Clash of Clans attack strategy - learn how to crush in CoC!

Clash of Clans attack strategy guide

The attacks in mobile phenomenon Clash of Clans that Finnish SuperCell blessed us are exciting, fast-paced, planning-heavy, and incredibly thrilling. It is hard to get into the routine, where every raid looks the same. To be fair, no attack looks the same. 

The whole clashing has two sides - the attacking and the defending one. The defense is rather passive. You do not participate in the siege. Moreover, you can’t even manipulate your village during the assault! You can only watch your buildings go down, and the enemy attack destruction percentage going up. There is nothing you can do to help the villagers. It’s passive, and everything happens before the attack. We talk about it in our Clash of Clans Buildings guide, which we invite you to read.

What changes, and what makes it so special, is the attack. As we said, nothing is the same. In a world of almost infinite possibilities, there is no way that two identical attacks ever occurred. You can have the same game plan, the same setup, the same levels of troops. You will not mimic someone else’s raid. It is the ultimate reason why you should pay close attention to your assaults. It is the area where you have control. 

And we will try to teach you some ins and outs of it.

Table of contents:

How to attack in Clash of Clans? - the basics

Weak spots

Swarm troops

Semi-swarm troops

Healers

Tanks

Multi-target defenses

Single-target defenses

The biggest mistakes in Clash of Clans

Target selection and preparation in Clash of Clans

Farming

Hybrid

Trophy attack

War attack

Clash of Clans tactics cheat sheet

Summary

FAQ

How to attack in Clash of Clans? - the basics

We don’t know how advanced you are at the game, so we assume that you don't know anything about the game. It will be much safer. The inexperienced player will soak our knowledge like a sponge. An experienced one will ignore it and move on.

There are some things about the Clash of Clans that you may have or may not have known. Sometimes you can fail your attack due to lack of the necessary knowledge and say: “How would I know?” After reading this guide, you will not have the right to say that.

Weak spots

Every unit and building in Clash of Clans has its purpose, as well as strong sides and weak sides. Each one was created with something in mind, and using it wrong, will only give wrong results. Don’t expect your Goblins to tank the X-Bow. They were not made for that. Also, don’t expect Healers to destroy the Town Hall. These are simple rules, that surprisingly many players neglect, to wonder later on: “Why didn’t it work?” 

It didn’t work, because you thought that you could outplay it. There is no place for mechanical outplay in Clash of Clans. It’s all about tactics, preparations, and managing the pathing of your units. The only strictly mechanical aspect of the game is the correct Spells dropping. Outside of it - there is close to no.

We have already touched the topic in both our guides - the Buildings guide and the Troops guide. However, we prefer to repeat something twice than to leave something unclear.

Swarm troops

These are troops generally with low HP values, relatively low DPS, that most likely will not stand tall on their own, and they work best in swarms. In this group, we can mention Barbarians, Archers, Goblins, Minions, and Bats. We can include the untrainable units like Lava Pups and Skeletons here, as well.

Among these units, only Barbarians will withstand a shot from a defensive building, and still, they also fall off later on. Others will die with one shot from an equal level defense. It is the reason why they work the best in large groups consisting of more than 50 units. Their job is to overwhelm and take down the enemy base before they are taken down. You can delay the process by placing high HP tanks in front of them.

What works the best against them is splash damage — Mortar, Wizard Tower, multi-target Inferno Tower, Eagle Artillery, Bomb Tower, and traps. The best are Wizard Towers, Infernos, and Eagle Artillery since you cannot outrun their shots or go air/ground only to avoid it.

Semi-swarm troops

These have too low HP to be called tanks, but too much to be squishy. They have a lot of damage compared to their housing space. We list here Hog Riders, Valkyries, Balloons, Miners, and Bowlers. They are still the best in large packs, but their numbers will never go above 50.

We can also include Witches here. Witches are not effective in swarms per se, but the more Witches you have, the more Skeletons they bring onto the battlefield. 

These troops have decent damage and considerably more HP than the previous group. If deployed correctly, they can take down critical defenses without putting themselves at risk. As they’re less numerous than 100 Barbarians, for instance, but slightly tankier, they will be suffering from adequate single-target defenses. 

