Clash of Clans Heroes Guide - how to use the strongest characters in CoC

Every army needs a leader. In many strategic games revolving around having military forces, the game provides us with a hero, a champion. It was the one powerful entity worth more than a whole squadron — strong, dignified, buffing other troops. The classic titles like Warcraft franchise, Heroes of Might and Magic saga, or Starcraft has set the tone for many strategic games to come.

It was the case for Clash of Clans created by SuperCell. The Finnish mobile gaming titans have also come to the conclusion that it would be neat to add some strong, unique, exceptional units to their army-based game. It is why over a year since its release, the game has seen its first hero - the Barbarian King - with an Archer Queen and a Grand Warden following with higher Town Hall levels.

In this guide, we will talk about these characters for the mobile bestseller Clash of Clans, their traits, strategies revolving around them, utilizing their presence on the offense and the defense, etc. Have a seat, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy our Clash of Clans Heroes guide. 

What are heroes in Clash of Clans

In Clash of Clans, Heroes are potent, individual units aiding the player and the troops on the battlefield. Generally, they are bigger and more valuable than regular troops. 

You don't have to pay for the heroes' training. They become available the very moment you finish building their altars. 

Heroes are immortal. They can fall on the battlefield, but instead of dying, they are brought back to the Home Village to their altars, where they are regenerating. The higher level you've upgraded them to, the longer the recovery will take. 

Unlike regular troops, each hero has an ability unlocked from level 5 onwards and upgraded every 5 levels. The correct usage of these abilities is game-changing.  

They are the priority upgrade for every Town Hall level. You should not put your Town Hall into the upgrade queue before having your Heroes levels maxed out if you don't want to have a significant power loss. Heroes are critical elements of many strategies, and making a mistake with their deployment or ability usage can be costly. When being upgraded, they are not available for players. Remember about it during Clan Wars, Clan League, etc. 

Each hero in Clash of Clans has a purpose. The King has the most HP, and he can recover some more thanks to his ability, and so from TH9 onwards, he is used mostly as a tank. The Queen has the highest DPS ratio, which is why most strategies revolve around her doing the most damage to the enemy base. The Warden is a support, and he should be played like it. Going against it is pointless. You won't make support out of the King, tank out of the Queen, or DPS out of the Warden. 

The Barbarian King

Description

It is your first unlocked, basic hero, and it resembles the first, basic unit, which is the Barbarian. However, the King is noticeably bigger, beefier, and stronger. Once you upgrade your Town Hall to level 7, you will be allowed to build the Barbarian King Altar. 

Just like his little Barbarian fellows, Barbarian King is a melee, ground unit. He can attack only ground units and structures, which makes him extremely vulnerable against air troops on both ends of the attack.

Once he reaches level 5, his ability - Iron Fist - is unlocked. It gives him a fixed amount of HP back, spawns Barbarians around him, and enrages him and his friends. The number of Barbarians spawned depends on the ability level, and their level is equal to the regular Barbarians level in the Lab. 

Offensive strategy

Offensively, his damage is too low, and his HP pool is too high to use him any other way, then tanking. He regains 3,400 HP upon his ability activation, which, combined with 8,264 base HP at max level, gives him a total of 11,664 effective tanking room. It makes him the tankiest single-unit non-splitting troop in the game. On top of that, his spawned Barbarian friends will also take a shot or two, which makes not using such a potential a waste of meat. 

In order to maximize the utility of his Iron Fist ability, you should let him take some damage first. Otherwise, he will not recover any HP point.

He is a ground, melee unit, so you need to provide him with Wall Breakers or a Jump Spell. Otherwise, he will be pounding walls until the death. 

In some cases, during farming stages, you can put him down to crush a building or two to guarantee the 50%, 1-star win, if you don't want to lose trophies.

