very well and is decent baseline advice.

That said, defenses do not matter in clan wars before TH8. There's no reason not to go straight to TH7 (or TH8). This is true even if you don't war. Farming is better each time you upgrade your TH once you've upgraded your camps and farming troops. Loot penalty, especially since the matchmaking changes does not exist in a meaningful form. I say TH7 as everyone can attack well there in Clan Wars with Dragons. TH8 and higher require some skill to have reliable results. Obviously, upgrade your farming troops as you go, and flesh out your base once you find a TH that you want to stay at.

If you don't war, it's probably best to wait to upgrade (past TH7) until one of the following resources doesn't have enough work.

• Gold
• Elixir (if your storages are permanently full, even if you still have lab work to do, that's a sign to upgrade)
• Dark Elixir
• Builders
• Useful Lab (see lists below)

Note that you will quickly run out of things to use elixir on fast enough if you're farming a decent amount. You will have to choose between wasting that elixir or upgrading. Once you're TH9 or higher you can use every drop of elixir that you farm. Note: Farm for heros at TH9 or higher. Do not farm for walls if heros are not maxed. You will get a lot of walls done while farming for heros, but the reverse is not always true.

I'd argue to wait on wall farming until TH9 also. You'll quickly finish out level 8 walls if you're farming for heros, regardless of what level you had before you got to TH9.

Maintaining Offense > Defense requires TH upgrades before full max Defense. This is a useful thing to maintain for Clan Wars. If you max both at a given TH, then you've brought your defense up to your offense. This is a reason that players new to a TH experience a challenge increase at each TH. I'm not suggesting rushing like the below points, but at a minimum go up slightly before everything is maxed so that you can establish the next level of offense while you finish out the last level of defense. How much "slightly before" is right for you depends on your preferences.

There are strong reasons to continue on to TH9 quickly if you're an experienced player or have a fast learning curve. If it is a first account, stopping at TH8 to learn to Hog and mastering some Clan War basics can be a good idea. Everyone will have a significant hump to get over at TH9. Namely, getting heros to a reasonable level and being able to 3 star strong TH9s. The sooner you start this hump, the sooner you are done with it. Leveling heros is easier to do if it's spread out rather than something you have to do all at once. Level 15 heros are 52.5 days each. The sooner you unlock the Archer Queen and start to work on her, the sooner you'll be able to attack TH9s well. Also at lower THs you will generally have more elixir than you know what to do with (especially if you max your walls before upgrading your TH). By being TH9, you can upgrade a few walls with elixir (warbase junctions to max! before other walls to lower levels even) and put that to a valuable use, saving yourself future farming time.

You do not need every lab upgrade at every TH. You will generally bring a focused army that uses a few troops. There is no reason to wait for every lab upgrade if you have idle builders (or if you have the key troops even). If you realize you need/want a troop that's not on the lists below, do it, don't feel restricted, these are the bare minimum lists. I would suggest you go with War Option A first as it works at TH8 and is probably better than Option B at TH9, but War Option B is slightly less lab time.

Core Farming Troops to level before you upgrade your TH

• Barbarians
• Archers
• Minions (if you use BAM, if you barch, these are not important)

Must have war troops (ok to wait to level until you stop rushing, also ok to do as you go)

• Wizard
• Wall Breaker
• Jump
• Poison
• Golem

War Option A - pick this or Option B first (works at TH8 and TH9, probably the better choice today)

• Heal
• Hogs

War Option B - pick this or Option A first (works at TH9, slightly less lab time)

• Rage
• Balloons
• Lava Hound
• Haste

Good to Have

• Minions (cheaper funnel creation, BAM farming)
• Giants (storage farming and surgical Hogs)
• Healer (AQ walks)
• (maybe) Goblin (can help farming a bit or TH9/TH10 war base cleanup as these are higher dps/housing than wizards, but you'll only ever bring at most about 2 in war, so low value)

You may notice that some troops aren't on any of these lists at all, namely Goblins, Dragons, Pekka, Valkyrie, Witch, Lightning, Earthquake. Those troops can be skipped and you'll still have everything you need to attack well with multiple styles. Leveling Dragons can assist with filling War CCs, but if you're willing (and your clan is ok with this) to contribute Lava Hounds instead you won't need Dragons at all.