The most common mistake here is strictly mechanical, which is exposing them for the damage. They need a frontline or healing to do the work. It is why you see Hog Riders and Miners aided by Heal spells so often. Also, when deploying Witches, you want a pair of Golems or a couple of Healers with them. Furthermore, you will rarely see Balloons without help from Lava Hounds or Dragons. These troops can take a shot or two, and still get away with that, but forcing them to tank for a long time will make them go down eventually. That is why you drop a Rage on Valkyries and Bowlers once they’re in the core. They clear the defenses in a blink of an eye, and their job is done. 

The conclusion is simple - don’t expect these troops to the tank.

Healers

First and foremost, Healers will heal ground troops only. If you thought that you would send in a couple of Dragons with Healers for an easy three-star attack, you were wrong. 

Second, Healers are flying troops. As for every flying troop (except for Bats maybe), Air Defenses are their nemesis. A single Air Defense will kill a Healer in a couple of shots. Technically you could send a Lava Hound into the tank for them, but it is pointless to waste 30 housing space for a flying unit in a ground attack. However, deploying one or two Balloons will not hurt your overall housing space, and it might protect your Healers. 

Another common mistake is dropping Healers too early. You don’t have to do it if your units are yet to take damage. 

Finally, Healers can reach their full potential when healing regular units instead of Heroes. It means that sometimes it’s better to use the Barbarian King as a funneling bot, instead of sending him in with the kill squad. If he steals Healers, you will gain less value from them.

Tanks

The days of tanks (namely Golems) ruling the Clash of Clans battlefields are long gone. The implementation of single-target Inferno Tower scaling damage has ended the reigns of Mass Golems attacks. You can’t even outheal it, no matter how many Healers and Heal spells you drop.

It is what you need to look at when attacking. If you see that enemy has single-target Inferno Towers, you should restrain yourself from going in with heavy tanks, and go with swarm troops (Witches, Bats) instead. 

Multi-target defenses

These are doing well against vast numbers of enemies, as they can hit multiple units. It is the main reason why the swarm troops didn’t take over the game yet. If there were none of these, we’d be seeing tons of Barbarians, Goblins, Archers, and Bats attacks without punishment. 

However, as multi-target defenses do well against vast armies, they suffer in a confrontation with tanky units. They have relatively lower DPS than their single-target counterparts, which is fine. It’d be overturned if multi-target Inferno was hitting as hard as a single-target one. Mortars and Bomb Towers as splash defenses are not that hard to outplay. They are ground only, with Mortar having a four tiles blind spot on top of that. Wizard Towers are somewhat short-ranged, but still, the best counter to them is Freeze or Zap-quake.

What’s more, if you can distract them with high HP troops, you’re good to go. Multi-target Inferno can be neutralized by a couple of Golems or P.E.K.K.A.s. If you add a Heal spell or a few Healers, these structures should not pose many problems. The Eagle Artillery is the toughest one, as not only it deals a hefty amount of damage, but also it’s splash damage with a range covering almost all map. At TH11, your best bet will be the Warden’s ability, but at TH12 and TH13, you may want to save it for the Giga Bomb. 

Single-target defenses

These also have to be balanced, just like the multi-target defenses. However, it’s not the DPS, that’s balancing them, but the focus. No matter how hard the defense is hitting or how fast it is shooting. The single-target defense will always be able to attack one unit at the time. 

It is why Bats rose to such popularity, giving you a swarm of 100 units, and 2,000 damage every 2 seconds for merely 5 to 7 spells housing space. 

Why was it so important?

You need to have this knowledge when you are planning your attack. Without paying close attention to it, you may find yourself thinking, why did your Lava Hounds didn’t make it, or why Healers died.

We will break down a couple of exemplary villages to give you a general idea of how to plan your attack, and which strategy to choose.

Village 1.

As you can see, it’s a hybrid layout of a casual Town Hall 9. 

Now you have to begin by answering a couple of questions:

1. Am I farming?

1a. If I’m farming, what am I after?

