Zegaloft12's Strategy Guides/Upgrading

== So you upgraded to a new Town Hall level and don't know what to do? ==
Well you came to the right place, and first I'd be talking on what to build first after upgrading to a new Town Hall level, first here is to build all the new defenses available for your Town Hall. From the least time-consuming to the most. I'd present the upgrading order which in my opinion is the most efficient.
Defense 	Reason
Walls 	Because they take no time and are cheap at level 1.
Traps 	Like walls, they are instant and cheap.
Cannon 	Come on, 1 minute is nothing in upgrading those defences.
Archer Tower 	Archer Towers can target ground and air units... Although mostly useless at level 1 but powerful in higher levels, And they only take 1 minute to build.
Mortar/Air Defense 	This is fairly arguable because Mortars can only target ground units and even has a blind spot. While an Air Defense can bolster your Air raid resistance however they can be built at the same time if enough Builders are available.
Wizard Tower 	The Wizard Tower only takes 12 hours to build and can be useful against BaRch army compositions. It works extremely well with Mortars as Wizard Towers cover the blind spots of the Mortar.
Hidden Tesla 	Oh it's my favorite defense. This one is quite powerful considering it requires 1m gold. Hidden Teslas can be powerful at higher levels and "Trollers" heavily rely on them by putting their Teslas beside their exposed Town Halls. Deadly when upgraded to level 4 and above.
X-Bow/Inferno Tower	Like Mortars and Air Defense, these defenses can be interchanged. X-Bows deal terrifying dps and annihilate Tier 1 troops. However it doesn't do well against Tanky units such as P.E.K.K.As,Golems and Lava Hounds. The main thing about Inferno Towers is that they can be single target or multi target. Setting it on single target can devastate a GoWiPe easily.
== Upgrading ==
 		 		 	
Defensive Buildings		Resource Buildings		Army Buildings	
Now, here's the thing, some people upgrade the current buildings they have(buildings of the former town hall) to max. That's just stupid, the better thing to do is to build the new available buildings and defenses and upgrade them FIRST to the current level of your other structures. After building defenses, you wonder "Now what should I upgrade first?" This has been a problem for a lot of players including myself I have some experiences myself when I started TH7, so I took the knowledge I know about farming army compositions and made my upgrading order from most useful to least useful, and it's pretty good actually, although I'm a farmer myself, 3 star reports in my Defense Log is rare. So I'd like to help others out and give you my upgrading order.
(I'm still TH8 so please kindly suggest some upgrading orders in TH9 and above.)
=== TH7 ===
Defense 	Reason
Mortars/Wizard Tower	These two defenses can be interchanged as they both do splash damage and works great when together, however it's better if they are upgraded earlier because they'll be the main defenders.(excluding Clan War attacks which I'll cover in my other guide here.)
Air Defense 	Normally people will skip this one out or if they even bother building it. Without the Air Defense, you will be subjected to Balloon raids which will worry about nothing except Archer Towers and Air Bombs. It's highly recommended to upgrade this defense for both non-Clan War defense and Clan War defense because Mass Dragons are so popular in TH7's and 8's
Hidden Tesla 	Yes, I know it's a pain using more than a million gold to upgrade this guy to level 2 and 3 but it's worth in the long run as Healer+Giant Combo will not be so effective anymore,(well, unless it's a higher level Town Hall player with powerful troops is attacking you.) because the Teslas and other defenses will generate enough DPS to counteract the Healer's heal over the target and will pick off Giants one by one.
Archer Tower 	Archer Towers are good at point defense like cannons, however they can target both air and ground units unlike cannons which cannot reach flying units and they have a wider range too, it will be good to upgrade this in order to prevent BAG attacks which still works quite well in TH7 if used correctly.
Cannon 	Cannons aren't good when mass infantry attacks come in, however their big brothers, the Mortars can severely damage infantry troops and make it easier for the Cannon to kill them, much better at higher levels. Can dish out a lot of health on tanky units.
Traps 	Traps are good but if they can upgrade Spring Traps, then this will be in the top of my list, the main thing about traps is that they don't really do much damage to a raid except the Air Bombs which decimate Balloons and Giant Bombs that pulverize Hog Riders. Upgrade as soon as all other defenses are maxed out. (They can change the outcome of a raid though, last time I was attacked, a Bomb made all the difference between a 2 star and a 3 star victory.)
