It was a relief to get a "give me war". We fought hard barely losing for 4 wars now. Would have been nice to have some competition in the war but it did give us another war to reflect on. Another war to practice new attacks. I started contributing to this forum 1 week ago today as we were struggling on our 4th loss in a row. 3 of the 4 losses were really close. 1 or possibly more of the losses involved spy's. We are learning the ropes fast as we can. Ill put down my thoughts here before I crunch any numbers if I decide to do so. I have been paying attention closely to how things are going and trying to use any thought power to think of ways we can improve and avoid going from a war winning clan to one that looses all the time. So here we go.
When I joined Gold Squad with ram, I was a one trick pony. I was polished on hog attacks. At my TH level and hog level, I could go to war and hog to death almost any TH9 that was not a "anti hog" setup. My knowledge of mass dragon attacks is much less than hog attacks. I grasp the concept and will be employing it soon with my alt Ham that is in Pyrite Squad. Ill put my 2 cents in on whats going wrong with these attacks, and when to use them or not to use them here and or the War Army section of the forum. ANY feedback is much appreciated from anyone who practices either attack. We will only get better as a team.
First thing I am noticing is the failure rate and 1 star rate of Mass Hog attacks and Mass Dragon attacks. In reality both of these attacks are or were pretty low skill attacks compared to the alternatives and highly effective. That is not a bad thing as our members can use these to gain 3 stars on bases that they will work. But we need to avoid being the "one trick pony". In my mind these are both still viable attack plans. They should be practiced, and continued to be used. But we need to decide what is going wrong with them.
With the hogs we all get to see these replays of either one of us, or one of them crushing bases with mass hog. The mass hog had its hay day from day 1 of Hog Riders. Kind of like when witches were introduced, people found if they made a bunch of hogs, and healed them they would crush bases. Word spread, people practiced it more. By June 2014 anyone with max hogs and max heal spells could 3 star almost any TH9 that didn't make a Anti Hog base. Th10 were tougher but still many of those without 2 multi inferno towers were fairly easy to 2 star if you read the supercell forum on how to use hogs. Enough people were complaining and Supercell decided to nerf the hogs one final time. Before the nerf update they slowly reduced the health of the hogs, but it could not compete with the max heal spells, or healer use. They decided to try to kill of Mass Hog strategy once and for all with the June 2014 update "Heroes." In this update they were quick to advertise new buffs to the heroes, more damage at lower levels, and nerfing them some at higher levels. Added new offensive ability to heros of rage with the king, and invisibility to the queen. The biggest change was to the defensive AI of the hero. The king and queen cant be lured like a clan castle but incorporate a radius on the alter. This was to directly affect the hogs without coming out and saying it. If the heroes the Queen mainly stays in the base she can do major damage to the hogs lowering the chances of a cheap victory by a bunch. The queen is particularly damaging to hogs due to her splash damage and range. The higher the queen the higher the chance of failure. But that was not enough to put the nail in the coffin. They also made the hogs take 1.5 damage from giant bombs. This reduced the hogs to sure death up to level 3 from 1 single giant bomb, and ensures death to any hogs of any level in the range of a pair of giant bombs of any level. This update gave the savy player a way to make his base anti hog, without actually making the anti hog base and opening it up to mass dragon attacks and getting smashed doing other attacks. A player with a normal base, with his heros out of range to kill off with or after the cc troops is now able to expect to win agains 70 percent of hog raids. Ones which are not using lvl 4 or 5 hogs, and or are not well practiced. Does this mean that hogging is dead. No. But using Mass Hog as your go to attack is dead. If you do you can expect a bunch of 1 star and failed attacks against anyone who knows how to design a base. I will go more in depth in the hog sections of the forum. But still it is one of the only ways to 3 star a max th9 with a th9. But the max th9 has to be compatible with the strategy which many are not. There is a good hog strategy write up with youtube videos linked in the hog rider section of this forum. Check it out if you hog, or aspire to hog.
With the mass dragon. I don't know of any official nerf to them. This is a very balanced game and any exploits are only for a while. As a TH5-early TH7 you can win almost any battle 3 stars against 80 percent of the bases in same TH level with balloons. By far the air power early on and the ability of only a few towers to end your raid makes air the way to go in my opinion. But at TH7 you get the dragon. And if you make an army of mass dragons, and use your spells to either rage them, or lightning an air defense it gets even better. The mass dragons will take down almost all TH7, most TH8, and weak TH9. Even though a little more skill is involved for balloons early on than mass dragon, these strategy's can provide the player with consistent 2 and 3 star victories up to TH9. I would say I see 9 to 1 hog failures. I would bet I see 4 to 1 mass dragon failures. People trying bases too hard to use this strategy effectively anymore. At TH9 with 4 air defenses, extra archer tower, x bows that are pointed up, extra bomb traps and levels for them. A lot of these towers getting 5 percent or better improvement over th8. I think the mid level to max th9 bases should not be hit by mass dragon. Its not to say it cant be done to get a 2 star. I saw Blake 2 star a near maxed TH9 and it blew my doors off, but this is not the norm anymore.
This war, even though a "give me" we improved a bunch since last war. We had a few members quit, and a few that got kicked were clueless to the game and our 0 stars went down dramatically. We had a reduction in 1 star attacks, but they were still too many. I attribute some to loot attacks and such but that is not what I am talking about. Mass Hog had the most 1 star failures. Mass dragon comes in second. And wonky armies with too many giants, healers, or not enough of this or that or whatever comes in third. So moving forward I will put this forward....
Hogs are not the answer. If you choose to hog bring around 30. MAKE SURE they are level 4 or better if you want to best luck. BRING AT LEAST 3 HEAL SPELLS of max or near max lvl. A lot of the failed hog attacks I watch bring 2 or 3 rage. HOGS AND HEALS. Scout for double giant bombs. I saw everyone eyeing number 10 in this war. That base should scare you away. Number 10 failed many hog attempts. Basically he had the TH in the middle with a bunch of 2x2 traps surrounding it. 2 giant bombs kill any level of hogs dead regardless of health or heal.
Mass dragon. Try to keep the mass dragon attacks below mid level th9. If attacking a th9 make sure the aird is weak, misplaced, and xbows are pointed down. Some of these TH9 hits against good bases get nowhere. Between the queen, air defense, archer towers etc. They can be gunned down quick.
Where to go as your get to TH9? As a TH9 a strong ground attack can be very effective for 2 stars. Technique becomes more important than ever. If you are approaching mid level TH8-early TH9 you should start practicing some other attacks, getting familiar with golems, pekkas, wizards, wall breakers. Get your lab rolling updating EVERYTHING. Get some practice while farming without expensive troops. Practice with a giant, arch, barb army. Practice breaking into cores, and dealing with cc's when you encounter them with spells while you are farming. Get familiar with balloon minion army and practice it. I will do some write-ups coming up.
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