2. Am I pushing for trophies?

Farming

If you answered “Yes” to the first question, then you need to ask yourself a couple more. First and foremost, what are you after? Generally, you will not put a lot of resources in a farming army, cause it is not the point of farming. Spending 200k Elixir on a full DragLoon may often put you in debt rather than a profit. Most of the time, you will go with a BArch, GiBArch, or other low-cost, low-percentage armies.

Then, you need to decide what resource you're after. As we can see, Gold Storages are placed more towards the 12 o’clock, while Elixir Storages are down from 5 to 7 o’clock, with Dark Elixir drills and Storage being left open.

For DE farming, it’s a freebie, the dream. You can pop your King, Queen, take it all, and go home.

For the Elixir or Gold, you have to focus, but most of the cases, you will go in from 6 o’clock. It is where Collectors and Mines are placed, and these provide more potential loot than Storages. What’s more, Storages are deeper inside, while Mines are left outside. Less effort, fewer casualties, more profit.

If you are going for a ground attack, you need to take care of the Walls. You have a couple of options here:

- Wall Breakers,

- Jump Spell,

- Quad-quake.

The first one is the least reliable. One random bomb or mistimed deployment can ruin the whole raid. The second one is expensive. You want to farm Elixir, not spend it. The third one is the most expensive, as it costs you the Dark Elixir, much needed at TH9.

It’s up to you. One way or another, you need to sacrifice something, whether it’s reliability, time, or resources. Of course, you can also shoot over the Walls with Wizards and Archer, or punch through Walls with P.EK.K.A.s. But do you want to? Naaa…

Lastly, you can satisfy yourself with the outside buildings alone. The easiest loot, the fastest one, but you’ll drop trophies. As we said - the sacrifice.

As for the air attack (with our favorite being DragLoon), you need to focus the Air Defenses. Also, Air Sweepers are not helping. These are pointing downwards, which automatically suggests you to go from 12 o’clock. If you are focused and determined, you should be able to destroy at least half of the base along with the Town Hall. Remember, Town Hall is also storage. Taking it not only protects your trophies from falling too much, but it also gives a booty. 

Trophy pushing

If you are pushing trophies at TH9 (which we do not recommend), you want to hit hard and get the three stars. It requires a little bit more thinking than just deploying Dragons, raging them with Spells, and waiting for the perfect score. Let’s take another look at the base.

The buildings are relatively close together. It is a good sign for using Valkyries, who tear down every stacked base in a blink of an eye. 

Next, you should look for critical structures that you can take out with a Queen Walk. We see X-Bows deep inside, beyond her reach. Air Defenses are a little closer to the edge, but the Healers would probably get themself under fire. Also, there are high hitpoints buildings in front of them, which would be focused by the Archer Queen first, most likely causing the time to fail. To us, it is not worth it to waste 60 housing space for 5 Healers. Instead, we can get two Golems or two P.E.K.K.A.s and something.

Then, look at the number of Wall layers between you and the Town Hall. No matter the approach, you have at least three of them on your way. You will need at least two Jump Spells or a handful of Wall Breakers. 

Take a look at the X-Bows. You can tell that these are set on air-and-ground mode. The air-only attack will not give you an advantage.

Air Sweepers are pointed downwards, which opens up a possibility of an air attack, even though X-Bows are set on air-and-ground mode. LavaLoon is an excellent strategy, but it requires dealing with CC troops and Archer Queen first. However, Dragons are decent against it. 

The position of enemy Clan Castle suggests that you will have to face CC troops, once you’re deep inside the core. If you don’t know what’s inside (e. g. trophy pushing), it’s safer to take troops that can attack ground and air units. You may also need a Heal and Rage supported by Poison there. It can get hot.

Lastly, Heroes. Their placement lets us think that with a bit of luck, they will join the CC troops to fight you, and you’ll be able to deal with them at once. However, be prepared for anything. 

Let’s do another one.

Village 2.

This time it’s a war base, so we’ll skip the farming part. 