In the later stages of the game, he is used sometimes as a cleanup-distraction tool, where you deploy the King and push him in a specific direction. This way, he gathers the focus of some in-base defenses allowing the likes of Hog Riders or Valkyries to stay untouched. However, in most of the cases, you will see him put down in a suicide attack or as a part of the kill squad as there will be no better place for him. Sadly for him, the King is not a game-changing hero and barely gets any credit.

Defensive Strategy

How to defend with the Barbarian King

The King, as we mentioned a couple of times earlier, has the most HP out of all three heroes. At the max level, it's 8,264 HP. It may take some time to give him a proper whopping, which is why his altar should be located near the Clan Castle. Be careful, however, not to put it too close, to avoid a single Poison spell taking down both the King and the CC troops. 

Locating his altar on the outskirts is pointless most of the time. An attacker, whether it's farming, trophy pushing, or Clan War attack, will most likely ignore the King. For farming, the attacker cares about the resources only, and for trophies and stars in CW, what matters is the destruction of the building, not the Heroes taken down. Destroying the altar alone is all they need.

Also, at all times, you have to remember that the King has absolutely nothing to say about the air troops. It may be a decent idea to put the altar near Air Defenses, Archer Towers, and Teslas, as the King's high HP may give you a chance to stall raiders long enough. 

There was an update, which now prevents heroes from being lured out of the base. In most cases, the Barbarian King will stick to his altar. Defensively, active heroes are considered to be a decent counter to Hog Riders. 

How to defend against the Barbarian King

Well, it will take some time to bring him down, and the only thing that you can do is to rely on your single target defenses, especially Cannons. In the early levels (TH6 - TH8), there is no point in building your base around stopping the King, as he will not be the main attacking force. His damage is mediocre, almost irrelevant, and it's his HP that matters. Most players are using him for tanking purposes along with Giants early on and P.E.K.K.A./Golem later on. Post TH8, there is still no point in building against him, as the Archer Queen is coming online, and stopping her is more important. 

He's melee, ground unit, so you don't want to put your Mortars and especially Air Defenses in places where he can reach them and destroy them for free. 

The Archer Queen

Description

Once you reach Town Hall level 9, you have the possibility to build the Archer Queen Altar. After its completion, you have your Queen unlocked. The heroine herself looks just like a bigger version of a regular Archer. However, it is the hardest hitting unit in the game, which is why countless strategies revolve around her. The fact that her offensive range is 5 tiles (whereas regular Archers are limited to 3,5 tiles) gives her colossal advantage. This statistic means that she can reach deep into the base without having to jump or break through the Wall at all! 

The ability to shoot both ground and air troops make her an outstanding defender and one of the primary focus while attacking. Oftentimes not taking care of the enemy Queen results in a ruined raid. 

From level 5 onwards, she has her Royal Cloak ability unlocked. It resembles going stealth mode in many other games. By using this ability, the Queen becomes temporarily untargetable for the enemy defenses, breaks the aggro, and spawns Archers around her. The number of Archers spawned depends on the ability level (max 16), and their level is based on their level in Laboratory. These additional Archers are actually the only downside of this ability, as because of them, the Queen herself can still be hit by splash damage defenses that are focusing the Archers around her. 

Royal Cloak is amazing against single-target Inferno Towers, as it not only breaks the aggro, reset the damage amplifier but also transfers aggro onto the summoned Archers, giving the Queen time to kill the structure. 

Offensive strategy

Queen Walk

A game-breaking strategy that forced many updates and nerfs, mostly to Healers.

The strategy revolves around deploying the Archer Queen on the outskirts of the enemy base and making her walk around the base, taking down structures within her range while being kept alive by 4-5 Healers. It works exceptionally well against bases, that have their Air defenses heavily centralized. If Healers stay untouched, the Archer Queen remains virtually invincible.

The key, however, is the funneling. You need to force your Archer Queen to walk in the desired direction. Otherwise, the whole raid might go down the drain. Pay close attention to correct funneling.

Queen Charge

It is similar to the Queen Walk but requires the Archer Queen to go into the base rather than walk around it. It is much harder to execute because not only you have to create a funnel to force her to walk in a specific direction, but also you have to create an opening, forcing her to step into deep. 