(Advanced CW) Much like some troops are better than others, some defenses are better than others in CW. To the point where upgrading your TH so you can upgrade the key defenses is better than staying at a lower TH and maxing less key defenses.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

I would avoid building too much splash if you can, although you need some.

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I would say that the wizard tower 6 => 7 upgrade is very important in war. It changes the breakpoint vs a number of important war troops, including lava pups, skellies and lvl 5 wbs (2 hits to 1, effectively 100% more damage), max witch (3 to 2), lvl 5 wiz (4 to 3). And all of these troops come in groups and tend to bunch up, plus the wizard tower's short range means golems can often leave their range, leaving the other troops untanked.

IMO the single best war defense upgrade at TH9. As a bonus it also changes the breakpoints significantly vs farming armies - one-hits lvl 6 and 7 archers and lvl 5 gobs instead of taking 2 hits.

Sservis,
In another thread you mentioned if you did it over again you'd focus on point defenses vs splash. I don't keep track of stats like you do but since th8 when upgrading I started with cannons the archer towers and worked my way up in the order that SC give us new defenses. Any thoughts on this idea?
I realize there are many ways to play but this strategy seems to be working for me very well.
Thanks,
J

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrJackrabbit

Sservis,
In another thread you mentioned if you did it over again you'd focus on point defenses vs splash. I don't keep track of stats like you do but since th8 when upgrading I started with cannons the archer towers and worked my way up in the order that SC give us new defenses. Any thoughts on this idea?
I realize there are many ways to play but this strategy seems to be working for me very well.
Thanks,
J

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Splash helps versus massed troops (barch/witches). It does nothing versus golems. Mortars are somewhat good at picking off straying wizards.

Consider the TH9 defenses.
Archer Tower: 75 dps (+10 dps from TH8), range 11
Cannon: 75 dps (+10 dps), range 10
Wizard Tower: 48 dps (+8 dps), range 7
Mortar: 11 dps (+2 dps), range 11 - range 4 (targets ground only)

I'm going to give each building a dead zone range of 3 as most defensive value is achieved while troops target something else and 3 is roughly the centerpoint of an adjacent building

So
Archer Tower: covers 112 tiles
Cannon: covers 91 tiles
Wizard Tower: covers 40 tiles
Mortar: covers 105 tiles, ground only

First Cannon versus Mortar. If you're replacing one with the other, the cannon does almost 7 times the dps, and covers about 87% of the range, straight up dps effectiveness is 5.9x the Mortar. So the mortar only does more dps if it's targetting 6 or more units. Very rarely is this true. Which to upgrade first, it looks slightly better as its a 4.3 ratio. Combine this with the fact that most people will say that Mortars are more war weight than Cannons and it seems like a no brainer to build/upgrade Cannons first.

Archer Tower vs Wizard Tower. Here the ratio is 4.3 in total and 3.5 for the upgrade. Wizard Towers do sometimes hit enough targets to make them pay for their reduced dps/range. They can be deployed to stop Wall Breakers strategically too. However, they also likely weigh more than their equivalent point defense and so the ratios are actually worse than the numbers listed. (please find me someone who says splash weighs less, I haven't heard that from anyone).

That's the reason I say to favor point defense for war. If your end goal base includes splash, by all means level it if you want to.

Posted the below in the update thread with my thoughts on how farming gameplay might change with no TH shields.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

My big takeaway from this announcement is that SuperCell would like to see heavier armies and attacks used more on ladder. I wouldn't be surprised if they acted to quash any "too easy" strategies that crop up. They took a long time in changing the shield for TH metric, but I don't think they're going to continue being oblivious.

Based on that as badfish said much earlier

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badfish1979

To those saying "RIP farming":

....

