Originally Posted by
iceageg
. . . First you must understand that zapping is very inefficient for ALL players. For the amount of elixir it costs and time it takes to build all of those lightning spells you could very easily get a boatload more DE with a decent army and attack strategy. This is simple fact supported by elementary school math and years of gameplay proof. For this reason zapping is self-punitive. So why then would anybody do it? There are two basic reasons why people zap.
The first is because they are TH7 or late TH8 and have way more elixir than they can use. They also do not need heal, freeze, rage or jump spells to farm effectively. Add those two factors together and you get prime conditions for spending elixir in wasteful ways and a reason to have lightning spells ready to use at all. Add those two factors together and ANY dark elixir they can get from lightning ends up being a good use of their elixir and time. They can't do anything else with their elixir and have no practical use for spells anyway. TH9-10 on the other hand need both their elixir and a spell or two for attacking other TH9s and TH10s. All of a sudden wasting elixir, time and space on lightning spells actually hurts your gameplay. More about this later.
The second main reason people zap is good old fashion revenge. Almost the ONLY time that zapping is efficient as a TH9 or TH10 is when you have somebody on your revenge list with a full DE storage and you have excess elixir that you can justify burning. You may not want to have a full army sitting around purpose built for the moment you can revenge them so instead you continue farming and keep 3 or 4 lightning spells on hand just incase they are available to revenge. Eventually you get your sweet reward. Another time zapping can be viable for TH9 and TH10 is when they are otherwise maxed but still grinding heros. With no other way to spend elixir keeping a few lightning spells on hand to use on builder huts and hero altars up in champ can also be used on the occasional DE storage for a boost. TH7 and TH8 however have a very different reason for zapping revenge. Keeping in mind that it makes sense for them to zap in the first place, they have another factor to consider. TH9s and TH10s artificially drop trophies so that they can farm easier bases. They do this for the logical economic reasons that a cheap/fast army can get lots of loot and because there is a much lower chance of somebody strong enough to take it finding you before your TH gets sniped. That's right, as a TH9 or TH10 you get to have ALL weaker villages that have zero chance of revenging you effectively on your log AND you are surrounded by them giving you cheap shields quickly. You are INVINCIBLE!!! There's nothing those weaklings can do to stop you!!! MUAHAHAHA!!! . . . except zap the snot out of your DE.
That's right. The ONLY drawback to farming is that those puny little weaklings you have been picking on all along can zap you. It's the ONLY bad thing about farming. Without that you would be able to play completely risk free. Your loot would be safely removed from the economy because nobody could get to it. It would be AWSOME . . . except that the very concept of being invincible and able to hide all of your loot is game breaking. Nobody should ever be safe from attack and nobody should be able to hide all of their loot. Ever. Zapping is the only reason you might want to consider moving up in trophies to play where your TH9-TH10 counterparts exist without artificially dropping trophies.
Which brings us back to the "move up in trophies" response that you discredit so vehemently. Remember when I mentioned that TH9's and TH10's rarely benefit from zapping? That is why moving up in trophies works. Heck, zapping encourages you to move up in trophies. If you WANT to hang out where zapping is effective you should be zapped and often. You are choosing to sandbag so you can pick on the easy targets. I'm not saying that is a bad thing. I do it too and I should be zapped for it. I could do the "honorable" thing and move up in trophies but I choose not to for the same reason you do. Because when I log off I would rather loose 1000 DE to a zapper, or even 3000 DE to three zappers than loose 300k gold, 300k elixir and 3000 DE to the first attack that comes along. Getting zapped and snipped is VERY beneficial.
There are of course a few TH9s and TH10s who do not understand basic math and zap aggressively like they learned to do at TH7. They are their own worst enemy. Wasting their own time and resources, thus slowing their own progression. As Ron White so eloquently put it, "You can't fix stupid." Altering game play to compensate for a very small % of players who are of below average gaming ability is just bad policy at face value. They are already punishing themselves even if they don't realize it. They are certainly not a good or justifiable reason to compromise the health of the game.
In sort, if SC made it possible for you to get all the loot you wanted with no risk of loss they would call the game Hay Day. In a game like CoC nobody should be safe beyond their shield. Ever. Zapping is the only thing that makes danger at every level possible. It is good for the health of the game BECAUSE you don't like it. . .
or revenge zaps