The best way to do it is by using Wall Breakers. If you manage to send them in the very moment, that you are using Rage on your Healers and the Queen, you can use less Wall Breakers. Usually, the attack ends up with suiciding, while taking down as many key structures as possible. Oftentimes, you will see Bowlers added into the fray to clear the most dangerous defenses (Eagle, Inferno Towers), to clear the base with LavaLoon, or Mass Hogs later on. The Queen Charge is an extremely effective tool to prepare the enemy base for tearing down.

Defensive strategy

How to defend against the Queen

The attacker using either Queen Walk or Queen Charge will most likely look for exposed defenses, that will be easy for taking. You want to avoid such situations. Don't place Infernos, X-Bows, or Eagle in a spot, where it can be easily Queen Walked. On the defensive end, your job is to make it as hard for your enemy as humanly possible and hope that he'll make a mistake. Not much more than that.

How to use the Queen in defense

On the one hand, you don't really want her near the CC, to avoid the double effectiveness of the enemy Poison/Lightning spells. On the other hand, she can deal with an incredible amount of damage, stalling the raid, while tanky CC troops are soaking the incoming shots. 

You can't lure Heroes anymore, which is why you want to keep the Archer Queen inside. If she steps outside of the Walls, she's pretty much donezo, and you don't want to give your best weapon away for free. 

The Grand Warden

Description

The Grand Warden is unlocked at Town Hall level 11 for a price of 6,000,000 Elixir. That's right, unlike other heroes, Warden will prey on your Elixir Storages faster, than enemy Goblins. It would explain his purpleness - he has purple hair and beard. 

He is not an offensive threat, nor a meat shield, but he has two abilities. One of them is Life Aura, which passively gives bonus HP to surrounding ally units. The second one is the Eternal Tome, which grants them temporary immunity to all incoming damage. What is also unique, he can be set to an air mode and a ground mode, however, he will bypass the Walls regardless. You should set him to air mode when attacking with air units so that he does not take unnecessary damage from ground traps and ground-only defenses. The ground mode is best when going in with ground troops, as the Warden will not trigger the air traps. Fun Fact: the Grand Warden can get one-shot by the Seeking Air Mine of high enough level. 

Offensive strategy

The Grand Warden, as befits the supportive hero, doesn't provide much firepower offensively. His main strength on the offensive end is his Eternal Tome ability.

Depending on the Town Hall level of your opponent, you will want to send your Warden wherever you can utilize his ability to its fullest. For TH9, it will be X-Bows, TH10 - Inferno Towers, TH11 - Eagle Artillery, TH12 - Giga Bomb (if available). Generally, you want to have his ability in the place where your troops are prone to receive the most damage. 

When sent against the Eagle, make sure not to activate the ability prematurely. You don't want to pop it randomly. It has to be precise to soak up the most damage possible, which is why you should hold on to that until the very moment, where the volley from Eagle Artillery is about to hit. Not the moment it is fired, no other moment, just the impact. Eagle shoots once every 10 seconds. Your ability last shorter than that. It's quite easy to make a mistake, and it can be costly.

At TH12, where you want to protect your kill squad from the Giga-Bomb, you also have to direct the Warden to go there to ensure the protection. Sometimes it may appear tricky, so pay close attention to it. The Grand Warden follows the troops, so he does not need the funnel, but the troops do. 

What is worth noting, the Warden has the highest range of all units, capable of outranging the Wizard Tower, Bomb Tower, Hidden Tesla, or Archer Tower if set to a fast-attack mode.

Defensive strategy

There is not much to talk about here. The Grand Warden is the most straightforward Hero in Clash of Clans defense-wise. While defending, he goes to his altar and sets himself in stone. It means that the Warden acts as a building on the defensive end, but he still provides nearby troops with his Aura.

The Grand Warden is, most of the time, treated like yet another trash building. His Aura gives the defending CC troops some buff, but frequently it's somewhat irrelevant. CC troops are not really that numerous to benefit significantly from the Life Aura. 