Maybe a better phrase is "RIP farming the old way."

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It actually might even be the same way, but without the snipes....

1. I expect heavier armies that go for the core of the base to be more prevalent.
2. I expect base design to respond to this to make it harder for heavy armies to reach their goal (in the core).
3. Because of that, if you are successfully attacking for 50% without coring the base today in whatever league you are in, you likely will be MORE successful after the patch due to the changes that bases make.
4. Barch for 50% = win.

Also as 2222 said,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 2222

The biggest problem I see with this change is a huge loss of loot for the system. If I attack you and take your loot it goes into my storages. No new loot has been added to the game. However, if your hall is out, I just snipe your hall and suddenly a 200,000+ of gold/elix just got added to the game. I do not sit online looking for snipes, but I also don't pass them up when I see them. I just think now of the hundreds of millions of loot each day that will NOT be added to the game because there won't be these snipes. I like the idea of this change. I'm just worried about the loot. They need to add something to make up for that loss, such as a drastic increase in the trophy league win bonus.

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SuperCell might be attempting to change the balance of loot difficulty. It doesn't sound like it, but the attack confirmation screen wasn't really about helping people avoid attacking without a full army, so I'll reserve judgement on the future loot difficulty.

That said if they're only targeting the too easy loot/effort but don't want to change the overall average loot/effort figure (if they move that, they'll change the size of their subscriber base, but maybe that's a goal too), then they'll need to adjust the amount of loot that the more effort process generates.

Heavy armies are also more expensive. If they remove 2 snipes per full army win in a high league and players compensate by building an army that attacks half as often, they've removed 4 snipes and one full (but likely cheap) army win and kept one heavy army win.

Consider low Champions sniping with the full army win giving 100k/100k/1k on average. In order to replace 4 snipes and two full army wins league, the heavy army win has to earn about 1,280k/1,280k/9.2k. (less the cost of two prior full armies plus the cost of the new full army). That is a very significant number in order to keep the loot/hr of playing about the same. Even if they loot a TH10 for the maximum (400k/400k/3k), that means league bonus would need to be 880k/880k/6.2k to balance. (and that assumes the typical attack gets 100% of the base)

Maybe they're pushing it up that high (about a 5x loot bonus), or even higher, maybe they're changing the loot/hr rates. We'll just have to see. ClashCon let us know that in addition to in house testing they run tons of simulations (and loot/hr is easy to simulate/calculate).

Maybe my quick model is wrong, but in any case it suggests that if loot/hr is staying constant, league bonus is going WAY UP.

PS- If bonus goes up enough (more than base loot), people might compensate back to cheaper/quicker armies to farm the 50% since it's more than the heavy army can get out of the core due to it's faster build time.

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More math on the suggested league bonus changes (ignoring army costs)
Current: 2 snipes per regular win with a lighter army (barch?) that averages 100k/100k/1k per 100% army use + 3 league bonuses
Future: 1 heavier army (giwibarch?) that attacks half as often as the current lighter army.

Current: 4 snipes, 2x 100k/100k/1k, 6 league bonus total = 180k*6 + 100k*2/180k*6+100k*2/1.2k*6+1k*2 = 1280k/1280k/9.2k

Future: 1 heavy win for 50% TH10 max loot and all the DE + ? league bonus = 200k/200k/3k, even trade in loot/hr if league bonus is 1080k/1080k/6.2k.

Sservis,

I realize that tomorrow's sneak peek will have a significant impact on future direction for rushers, but considering the shorter attacking sessions, and the apparent loss of a free shield, should us rushed 9.5s consider dropping infernos before the update while we can still easily raise the gold levels necessary?

Cheers,

z

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zebron2

Sservis,

I realize that tomorrow's sneak peek will have a significant impact on future direction for rushers, but considering the shorter attacking sessions, and the apparent loss of a free shield, should us rushed 9.5s consider dropping infernos before the update while we can still easily raise the gold levels necessary?

