Clash of Clans Farming Guide: Strategies By Town Hall Level

In Clash of Clans, having an effective farming strategy is essential to be able to easily afford the various number of upgrades available to players. Clash of Clans enthusiasts can easily spend hundreds of millions of gold on walls and over a hundred million elixir on research upgrades alone. 

Your farming strategy varies drastically as your Town Hall increases in level. Since you can only efficiently loot players who are one Town Hall level lower than you (or higher), you must adjust your farming strategies as you increase your Town Hall level to take on tougher and tougher foes.

In this Clash of Clans farming guide guide, you will find a quick overview to the best farming compositions and strategies for each Town Hall level. You will also find a link under each overview that leads to a full guide discussing specific strategies for that particular Town Hall level.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Levels 1 & 2

Full Guide: Clash of Clans Town Hall 2 & 3 Farming Guide

You end up at Town Hall level 2 by the end of the tutorial. You can actually farm some at Town Hall 2 before upgrading – it is very easy. All you have to do is make 20-30 Barbarians (be sure to upgrade your Army Camp to hold 30 units as soon as you can) and then start matchmaking. Look for people with exposed resources and just drop your Barbarians right on top of the resources. You can easily loot to cap within a raid or two. Do not worry about losing your shield – most players will not attack you anyway as there is no point since you have so little loot to take.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 3

Full Guide: Clash of Clans Town Hall 2 & 3 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 600 or less

Once you hit Town Hall 3, you can finally begin to farm off of other players. At this level, you can get two level 3 Army Camps, giving you a max supply count of 70. Your best bet is to just make 70 Barbarians and attack every time. Note that 70 Barbarians at 25 Elixir each will run 1750 Elixir. As long as you steal at least this much Elixir, you will be able to sustainably farm.

As a level 3 Town Hall player, you will have to fight against players with a single Mortar. You will want to spread out your Barbarians in order to avoid taking too much damage from it. Getting up to level 2 Barbarians will help you tank a Mortar much easier.

You can do the same thing with Goblins as well – the downside is Goblins take more time to train. They are more effective at taking loot though!

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 4

Full Article: CoC Town Hall 4 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 800 or less

At Town Hall level 4, not much changes from level 3. You can upgrade your Army Camp another time, so your troop capacity will increase from 70 to 80. I still recommend just making Barbarians and attacking each time your troops are ready. Other units just are not worth the increase in training time at this point.

Frequent, medium-sized raids will be what brings in most of the resources at this level range. Shoot for 35k gold and 35k elixir per raid at a minimum, or 50k of one resource (if you are already maxed on Gold or Elixir).

I do not recommend worrying about Giants or Archers at this stage. Many players will start to think they need to use Giants, but remember that Giants cost a lot of Elixir. Given that most enemies you will be farming off of only have a single Mortar, you should not need anything other than Barbarians and maybe a Wallbreaker or two.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 5

Full Article: CoC Town Hall 5 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 500 to 1000

At Town Hall level 5, things may change slightly but overall remain largely the same. You get a major increase army supply, as you get a third Army Camp that can be upgraded to level 5 (45 supplies). This brings your total army size maximum up to 135. Mass numbers of Barbarians is still the best play at this level. You can also upgrade Barbarians to level 3 at the Laboratory, increasing their strength significantly.

You will have to be more careful of about how you attack the enemy due to the introduction of the Wizard Tower. The Wizard Tower is very strong against Barbarians so you have to be careful in approaching it if you are not going to lose all of your Barbarians when you attack it. You only want to use 5-10 Barbarians at a time against it while spreading them out so that the splash damage cannot hit more than a few Barbarians at once. Ten well-placed Barbarians will take out a Wizard Tower.

If the Wizard Tower is too hard to attack, you have two options: skipping to the next base or avoiding the Wizard Tower altogether. If the Wizard Tower is at the opposite end of the base from the resource storage points, you can possibly avoid it while going for the resources. If you cannot, skip on to the next base.

