Just going to share my personal experience today. Here’s my defense log:

So, due to my strong defenses, a newbie was able to hit me first for 160k/160k without giving me a shield. After that, someone with maxed heroes and all spells came in and wrecked my base for 400k/400k. So in total, I lost 560k over one night. This just shows how useless defense levels are, because I’m too strong that people don’t give me shield yet not strong enough that people can still easily wreck the base.

According to the forums, I have rushed defenses, but yet I can still suffer from massive losses because I don’t get shielded.

Compare that with my rushed account, the most I can lose is only 400k/400k in one night. And seeing my defense log, I’m averaging losses of around 150k/150k. I simply cannot justify upgrading defenses over everything else because I’m already losing a minuscule amount. Even maxing all my xbows and teslas wouldn’t protect me much better than right now. Even my new TH11 base cannot

Remember:

https://clashguideswithdusk.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/determinants-of-defense/

I rated amount of defenses trumps level of defenses. Just going to show this example today:

Just see how little your maxed defenses mean when you don’t have infernos and Eagle. Infernos > all. Yet this person is a sad example, because he was punished dearly due to his defenses. With nearly maxed defenses, he intimidated many weaker players and had accumulated around 120k worth of loot in his collectors. Me, being a much stronger player, stumbled upon his base because all the weaklings have skipped it, and I punished him for not having infernos or eagle in his base.

Defensive levels do not matter much in this game at all. It hurts you more than it helps