Cheers,

z

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Clash doesn't have an undo. I would wait and see. Farming in Silver works just fine now and will hardly change at all. Snipes there are somewhat rare. Other leagues will become more like that in how they operate.

The secret to not losing loot is to spend loot. Don't have loot.

Remember, you don't have to have no loot, you just have to have less loot than they can easily find while nexting. If you're not a juicy target, you won't be hit until you are. After 3 hours, you get a 3 hour pseudo shield. TH10 max collectors will only add 36,750/36,750/675 over the 3 hours you sit available to attack. This doesn't move things up enough, especially if your DE drills can be reached with a few troops. (they might take the DE and leave)

In higher leagues, I would definitely suggest using a base that can be barched for 50%, but not easily*. If league bonus goes up enough, that will become a very good attacking strategy (people modify bases to make coring harder -> easier to get % on outside -> barch for league bonus more often instead of a slower army coring for loot+bonus less often). Barch for 50% also doesn't get up much loot (couple storages, 2-4 ish) usually if you have decent defenses.

As always, build the defenses you want anyway. The no defense rush is definitely dead. You're going to want some defenses along the way, but that's not your question. You already have a lot of defenses. You'll be fine as is or with Infernos. I'd make that choice based on what you want right now (or in 3 weeks what you want right then). I wouldn't build anything you can't undo in anticipation.

The one thing I would consider doing now is moving up to the league you'd prefer to be in in case you decide you want to be higher. Tomorrow's post will clarify a lot of that with league bonuses (and if amount earned is based on % or stars or otherwise variable)


* no single archer snipes, Ringus as is a bad base for instance as they can get a lot of % on the edges and the dive for the little bit more they need, maybe not using a lot of their army, pull the buildings in to the walls and it's better as it'll take more troops to get all those exterior buildings.

This thread is very interesting, and should be kept updated to cater for new war mm

Thank you, I hadn't been posting here since I returned to activity as it was a really old thread. Assuming no moderator swoops in in the next day or two to suggest I start new threads instead, now that's it's been revived, I'll post here some more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Thank you, I hadn't been posting here since I returned to activity as it was a really old thread. Assuming no moderator swoops in in the next day or two to suggest I start new threads instead, now that's it's been revived, I'll post here some more.

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keeping all this work in one thread is easier for other to follow, then if it separated in more threads

Added this to one of the matchmaking threads going on now, quoted here for reference. I do think the endemic mismatches we hear about might not be so endemic and might require a solution in the way the matchmaker pairs clans. Lopsided bases might just a the clan structure that almost always gets mismatches, sometimes in favor, sometimes not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Recent thought reading various matchmaking threads.

Much like paper/rock/scissors has no dominant strategy, lopsided bases might be a good response by the less skilled to even the playing field.

Instead of having the match decided in battle day, it's decided in the matchmaker. We only really hear of the mismatches that favor the engineers (based on base development). What if their wars are roughly 50% mismatch their favor and 50% mismatch opponents favor? Their matches would be "fair" from their perspective when all their wars are considered. Half the time they outclass the opponents and half the time their opponents outclass them.

This then would be a great strategy to employ for any clan that can't reach 50% win rates. They could even take all the bad mismatch wars off, or loot farm, etc. The downside as more bad clans employ it would be to drive all clans win rates (and war experience) closer to their norm of matchmaker determining who is very likely to win any given war.

Note that this would also be true for any atypical clan composition. Since it's so atypical and hard to match, it has to match to a clan that's significantly different (mismatch one way or the other nearly every time). Depending on the distribution of clan compositions, it likely is possible to pick an atypical lineup that more often than not gets favorable mismatches.

In a nutshell, severe lopsided mismatches may not be the fault of lopsided bases in particular, they are just the flavor of atypicality that currently is seen most by more typical clans. The correct response if this is the case is not to nerf the bases or their compositions necessarily, but to adjust the part of matchmaking that is causing these to happen.

