DragoShadow's Strategy Guides/Defense Strategy Guide

Hey everybody. So everybody loves that gold and elixir right? You wanna take as much as you can in raids and just get the heck out of there right? When people attack your village, they think the same way. So how exactly do you protect your goodies from those other... players? This guide will hopefully get you started on building a better defense to keep your goodies protected. Sections 1 and 2 are more for beginners and early intermediate players who need a better understanding of basic defense mechanics and strategy. Section 3 is for more advanced players, in where I describe how to defend against certain traditional attacks. If you are an advanced enough player, it becomes less important to follow this guide step by step. If you are a beginner however, try to go over Sections 1 and 2 before the next sections.
==Prevention==
So as I said in the intro, people go after resources (unless they have no life and attack people just for fun). And furthermore, they go after villages with a lot of resources; not some kind of noob village with 1k of resources total. For example, I go after villages that have at least 150k of each resource (so basically 300k in total).
Now that you know how most people think (they want resources, if you still haven't gotten the point yet) you can prevent attacks by not having what they want. In case that sounds confusing (and it probably does because even I have trouble understanding what I just typed), I'll reiterate it in different words. You just want to get rid of all your stuff that might attract raids- gold and elixir.
====Ok... so now what???====
Right now you're probably thinking: "What the heck is this page talking about? Philosophy?" No it's talking about COC, but I'll get to the point now. Get rid of gold and elixir... but no don't just burn your gold and then throw it in acid; use it in ways that are productive and efficient, but use quite some gold and elixir.
For example:
Elixir:
*RESEARCH!!! Not only does researching take a bunch of elixir, it also boosts your troops power and attack and stuff and makes them look better and wickeder (is wickeder a word or somethin?)
*Queue up troops even when your army camps are full. This saves you a ton of time because once you go on a raid, your extra queues will be in automatically. When you log off and go to sleep, train up ur barracks with all wall breakers. They are the best way to hide elixir since they have the most elixir/housing space ratio.
Gold:
*WALLS!!!. Upgrade your walls. Yup upgrade those walls too. And those ones. Mmmmhm. Just don't upgrade the spawn forcing walls that you use to push enemies' spawn points. (I'll talk about that later.)
*Upgrade your defensive towers, especially wizard towers. Why wizard towers? Cuz they're good, duh. Defensive towers that take a lot of gold to upgrade are usually good. Just a rule of thumb in life. <---- But no that rule of thumb does not always apply.
Of course, there are always those buildings that take a lot of gold and elixir and you can't get all of it in one session of gaming. So when you have a ton of resources in your storages, I suggest that you go into a farming setup with the storages (of the resources that you want to keep) at the very middle with wizard towers and your clan castle guarding it.
That will conclude this first section. Hopefully just by doing that every time you exit COC will prevent attacks. But... there are always those people who have no life and attack you just for fun. Reeeeemember?
==OK, I tried prevention but haters still attack me.==
So you tried prevention? And it doesn't work for you? Okay well then, it's time for REAL defense strategy. YAY!!
This is a top 4 list  of what I feel are the most essential defensive towers or... defensive items if you will.
#Wizard Tower
#Mortar / Air Defense
#Walls / Archer Towers / Cannons
#Clan Castle Troops (mainly archers and giants)
So right now, you're probably wondering 1 thing. Why is air defense so important? 
Okay so as you advance in TH level, actual level, and league level, (lots of levels in COC) you will see more and more people using flying troops like dragons and minions and especially healers. So once you start seeing all these flying troops you should already have a minimum of a lvl 3 air defense to counter and slow down all of these flying troops.
====Types of Villages====
Packed base: 
A packed base is essentially what it sounds like. Everything in the village is crammed together inside one single layer of walls. Send in 3 wall breakers at most to break the walls and boom you've pretty much won the battle. If you have this village, fix it to another base type ASAP. It has almost no defensive advantage.