I do not recommend bothering with Wall Breakers or even Archers at this level. Barbarians train faster, and are just as effective. We will not incorporate these units until Town Hall 7.

Shoot for 50k gold and 50k elixir or 70k of one resource type (if you only need gold or elixir but not both) at this level range. Any less is not worth trying to get.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 6

Full Article: CoC Town Hall 6 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 600-1100

For awhile, I used to think that Town Hall 6 was the right level to switch over to other units aside from the Barbarian. I thought it would be best to at least work in Archers and Wallbreakers, or perhaps switch to a new composition altogether like Giant/Archer/Wallbreaker/Goblin.

However, after much testing, I have found that at this level range, mass Barbarians is still the way to go. Wall Breakers, Archers, or other units may increase yield on tougher bases, but overall it is faster to just hit “next” on those bases and skip on to a more Barbarian-friendly base. Keep your Barbarians queued up in the Barracks, and you will find that you are able to constantly attack.

At this level, you get access to the level 2 Spell Factory which will allow you to research the healing spell. This spell is extremely effective at allowing Barbarians to swarm the enemy and take down a Wizard Tower. Just make sure the loot is worth it – a healing spell runs 15000 elixir before upgrades.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 7

Full Article: CoC Town Hall 7 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 800-1200 (pre 4 star research, 1100-1400 (after 4 star research)

Town Hall 7 is a big level range, with many upgrades for the player to unlock. Fully maxing out at Town Hall 7 takes many times longer than fully maxing out at TH6. It is a much larger jump than any of the previous upgrades. As a result, our farming strategies will evolve as this level progresses.

Upon first reaching Town Hall 7, your top priority is to upgrade your Laboratory so that you can get Barbarian level 4, Archer level 4, and Wall Breaker level 4.

In order to gather enough resources to get this research started, I still recommend using a full Barbarian army and farming in the 800-1200 trophy range. You can go up to a 200 supply army count at this level, meaning that your Barbarian army will be much stronger than it has been in the past.

Once you unlock level 4 Barbarian and level 4 Archer, it is time to swap to a Barbarian, Archer, and Wall Breaker combination. I recommend using about 90-100 Barbarians, 8 Wall Breakers, and 84-94 Archers.

This new army is able to easily access resource nodes behind two walls (three walls with spells). Drop down a line of Barbarians to tank and place a line of Archers behind them for extra damage. The Archers will be able to take down defensive structures behind walls (as well as Storage units).

When enemy towers are distracted, you can drop your Wall Breakers. Drop Wall Breakers in pairs, as you need 2 level 4 Wallbreakers to break down both level 5 (gold) and level 6 (pink / magenta) walls. If you are planning on using spells, safe them until you break down at least one wall. Get a bunch of Barbarians inside that broken-down wall, then drop your healing or rage spell and flood in with Archers behind.

You also get access to the Barbarian King at this Town Hall level. The Barbarian King is great for taking out enemy resource points once you take out all the Cannons and Archer Towers. Barbarians and Archers are great at taking out these towers, allowing the Barbarian King to come in and clean up the remaining Wizard Towers and Mortars, both which deal little damage to the Barbarian King.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 8

Full Article: CoC Town Hall 8 Farming Guide

Recommended Trophy Range: 1100-1450

At this level range, I recommend starting out with the same Barbarian, Archer, and Wall Breaker army that we used at TH7. However, you should start working on level 5 upgrades for the Archer, Giant, Goblin, and Wall Breaker.

Once you have completed this research, we can take on a new farming strategy altogether: Giants, Archers, Goblins, and Wall Breakers. The typical breakdown for an army should be about 10 Giants, 50-60 Archers, 10 Wallbreakers, and 70-80 Goblins for a total of 200 supplies.