At Town Hall 7 in Clash of Clans, the trophy pushing and war attack strategies are pretty much the same. It’s the question of deciding which side do you go with Dragons and how many of them. Dragons are currently overpowered at TH7, with their power dropping a bit at TH8 due to the presence of Air Sweeper and Black Mines. Still, at TH7 there is not much, that can stop them

The Clan Castle fits 20 housing troops at this point. Nine out of ten cases, it will be a Dragon. At TH7, it has to be a unit capable of attacking both ground and air troops, relatively tanky to stand tall against attacking drakes, and 20 housing space is not enough for an Electro Dragon or a Lava Hound. Sadly. 

Let's move on. What's the biggest threat to Dragons at this point? The Air Defenses. Let's look at them. There are three of them in the north-east half of the base. In this game, you can try to avoid the defenses or take them down quickly. In this case, there is no good way of avoiding these, as sooner or later, you'll have to approach them. 

The next thing is the Air Sweeper. It does not deal damage, but it buys time for other defenses to do so. At TH7, the enemy can have only one Air Sweeper, which means that one side of the base will be completely vulnerable. It is the side, we approach from.

Air Defenses deal a hefty amount of damage per second, so time is crucial. Air Sweeper will give the base more time and stall your troops. You have to neutralize them as fast as possible. Once you take care of them, there will be no stopping to Dragons. To do it effectively, you should approach the base from the area between 1 and 3 o'clock. To funnel your drakes into the base, you should take out two army camps at 12 o'clock, and a couple of Elixir Collectors to the right. While Army Camps are squishy buildings, the Collectors are pretty tanky, so it may take a while. Then you spam you Dragons top-right side. Two Rage Spells should cover almost half of the base. Your remaining spell can be another Rage or Heal. 

There’s not much more to it, and there will not be until Dragons get nerfed or defenses buffed. Still, as for now, attacks at TH7 are kind of straightforward. The questions are whether you can funnel your Dragons correctly or not.

We’re having a good time, let’s have one more. It will be the last one.

Village 3. 

What do we have here? A Town Hall 10 trophy base with decent protection for the Dark Elixir. What are the options? Air Defenses are rather close to the edge of the base, so the standard Queen Walk can be hard. The Town Hall is centralized, which is essential considering the usage of the siege machines. Wall Wrecker and Battle Blimp are always targeting the location of the Town Hall, even if it's down. There are two multi-target Infernos on each side of the Town Hall, which complicates the matters a little bit.

However, this base would be perfect for circling, defenses-focused attacks, namely the LavaLoon or Mass Hogs. The outer circle creates an excellent highway for Hogs, with its width made for the Heal Spells. Your primary concern in these attacks is CC troops and heroes, where with LavaLoon, you need to worry only about the Archer Queen. Since the King’s and Queen’s altars are separated, the Hogs attack would be suboptimal. You’d have to approach from two different sides of the base, which is rarely a good thing.

The maneuver you can go for is popping the Queen at 12 o'clock, with some troops taking out structures to her right, to force her to walk left. As she comes onto the Archer Tower and Wizard Tower, and both of these are tanked, send in a couple of Balloons to destroy these two and proceed onto the Air Defense. If aided by Rage, they should have no problem doing so. Once this Air Defense is down, you can continue with the Queen Walk. First, you should close the funnel to the left. There is only an Archer Tower there, so dropping a single Baby Dragon should do. Send in the Wall Wrecker from 11 o'clock along with Bowlers and P.E.K.K.A.s. At least some of them should be pulled by the defending Queen. Drop down the Poison on her, and you're good to go with LavaLoon now. Remember to have some cleanup troops to deploy afterward, as Balloons are slow as hell. 

Another trick you can pull off is the Bowler bounce. Look at the Wizard Towers. They are all close to the edge with high hitpoints structures just outside the Walls. A few groups of Bowlers should be able to take them out without much effort. Then, you are free to go with the siege machine kill squad to keep multi-target Infernos busy, and then go in with Bats. There will be nothing to stop the swarm.

At the higher levels of play, it gets a lot more complicated. At TH10, you have to take care of the Inferno Towers first. At TH11, it’s the Eagle Artillery, that needs to be neutralized. Add a Giga Bomb at the TH12 and TH13.