Corner base:Basically a packed base but up against a corner of the map. There are no walls in the corner in which the village is up against. To attack this village, you don't even need wall breakers since you can spawn in corners and in the forest outside of the village. This base also sucks. Change it if you have a corner base. Remember people can spawn troops outside!!
Split base: Essentially 2 different bases on the same map. That's all it is. No really. A player splits his base into halves and puts them on different places of the map. If you think about it, they are half as powerful as they could be if they were together. Split bases are not... that good. At all. Change your base if you think that your base looks like two neighboring bases instead of one single base.
Pocket base:The name of the base describes it perfectly. Buildings each have their own compartments or pockets. Some buildings may share a compartment with another tower. Pocket bases are decent, but not the best. 
Spiral base: Again, the name describes the base perfectly. Buildings spiral around with the walls acting as the spiral. This base is very common in I'd say TH8 or 9. A very common type of spiral base is where people spiral their defenses around and around in a loop. Thus giants and hog riders go around and around in a merry-go-round and get shot at by defenses. Effective base if used correctly. Very good for rendering hog riders' jumping ability useless. Also a very good base to put traps in.
Bulkhead base: Probably the most commonly seen base at high levels. The bulkhead base is basically a base where if when one half of the base gets "taken over," the other half can still survive on its own. This is generally the most effective base.
Spiralbase.jpg|Spiral base
Pocketbase.jpg|Pocket base
Cornerbase.jpg|Corner base
Packedbase.jpg|Packed base
splitbase.jpg|Split base
bulkheadbase.jpg|Bulkhead base
This serves as the conclusion as the "Types of Villages" section of this guide.
ONWARDS... to defensive tower placement.
====Building Placement====
When your're building your base, make sure to put your Town Hall at the very center of your town because if your opponent destroys that one single building, then you just lost, even if they didn't destroy anything else. Put your storages in the second most inner layer of walls or even the most inner if you're all over your resources (I'm gonna shorten resources to res). Put your mortars in the center as well. Some people put their wizard towers in the most inner layer, but I don't do that because the wizard tower has a very limited range (I'm not sure exactly how many tiles) of 7 tiles. By the time your opponent gets to the center of your base, the wizard tower is not going to be any use. Mortars however have a range up to 11. This means that they can shoot all the way over to your 3rd or even 2nd layer depending on how thick each layer is. (1st layer=outer most layer)
=====Archer Tower/Cannon/Wizard Tower=====
Anyways, put most of your archer towers and cannons in your 1st, outer most layer. They serve as a good first line of defense and are a good deterrent against wall breakers. So if any wall breakers "stop by to drop off a present," your cannons and archer towers will easily snipe them off. However, if wall breakers send in their buddies, like giants, in first, then archer towers and cannons will shoot at the giant(s) while wall breakers blow up the walls with no problem. There is no real, effective way to prevent this. Anyway, in your first layer, I suggest placing a few wizard towers as well to help out with the mobs and hordes. If you put them any later in your defense, the horde (probably around 70+ troops) will easily wipe out all of your buildings in the first layer and go to the next and next. So, again place a few wizard towers to prevent this. 
=====Mortar/Wizard Tower=====
Mortars... They're especially good at range, but they suck at close up and when either (1) a dragon is breathing fire on them (2) a skeleton is dropping a bomb on them and (3) a minion is spitting on them. OK so you don't need a tower to support the mortar's ranged fire- it's good enough, but you need a tower to cover the mortar's 4 radius blind spot AND to support the mortar from air units. I highly suggest using an archer tower. Some people use cannons, but they forgot the fact that cannons cannot shoot at air units. Archer towers can. Some people use wizard towers, but I would use wizard towers some where else. Besides, the mortar would have already taken care of all hordes using it's splash damage. Wizard towers are also weak against single units. So when a single or just a few units come at your mortar, the archer tower will be more effective than the wizard tower.
