Trophy Hunty With Balloons - 3 Stars to Crystal II - Thanks Daddy

[Siv75]

I've developed a passion for balloons after being inspired by Daddy of the Golden Sky clan. It fits in nicely for me as I only get pockets of a few minutes to play every hour or so and it regularly helps me rake in resources from most bases available in the 1300 to 1700 ranges while farming.

However, my clan was trophy hunting and I decided to use balloons this time to go up as high as possible. This video shows five of the many battles that got me from 1400 to 2216 trophies in less than two days.



Out of the 816 trophies, only 240++ were from defense wins.

Though I used mostly balloons and minions while farming with balloons, I had to switch things up a little for trophy hunting. My best composition for trophies is:

For TH9s (like me)

32 Balloons (Lvl 6)
1 Dragon (used as tank for balloons OR to provide additional support)
10 Minions (used to clean up base)
10 Barbs (used to kill Archer Queen)
10 Archers (used to lure Archer Queen and Clan Castle troops)
Archer Queen and Barb King (used to clean up base)

The total army cost: 184,500 elixir, 70-100de depending on minions level

Clan Castle: Almost anything actually, though a Dragon would be awesome.

What surprised me pleasantly was that most of my battles were 3 star wins, right up to 2216 trophies. This earned me a high number of cups, very often more than 28 cups per battle (see the logs at the end of the video). I rarely used my entire army camp and most times still had my royal couple available at the end of each raid.

Daddy (check his youtube videos:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4G...amQZduBbbinruA) has good videos on balloon attacks on the how to attack. For trophies, just pick the right base for a balloon attack, look for a combination of a high trophy reward base and weaker Air Defence capability in a base. I usually avoid double infernos, but as seen in one of the battles in my video, it is possible to overcome them too with rage spells and a bit of luck.

The archer queen and clan castle need to be addressed first. I use an archer to lure the queen out, then hit her with 10 level 6 barbs to get rid of her. At this trophy range, most queens succumb to 10 barbs. I also use archers to lure the CC troops out. This enables me to take them out with a lightning spell. Occasionally I used my 1 dragon to take both troops and queen out if they are in the same place.

I sometimes used a healing spell around wiz towers for strongly upgraded TH9/TH10 bases. Other times, I use rage to speed balloons towards a more centrally located air-defence OR to get faster to inferno towers.

The battle should be divided into three phases.

Phase 1, initial - take out clan troops and archer queen.
Phase 2, main - unleash the balloons (this requires a bit of skill, see Daddy's videos)
Phase 3, mop up - once all defenses are down, send in mop of crew of royals, minions and CC if necessary

I'd like to thank Daddy for the inspiration and guidance.

Crystal II to Crystal I is a little more challenging and there is a need to boost the army up to stronger levels. That is for another day I guess.

Cheers

[OJM]

I made easily to Crystal I with bloons, also a Th9 I ran out of elixir and the trophy push week was over so I was glad to come down to farming. Highest trophy count and base from that time: http://i.imgur.com/Xds2Pwy.jpg?1

Watching the video made it very clear to me at least why around 2200ish you hit the wall. You were using the same strategy to all of your attacks: overwhelm all the defences and wipe out the place. That works as long as you can find those unwisely placed AD-bases, but the higher you go, less there are to pick from. I, too, faced the same issue so I knew I had to adapt (or die). Maybe with these changes to the strategy, you can easily make it up there

Army comp was pretty much the same. I used 20 minions and sometimes two dragons, but the amount of balloons, about 30 was same. The strategy to take out queen and CC is spot on, but the deployment of the balloons is very different. In order to "ensure" 2* victory at least, one has to pick a base where the TH is off center. More the better. Then, instead of aiming so directly at the defences you send in the waves of death

Snipe all possible ADs, CC troops and queen with ground troops and lightnings.
(Dragon to tank if necessary)
15 balloons, swiped across the long side closest to TH.
Wait 5-10 seconds.
15 balloons, same swipe.
Wait couple seconds.
Minions, swiped the same way right after balloons
(Dragon following to mop up)
King and queen, if not used to snipe ADs earlier.

This wave of death can win fully maxed out TH10. Sure, picking the targets carefully is important and you don't want to aim fully maxed centralized AD bases. Prey for the weak and you get 100%, but you can get 2* from just about any base. And 1* by just dropping the 30 bloons on the enemy buildings

After the strategy change success rate: 100%

[Siv75]

I made easily to Crystal I with bloons, also a Th9 I ran out of elixir and the trophy push week was over so I was glad to come down to farming. Highest trophy count and base from that time: http://i.imgur.com/Xds2Pwy.jpg?1

Watching the video made it very clear to me at least why around 2200ish you hit the wall. You were using the same strategy to all of your attacks: overwhelm all the defences and wipe out the place. That works as long as you can find those unwisely placed AD-bases, but the higher you go, less there are to pick from. I, too, faced the same issue so I knew I had to adapt (or die). Maybe with these changes to the strategy, you can easily make it up there

Army comp was pretty much the same. I used 20 minions and sometimes two dragons, but the amount of balloons, about 30 was same. The strategy to take out queen and CC is spot on, but the deployment of the balloons is very different. In order to "ensure" 2* victory at least, one has to pick a base where the TH is off center. More the better. Then, instead of aiming so directly at the defences you send in the waves of death

Snipe all possible ADs, CC troops and queen with ground troops and lightnings.
(Dragon to tank if necessary)
15 balloons, swiped across the long side closest to TH.
Wait 5-10 seconds.
15 balloons, same swipe.
Wait couple seconds.
Minions, swiped the same way right after balloons
(Dragon following to mop up)
King and queen, if not used to snipe ADs earlier.

This wave of death can win fully maxed out TH10. Sure, picking the targets carefully is important and you don't want to aim fully maxed centralized AD bases. Prey for the weak and you get 100%, but you can get 2* from just about any base. And 1* by just dropping the 30 bloons on the enemy buildings

After the strategy change success rate: 100%

Thanks OJM, your tip was spot on! I went up to 2416, then saw the birthday message and just had to drop to farm those boosted mines and collectors. Witches in the clan castle seems less of on issue for this type of assault, kinda seemed popular I noticed towards Crystal I.

[Giggitygoo]

Great guide. Will use for trophy run in two weeks.

[Asdasda23]

Brilliant guide and nice video, I think I will soon start upgrading my balloons for trophy pushes.

[TheoYOLO]

Very nice, makes me want to level my balloons up! Haha

[Siv75]

Very nice, makes me want to level my balloons up! Haha

You should definitely do so! My vid shows an easy path to 2200, and OJMs guide, I can personally vouche helped me get from 2200 to 2400 before my clan's trophy push was called off and I dropped to farm. It is certainly fun, I garnered enough resources too between 2000 to 2200 to make it sustainable. I highly recommend others to try this at least once when they get level 6 balloons.

Cheers

[Chris2000]

Just confirming that great strategy; Being a TH9 I could push up to 2610 (m3) using it! Now back to farming still a lot to build/upgrade with TH10 under construction...
Cheers, Chris