Attacking in Clash of Clans means constantly asking yourself questions, answering them, analyzing the answers, and playing accordingly. Every unit has its strong and weak side. Every defensive structure has both as well. It’s up to you to find a strategy that has the least “NOs” and the most “YES” to its name.

Of course, with time and practice comes experience. The more you attack, the more knowledge you have. You learn. “I got rekt by this defense right here, so I should adjust,” and you adjust. Watching replays also help a lot. You can see others' mistakes, base flaws to abuse, rules of thumbs. Also, watching YouTube content creators will not do you any harm. Some of them share their broad knowledge of the game, tactics, troops' pros and cons, base design errors, and so on. Let’s face it - you can’t write everything. Sometimes you need to show it.

The biggest mistakes in Clash of Clans attacks

Even though the game is a couple of years old already, there are still fundamental attacking mistakes being made. We will try to break them down really fast. This chapter is aimed towards the beginners mostly, as seasoned, advanced players should know all of this by now, but no one is restrained from reading it. 

Underestimating your opponent

There should be a whole book about underestimating the opponent, and how it ended badly with examples, but it would take us years to complete. 

Clash of Clans is a complex game with more than 100 buildings, 11 spells, 4 heroes, and 22 different units, which create nearly limitless configuration possibilities. The way that you are spacing your buildings out is the difference between making it easy and making it hard for the opponent. Base design, with its flaws and drawbacks, is the difference between being seen as “freebie” or “not worth it.” 

It is always a good thing to count a margin of error in. Overkill is better than a failure. An easy win not only will give you a mind-blowing loot or a clutch three-star, but it will boost your confidence as well. It’s a damage check and a test of your limits. With some practice, you will be able to tell whether you can three-star the enemy base or not. This knowledge will prove to be crucial during Clan Wars and CWL. 

During the raid, feel free to use Power Potion and Hero Potion if you have one. As potions are a rather scarce and expensive commodity, it’s better to hold onto them for a Clan War only. If you don’t feel sure about your power, and you still have room for improvement (Heroes and Laboratory not maxed yet), go for it. Say, you didn’t upgrade P.E.K.K.A. a single time, and you have a level 8 Laboratory. The difference between level 1 and level 6 P.E.K.K.A. is massive. With a power potion, you can cheat the system a little bit. 

You can use this trick to take your enemies by surprise. They will scout your village and your profile, and see that you have poor levels of troops and Heroes. They will consider you a freebie, and with one potion, you can suddenly become a maxed Town Hall for a limited time.

Not learning from mistakes

Making a mistake is nothing terrible. A mistake is always a lesson, and it’s nice if you can get away with it for free. Treat it as a gift from Fate. 

However, repeating once made mistake is a bad habit. If you keep failing while funneling your P.E.K.K.A.s into the base, you need to change the strategy. For example, stop dropping them before the funnel is finished. If Black Mines keep destroying your Dragons, maybe it’s time to send a Coco Loon in? If heroes are ruining your Mass Hogs attacks, how about taking care of them first? These situations will not change by themselves. You have to adapt, adjust your attack strategy, or you will keep failing over and over.

The most common situation, where mistakes are repeated happens during farming or trophy pushing sessions. One army can not approach different bases with the same level of efficiency. If you base your strategy on a Queen Walk with Healers, you will do fine against bases with Air Defenses deep into the base, but you will suffer against ones with AD’s closer to the edge. Not being able to tell the difference, why you manage to three-star the base one time, and the other time you barely get a one-star is a massive mistake.

Banging the head against the brick wall

Many inexperienced players will think that large numbers of troops will do the job. Even at TH10 and TH11, it’s not a rarity to see such an attack. Sheer numbers are not enough against a well-organized opponent. We know it from the examples of Thermopylae or the Soviet Union during both World Wars. 

Going 100 Barbarians against a Bomb Tower will show you how fast a group of 100 Barbarians can turn into the fertilizer.

You can try to down the Mortar with Archers before it hurls the cannonball, but one cannonball will make your Archers perish.

There is a way to outrun the Mortar with Goblins, but these little green monsters will not outrun Wizard Tower’s fireballs. 

