L7 mortar one-shots L5 goblinsOriginally Posted by AngrehBard
I thought L5 gobs couldn't be one shot by any mortar? Isn't it the L4 gobs that can be one shot by L6 mortars? Nice video as always daddy.
L6 mortar one-shots L4 goblins
L7 mortar one-shots L5 goblinsI thought L5 gobs couldn't be one shot by any mortar? Isn't it the L4 gobs that can be one shot by L6 mortars? Nice video as always daddy.
L6 mortar one-shots L4 goblins
I think minions may just be the most underrated troop in the game. While, for the reasons Hannibal outlined, they may make a farming army less effective, from my experience with them, I think that is largely confined to TH 9. Let me explain my reasoning a little.
Hannibal's analysis of the costs and benefits of minions seem spot on to me. Quicker army, but a little less effective and usually a net DE cost.
First of all, I think it's clear that the cost issue is temporary. Supercell is committed to making dark elixir a viable third resource, and to be honest, I think they have already succeeded. In my opinion, the relative scarcity of the resource is a far bigger problem than the uses of it. That being said, the new leagues should really help with this. Even if the bonuses are relatively small, it will likely be enough to offset the costs of a handful of minions in a raid (not going into specific numbers, because the video numbers are not final).
In addition, from a farmer's perspective, leveling up the heros becomes counterproductive. While the ideal level for a hero is debatable, I think most farmers at some point see the extra DPS/HP as not being worth the extra healing time. I think this will hold after the update as well, but that's a guess/opinion. Honestly, other than upgrading/training DE troops, there really isn't much else to do with it after a while.
As for actual effectiveness on the battlefield, the air bombs are always the biggest worry when using them from everything I have seen. An improper use of the troop or good trap placement can render minions effectively useless. Unfortunately, there really isn't much that can be done about this except for looking for potential trap spots and sending one minion ahead of the pack. There really isn't a full-proof way around this, but I think the threat is manageable in most situations.
The point where I want to make a distinction with Hannibal's analysis is the "worst of both worlds" aspect. The conclusion that splitting your army between air and ground troops proves to be a net negative is one that I think is valid, but I think the implications of this were overstated for SOME players. A high level TH 9 farmer who raids tough TH 8s and many TH 9s for the most part, I agree that minions weaken your overall army. Being a TH 8, though, I can't really comment on whether or not I believe minions should be used or ignored at that level, but Hannibal's analysis does lead me to say they shouldn't be used by these players.
What I can say with some confidence is that minions are a good farming troop for TH 7 and 8 farmers, if you take out the cost factor (which I believe will be a non-factor with the imminent update). The training time for the armies is a huge benefit and is enough to make them worthwhile for me. The question is whether or not minions make an army so much less effective that net profits (ex. DE) actually go down. From my experience with them, I think the answer is no. My logic behind this is simple:
Weakness of opponents! Most TH 7 and 8 farmers are mainly profiting off bases that are TH 8 and below. These bases have less defenses to deal with (and lower level ones) and usually exposed (or at least peripheral) air defenses. With a normal farming army (whatever that may be composed of), USUALLY you don't need to you all of your troops, assuming you have upgraded army camps. If your troops are less efficient with minions, that doesn't mean you won't win the loot. Honestly, from my experience I can't even say that even use significantly more troops to do it.
I realize that my arguements are limited to TH 7 and 8 farmers, and proabaly to those with a certain set of preferences too, but since that is a large chunk of the player population, I feel that making this distinction matters. I find minions to be drastically underused by these players, but I think people may give them a second look after the update. While minioms may not be the best farming troop, I think it certainly works well enough as one to include it in my army (when I'm not hoarding DE at least).
--------------- How I use my minions ----------------
When I have minions in my army, I look for bases that have poorly placed air defenses and archer towers that are fairly easy to get to. In my army, I use barbs and archers to take out these defenses, but, of course, giants work too. Next, send out one minion in the direction I will be sending the rest to check for air bombs. Many players have few/no gaps in their bases, so checking the periphery USUALLY suffices. With a few archer towers and the air defenses gone, minions have pretty much free reign. Mortars and cannons are useless, and the only thing (usually) left to deal with are the wizard towers. These usually don't pose too big of a problem due to their small range and the speed with which a group of minion can take out a building.
Personally, I find this composition works best when attacking bases that place (perhaps too much) emphasis on protecting their mortars. If my, admittedly puny, regular army of barbs and archers can't easily get to them, then I use theminions tactic above. If, however, the base is setup in a way that minions aren't the ideal troop to use, then I just don't use them. As I mentioned above, most of the time full armies aren't necessary. This may be more of a personal problem, but I do have a tendency to get a little spam happy at the end of a battle (especially if it is late at night), so the minions keep me from using kore troops than I need. I find carrying about 20 of them to be about ideal for either situation.
In some respects having minions in your army does lower your versatility amd restricts the types of bases that you can attack, but I believe the decreased army training time makes up for any profits forgone.
Side note: wow, that got long quick. I guess I really love minions.
Last edited by zachUVA; April 8th, 2013 at 11:07 PM.
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A few thoughts on gameplay and balance at TH9 (farming):
- The loot reduction becomes a bigger problem when considering that simultaneously with it, defensive power is ratcheting up with each update via the increased wall segments and increasing number of defenses and defensive levels. And the most meaningful defensive buff of all was the wizard tower/mortar bug fix. The net effect of the loot reduction in combination with the defensive strength increase is to heavily incentivize TH9 farmers to prey on TH8. The direction of these incentives may not be intentional, but it’s quite clear. Although I’m not in love with the one-way street of loot nerfs SC seems intent on, I am less bothered by loot reductions than when mechanics make the game less fun. Incentivizing me so heavily to prey on lower level bases is not fun. A couple obvious solutions are either to (1) add offensive strength back to TH9 farm armies (although I’m not sure how that happens at this point aside from giving goblins their sixth level) or (2) add a loot bonus for TH9 vs. TH9 encounters. (I won’t dwell on the obvious third option of making the league rewards large enough to be meaningful.) My opinion is that the loot bonus for TH9 vs. TH9 is the better option between the two I’ve offered as it only applies to equal town hall encounters.
