Clash of Clans Town Hall 8 Upgrade Order Priority Guide

Clash of Clans Town Hall 8 Upgrade Order Priority Guide

Town Hall 8 is a big upgrade for players of Clash of Clans. With the introduction of 4 additional defensive towers, upgrades for many pre-existing buildings, and the introduction of the Dark Elixir Drill, there are many upgrades and structures to choose from when you first hit Town Hall 8.

In this upgrade order priority guide, I will be breaking down which buildings you should focus on (builder by builder) in order to ensure a smooth and efficient leveling process.

Town Hall 8 High Priority Structures & Upgrades

When you reach Town Hall 8, you should have each of your builders work through the progressions below. You should have unlocked your fourth builder by Town Hall 8 (via slowly stockpiling gems from achievements, gem boxes, and clearing debris), but just in case you have not done so yet, I have combined the activities of Builder #3 and Builder #4. If you have four builders, you will work through this task list twice as fast. It is not the end of the world if you only have 3 builders – it will just take a little longer.

Builder #1. Laboratory –> Clan Castle Level 4

The first builder only has two items on his task list: upgrading the Laboratory and Clan Castle. Upgrading the Laboratory to level 6 is a must. The level 5 upgrades for the Archer, Giant, Goblin, Barbarian, and Wall Breaker are all massive stat increases and become available upon upgrading the Laboratory. It is important to get started on these upgrades immediately.

Upgrading the Clan Castle early is useful because it increases your defensive strength and allows you to win larger amounts of loot in Clan Wars. At Town Hall 8, you should be able to hit targets that reward more loot than your old Clan Castle can hold, so you want to lift this limitation early on in the TH8 leveling process.

Builder #2. Dark Elixir Drill –> Dark Elixir Drill Level 2 –> Dark Elixir Drill Level 3 –> Dark Elixir Storage Level 3 –> Dark Elixir Storage Level 4

The second builder will focus on Dark Elixir-based upgrades. It may seem strange to build and upgrade the Drill as a high priority task, but understand that Dark Elixir is by far your #1 limited resource at Town Hall 8 and the drill actually produces a decent amount of it (a little over 1,000 Dark Elixir a day at level 3). You’ll spend 2-3 months (or more) maxing out at Town Hall 8; the Dark Elixir Drill will produce 60,000+ Dark Elixir during that time if you get and upgrade it early.

After upgrading the Dark Elixir Drill, this builder is then responsible for upgrading the Dark Elixir Storage structure. While odds are you will not come close to the Dark Elixir storage cap at Town Hall 8, odds are you will get “zapped” (slang for your Dark Elixir storage getting hit with 3-4 Lightning Spells) with some regularity. The higher level your Dark Elixir Storage, the higher its health. The higher the health of the Dark Elixir Storage, the less Dark Elixir can be stolen via zapping.

Note that all of the important Elixir upgrades are intentionally stacked on this builder. Spacing out the Elixir spend ensures that you have enough Elixir to spare to constantly research at the Laboratory. If you wind up with far too much Elixir, you can always spend it to upgrade your Walls.

Builder #3 & Builder #4. New Walls –> New Archer Tower –> New Air Defense Tower –> New Wizard Tower –> New Storage Structures –> Rearrange Base –> Upgrade Storage Structures

With your third (and hopefully fourth) builder, you can work towards getting down all the new defensive structures available at Town Hall 8 so we can quickly work towards a good base layout. Start by placing your 50 new walls and building the three new towers (not counting the new Hidden Tesla). Next, add the new Gold Storage and Elixir Storage structures.

Once you have these structures down, you can rearrange your base to match my recommended Town Hall 8 Farming Base Layout. Just leave the Hidden Tesla space empty for now. After setting up the new base, go ahead and have the builders start to upgrade all of your Gold and Elixir Storage structures to max level.

Spreading out your resources amongst three storage points instead of just two points makes it much harder for enemies to get all of your loot thanks to the loot cap system. Note that at Town Hall 8, the most an enemy player can take from you is 300k of each Gold and Elixir. If you have just two Gold and Elixir storage units, each one will give the opponent up to 150k resources each. If you have three units of each type, each one will only give the opponent a maximum of 100k resources each. Adding extra storage buildings makes it much harder for the opponent to get your loot. Upgrading these resource storage buildings early is much more about protecting your loot than it is about getting more storage space.

Always Upgrade the Barbarian King First: Builders #3 and #4 should always be tasked with upgrading the Barbarian King as a top priority at this stage. These builders come free fairly often, so your Barbarian King should not have to wait long to get an upgrade. Sitting on a lot of Dark Elixir is to your own detriment, as players at this level will hit you hard with regularity in order to take it.

Second Priority TH8 Task List

Once you have set up a good Town Hall 8 defense and have your new structures in place, Builders #3 and #4 can start working on this second priority task list. Builder #1 will follow shortly. Builder #2 will take quite awhile to join this list, given that his tasks take a little under 2 weeks to complete.

Follow the tasks in order. Many of the tasks are limited to 1 builder at a time, at which point the remaining builders should move down to the next task. This is denoted in the guide.

Note that should you ever have enough Dark Elixir to start the Barbarian King’s next upgrade, have your next free builder start on that upgrade as a top priority. You never want to sit on that much Dark Elixir as its just going to get stolen by the opponent. Once you hit level 10 on the Barbarian King, you can start using spare Dark Elixir on research (it is very useful to get Minions up to level 3 or 4 if you have the spare Dark Elixir – comes in handy at TH9).