Feel free to send as many Electro Dragons against one Sweeper as you want. They will not fire single lightning, as the Air Sweeper push resets the attack timer. And E-Drags attacks are not fast at all.

The same goes for sending a powerful individual against heavy single-target damage. Sure, Golem, P.E.K.K.A., or Giant are tanky, but their health pool is still limited. And single-target defenses will dwindle it faster than multi-target ones. 

Testing new strategies as you go

Don’t ever do that, no matter the game. Sometimes you will have luck, and you will manage to perform a new trick, but it doesn’t mean that it should be an everyday thing. Practicing something new, as the name suggests, takes practice. Don’t expect yourself to succeed the very first time with a new setup, even if you’ve watched the YouTube video sixty-eight times over and over. “Oh, Eric from OneHive made it so effortlessly. I can do it too!” Yeah… But Eric from OneHive is a professional, and he probably did it a couple of hundreds of times, so he may know a thing or two.

The area, which requires a lot of practice at pretty much every level of play from Town Hall 6-7 onwards, is the funneling. Knowing what troops you should use and where to put them is vital. How many times did your Queen go the wrong way, ruining the whole raid? Maybe the recipe for it is to take the Queen for a farming session, where the first thing you’ll be focusing on is forcing her to go in the desired direction? Trust us, it helps big time.

Ignoring Heroes and CC

We’ve seen instances where players attacked without Heroes and enemy Clan Castle troops in mind. Of course, these attacks failed. You always have to be mindful of these factors. Heroes and CC can always ruin your raid no matter if you’re going all-air or all-ground, defenses-only, or any. It is especially true during the Clan Wars. Seeing a full army going head-first onto the defending Queen and getting wiped with no stars is painful. 

It is essential for two reasons. 

Troops with the preference “Any” will get pulled once they become aware of enemy units. It may cause your P.E.K.K.A.s to go after the enemy King instead of taking down crucial defense. Also, it puts you at risk of time fail.

Troops that are focusing defenses will be taking damage for free without retaliation, and they will go down eventually. While Balloons deal fall damage, which can sometimes kill the Queen, others like Hogs or Lava Hounds will die for nothing. Meanwhile, if you eliminate the CC and Heroes, defenses-focused troops will go for structures without being bothered. 

Lack of game knowledge

How many times have we been unpleasantly surprised by something in Clash of Clans… “Wait, Ice Wizards don’t attack CC?”, “Why no one told me, that Balloons can’t attack air?”, “What is a dead zone?” and so on.

Most of the useful information about the units, buildings, heroes, strategies, and upgrades you can access by clicking the “Info” button. We can’t think about the world where people are playing the game, not knowing what it is about. We’re not talking about knowing what is the Lava Hound HP per housing space ratio, or which unit is the least efficient cost-wise. However, telling the difference between the tank and DPS is essential. And yes, we know about instances where players were using Lava Hounds for damage.

We have tons of guides here already with basic being talked over, so if you don’t feel like you know everything about the game, go ahead and check them out. You should start with the comprehensive Town Hall 7 to Town Hall 12 guide. 

Ignorance and stubbornness

It’s harsh to say, but thousands of players across the world do something without reason behind it. Being used to many RTS games, they keep maxing the main structure, even if it’s set in stone for years that it’s not optimal. In the modern era, where every small village has the potential to have an Internet connection, there is a plethora of Clash of Clans users who don’t know how things work.

And this alone is not the worst. What’s the worst about them is that they refuse to learn and adapt. They will rather leave the clan, instead of adjusting. They’re stubborn, bullet-headed, having way too much faith in themselves. Such players are the ultimate bane of every online multiplayer game ever released. Refusing to improve, throwing away the knowledge someone spent years gathering, stuck in their foolish belief that they do the right thing.

What should we do about them? Well, the answer is pretty straightforward - as long as kicking players from the clan is allowed, it should not pose a huge problem. When someone refuses to learn and improve, and one is rather willing to remain an uncooperative individual, you should let him do so. After all, we all need farming spots, aye?

Rushing

We are probably repeating this one in our every guide, but this mistake is the most influential and affects all aspects of the game.