- Base design continues to be fairly sterile since the wb AI fix. The diminishing participation in the TH9 base design thread and homogeneity of the plans that are discussed should be ample evidence of this. Maze designs, funnels, spike designs, strip designs, egg crates – they’re all dead. The only thing we have remaining is box spam. I’ll offer solutions aside from rolling back the wb fix as it’s apparent that SC likes the current wb. (1) Add directionality (ie.: fire within a 90-180 degree arc) to defenses, either via a new defense or redesigning an existing defense. (2) Add different types of walls rather than just more walls (ie.: walls that reflect a percentage of certain damage types or a limited number of “stronger” walls). (3) Increase the strength of small bomb traps to make their placement more meaningful.
- DE troops could be a partial solution to the first problem, but right now they seem to be balanced relative to the strength of elixir troops rather than the supply of DE. For gemmers this makes sense -- the supply of both resources is not limited by in-game production. But for farmers and those playing within the limits of available resource, the supply of DE is too low and DE stores generally too dear to make DE troops a viable alternative to elixir troops. There are two bottlenecks on DE troop production right now – the limited barracks number and the limited supply of DE. Between the two, the supply is still generally the rate-limiting step. DE troops either should be buffed to be correspondingly strong relative to the supply of DE, or alternatively the supply of DE increased such that the current balance of these troops is proportional to available resources. Given that SC seems to like balancing those troops relative to elixir troop strength, my opinion is that the better option is to increase the DE supply by adding another drill.
With apologies, I don't give out my Gamecenter ID or respond to PM solicitations to do base design critiques.
Not sure I understand your point here. Agree with your other two points.
As a TH8 farmer, I can tell you that attacking most TH9 bases pre-patch was simply not worth the investment. Aside from a goofball base design that placed gold storages near the edge of their base or having undefended and full collectors, there was simply very little chance that I could break into a TH9 core without spending more gold and elixir than I'd get back. SC's decision to add a 4th wizard tower simply closes the door. SC seems determined to force people into spending hours training troops (or gemming) as farm level troops -- tier 1 -- are all simply obliterated by x-bows, wizards towers, mortars.
This is the point:
For experienced TH9 farmers, even high level TH9 bases were previously viable targets with farm troops. With increasing TH9 defensive strength and no corresponding offensive buff, this is ceasing to be an option. Beating up on TH8 bases like yours as a TH9 attacker was always a viable option, but it's increasingly attractive compared with the alternative of rolling the dice on a high level TH9 base with increasingly underpowered troops. My opinion is that the current incentive pool which produces this result is not good for the game. This problem is magnified by the progressive farm loot nerfs.
With apologies, I don't give out my Gamecenter ID or respond to PM solicitations to do base design critiques.
then how could i ever farm a TH9?? im a TH8 btw
I see. From an efficiency perspective, though, it would seem like attacking TH8 would always be better than attacking a comparably mature TH9. I suppose you have a point that experienced TH9 farmers may be thrown in the lot with the latest TH9 defensive buffs, but I really don't see that having much affect on the outside-my-base-TH-roulette that I play every evening.
it seems as though SC is forcing spell usage on everyone. a couple lightnings on clan castle troops stacked on a mortar plus a rage can greatly amplify your chances of winning any given raid. i saw more spells being used during the last spell reduction time, and i'm seeing another bump now. it seems the average player is more than happy to spend 80-100k in spells to raid 150k in gold rather than simply finding a spell-free 80k gold base.
I've posted this in a few spots obliquely (as have others), but as it keeps coming up in a variety of threads, I thought I'd be a little more explicit about it.
With current game balance and playstyles, raiding collector loot is really the way to go. There are a few reasons for this.
First, with the fourth wizard tower and broader adoption of segmented bases, full raids on TH9 bases are more difficult than ever.
Second, people have really internalized the need to obtain a spacing buffer around their bases, and as a result, collectors are often minimally protected or completely unprotected.
Third, players aren't good at determining if loot is in collectors or in storages. For this reason collector loot gets skipped.
Fourth, (and as an extension of the previous point) people set their internal "raiding threshold" around 100k + gold and often won't look at bases with 40-70k gold. What this means is that while bases with 200k+ in their central storages are getting heavily raided, the bases with 40-70k gold in peripheral storages are getting skipped by most players without a glance. That's where the low-hanging fruit in the game currently exists -- in the bases with 40-70k gold in collectors.
Currently I'm doing as many goblin raids as possible and really only launching full raids to keep my cups up.
To be clear, I'm not the only person to be doing this, nor is this my own "discovery." But for the folks struggling with TH9 raiding, I strongly suggest changing your playstyle.
Last edited by Hannibal; April 30th, 2013 at 03:29 PM.
With apologies, I don't give out my Gamecenter ID or respond to PM solicitations to do base design critiques.
This is exactly what I've been doing for the past few days, hitting mines & pumps, then 2-3 starring when I approach a specific trophy range to mitigate being matched with TH6/7s.
what a coincidence.. I'm doing that with barb/arch/minion/wb as well..
Lower expectation, and increase raid per hour using 6 barrack is my current farming style.
But I try to minimize usage of minion unless its a quite a clear advantage of using over archers, as such bases usually do not have much DE.
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