Walls... well they're special, though they're a defense though Giants don't target them (Lol, Clash of Clans logic :P). Anyway what I do is keep a builder free then raid repeatedly and repeatedly to farm for gold and grind those walls even if it kills me, what happens is that I max out all my walls in less than 2 weeks. A regular player that will upgrade the walls last will take like forever to max out TH7.
But you can start upgrading your Town Hall prematurely (Note: You still have to upgrade everything else, I only showed the upgrading order for defenses.) considering that the amount of time your other buildings needed to be maxed amount to less than or equal to 8 days. (Because it takes 8 days to upgrade your Town Hall to level 8 duh)
== Resources/Army Buildings Upgrading ==
Aside from defenses you also need to upgrade other stuff like collectors, mines, barracks and all the other stuff. I personally want to start with Army Buildings because they can improve your raids 100% guaranteed, I also have my order in upgrading these. However, not everyone wants to upgrade their Army, some may want more Resources from collectors and mines and stuff. Choose which one you like and I'd give you clashers some advice and tips that I discovered myself.
=== Resources Buildings ===
==== Storages vs. Collectors/Mines/Drill ====
Which one do you like to upgrade first? Storages or collectors? Generally, I'd say upgrade the resource collectors first because once upgrading to a new Town Hall level, you would need more resources for upgrades. In upgrading Storages, well once you feel that you need to upgrade them, then do so, there really are no specific requirements on upgrading Storages, but you MUST upgrade the Storages in order to hold more resources and do not need to patiently wait for the others to finish just because you can't handle all the resources needed.
Note: Dark Elixir Storage on the other hand shall be built as soon as possible so you can get your hands on the Barbarian King easily and dramatically improve your attacking and defending capability.
==== Mines vs. Collectors ====
Do not mistake for them being the same, mines correspond to Gold and collectors correspond to Elixir, generally, you might want to upgrade them equally at the same pace, however, if one specific resource is needed, upgrade the corresponding resource mine/collector. That will help you achieve the desired amount even just a tiny bit.
==== But how about the Dark Elixir Drill? ====
In older versions, you can only hunt for Dark Elixir upon reaching Town Hall 7, but now, you got your own drill at TH7 so... Upgrade or not? I say not yet because the production of DE is too slow to even get the Barbarian King in 2 months, accounting that you will still get raided always. No, leave it at level 1 ugh... for now, but max it out before upgrading to the next Town Hall level because the higher up you go, the more Dark Elixir you'll need.
=== Army Buildings ===
Unlike resource buildings, here's the order I'd like to do it, however you can make your own upgrading order. I'm just suggesting the benefits that you might receive if you follow this order of upgrades. Anyway, here's my upgrading order and feel free to criticize it.
Building 	Reason
Barbarian King Altar/Archer Queen Altar	Depending on your Town Hall level you can upgrade Heroes any order you like however it's a priority in Town Hall 7 to max out your King as soon as possible. The Barbarian King will improve any raid you do, same goes for the Archer Queen(maybe not all the time as she developed an allergy to Walls due to the July 1, 2015 Update.)
Barracks/Dark Barracks 	Upgrading to Level 9 Barracks unlocks a new troop, the DRAGON! This will take your Clan War attacks to a whole new level. Normal Barracks aside you can also upgrade the Dark Barracks and yes, finally unlock Hog Riders, this jumping troop will allow you to destroy defenses easily when combined with Healing Spells (Click here for more information about this strategy.)
Spell Factory 	Normally, people will make this last priority because they don't want to go in a fight without Spells in their arsenal because you can't make spells when the Spell Factory is under construction, but it's actually a good thing to upgrade this first because more Spells can improve your attacks and can be a decisive factor.
Laboratory 	Obviously, this makes your troops harder, better and stronger and makes Spells more powerful. Upgrades in the laboratory will continue, but you can't upgrade troops nor spells while upgrading the Laboratory.
Army Camp 	More space, more troops, you can have more troops at a time and bolster your attacking force.
== Laboratory Upgrades ==
There are really no order of upgrades when it comes to troops, but I do suggest that upgrade FIRST the troops and the spells you commonly use in Clan Wars because now your attacks have been improved although you need to use more Elixir. But I'd like to present how I upgraded both my troops and spells with the benefits in doing so.