So we went over archer tower, cannon, mortar, and wizard tower placement. I'm not sure if I want to go over like 4 more towers, so I'll just keep this guide aimed at TH5-TH7 ish. TH8 people, you could read this guide, but you probably don't need it.
====Who beats who?====
This section of the guide will give my view on the best tower to beat each troop and the best troop to beat each tower. This way you will know which tower to use to cover another tower. REMEMBER: This guide is for medium TH level players (TH5-TH7).
Which tower kills what troops?
 	Troop
Cannon kills 	
Any "by-themselves" units
Wall Breaker
Archer Tower kills	
Any "by-themselves" units
Wall Breaker
Balloon
Minions
Mortar kills 	
Hordes of troops
More hordes of troops 
Occasionally can one hit KO that 1 archer
Wizard Tower kills	
Hordes of troops
Balloons
Minions
====Traps====
Traps are good when used correctly and when placed strategically. Otherwise, they are useless. Most traps, if you put in a wide open space, enemy troops might run right over it, but by the time the bomb explodes, they'll be somewhere over the rainbow. However, if you put traps in spaces crowded with buildings, troops will run over them and go to some other tower not too far away. Bombs could do a good amount of damage if you put them in these crowded spaces. Open spaces are not the bombs best place to be. Spring traps work the same way. They are not good in open spaces, unless a whole line of troops run exactly over where you put the spring trap. For best effects, put them in nice crowded areas where troops will gather up so you can get your full 15 housing space killed. I will go over each trap specifically now.
=====Bomb=====
Good old fashioned bombs. Again, not that good in open space. Put them in smart places that your opponent won't expect bombs. For example, if you have a tiny space in between two towers because one was 3×3 and another was 4×4, put a bomb there. It's an enclosed space so when enemy troop destroy one tower and go to the next tower, BOOM the bomb blows up and does maximum damage.
=====Spring Trap=====
Good old fashioned spring traps. Not good in open space unless a whole line of troops goes over it. For spring traps, I suggest using a funnel. A funnel is basically a gap in your walls. The gap will contain a spring trap. So when your enemy deploys troops, they will go through the gap; it's in their AI. So they will walk and walk all the way over the gap in the wall while all of your defenses just shoot at the enemy troops. Then when their troops do arrive at the gap, 15 of their housing space will be... going over the rainbow. So yeah, funneling is very effective especially when you have a spring trap added into the funnel.
=====Air Bomb=====
Air bombs are best placed next to defensive towers that cannot shoot at air units. Placing them next to mortars will probably be the most effective place for an air bomb. Also, don't use funneling with an air bomb.
=====Giant Bomb=====
The giant bomb is basically a bomb, but on super steroids. I mean SUPER steroids. A bomb does 12 damage at level 1. A giant bomb does 175 damage at level 1. A level 1 giant bomb can take out hundreds if tier one troops at a time. Yup, they're really good, especially against giants. They do splash damage so they can do a ton of damage to hordes of giants as well. Except...
#They could go to complete waste because of just one archer
It's your choice. Gold vs. protection of your city. However, once you get to around high golds on up, I would highly suggest using giant bombs. Once you reach like high silver, 15k gold is close to nothing in the game. Besides, you can't do anything with 15k gold.
=====seeking Air Mine=====
The seeking air mine is like an air bomb on steroids, the same way a giant bomb is a bomb on steroids. The mine can almost kill a dragon. It does something like 1500 damage. Again, I would put this trap next to a tower that cannot shoot at any air units. I would also put it near my storages and town hall.
Again like Giant Bombs, they take a lot of gold to rearm. So again, your choice. Like the giant bomb, I would highly suggest using them in gold leagues on up. They can really help stop dragon raids in their tracks if you use them correctly.
This concludes the trap part of the defensive guide.