Namely, to increase the cost (search time) it takes for severe mismatches of any time to occur. Also, some sort of 'match karma' could be tracked and influence things so if it decides to give one of these, no clan experiences only one side of the experience.

Edit: Please don't interpret this to ascribe intention to the clans employing. Likely it evolved over time, seeing that adding one base increased their win rate, and adding two help more and so on. It may be the case that lopsided clans nearly always find a mismatch in their favor do the way clan compositions are distributed in the space of possibilities (if nearest large center of mass is a mismatch in their favor, than that's mostly what they'll get)

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by samratulangi

keeping all this work in one thread is easier for other to follow, then if it separated in more threads

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Agreed. I'm good with this thread coming back. The OP is updating it based on new and relevant information.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SharkyFinn

Agreed. I'm good with this thread coming back. The OP is updating it based on new and relevant information.

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Thanks for the confirmation and blessing, guess I should write up some of the things I said I was going to do when I wrote the OP.

Posted a summary of things that can be done wrong in matchmaking. I don't know how SC does it, but this is a checklist of things to avoid. My personal opinion is that they are doing a good job at doing decent, and working hard at being even better. However, many seem to have somewhat unrealistic expectations and want things to be nearly as good as leagues get with their extreme coordination and rules.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Summary of ways to do matchmaking that will cause issues. Nearly all of these are things that some people think SC may be doing. I could easily write a post on how each of these is exploitable. There are probably a few more I'm missing.

• If matching primarily on clan totals and merge average over bases in the map*, there will be issues (roster engineering)

• If matching primarily on base totals and merge offense and defense in a base, there will be issues (lopsided both ways)

• Offense must be matched in offensive strength order. Not defensive strength order or there will be issues. This is especially problematic if the bottom of the map (lowest defensive strength) is counted as proportionally less. Hiding offense in no defense accounts will occur. If this occurs today, simplest solution is to sort both offense and defense and create virtual war lineups for matchmaking where #1 has the best of both, #2 has second best, etc.. Current code could be used without many changes.

• If the heaviest offense and heaviest defenses don't count for more than lesser offenses and defenses respectively, there will be issues. (roster engineering possible)

• If TH+1 max is not significantly heavier on both offense/defense than TH max, there will be issues (separation won't happen, and higher THs in this game can easily perfect lower ones)

• If you match offense with defense and defense with offense (instead of offense with offense/defense with defense), there will be issues (by building defense in one TH level and offense in another, you likely can get a war that's easier than 50%, also players will complain about matching with different style bases) Matching O=O and D=D also neatly segregates different play styles without any extra factors

• If any TH cannot get equivalent results on 2 attacks to what +1 TH can get on a dip, there will be issues. (roster ratios in that range are really important, also wars are boring with dips and hitups)

• If any defensive weights are out of whack to actual value, extreme defensively manicured bases will have an advantage, however mostly typical bases will generally be fine.

• If army camps are not counted at least as strongly as troop upgrades, there will be issues (if troop upgrades were bigger in game than they are, this would be less important, but it's roughly even)

• If it takes the full offense to have the full offense for a TH, there will be issues. While on defense everything must be defeated, not everything is needed on offense. Bonus credit should not be given if only some troops are missing. This is a hard item to do right, because TH based weightings are not a good solution.

• If offense vs offense isn't counted more than defense vs defense, there will be issues (attacks can affect the score twice, but defense only once)

• If you match based on clan skill, there will be issues (skilled THX fighting poor THX+1) I don't know anyone who thinks they do this, yay! But clan leagues/trophies are suggested occasionally.

My suggestion for matchmaking would be to use 2n + 3 factors for each clan in an n base war. Offense/defense for each base, offense/defense for the clan (likely weighted heavier on the heavier bases), a karma factor for how their previous wars have gone.

Compare the offense vs offense and defense vs defense base values considering closeness on heavier parts of the distribution as more important**, compare the clan values with karma as a moderating influence. Utilitize some sort of time vs quality tradeoff where it takes a while to broaden and then starts to really broaden more quickly. Any war, no matter how bad, is better than never warring. So somewhere around 10-20 hours it should look for another clan in that range and just assign the war.