Troop/Spell 	Reason
Dragon 	As I said, I suggest to upgrade the troops and spells you use commonly during Clan Wars, but I'm not saying that it has to be Dragon because remember this is my upgrade order.
Rage Spell 	Same reason as Dragon
Healing Spell 	Same reason as Dragon
Archer 	I like using BaRch in my current level and it works quite well, however Archers are an all-around troops for attacking and the most well-received Clan Castle donation as well. I recommend upgrading these after upgrading the troops and spells used in Clan Wars.
Barbarian 	Barbarians are good meat shields for Archers in a BaRch attack because the Barbarians will have more hit points and can tank more damage allowing the Archers to do their thing.
Lightning Spell 	After upgrading my most used army composition, I turned to the Lightning Spell, and I must say I depended on it greatly while farming for the Barbarian King. I also manage to secure a few wins when I was pushing to Crystal League by dropping it on a Builder's Hut or the Barbarian King Altar for a 50% clutch (Or sometimes copy Peter17$ and drop them on the Gem Box).
Harry Potter(I'm sure it's obvious)	Wizards are great troops like the Archer but the fact that it fires projectiles slow makes up for it's great DPS, however their hit points aren't that great and their training time is significantly long for a unit that takes up only 4 housing space.
Wall Breaker 	Upgrading Wall Breakers doesn't really matter too much in TH7 because most of us are farmers and using Wall Breakers are key to a successful Storage raid, yeah it's good to upgrade them when combined with Goblins.
Goblins 	Like what I said at the Wall Breaker, they're a good farming attack strategy when combined together.
Giant 	Giants are quality meat shields and can soak a lot of damage allowing the main attack force to destroy the village.
Hog Rider 	This is the time after I maxed out my Barbarian King, I started working on Dark Troops because I tried the level 1 Hog Riders once on a Clan War and successfully gave me 3 stars on a maxed out TH7 base. I realized their potential to be a good TH7 Clan War attack so I upgraded them hoping to find that Hog Riders will be effective in TH7.
Balloon 	I once considered on not upgrading this when I first just started at TH7 but I reconsidered after taking a look of one of my former clan's member's Balloonion strategy replay he shared. Balloonion guarantee a safe 50% and might try it as well upon reaching TH8.
Minion 	Same reason as Balloon.
Healer 	I rarely use the Healer for my raids ever since I'm TH7 but I'm sure that Giant+Healer combos on lower level Town Halls will be quite overwhelming though this won't apply on TH8, 9 and 10, they have more than enough defenses to destroy Healer dependent raids.
Note: In TH7, it's a priority to max out the Barbarian King, so do not upgrade Dark Troops nor use them unless BK is already level 5.
== Resource Management ==
There are a few variables to consider if you want to upgrade a building, you take the time and resources needed and calculate it according to your needs, in general, you need to handle your resources well, if you are saving resources for a single upgrade and get raided before you even start it; plan ahead and raid over and over until you reach the capacity.There are a lot of problems when it comes to this particular subject, a lot of people starts to raid if their resource count is low, and then have problems in keeping all the loot when the capacity has been reached.
DO NOT break your shield too early after being attacked, as you will be presented to even more problems aka farmers. These guys will know you have a ton of loot and when you go offline for a long time, expect to lose resources. If you are in the higher leagues like Crystal and above with a level 7 Town Hall, never break your shield, raids in Crystal League are dangerous especially for a TH7, you would lose more than what you rake in.
=== Gems ===
NO! NEVER spend precious Gems on upgrades or anything else. But IF you already have all five Builder's Huts then you can spend them freely, Builder's Huts are the only things that require gems that give the player a permanent benefit.
==== What to spend Gems on? ====
After obtaining 5th builder it will be good to use Gems on Resource Buildings/Barracks/Spell Factory/Barbarian King/Archer Queen. Gems are a premium currency in the game and much harder to earn than Dark Elixir, use them wisely.
== Summary ==
I made this guide in order to provide players with details on upgrading defenses and other structures. I am absolutely NOT forcing you to follow exactly the same pattern as I did, I just gave some hints and help out players that are stuck on choosing which and what to upgrade. I hope you learn something useful in my guide and apply it.