TH 8.5 - is it really worth it for wars?

Hey guys, I know that this topic was already discussed several times and I followed it in several threads. But tbh, these threads are outdated or don't contain much of information. Since the last update the worthiness of buildings changed, so the question remains: Is it worth it to be a "TH 8.5“ in wars? Could someone share her/his up-to-date experience? I really would love to test it, cause my Clan start wars permanently and it would be a huge advantage IF IT REALLY WORKS.

If it doesn't work and the whole TH 8.5 strategy is a waste of time, tell it. Besides of that my plan was to upgrade lab, factory, camps, Queen and dark barracks first. If it is worth it, I would like to try the strategy, if not I will start building new TH9 defenses.

It only works in numbers. If you're the only person doing the .5 approach in even 10 man wars, you will not likely sway the matching significantly enough to impact things.

That said, you will still be most valuable doing a .5 approach, or at least focusing heavily on your offensive capabilities before defenses. Get those camps, lab, and spell factory upgraded ASAP.

People think XBows are so amazing, but at lvl 1 they only do 50 dps, but they add a huge impact to your war ranking. If you're going to build defenses focus on the 4th AD, and the new AT first, and obviously the new walls, get them to skulls quick.

Why THX.5?

THX.5 bases are useful if THX sometimes struggle to clear all bases on their level. They provide a way to ensure 3 stars without changing matchmaking significantly, and without using attacks from higher TH.

Wars are won by being able to devote as many attacks as possible to the bases that your clan finds challenging in a matchup. For serious clans, this means TH10 and trying to 3 star. In good clans and below, often clearing TH9 can be an issue. If by going X.5 you make it easier for your clan to do better on your challenging TH level by freeing up more capable attacks for that tier of the war, then you've improved your clan's war performance. If not, you're only adding to the clan XP (another base they'll 3 star and the base you bring will also be 3 starred since it's not affecting the critical bases)


How to clear TH8 as an early TH9

There are many ways that an early TH9 can 3 star TH8's without heros. If you're building a permanent TH8.5 to help your clan, I'd suggest no BK, and a low level AQ instead (mostly for CC kill assistance, although you could also go the no hero route). I'd also suggest considering engineering defenses somewhat as the default max TH8 is not the best defensive profile for a 55k defensive budget.

I prefer the first option, but they all should work well in the right hands. I pretty much cook the army on my alt and go with minimal planning.

• LavaLoonion - 3 Rage/1 Poison, 3 Hounds (1 in CC) + 20 Loon 6 + 15 minions (or a 4th hound if ADs clustered) + 10 space (often 5) for lure and 20 space for CC kill (couple barch + 4 wiz or 1 witch + 1 wiz) - I've never failed, I do have an AQ6 on this account (and BK8, but he's not relevant), 20+ tries, pretty much a spam attack after CC handled.
• DragLoon with 8 level 3 Dragons/12 Level 6 Loons and a Level 3 Hound in CC - I failed once with this strategy out of 10 ish tries, requires somewhat more planning than Lavaloonion.
• Loonion - never tried

Since you don't need the 4th spell or many upgrades, if defenses are somewhat below TH8 max, it's likely that you'll look like a TH8 to matchmaking. Even if you look like a new TH9, you add a very weak TH9 that your TH9 won't have trouble clearing.

When not to THX.5

• If there aren't a decent number of THX+1 in your clan to clear the THX+1 base you will sometimes add to the opponents lineup.
• If your THX can clear THX reliably. TH7.5 makes no sense for instance.

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Originally Posted by 2247A668

If it doesn't work and the whole TH 8.5 strategy is a waste of time, tell it. Besides of that my plan was to upgrade lab, factory, camps, Queen and dark barracks first. If it is worth it, I would like to try the strategy, if not I will start building new TH9 defenses.