How to defend against the Grand Warden? Most of the time, you will want to have your Inferno Towers set to multi-targeting mode, as the Warden will stand behind other troops.

TH13 Clash of Clans hero?

As the year 2019 goes by, more and more news and predictions about the possible Town Hall 13 are coming out. Players and spectators are suspecting that a new hero will be released along with a new TH level. We remember that the Barbarian King came with a Town Hall 7, Archer Queen with a Town Hall 9, and the Grand Warden with the Town Hall level 11. We can clearly see that all these are uneven numbers, which suggests that another uneven Town Hall level is bringing another hero.

What's more, we've seen the "BuT wHat can 1t m3an?" video on YouTube Clash of Clans channel. We bolded the most meaningful characters, which combined make it for "TH13". It is pretty evident that the new Town Hall level is coming most likely with the new update in December 2019. What is not that obvious is the appearance of the new hero. We can see a glimpse of the mysterious character here:

There have been rumors about a new hero possible leak back in 2017, who was supposed to look like this:

We don't see everything, for sure, since the photo was torn apart. However, from the details that are left intact, we can tell that it is not the same character. The one that was ripped from the cool family photo like a prodigal son cut off by his parents has no hood, no facial hair, and the colors are different. It's not even close to the younger, greener version of good old Wizard. Whoever created the latter, must have had some serious CGI skills and SuperCell concept knowledge.

What do we know now about the new Town Hall 13 hero? Not much. We are not even sure whether he's coming or not. Or if it is "he." Who knows? TH7 was a man, TH9 was a woman, then TH11 was a man again, so… We'll see.

There have been many speculations about the ice theme for the new hero.

1. The update comes in somewhere in December, which is winter, freezy, snowy month. That's the first premise.

2. There is an Ice Queen skin available with current season Gold Pass. It would be nice if there were a hero to come to match the Ice Queen. That's the second one.

3. With the introduction of Town Hall 11, two new troops became available - the Electro Dragon and the Ice Golem. We have had an electro-themed Town Hall (level 12) coming next. It would be explaining much if the next Town Hall were the true home of the Ice Golem. It's all coming together.

Summary

If there is a grind in Clash of Clans, it's definitely the heroes' upgrading process. The Dark Elixir is the scarcest non-premium resource in the game. Dark Elixir Drills are slow. Dark Elixir Storages are usually well protected (and empty) because everybody is making their effort to level up the heroes. Occasionally you will have the event opportunity to get some additional DE, or perhaps you're tempted to invest in the Gold Pass to speed up the process. No matter what you do, it will take an immense amount of time and resources to max the heroes out. As a reward, they will return the favor of being reliable, useful, and game-changing.

Did you like this guide? Do you find our tips useful? Do you have your heroes maxed out, or are you yet to do it? Or maybe you have neglected them completely? Worry not! It's not the end of the world. Go and read our farming guide to collect resources needed for upgrades, or skip the painful process and buy a maxed account. We have both - the guide and the accounts. 

FAQ

What is the max level for heroes in Clash of Clans?

It's level 70 for the Barbarian King and the Archer Queen, level 50 for the Grand Warden, and level 20 for Royal Champion.

How do you get the Archer Queen in Clash of Clans?

You have to get to Town Hall level 9 and spend 40,000 Dark Elixir on an Altar.

What is the max Archer Queen level at TH9?

It's 30.

How long does it take to build the Archer Queen?

Sheer Archer Queen Altar takes no time to build. 

How much does it cost to upgrade the Archer Queen?

From level 1 all the way to level 65, it costs 8,997,500 Dark Elixir without discounts or perks. 

How long does it take to max heroes at TH9?

It all depends on your farming volume, perks, outside investments, rewards, events, etc. Usually, it takes from a couple of weeks to a couple of months at most.

Are there heroes in Builder Base too?

Yup, Builder Base has the Battle Machine, which is the Home Village heroes counterpart.