In the attacks department, rushing is an obstacle in the long run, not directly. Higher Town Hall level necessarily matches you against similar Town Halls, =/- 2 levels. Don't expect to face TH3 as TH9, even if your power is similar. Usually, rushed base is much weaker in terms of troops and defenses levels. You are matched against stronger opponents, and more potent enemies are attacking you. Do not ask everybody around, why did you fail in the Clan War, if you have a rushed based.

Provided that you will find a clan that will not kick you for it. 

Target selection and preparation in Clash of Clans

 There are four types of attacks in Clash of Clans:

- farming,

- hybrid,

- trophy,

- war.

Each one of them differs a little bit, and we'll quickly go through all of them. 

Farming 

The goal of farming is to reach the most profit at the least possible cost. For the highest potential profit, you want to look for inactive bases. There are two reasons for it:

- The dead base has more loot available (full collectors, empty storages),

- Traps are usually not loaded, as well as X-Bows, Inferno Towers, and Eagle Artillery later on.

Such base not only offers much more loot but also it's easier to take. Imagine approaching a TH11 with full collectors, inactive Infernos, and Eagle Artillery - what could stop a lvl 7 P.E.K.K.A? 

There is no imperative to attack with all your forces. If you manage to snipe the Dark Elixir Drills with the Queen and a couple of Wizards alone, it's the dream. No one forces you to throw in all your troops. The less you expend, the higher the net profit. 

It is why BArch or GiBArch are so popular, even at the highest level of play. You spam-drop them, punch Collectors and Mines, and get out. 

Farming the Dark Elixir can be a little more tricky. At 2,000+ trophies there are many TH9s, who are desperately trying to upgrade their heroes, thus protecting the Dark Elixir Storage and Drills at all costs. Most of the time, you will have to invest a little more troops into it. Still, if you are able to snipe full Collectors without using the entire army - you're golden. The higher League you are in, the harder it gets, and the more clicking is required. Farming is not about executing the attack to its perfection, but about choosing the right target.

You don't need CC troops here. Having them is fine, but not necessary. 

Hybrid

You can call an attack hybrid when your primary target is the loot, but you want to win at the same time to avoid trophy loss and maintain their count. These attacks are the best when you are farming, and you need to stay in the same League for a more extended period. For example, Crystal League is the best for farming Dark Elixir. Dead bases with Dark Elixir Drills developed enough for the DE loot to call it worth usually don't fall lower than 2,000 trophies, but they don't climb - they're inactive.

The premise of such an attack is to score at least 50% destruction or taking down the Town Hall, preferably both. In the perfect world, you take a bunch of resources, and you don't lose trophies. Sometimes a well-executed attack can even give you a three-star.

For hybrid attack, you want to choose a dead or weak base, but you don't have to be as picky as for sheer farming. Hybrid attacks are perfect for lazy or time-short players.

Trophy attack

It's not like you have a perfect army for every base that will three-star the opponent, no matter the layout. Depending on the setup you went for, you will want to give some bases a pass. If your attack relies heavily on the tanky frontline (GoHoBo, for instance), you want to avoid bases with single-target Inferno. On the other hand, going in with swarm troops (BatSlap, for example), you will skip the multi-target Infernos. If you are Queen-walking in every raid, you need to pay close attention to Air Defenses, and Air Sweepers.

The key is to separate the easy bases, from those that are merely doable, or hard. During trophy pushing, you'd rather want to have the Clan Castle troops. Three-starring the base regularly, gives you a lot more trophy gain, than any other Victory. Thus it's worth it. 

War attack

In theory, you have limited possibilities in terms of choosing your war target. There are as many enemy villages as attackers from your clan. You need to share fairly. Theoretically, the best bet is to attack either your position counterpart or the recommended target. However, practice shows that it is not always the case. The best bet is to let the top (the strongest players) to attack the enemies' top, and let the others attack weaker opponents relative to their strength. The top three players in your clan have a total of six attacks. Usually, it means that they can easily three-star numbers 4-6. It allows your clan's number 4 to attack the enemy clan's number 7. Most of the time, it will give your clan a considerable advantage.