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My first response was to the idea of THX.5 as a permanent resident in a war clan. As a point on your path to wherever you're going, it definitely is worthwhile. I'd do as much as possible to keep your AQ down for as much as possible in early TH9. If you can get to 15/15 before building defenses (52.5 days of AQ, 30 days of BK), that's awesome.

Early (34):
Lab (5) , SF (5), first Dark Barracks (17), CC (7)

Later (101):
DSF (8), second dark barracks (17), army camps (20), drills (36), storages (20)

If I were doing it again, I'd probably opt for something like

Builder 1 (52): Lab, SF, Army Campx1, DE Storage 5, Drill, DSF, DE Storage 6
Builder 2 (52): Dark Barracks 1, Drill, Dark Barracks 2,
Builder 3 (52): CC, Army Camp x3, BK
Builder 4 (52.5): AQ
Builder 5: Elixir Storage, Walls, Gold Storage

I'd sneak in a couple elixir storage upgrades early on builder 5. Since all but the last Gold/Elixir storage upgrades are 1 day or shorter, you can do these without really occupying a builder. Even the 2 day upgrades you can time so that some other builder comes free on the day in between so that you never have a day without a builder free. I'd prioritize the Elixir storage a bit so that you have some spare space on Day 5 when your Lab finishes if you want to spend 6M elixir on Balloons. I'd also do all the trap upgrades when convenient on builder 5.

Note: This plan takes a decent amount of farming, particularly early on. It's not an insane amount of farming. However, early AQ levels are high DE, short time. Overall, if you come in with 40k DE, you'll need to farm an average of 20k DE/day for 45 straight days. I'm assuming no assistance from your drills since they'll be on upgrade a bunch. The DE required is slightly higher if you want to upgrade any dark troops.

Thank you very much for your detailed responds! I am the first .5 in my clan, the second could join me soon. We often do 10 v 10 wars and have currently 6 TH9er and 3 TH8. I will try this upgrade order. Currently- two days at TH9 and SF, Lab, CC and one AC and AQ LV4 are building, after that the 3 AC- it is not so easy to farm without spells. Such raids like at TH8 times are rare (I'm in silver league) My impression is that it is harder to find "easy" loot. But it's only my 2 cents after the first two days ^^

PS: @Havoc: Will use your 8.5 base ;)

If it's your main account don't do it. You miss out on having a great base while the rest of the clan gets up upgrade their defense. If you're dedicated to your clan like that and think going .5 is going to really help with war matchups then go for it. It has its pros and cons

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Originally Posted by chrish732

If it's your main account don't do it. You miss out on having a great base while the rest of the clan gets up upgrade their defense. If you're dedicated to your clan like that and think going .5 is going to really help with war matchups then go for it. It has its pros and cons

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That's the main question. I hope that it will help with matchmaking, but I don't know. Of course, if it doesn't, I won't stay .5. But first I will build new walls up to skulls and AQ to LV5. After that I want to participate in a few wars, so I could test if it is worth it.

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Originally Posted by chrish732

If it's your main account don't do it. You miss out on having a great base while the rest of the clan gets up upgrade their defense. If you're dedicated to your clan like that and think going .5 is going to really help with war matchups then go for it. It has its pros and cons

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There's really no reason not to do it, the question is, do you stay there or not.

Getting to 15/15 in your first two months of TH9 and not increasing your defensive weight much is a very good way to start off. If you want, it will get you into pretty much any elite clan (or their feeder/tryout system) because it shows you know what's important. Labwise, assuming TH8 max lab, Barch 6, Jump 2 + Balloon 6/Hound 2 or Hog 5/Heal 6 is 45 or 46 days and sets you up for farming and war attacks (with a max Golem) in the CC. Multiple Golem attacks will take a bit more lab.

Defensive weight will go up some as heros and traps have weight, but not like it would if you built/upgraded defenses (particularly xbows). After 15/15, there are 30 weeks of heros left to go at TH9. However, there's only about 22 more weeks if you keep 4 builders busy.

