Town Hall 8 is the Town Hall level where things start to get fun for Clash of Clans players. A lot of old Clash of Clans players still use their mini TH8s for wars. Town Hall 8 wars were very famous back then in the last decade. If you put in enough effort, Town Hall 8 can be maxed out in only a few weeks by using the right upgrade order. I run a lot of TH8 mini accounts for XP farming wars in my mini clan and here in this article, I will mention the upgrade order I use for my accounts.
Laboratory
Whenever you upgrade your Town Hall, Laboratory should always be your first priority. The Wizards inside the laboratory experimented with different potions on your troops making them stronger and better. It is recommended to put something on upgrade inside the Laboratory in case any troop has a missing level this way you won’t be wasting your 16 hours.
Upgrade Cost: 400,000 Elixirs
Upgrade Time: 16Â hours
New Buildings
You will get multiple new buildings at Town Hall 8. You should use at least two builders on getting and upgrading the new buildings to the current level of existing buildings. Town Hall 8 adds the following new buildings to the base:
- Dark Spell Factory
- 1x Bomb Tower
- 1x Wizard Tower
- 1x Mortar
- 1x Archer Tower
- 1x Hidden Tesla
- 1x Gold Storage
- 1x Elixir Storage
- 1x Dark Elixir Drill
- 50x Walls
- 1x Giant Bomb
- 2x Skeleton Trap
- 2x Spring Trap
- 2x Air Bomb
- 2x Seeking Air Mines
It is important to get new buildings and upgrade them because they add a lot more Damage Per Second value to your base than the existing buildings so get them to existing levels as soon as possible and move on to the next upgrade.
Clan Castle
Clan Castle acts as both offense and defense building. Clan Castle troops play a major role in defending your village against unwanted attackers. Clan Castle is always a high-priority upgrade at every Town Hall level and most of the players go for this upgrade as early as possible. Clan Castle can be upgraded to level 4 at Town Hall 8. This upgrade gives you 25 housing spaces in the reinforcement request bar and now you can get a one-housing space spell in your Clan Castle too.
Upgrade Cost: 1,200,000 Elixirs
Upgrade Time:Â 1 day
Dark Spell FactoryÂ
You should always start upgrading your village’s offense first. Better offense means it is easier for you to gather loot and upgrade your defenses. Implies you have already built the Dark Spell Factory with the new buildings, the next thing you should do is upgrade it to level 2. A level 2 Dark Spell Factory will give you access to Earthquake Spell which is extremely useful in almost every Town Hall 8 attack strategy. It only takes 4 Earthquake spells of any level to break chunks of walls.
Upgrade Cost:Â 300,000 Elixirs
Upgrade Time:Â 8 hours
Barrack
Town Hall 8 lets you unlock PEKKA upon upgrading the Barrack to level 10. PEKKA is an extremely useful troop that can be combined or used in multiple attack strategies. PEKKA deals a lot of damage and has a significant amount of health too. PEKKA is the key ingredient of the famous GOWIPE strategy though we will be working on unlocking the other ingredients in the next upgrade.
Upgrade Cost: 1,700,000 Elixirs
Upgrade Time:Â 2 days, 12 hours
Dark Barrack
Dark Barrack unlocks troops that use Dark Elixir to train. You get two upgrades for Dark Barracks at Town Hall 8 unlocking Valkyrie and Golem respectively. Both of these troops are used in different attack strategies and you should not miss out on them. Valkyries are used in Mass Valk attacks while Golem can be used in almost any attack strategy to soak up most of the damage.Â
1st Upgrade Cost: 1,000,000 Elixirs
1st Upgrade Time: 1 day, 12 hours
1st Upgrade Unlock: Valkyrie
2nd Upgrade Cost: 1,600,000 Elixirs
2nd Upgrade Time: 2 days
2nd Upgrade Unlock:Â Golem
Dark Elixir Storage
Dark Elixir Storage can be upgraded twice at Town Hall 8 and each upgrade increases the Dark Elixir storage capacity to 40,000 and 75,000 respectively. Dark Troops take a lot of resources to upgrade at this Town Hall so it is recommended to upgrade your Dark Elixir Storage when you are done unlocking the new Dark Troops. Barbarian King upgrades are going to need an increased Dark Elixir storage capacity too so keep a builder busy on this upgrade.