Being in the top half is a challenge sometimes. If your clan is chaotic, there will be failures lower than you are. You will take part in wars, where you will be in need of repeating an attack on the enemy base. The repeated attack has its pros and cons. For pros, we can tell you about knowing about the CC troops type and traps locations. As for cons, it gives fewer stars than a fresh attack. 

The bottom half should be aware of the situation. There will be instances where it's better to go for a much stronger opponent just to learn what CC troops does he have. The stronger clanmate can adjust his raid thanks to this. 

However, once in a month, there will be a Clan War League. Each player has only one attack on his name, and he has to use it well. There is no point in attacking anything other than your mirror.

Clash of Clans tactics cheat sheet.

Legend:

- HP - hitpoints. This column determines whether the troops are squishy, tanky, or something between based on HP per housing space.

- DPS - damage per second. Here we indicate, if the troop is to be considered damage, meat shield, utility, or hybrid.

- HS - housing space. In this place, we characterize the troops' overall housing space capacity and power relative to it. It should tell you if the troops are supposed to be swarmed, semi-swarmed, or not.

- Cost - this one is for determining the total overall training cost per housing space of a troop. It should indicate if the unit can be spammed or rather used in specific situations.

- Time - training time per housing space. We divide fast training units from slow training units. The total cooking time of the unit and the army should be a critical factor, especially during the farming sessions,

- L - "low",

- M - "medium",

- H - "high".

For the sake of the most reliable results possible, we assume, that you have your buildings and researches maxed adequately to your Town Hall level. There is no rushing at MMOAuctions. Also, we do not take buffs, boosts, and discounts into account. Besides, the values should remain relative. We also decided to count the tanking potential as a sort of utility, with total Golem's HP accumulated with the Golemites.

Elixir troops

Dark Elixir Troops strategy

For Valkyries, Bowlers, and Electro Dragons, the DPS values were adjusted due to the AoE attack. For Healers, their healing value serves as an indicator of damage. Witches DPS were not taken into account, as it's impossible to calculate or even estimate their DPS with Skeletons. 

Summary

That is all for our Clash of Clans attacking guide. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Probably some of you will stick to their ineffective tactics, claiming that we are unskilled clashers. It's ok. The only fool claims to know everything for sure. 

We are doing our best to bring you the most useful Clash of Clans knowledge, backed by personal experience and practice. 

Mistakes will happen; it's more than sure. However, after reading this guide, you can recognize and avoid the most simple and unnecessary of them. Failing the raid because of some unexpected buildings placement is nothing wrong. It's more of a lesson. "Can't even hate," as they say. On the other hand, scoring a stunning 52% one-star attack because of a fundamental mistake is a disgrace, and you should be ashamed.

This guide is not the ultimate guide for Clash of Clans, as we have many more of them. Make sure to give them a shot as well. We've worked hard to create them. Any piece of feedback from our beloved community, whether it's positive or negative, will be much appreciated. Feel free to leave a comment down below, or do so on our Facebook and Twitter. 

FAQ

How to be a good attacker in Clash of Clans?

Practice makes perfect. Don't expect yourself to attack once a week, and be good at the game. It takes some effort to reach proficiency and smoothness on the battlefield.

How to improve my Clan Wars attacks?

Same thing as above - practice. Sure, Clan Wars last two days, where only one day is the Battle Day, and you have a maximum of two attacks. However, you can still do some casual raiding, where you search for maxed, well-designed base trying to three-star them.

How do you win every attack in Clash of Clans?

With a well-selected, high-level army taking a two-star victory over any base should not be a significant problem. Your focus should be on reaching the Town Hall, as it's vital for a win. Then your only worry is to destroy at least 50% of the enemy base, and you're good to go.

What is the strongest troop in CoC?

A wise man said: "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid." We'd say that the strongest troop is the one that you are feeling the most comfortable with, whether it's farming or a war attack.

How do you funnel troops in Clash of Clans?

You need to clear the side trash buildings to create somewhat pathways for other troops to force them to go into the base. Messing up the funnel can mess up the whole raid.