To complete my skulls at TH8 or move up to TH9? That is the question.

[Gunthar]

A little background: I'm pretty far along in TH8, all defenses are maxed or nearly so (last Tesla will be maxed in 8 days, a few archer towers are still lvl9, and my regular bombs are still lvl4). Most of my offense is nearing max too (max camps, D barracks, 2 barracks maxed, 2 at dragon) and troop upgrades are pretty far along (B:4, A:5, WB:4, Gob:4, Gi:5, W:5, Healer:2, Drag:3, Pekka:2, Min:2, Hogs:4, Valk:2, Gol:1, LS:4, Heal:5, R:5, P:1, EQ:1). BK is lvl9 and all collectors/storages maxed. 5 builders, two sitting on their butts. Lvl 88, 260+ war stars, I farm casually in Crystal 2-3, and war 2x per week and can often 3x my opponent using either dragons, hogs, gowipe, or a variation. Love tactics, etc. I'm a co-leader in my clan (Rush Raiders) and my clanmates depend on me to lead and do well in our wars.

33 walls are skulls, the rest are purple... which means about 100 million in gold to get them all to skulls. Prior to the update, I would have absolutely slugged it out and upgraded my walls before thinking about going up to TH9. But now that walls count against me in war matchups, which means that staying at TH8 will actually hurt my clan offensively by continuing to build up the defensive walls.

I'm wondering whether I will serve my clan better by jumping to TH9 after I top off what still isn't complete and forget about getting the walls. Plus, I suspect it will start to get very boring in a month or so once all I have left to do is bang out walls and I continue to look longingly at the new toys and firepower one can get in TH9.

So the question is whether to slug it out and max everything before moving up, or finish the core stuff/forget the walls and move on up.

Opinions? Why/why not?
Thanks in advance,
Gunthar

[Antimasterchief3]

I had a thread similar to this, I got everything maxed except for a quarter of my walls, teslas, traps and a handful of lab upgrades. I think I've decided to just max everything. It will benefit you better in the long run. While it's a little tedious and insanely boring at times. It will be well worth it. Plus, like I stated in my thread (no replies yet ) finishing all of your level 8 walls is a big, no huge accomplishment that you deserve the right to be proud of. You work hard on this. It pays off buddy. It's really your choice but that's my take on it.

[LightningStriker25329]

A little background: I'm pretty far along in TH8, all defenses are maxed or nearly so (last Tesla will be maxed in 8 days, a few archer towers are still lvl9, and my regular bombs are still lvl4). Most of my offense is nearing max too (max camps, D barracks, 2 barracks maxed, 2 at dragon) and troop upgrades are pretty far along (B:4, A:5, WB:4, Gob:4, Gi:5, W:5, Healer:2, Drag:3, Pekka:2, Min:2, Hogs:4, Valk:2, Gol:1, LS:4, Heal:5, R:5, P:1, EQ:1). BK is lvl9 and all collectors/storages maxed. 5 builders, two sitting on their butts. Lvl 88, 260+ war stars, I farm casually in Crystal 2-3, and war 2x per week and can often 3x my opponent using either dragons, hogs, gowipe, or a variation. Love tactics, etc. I'm a co-leader in my clan (Rush Raiders) and my clanmates depend on me to lead and do well in our wars.

33 walls are skulls, the rest are purple... which means about 100 million in gold to get them all to skulls. Prior to the update, I would have absolutely slugged it out and upgraded my walls before thinking about going up to TH9. But now that walls count against me in war matchups, which means that staying at TH8 will actually hurt my clan offensively by continuing to build up the defensive walls.

I'm wondering whether I will serve my clan better by jumping to TH9 after I top off what still isn't complete and forget about getting the walls. Plus, I suspect it will start to get very boring in a month or so once all I have left to do is bang out walls and I continue to look longingly at the new toys and firepower one can get in TH9.

So the question is whether to slug it out and max everything before moving up, or finish the core stuff/forget the walls and move on up.

Opinions? Why/why not?
Thanks in advance
Gunthar

Hey,
I would firstly upgrade all your walls to level 7. then also upgrade more barracks, Defences and troops. that's all. Keep clashing!

[Gunthar]

thanks for the feedback, just to clarify:

Currently 192 walls at lvl7, 33 at lvl 8.

I would top off all other defenses, offense, and upgrades before considering moving up to TH9.

[Jacobfromsb]

The biggest reason I rushed th9 was because all my elixir and dark upgrades were done, and I had full storages of those. You still have ur king to level up, quite a few troops, and two barracks. I wish I would have done all skulls because they are coming back to haunt me right now, and while you have other upgrades keep grinding the walls. When you finish other upgrades, still try to grind out those walls, they will be worth it when you don't need to do them at th9.