====Spawn Pushing====
Spawn pushing is where you force your attacker to spawn in their troops farther away from your base. I couldn't really find an image to show you what spawn pushing looks like. But just imagine single walls that are placed so they push that red line (that shows opponents where they can spawn) farther away from your base. Spawn pushing is very useful against wall breakers. When wall breakers are sent in nice and close, defensive buildings won't get a good shot at the skeletons before they blow up. However, if the wall breaker has to travel all that distance to the wall, cannons and archer towers will get a good kill shot in before the wall breaker will blow up. Spawn pushing also makes troops walk to the base while getting shot at. When looking for a match, I see some people that just simply OVERKILL the spawn pushing. They have like a minimum of 100 walls solely dedicated to pushing the spawn. Now that is just overkill. Push the spawn point just a tad where it is needed; there is no really big defensive gain in pushing spawn point like 50 extra squares.
====Corner Buildings====
These are buildings squeezed into the very corner of a base. They try to elude an attacker's attention and hopefully prevent a 3 star on your base. I would recommend putting a builder's hut or something in the corner. It doesn't really work that often, but hey, it's worth a try right?
====Hidden Teslas====
Yes, hidden teslas do get their very own section in this guide. Let's start off by first addressing the basic mechanics of a hidden tesla. At first, they are hidden from the enemy. They can't see them, but with a bit of judgement, they can figure out which 2×2 areas probably contain a hidden tesla (because hidden tesla are 2×2). Think of teslas as an underground weapon that goes above ground when the enemy gets close enough. You can't rain lightning spells on the tesla when it hasn't been activated (you'll be hitting the dirt ground). However, once the tesla has been activated and is above ground, THEN you can go all Zeus on it and kill with lightning spells. The same goes with troops. They can't hit the tesla if it hasn't been activated, but they can once it has. And lastly, troops can spawn on top of hidden teslas!!! So don't accidentally make a 3×3 area that the opponent can spawn on top of. 
P.S. Hidden teslas can take down your flying troops surprisingly quickly. Don't think that air defense are the only effective defenses against dragons and such. Just saying....
==Defending Against Certain Troop Combinations==
So far, of all the defence strategy guides, I haven't read one that tells you how to specifically defend your base against a certain given troop combo such as Giant-Healer, Balloon-Minion, and so on. I hope that this will help any of those players that keep on getting wrecked by a certain troop combination. If you have a problem with defending against a certain attack and its not listed in this guide, please feel free to leave it in the comments below. I will try my best to go over it.
===Giant + Heal===
The heal can mean either healers or simply a heal spell to heal your giants. This attack is very effective when the opponents defenses are very close and clumped up together so your giants won't have to walk around the whole base. Probably the most often seen in high silvers, golds, but sometimes even crystals. If you're using this in crystals (which several of my clanmates often do) try using maxed out level 9 giants or at the very minimum level 5 giants.
To defend against this, try ordering your defenses around so that the giants follow a path where they run into several spring traps and giant bombs. You can put a few cannons in a sectioned off place in your base with no walls separating them. This way giants will go for those useless cannons instead of wizard towers and the like (while getting shot at by your defenses, of course). Like many other attacks, this attack contains a flying troop. This is another reason to upgrade your air defense and keep it very centralized. Once the enemy healer is gone, the giants will eventually die out. So get those air defenses up! If your opponent doesn't use a healer and replaces it with heal spells, you need to make sure you have very strong point defense (cannons, archer towers, and hidden teslas) so you can get rid of several giants before they drop their next heal spell. Mortars and wizard towers (splash damage) aren't very effective against massed giants because of the giants' massive health.
Bottom line: GOOD AIR DEFENSE + SMART DEFENSE POSITIONING + STRONG POINT DEFENSE= SUCCESS
===Balloon Minion===
Balloons massed on your air defenses to take them out quickly and then minions follow shortly afterwords for extra firepower. Often used with rage spells to make balloons OP. Often seen in high golds. This attack is still effective even in high crystal leagues.