* It's ok to consider an overall score to make sure overall things are balanced (advantages across the war are roughly even), but the matching needs to primiarly happen at a base level. It's also good to track karma over time so clans good/bad matches roughly level out.


** Having the TH+1 values used in matchmaking much bigger than the TH values (exponential scale of some sort, ie offensive and defensive weight scores for max TH+1 are X times max TH at all TH) does this. Still question of if effective enough, but don't necessarily need a secondary extra weighting.

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waiting for 'optimal nexting'😄

I had to dig to find my own research about how aspect ratio affects attack icon slots, see below. Now I'll just have to find it in this thread. They definitely need to implement an improved UI with less scrolling, maybe even none.

Currently slots are based solely on aspect ratio, regardless of how big the screen is. So a 16 by 9 tablet has bigger icons, not more of them than a small 16 by 9 phone. Icons are currently scaled (without maximum actual size) to take up a fixed % of the vertical resolution. It would be better if there was also a maximum size in terms of pixels (or cm/inches is probably better)

Edit: There was some later commentary in the thread that at super extra wide resolutions currently the zoom doesn't allow you to see the whole base well. I didn't examine this in my testing.

Edit2: At X by 1080, the number of icons will be X/148 ish. My 4 datapoints [excluding 12:9] range from 147.7 to 148.2.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

tl;dr get a widescreen resolution or fake it with a windows touch device and an emulator set to a custom resolution and you'll have more icons.

I just ran Memu at different resolutions

12:9, 1440x1080, 11.75 icons (this resolution is aka 4:3)
16:9, 1920x1080, 13 icons
18.5:9, 1480x720, 15 icons
21:9, 2520x1080, 17 icons (and 2 bigger gaps as this included troops -> heros gap and heros -> spells gap)
27:9, 1620x540, about 22 icons (only had 19 filled, room for 3 more, also couldn't set 3240x1080 so halved the vertical)

As you can see as the aspect ratio gets wider, you get more icons. The solution is to find a good very widescreen device.

The Samsung S8 for instance runs at 2960x1440 (18.5:9). I tested that above and had 15 icons. An extra 3 over the iPad/Nexus 9 (4:3)'s 11.75 (the 12th is hard to use, but probably).

Anyone know of any good/modern android tablets in widescreen (16:9) or preferably wider display aspect ratios? (My nexus 7 is a bit old)

Edit: I'm not sure anything changed in # of icons count. This is roughly the spread I remember, although maybe all the numbers are down.

Edit2: Did some math, it appears that at 16:9 and up, for every 1.2333:9 you have, it's an icon slot. This suggests the icons are a fixed % of the vertical height and fill accordingly. At 12:9 it actually has more slots than it should, so the height % must be reduced slightly so iPads and other 4:3 don't have only 9.7 slots (what 1.2333:9 would give)

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Posted elsewhere explaining why increased search times for atypical clans were a predictable result of nearly all matchmaking changes that actually improve matches for typical clans.

It sounds like there's a bit more tweaking to the acceptance threshold over search time required so that atypical clans still get matches.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Fundamentally, better matches must take longer. They may not take longer for everyone, but the total search time across all clans must go up. There will always be some room for finding better matches through better metrics. However, the availability of similar clans is the biggest factor in search times/war quality.

As an completely example, Splitting hairs to figure out if (60 offense, 40 defense) or (58 offense, 42 defense) is a better match for (50 offense, 50 defense) doesn't improve things as much as waiting for a (55 offense, 45 defense) clan to click search.

Given that clans click search about once every 50 hours,

• if search takes 1 hour for everyone, about 2% of the potential clans are available for each match.
• if search takes 2.5 hours for everyone, about 5% of the potential clans are available for each match.
• if search takes 5 hours for everyone, about 10% of the potential clans are available for each match.
• if search takes 10 hours for everyone, about 20% of the potential clans are available for each match.
• etc

The best match out of 20% is going to be much better than the best match out of 2%, even if the metrics used to determine best aren't quite as good.