[xMathx]

Skulls are not the main concern, but here are my thoughts:

In deciding whether to upgrade one's townhall or not, there are two aspects, in my opinion: individual transition and war transition.

Individual transition

For your individual transition, you want to be able to maximize farming to reduce the impact of being a higher townhall level without having the new defenses yet. What do you use to farm with? If some variation of barch, I would recommend getting lvl 5 barch before transitioning to th9. If you don't use barch or have no problem getting loot from th8s or th9s, then this isn't a problem.

War transition

If you really care about your war matchmaking impact, then as long as you have max offensive capabilities, your war defense weight shouldn't matter. The only case where your weight will be worse than your opponent is if your opponent did th7.5 or something. A similar th8 with max offensive but worse walls than you (all purple or lower) is much more likely to get starred than you. I'd put you at a much more favorable position than the other.

This is why your logic against skull walls is a bit flawed. If you are maxed offense, your defense can also be maxed. The only reason not to be is to use what limited knowledge we have of the war weight system to give yourself a small advantage. However, the main reason to actively keep your weight low is to prevent your defenses from surpassing your offense (defense is weighted more than offense). But if your offense is maxed, no reason not to max defense as well (unless doing the .5 thing).

So if you really care about war transition, you wouldn't get xbows until you have a viable th9 army composition (the th8.5 path). But a th9 with xbows and all purple walls will still rank weigh more than a fully maxed th8.

Ultimately, skull walls for you should have a negligible impact on your war weight. If you are comfortable farming as a th9 with your troops, then make the jump. If you really care about keeping your war weight down, don't build xbows.

[HFlashman]

Complete the walls, teslas, Archer towers at minimum. Minimum.

Few things are more attractive than a purple walled 9 having tons of loot. Easy pickings.

Priority Upgrades when turning 9 include Archer towers and teslas. Mortars are down the list...you want giant killers. ATs are virtual mini x bows when maxd at 9 and teslas are teslas. You'll be spending gold upgrading and it'll take a lot from your upgrading time if you have to spend 500,000 for a single skull... Especially if you're needing 4-7 million for another upgrade in defensive weaponry.

You'll read others say it's OK to upgrade to 9. Likely those are the Barchers who I raid for 400k because they have purple walls and TH8 defenses.

It's a whole different ballgame in Crystal as a 9. No loot penalty and you need large amounts ( ieots of loot to raid).

[fennster1969]

Upgrading TH is really an individual personal decision. You will get some saying max everything, others saying rush. There is no right or wrong. What do you want to do and does that fit with your longer term goals for the game? Remember that once you go up there's no going back.

You say you're concerned how it will impact your clan in terms of war. Tell them what you're thinking and ask them what they think.

[Gunthar]

thanks again everyone, especially xMathx for spelling it out. I just started upgrading barbs to lvl5, but I only barch to farm when I get too high in Crystal 2, start to only see TH9, and want to drop cups.

Typically when farming I try to only horde one resource at a time, to make myself a less attractive target.

When I'm hoarding elixir or DE, I leave a builder free and dump gold into walls.
When I'm hoarding elixir: 24 lvl4 hogs, 8 lvl5wiz, 4 lvl4 wbs, 40 lvl5 archers, 3 heal, 1 poison
When I'm hoarding DE: 15 lvl5 wiz, 15 lvl5 giants, 10 lvl4 WBs, rest lvl5 archers, 2 heal, 1 rage, 1 poison
usually I cycle between the latter two
If I want to dump elixir over gold: suit up the dragons and practice 3 staring (rarely these days)
If I want to spend DE & elixir and get gold: (or practice) gowipe or variation (e.g. golem/wiz/wb, back end loons, etc.).

With hogs I can attack up to TH9 grid bases (no inner giant bombs) and do well.
With giant wiz, mostly other TH8 where I can crack the core, get most of the resources, and come out with 60-80% destruction.
Will TH snipe when waiting on troops (if I have the time) for the crystal loot bonus.
Haven't barched as a strategy since early TH8, except to quickly drop cups. But I think I like being in crystal leagues, where it's easier then in gold to get a TH snipe between attacks.

Thanks again everyone. I think I'll slug it out and get those pretty skulls.

P.S. also thanks for the last two posters, they came up while I was typing this out.

[TheMightyCats]

You still have a lot of troops to finish upgrading in the laboratory, and your archer towers. You should finish those first.