Task #1. Upgrade New Towers (1 Day or Less)

The first order of business is upgrading the brand new Wizard Tower, Archer Tower, and Air Defense tower through their early upgrades. This just references upgrades that take 1 day or less to complete. This will bring these new buildings up to a functional level and result in a quick increase in defensive strength. We will upgrade these to higher levels later.

Task #2. Add New Hidden Tesla Tower

After upgrading your new towers through their first few levels, take a builder and add the new Hidden Tesla tower that became available at this level.

Task #3. Upgrade Air Defense Towers One At A Time

Upgrading more than one Air Defense tower at a time leaves you extremely vulnerable to air-based attacks, which become increasingly common at Town Hall 8. As a result, you want to upgrade just one Air Defense tower at a time.

The Air Defense tower not only takes exceptionally long to upgrade, but doing so increases your defensive capabilities significantly. As a result, it is useful to assign one builder to perpetually focus on upgrading Air Defense towers until these structures are maxed.

Task #4. Put 1 Builder on Hidden Tesla Duty

Hidden Teslas take an extremely long time to upgrade. Not only does each upgrade take a long time, but the level cap on the Hidden Tesla tower rises from 3 to 6 when going from Town Hall 7 to 8. While upgrading them is not technically as important as upgrading splash towers as the Mortar or Wizard Tower, if you ignore the Hidden Tesla completely, it will slow down the leveling process given how long it takes to upgrade.

Going from level 1 to 2 takes three days, from 2 to 3 takes five days, from 3 to 4 takes six days, from 4 to 5 takes eight days, and from 5 to 6 takes a whopping ten days. In other words, your newly built Hidden Tesla tower will take 32 days to go from level one to the Town Hall 8 cap of level six.

It is best to get a head start on the Hidden Tesla by upgrading early. You can likely reach level 4 on all three Hidden Teslas by the time we reach Task #7.

Task #5. Upgrade Mortars and Wizard Tower (Limit 1 of Each)

While Builder #1 is on Air Defense duty and Builder #2 is on Hidden Tesla duty, your third and fourth builder can focus on upgrading your Mortars and Wizard Towers. You should only upgrade 1 Mortar and 1 Wizard Tower at a time; upgrading too many Mortars or Wizard Towers at once can leave you vulnerable to attack. Upgrading these towers results in a big increase in defensive strength, but this is the earliest they fit in given their relatively quick upgrade time compared to the Air Defense and Hidden Tesla tower.

Task #6. Put 1 Builder on Barracks Duty

The first builder that is free from the previous tasks is hereby assigned to Barracks Duty. Upgrade your Barracks, one at a time. It is best to only upgrade the Barracks one at a time in order to not drastically cut into your unit production (and hence farming) capabilities.

While it is not an essential task, it is very convenient to have the increased unit queue. Even if you never (or rarely) plan on making P.E.K.K.As, I highly recommend maxing out your Barracks.

Task #7. Upgrade Cannons, Archer Towers, and Hidden Tesla Towers

At this point, any and all free builders not dedicated to another task should be working on upgrading Cannons, Archer Towers, and Hidden Tesla Towers to their maximum level. The order in which you upgrade is not terribly important – I would worry more about staggering your builder’s free time so you can upgrade your walls rather than worrying about the specific building to upgrade.

In other words, do not have all 3 builders (assuming one is still on Barracks Duty) begin upgrading the Hidden Teslas from level 5 to level 6. This would tie up all 3 builders for 10 days and make it quite difficult for you to spend excess resources on walls or Barbarian King upgrades. Instead, try to stagger your upgrades so that a builder is coming free at least once every 2-2.5 days.

Task #8. Add The Second Dark Barracks & Upgrade Both Dark Barracks

As you are finishing up the final upgrades on your defensive structures, the first two builders that free up can begin working on the both Dark Barracks. Build the new Dark Barracks and work towards upgrading both to level 4.

I give the Dark Barracks and its upgrades a low priority at Town Hall 8 as I do not recommend using Dark Barracks units at this level. They cost too much Dark Elixir and Dark Elixir is the limiting resource at TH8. It is easier to just use Dragons or Giants and Wizards as a power army.

Task #9. Start Town Hall 9

Once the aforementioned upgrades are completed, you can start working on Town Hall 9. If your defensive towers are maxed and you are working on level 4 of your Dark Barracks, you can start Town Hall 9. You do not have to sit there and wait for the Dark Barracks to finish upgrading.

If for some reason you came into Town Hall 8 without everything maxed out and you have buildings that are not maxed out at this point (aside from Gold Mines, Elixir Collectors, and Walls), please max out these structures before upgrading TH9.

Task #10. Upgrade Traps, Walls, Gold Mines, and Elixir Collectors

While working towards Town Hall 9, you can work on upgrading your traps, walls, Gold Mines, and Elixir Collectors. You do not have to max out your traps before starting TH9, but your three free builders likely will be able to max out the level of your traps (or come very close) given how long the TH9 upgrade takes.

You do not need to max out your walls to upgrade to Town Hall 9. In fact, I would recommend not waiting at all for walls. Walls only result in a modest increase in defensive strength. It is easier to gather resources at Town Hall 9 than it is at Town Hall 8, so there is no point in waiting as long as the rest of your structures are at their maximum level. If you were diligent in farming, your walls should be level 7 at this point, but level 8 walls are not required to go to Town Hall 9.

As you get close to unlocking Town Hall 9, do your best to save up as much Gold, Elixir, and Dark Elixir as possible. While you do not have to be sitting at the Dark Elixir cap of 80k, it is useful to have at least 40k Dark Elixir so that you can get an Archer Queen upon unlocking Town Hall 9. It is also useful to have at least 5,000,000 Gold and Elixir saved as you head into Town Hall 9 – it makes the transition process much less painful.