When wars happen with 1 hour of search, it's 48 hours per war.
When wars happen with 10 hours of search, it's about 57 hours per war.

Is it worth missing 1 out of every 6 wars to get a 10x size matching pool? Maybe. (6 wars at 48 hours = 288 hours, 5 wars at 57 hours = 285 hours, roughly equal)

The general understanding of war search is that the threshold for acceptability gets wider over time. "Typical" clans in dense areas of the clan composition space should match quickly. As clans get more atypical, matches should take longer.

It's likely that tightening thresholds would have the following impacts

• Typical clans match typical clans more often. Atypical clans are less likely to slip under the threshold before another typical clan clicks search. Searches are up slightly, but not much as typical clans are fairly common. (not matching a clan you would have matched before means waiting longer). This is a better result for these clans.

• Atypical clans match typical clans less often. They have to wait for a similar atypical clan to search. Searches are up a lot as atypical clans are atypical and rare. They no longer benefit from being close enough to typical clans to match. This is probably a worse result for these clans. I say probably as their match quality does go up, but at a significant search time cost.

Note the disparate impact.

The solution is to slowly migrate clans from a lower threshold matching to higher threshold matching as search progresses. In atypical regions of a distribution, the distance between samples is larger. Based on some of the comments in various threads, the threshold does not increase sufficiently over time and so atypical clans are being stranded as there is no one like them.

This result is definitely worse for the stranded clans. The fix is to make the threshold for matches increase faster after a reasonable amount of time for typical clans to be generally matched. I have no clue what typical looks like. I could guess, or encode my personal values as to what matters, but that doesn't seem good.

Likewise the matchmaker's purpose is to match similar clans regardless of their composition. What is typical will change over time. A threshold that slowly expands initially and then speeds up over time, eventually getting even wider than it was before is necessary.

At the end of the search time, the parameters have to be wider than they were before the initial threshold was lowered or fewer matches will happen. (less happening early means more have to happen late or fewer will happen)

I personally side on the side of "nearly any match is better than no match" and that the matchmaker should give feedback in the form of atrocious matches instead of saying "no match found". I don't think it would be that bad for most atypical clans. Only the atypical atypical clan would end up with really long searches (more than 12 hours).

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Thoughts on the Power potions. tl;dr - It's a balancing nightmare regardless of how rare or common it is.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sservis

Since this seems to be the current thread, I'll tag my ideas here. The major problem with the Power potion isn't so much what it does in game. It's how it affects game balance. It moves a portion of the skill aspect towards activity level (potion earning).

On the plus side, if they're really really common, it allows SC to adjust things so that lab level (and unlocked troops) is all that matters in war which would obviate nearly all difficulties in matching offense.

On the negative side, anyone premax without sufficient access (or just less access) will get punished in the matchmaker under such a change. That said, they'll also be punished in the absence of such a change too about the same amount.

SC has created another balance situation that screws them both ways.

If things are balanced at the lab level, then nonmax players with less access to Power potions are at a significant disadvantage. It makes it harder to war after upgrading your TH unless you have Power potions available. This impacts everyone negatively, not just engineers.

If things are not balanced at the lab level, then those with access to power potions have a gigantic engineering option. Quickly level many accounts to whatever desired TH level. Over time flesh out defenses. Only level farming troops. Make sure to earn Power potions on every account every time, but only include 1 in war so that they are always available. By rotating the accounts included in search and only including an appropriate %, Power potions can be assured every war regardless of their rarity as a reward. (adjust ratio of accounts leveled to number included to offset the reward ratio)

Overall, I'm fairly negative that Power potions are an improvement. They're definite fun to use, but they're a balancing nightmare. They also turn significant sections of the game (nonmax gameplay) into a contest of activity level, not skill. They pretty much only strictly benefit permamaxed accounts when lab-level based matchmaking occurs.

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