Sure, you're probably think that air defense is the most important defense to defend against this kind of raid. It sure is, but archer towers are very key as well. Bases have way more archer towers than air defenses, so upgrading those archer towers will be more productive than upgrading those air defenses. Besides, air defenses can one shot most level balloons. Upgrading air defenses even more won't make a difference since it will still be a one shot for balloons. Archer towers can "one-second" most level balloons, so wouldn't it be better to make it a "one-shot?" (By the way, the amount of damage done in one second is different than damage done in one shot.) Wizard towers are also very key in your defense against balloon minions because wizard towers can absolutely dominate the minions coming in. Minions have very weak hitpoints and are often massed. Perfect target for a wizard tower.
Bottom line: WIZARD TOWERS + ARCHER TOWERS PLUS AIR DEFENCES = SUCCESS
===All Archer Attack===
This is where only archers are used in order to surround your whole base and try to get a 50% star victory. This attack is very effective all the way up to even low masters if you have good enough archers!! It's very rare to get 3 stars with this attack, but it's also very hard to lose the raid as well. So basically, all archer attacks work slowly, but surely.
First thing you need to do to defend against this is to put as many buildings as you can within your walls. This is so that enemy archers will have a much harder time getting to those buildings and achieving 50%. The archers depend on picking off outside buildings to get their percentage points, so if you put them inside, you can save yourself a few % points. However, don't cram every single building that you have within these walls. Find a perfect medium: Just enough inside and outside of your base. Also, your splash damage will be key in destroying enemy archers. Upgrade your splash damage buildings asap.
Bottom line: SPLASH DAMAGE DEFENSES + BUILDINGS INSIDE YOUR WALLS= SUCCESS
===Barbarian + Healer===
This may sound like the craziest troop attack, but believe me, people occasionally use it, and it works... Yes that's right, they mass 100+ barbs followed by a few healers. Since the healers have a splash heal, it heals a horde of barbs at the same time. Most often since when high silvers are trying to push into golds.
This attack is very interesting to defend against since wizard towers and mortars can't destroy the barbs in one shot. So once the barbs get damaged, the healer steps in and heals them immediately and the process goes on and on until the healer eventually dies or the base gets wrecked. What you have to do against these barb healer attacks, is upgrade your walls and upgrade your air defense. Your walls should keep the barbarians at bay while the air defense shoots down the healers. I would also pay heavy attention to your air traps such as air bombs and especially seeking air mines since the mines can one-shot the healers.
Bottom line: WALLS + AIR DEFENSE + AIR TRAPS= SUCCESS
_____________________________________________________________________
I'm going to start moving onto more high level raids, but if you need help on more beginner raids, please let me know in the comments below; I will be visiting my guide often.
Please note that the higher you get up, the more weaknesses you're going to have in your base since all these new troops are available at TH 9 and TH 10 while you only unlock a few more defenses like the X Bow and Inferno Towers. Also, in high level gameplay, the two most important characters in raids are your heroes, the Barbarian King and Archer Queen. Oftentimes, the whole army is used to create a path to the town hall for the heroes to follow and get to the TH. It is uncommon for you to win your defenses since as long as your opponent can create a path to your TH, they can win the battle.
===GoWiWi===
GoWiWi stands for Golems, Wizards, Witches. This is easily the most common and arguably the most effective raid in Masters and Champions league. Golems are used to distract fire. They are followed by wizards to take out the sides while witches go straight down the middle. Once a path of empty land is cleared, the follow with the heroes to the middle of the base.
There is no perfect way for defending against this, but the unpredictability of your base can help. Put giant bombs in strategic areas to get rid of witches and their nasty skeletons. Bombs can help as well. You want to make a path to where your town hall is, as hard as you can make it. This will make it hard for your opponent to get to the middle and send in their heroes. Use storages as tanks and maybe create another layer of walls for your opponent to have to penetrate through. Also, create large areas where you throw in a bunch of random buildings so when your opponent send in their heroes, the heroes will go for the random junk instead of your more valuable town hall. Lastly, but definitely not the least, your inferno tower. To defend against almost all raids in Champions league, your going to have to set your inferno to single target mode. This is in the hopes of it locking on to the enemy Barb King and killing him. The odds of this happening are obviously not great, but it sure is helpful when it does happen.