To use this new army, you are looking for a place to distract the primary towers protecting the resource storage points. Make sure you trigger any traps with Goblins near where you want to start and drop your Giants and a few Wallbreakers. While the Giants are distracting the enemy towers, drop your Archers in a semi-circle behind the Giants. Also, save a few Archers for exposed resource points or other structures.

While your Giants are distracting the enemy, use the rest of your Wallbreakers to try and break towards the enemy’s storage points. You can then drop large numbers of Goblins, which will focus on grabbing the exposed loot. Healing Spells work best when used on the clustered group of Goblins. When you give 60+ Goblins a healing spell, they will chew through walls and move onto the next storage point with surprising speed.

When looking for bases to attack, you should try and find Town Hall 7 or Town Hall 8 bases. Town Hall 9 bases can be good for snagging Dark Elixir, but will be too tough to clear with this army.

However, even TH9 and TH10 bases can make great farming if the mines and elixir collectors are full. Goblins are great at collecting hundreds of thousands of gold and elixir in a single attack just by looting full collectors and mines. You can loot these full collectors for a massive resource gain. Do not worry about hitting the 50% clear on these bases – you can always get the trophies back later.

Note that with the Goblin, Archer, and Giant combination, you rarely clear the enemy’s base, but you almost always get all of the loot. Your Archers should help you hit 50% so you can maintain your trophy count.

Barbarian and Archer-based armies still work great if your primary focus is Gold or Elixir. The Giant/Goblin/Wall Breaker army is better for grabbing Dark Elixir while still effective at getting Gold and Elixir.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Level 9

Recommended Trophy Range: 1300-1800

Things do not change much at Town Hall 9 except that your army grows a little larger, you can get a few more upgrades, and you will have to farm mostly off of Town Hall 8 and above bases. I

It can be useful to switch back to Barbarians and Archers for a time at Town Hall 9, given how expensive level 6 research is; the Barbarian/Archer combination is stronger for farming the Elixir needed to jump start some of your research. You can still do quite well farming mostly with Goblins, Giants, Archers, and Wall Breakers. You may start having to use a few more Giants with your extra supplies. You can go up to 14 Giants now that the Town Hall 9 supply cap is 220 supplies.

Spells and heroes can be saved for tough bases, and are the major change of TH9. Players can now get 4 total spells, a new hero (the Archer Queen), and level up their Barbarian King all the way to 30. A high level Barbarian King (and to an extent, Archer Queen), really change the game at this level range. The same old Giant/Goblin/Archer/Wall Breaker army can suddenly start clearing Town Hall 8 bases (and putting a big dent into Town Hall 9 bases) if you get your heroes up in level. After all, a level 30 Barbarian King will be able to take out a significant chunk of a TH8 base in his own right.

If your elixir count gets high and you need to farm Dark Elixir, you may want to go with the GoWiPe or GiWiPe approach – that is a Golem (or Giants), Wizards, and a few P.E.K.K.As in your army. This can be used very effectively to hit 2k+ Dark Elixir Bases. Use your Wizards (or a handful of Archers) to clear meaningless perimeter buildings to encourage the P.E.K.K.As to core to the center of the enemy’s base.

Farming Guide: Town Hall Levels 10

Recommended Trophy Range: 1800-2200

Just like at Town Hall 9, things do not change much when you reach Town Hall 10 except that farming becomes harder. You will need to upgrade your units so that you can get level 6 of every unit category.

You may want to work in some tougher units like Barbarians at the expense of Goblins if you are having trouble with tough bases. You can also mix in a few Witches if you have spare Dark Elixir – they are among the best units in the game and can really boost an army’s strength.

The fastest farming tends to come from just skipping with the “Next” feature a lot and sniping full resource collectors. You can always go for exposed Town Halls as you see them to maintain your trophy count.

If your elixir count gets high and you need to farm Dark Elixir, you may want to go with the GoWiPe or GiWiPe approach as mentioned in the Town Hall 9 section.

Posted in: Clash of Clans