If you do one hero at a time from 15/15 on up, you'll hit TH9 max D with about 25/25 heros. This is an amazing accomplishment if you can do it* There are so many TH9 max D bases with much lower heros. There's a reason I listed heros instead of defenses. It's really important to work on heros and keep them leveling. Defenses are easy in comparison.

I also wouldn't trade out any of the offense or economy upgrades for defenses. Camp/cc space, drills, etc all are more useful. Even the second dark barracks is worth it (ever tried to train 4 hounds for a war attack in one barracks with 90 space? it's 3 hours and you have to add the last hound in the middle!)


* AQ25 is only 125k DE, farmed over 7 days with max drills is only 13k DE/day, actually less than your first 45 day push, and you'll have one hero around to help you too. If you keep up the 20k DE/day farming rate and add in 4.8k DE/day from the drills you'll actually be able to reach 30/30 in 19 weeks (from 15/15).

PS- This all seems really easy, but committing to averaging 20k DE/day farming is somewhat significant (it's around 1-3 hrs/day depending on method) If you farm that much, you'll never have to farm for defenses. You'll always have enough gold. Your walls will also progress nicely.

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Originally Posted by Sservis

There's really no reason not to do it, the question is, do you stay there or not.

Getting to 15/15 in your first two months of TH9 and not increasing your defensive weight much is a very good way to start off. If you want, it will get you into pretty much any elite clan (or their feeder/tryout system) because it shows you know what's important. Labwise, assuming TH8 max lab, Barch 6, Jump 2 + Balloon 6/Hound 2 or Hog 5/Heal 6 is 45 or 46 days and sets you up for farming and war attacks (with a max Golem) in the CC. Multiple Golem attacks will take a bit more lab.

Defensive weight will go up some as heros and traps have weight, but not like it would if you built/upgraded defenses (particularly xbows). After 15/15, there are 30 weeks of heros left to go at TH9. However, there's only about 22 more weeks if you keep 4 builders busy.

If you do one hero at a time from 15/15 on up, you'll hit TH9 max D with about 25/25 heros. This is an amazing accomplishment if you can do it* There are so many TH9 max D bases with much lower heros. There's a reason I listed heros instead of defenses. It's really important to work on heros and keep them leveling. Defenses are easy in comparison.

I also wouldn't trade out any of the offense or economy upgrades for defenses. Camp/cc space, drills, etc all are more useful. Even the second dark barracks is worth it (ever tried to train 4 hounds for a war attack in one barracks with 90 space? it's 3 hours and you have to add the last hound in the middle!)


* AQ25 is only 125k DE, farmed over 7 days with max drills is only 13k DE/day, actually less than your first 45 day push, and you'll have one hero around to help you too. If you keep up the 20k DE/day farming rate and add in 4.8k DE/day from the drills you'll actually be able to reach 30/30 in 19 weeks (from 15/15).

PS- This all seems really easy, but committing to averaging 20k DE/day farming is somewhat significant (it's around 1-3 hrs/day depending on method) If you farm that much, you'll never have to farm for defenses. You'll always have enough gold. Your walls will also progress nicely.

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Sound lucrative to me ;) Though I'm not sure if I can farm 20K DE per day. Especially at the beginning, I'm pretty weak with no LV6 giants and barch yet. Do you have a suggestion for a good strategy to farm at the beginning of my TH 8.5 progress?

Thx in advance

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Originally Posted by 2247A668

Sound lucrative to me ;) Though I'm not sure if I can farm 20K DE per day. Especially at the beginning, I'm pretty weak with no LV6 giants and barch yet. Do you have a suggestion for a good strategy to farm at the beginning of my TH 8.5 progress?

Thx in advance

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Sorry about the delay. Some general barch suggestions below that you may already know.