Bottom line: SMART USE OF INFERNO TOWER + HARD TO GET TO THE MIDDLE + JUNKYARD= SUCCESS
===GoWiPe===
GoWiPe stands for Golem, wizards, and PEKKAS. Golems soak up all the damage while PEKKAS follow right afterwards destroying everything in their path. Wizards provide for support damge. Heroes are not used that often in GoWiPe raids. GoWiPe is the most common in high crystals. Not seen that often in masters and champions league. This attack often screws up someplace, but if done correctly, it can end up with a beautiful 100%.
So in the intro, I said that golems tank while PEKKAS dish the damage. Golems alone won't do any damage. PEKKAS alone will get killed too quickly. They have to stay together to work. So... if you can lure the golem away from the PEKKAS using a few defenses, then you've pretty much won the attack. Golems go for defenses while PEKKAS go for anything. Putting a few defenses in a path with other non-defensive buildings (especially storages and buildings with lots of health) in between them will cause the golems to pull ahead of the PEKKAS and leave them behind in the dust. :) Also, smart hidden tesla placement will really throw off a GoWiPe attack. The hidden tesla will do massive damage to the PEKKAS and hopefully give your opponent a nice little scare along the way.
Bottom line: GOLEMS RACE AHEAD OF PEKKAS + HIDDEN TESLAS= SUCCESS
===Hog Rider Rush===
The name describes it perfectly. A bunch of hog riders rushed quickly into a base. Used with heal spells. Most often seen in Masters league. Sometimes even used in low Champions league. Easy 100% if used correctly.
Defending against a hog rider rush is very easy if you have all the right things to do so. First thing that you have to do is to set your inferno towers as multiple target. I would almost always have it as multiple target if I'm in Masters, because you don't see that many Golem and hero involved attacks in masters league. Well not as many as hog rider rushes. Also, lay your defenses out so that the hog riders go around and around in a circle around your base and they never go into the middle where everything important lies. Instead, if you do this correctly, they will get rid of all your exterior defenses like cannons and archer towers and get mowed down by those inferno towers and X bows that are located in the middle of your base.
Bottom line: MULTIPLE INFERNO TOWER + MERRY GO ROUND DEFENSE LAYOUT= SUCCESS
===Witch Attack===
The witch attack used to be very popular in Masters and Champions, but GoWiWi has gradually taken over. A witch attack is when a player masses around 15-18 witches into his/her attack followed up by several wall breakers. It is often seen with Jump spells as well. Frankly, the main weakness in this attack is splash damage. Personally, I have never used the witch attack that often (I really like using GoWiPe) so I don't know a whole lot about it. But I'll give you my experience on how to defend against it.
As stated in the intro, splash damage is key to defending against witches. So, get your mortars and wizard towers maxed out as soon as possible. Wizard towers at level 8 can one shot the skeletons and mortars at level 6. So if you can get your defenses to these levels, your anti witch defense will be that much stronger. Also remember to place your mortars in an equilateral triangle so they can cover your whole base and so they cover each other. Place your wizard towers in a square formation for the same reason. Also, giant bombs are one of the most effective ways to stop a witch attack in its tracks. There are so many incidents where all of somebody's witches and skeletons have been wiped out by a single giant bomb. Once you get 4 giant bombs, I suggest putting one in each corner of the map, where people tend to spawn most of their witches. Get the giant bombs leveled up because the higher you get them, the bigger the radius gets. Lastly, upgrade your walls to at least lvl 9, preferably 10 and 11. This way, the walls delay the skeletons while splash damage can do their thing.
Bottom line: SPLASH DAMAGE TOWERS+ GIANT BOMBS+ HIGH LVL WALLS= SUCCESS