1st Upgrade Cost: 1,000,000 Elixirs
1st Upgrade Time: 1 day
1st Upgrade Result: 40,000 Dark Elixir storage
2nd Upgrade Cost: 1,500,000 Elixirs
2nd Upgrade Time: 1 day, 12 hours
2nd Upgrade Result: 75,000 Dark Elixir storage
Barbarian King
At Town Hall 8, Barbarian King gets 5 new levels taking the total to level 10. A well-upgraded Barbarian King makes a lot of difference in the outcome of your attack. I would recommend upgrading your Barbarian King right after you are done with your Dark Elixir storage. Barbarian King is the strongest troop and those 5 upgrades are worth the time.
Total resources required for 5 upgrades: 65000 Dark Elixir
Total time required for 5 upgrades: 3 days, 8 hours
Air Defenses
As we are done with our offense now, it is time to work on our defense. We will start with the highest priority defense for Town Hall 8. Mass Dragon attacks are pretty common at Town Hall 8 and Air Defense is your best chance of stopping them. Clash of Clans players tend to use more aerial attacks than ground attacks at Town Hall 8. You can upgrade your Air Defense to level 6 to fight off the air attacks.
Upgrade Cost: 1,350,000 Gold
Upgrade Time:Â 2 days
Air Sweeper
Air Sweeper is a very useful defense against air attacks. Air Sweeper can mess up the plans of attackers by sending their air troops in the wrong direction. This upgrade will increase your chances of withstanding air attacks so it is recommended to prioritize it after you are done with Air Defenses.
Upgrade Cost: 1,500,000 Gold
Upgrade Time: 1 day
Archer Towers
Archer Towers are another high-priority defenses because they can target both air and ground troops with a pretty good range. Archer Towers are your second line of defense against Mass Dragon attacks. Archer Towers can mess up a lot of Dragon attacks if placed wisely. You will get two level upgrades for Archer Towers at Town Hall 8.
1st Upgrade Cost: 800,000 Gold
1st Upgrade Time: 14 hours
2nd Upgrade Cost: 1,000,000 Gold
2nd Upgrade Time: 18 hours
Bomb Towers
You will see a lot of Hog Rider attacks at Town Hall 8 and in order to defend against them you are going to need a well-upgraded Bomb Tower. You should have built the Bomb Tower already as mentioned at the start of the article. It is time to upgrade it to level 2 now.Â
Upgrade Cost: 1,200,000 Gold
Upgrade Time: 1 day, 12 hours
Wizard Towers
Wizard Towers get two new levels at Town Hall 8. Wizard Towers can help you in defending against both air and ground attacks. They can deal splash damage so they are very effective against Mass Hog or Mass Balloon attacks.Â
1st Upgrade Cost: 920,000 Gold
1st Upgrade Time: 1 day
2nd Upgrade Cost: 1,200,000 Gold
2nd Upgrade Time: 1 day, 12 hours
Hidden Teslas
Hidden Teslas can be upgraded three times at Town Hall 8. Hidden Teslas can also target both air and ground units which give them a higher priority value.
1st Upgrade Cost: 850,000 Gold
1st Upgrade Time: 18 hours
2nd Upgrade Cost: 1,100,000 Gold
2nd Upgrade Time: 1 day
3rd Upgrade Cost: 1,300,000 Gold
3rd Upgrade Time: 2 days
Cannons
You will get two new levels for your Cannons at Town Hall 8. Cannons can target only ground units which makes them less important than other upgrades but still these defenses play a major role in defending your village.Â
1st Upgrade Cost: 500,000 Gold
1st Upgrade Time: 12 hours
2nd Upgrade Cost: 700,000 Gold
2nd Upgrade Time: 18 hours
Mortars
As always in any other upgrade priority guides, Mortar is our last priority. Mortar has a good range but makes no difference against most of the attack strategies at Town Hall 8. Another reason for putting Mortar at the end of the priority list is that it takes a lot of time to upgrade.
Upgrade Cost: 750,000 Gold
Upgrade Time: 2 days, 12 hours
Walls and Traps
You should keep one builder busy on walls while letting the rest of them work on all of the traps around your base. Traps make a lot of difference when your base is under attack so you should never leave them.
Gold Mines and Elixir Collectors
Resource production buildings can give you a small number of free resources every few hours. Keep your builders busy on these when you are done with the rest of the upgrades.Â