• I'd suggest barch 5 in Gold/Crystal ish until you get established.
• Attack good loot bases, if you win, you win, if you don't, you don't.
• Do not worry about your trophy level much. Get the 50% if you can, don't worry about it if not, and definitely don't next past good loot bases, especially exposed DE bases with large amounts available (1.5k+).
• Trophy will even out in the long run at the right level for you.
• Next longer. (50 or more next average per base)
• If you don't have a full army, but have enough to take out a trapped corner, search for snipes in between. Never attack a base with a partial army that you can't either win or get amazing loot.
• Deploy with multiple fingers and multiple hands. Ash and Brandon have good videos on how to deploy. The speed and concentration at which you drop troops makes a big difference.

Longer term

You can continue this strategy or move up to farm league bonus. Mandagar has a thread about farming loot bonus in Champions that can work also once you have Barch 6. You can earn more DE that way, but you need to be good at getting 50%.

I'd suggest letting your trophy float. If you start moving up into Masters, you can consider if it's worth not losing attacks. I'd say if the loot bonus increase from 5 attacks is more than the loss from DE attacks, then it's worth it. So C1 is 300 DE. If you move to M2, that's 700 DE. The higher league gives you an additional 2.7k DE in loot bonus. If when you intentionally lose, but get lots of DE in C1, you get more than 2.7k DE, C1 is better for DE. I'm basing this on attacking 5 times in a lower league (losing one for great DE) versus attacking 5 times in a higher league (winning all). DE per regular attack matters also.

If you start finding yourself bases with good loot (where you can get enough loot while losing to compensate for not getting league bonus) because you'd lose, then you may be too high in trophies for optimal farming.

TH8.5 doesnt work too well tbh. We have a few th8.5s and they havent been facing off against th8s but fully fledged th9s. There is no point in 8.5. 9.5 works though.

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Originally Posted by Salsamander

TH8.5 doesnt work too well tbh. We have a few th8.5s and they havent been facing off against th8s but fully fledged th9s. There is no point in 8.5. 9.5 works though.

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All of X.5 is a bit weird as a permanent destination. They are great as a point to develop your base through if you insist on maxing the prior TH. If you keep both heros down in early TH9, there's about 2 months of work before you start defenses. I would highly suggest all new TH9 try hard to keep their heros down as low level heros aren't that useful and to be a TH8.5 ish for those two months. Afterwards is a choice.

However, if you want a TH9 account in your war lineup to help with clearing high TH8 and maybe low TH9, you are much better using an account specifically engineered for that purpose. All that is needed is Hound 1, Loon 6, some ancillary and 220/30 space with 3 spells.* You don't even need heros, although a baby AQ 5+ helps if your lure/kill squad doesn't quite take out the CC.

Putting that offense on a TH8 max base is probably not the right set of defenses. I would prefer to pair that attack with a low to mid TH8 set of defenses so that you're giving up a three star in TH8 and gaining 2 in TH8. If it's with max TH8 defenses, you're still gaining 2 in TH8, but giving up one in TH9.


* You need less, but that level of troops/space makes it pretty much deploy decently and win.

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Originally Posted by Salsamander

TH8.5 doesnt work too well tbh. We have a few th8.5s and they havent been facing off against th8s but fully fledged th9s. There is no point in 8.5. 9.5 works though.

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You can't look at it that simply, because the matching algorithm looks at the whole clan. It's not about looking at your mirror and saying "well it works or it doesn't", it's about optimizing your war weight so that your clan gets winnable wars.

8.5 definitely works. I've done it with my second account and it gives our clan tremendous flexibility. I've maxxed Loons, Hogs, Witches and spells thus far. Only have heroes to lv 10 but my defense is strong enough to make a high TH 9 or low TH10 to 3 star while I'm capable of attacking up and down the board to help clean stars or three star max TH9s. GoLavaLoon has been a tremendous strategy for me. I'm working on getting my golems to lv 4 to incorporate orate a better GoHo because one golem simply won't do vs lv 3 xbows. I highly recommend this if you're in a constant war clan. If you're just playing to play and war occasionally, then I'd say don't bother because you are very susceptible to attack in general game play.