Here’s a topic people rarely go into, because people always assume that maxing is the best way. But how do you explain my TH11 with almost everything maxed, which is less than 2 years old compared to a person who reached the same play I did playing almost 3.5 years, it makes no sense. Its because I rushed with no idle builders at all for 2 years, while the maxer must have idle builders or lab at some point or another.

1) Much better offense, much earlier
You get to farm faster than a maxed TH8, utilise wasted elixir and gain AQ levels earlier

2) Balanced builder and lab times
TH8 has longer lab time, TH9 has longer builder time. Combine them both and you won’t have too much idle time. TH8 lab is 4.5 months, builders (5 buildes) are 3.5 months. TH9 builder time in total (add both heroes) is 6-7 months, lab is 6 months.

3) Resource management
As a TH8, you’re self inflicting a 50% loot penalty, since all elixir is wasted. If you plan to max lab, your collectors would have gathered enough so that you need not raid to max TH8

By utilising wasted elixir, you can max all TH9 offenses and gain a few troops levels instead of wasting it. A TH9 can also dump gold, elixir and DE into walls and heroes so that they do not offer loot for any TH10 attacker

4) Dark Elxiir
DE is the resource which significantly increases when you go up in TH. 60k DE for golems might be tough for a TH8, but is a breeze for any TH9, with additional troops, spell, troop levels and AQ.

5) Everyone is forced to defend
With the removal of sniping, maxed and rushed accounts alike are getting clobbered. Yes, a maxed account only loses 3/5 of their loot, hurray! A rushed base can only maximum lose 4 or 5 out of 5 storages, not much difference if you compare the effort of maxing defenses