i have only used balloons like twice for this reason, i agree
You probably wouldn't think so if they cut the time to 4 minutes or less and people were making 30+ loon armies twice an hour.
Quite a long time ago Balloons actually took 10 minutes each.
I think 8 minutes is fair given how devastating they can be.
Time is fine. There are plenty of troops that take the same or greater. Why just balloons ?
If you think it’s too long then train them overnight but use other troops in other raids.
8 minutes per balloon now is fine.
Add in 2-3 lava, this takes much longer.
15-Jul-2014 : TH9 [112 Skull, 113 purple crystal] [26-Dec-2013 : Start CoC]
19-Oct-2014 : TH9 [80 Lego, 170 Skull]
28-Dec-2014 : TH9 (49 Lava, 192 Lego, 9 Skull) 7 days till TH10 complete.
04-Apr-2015 : TH10 (10 Zap, 106 Lava, 134 Lego) GG868M EE741M HH2479k AQ29/BK22
19-Oct-2015 : TH10 (68 Magma, 200 Lava, 7 Lego) GG1033M EE910M HH4087k AQ40/BK39.5
Remember the 2minutes per loons ? All the people using it? So 8minutes is fair.