Spent a ton of gems to complete AQ

Oh wow, I didn’t knew that I also maxed AQ within 4 days on this account. I’m not sure how I farmed the loot but I did. Given this picture, I can see that I used a rune of DE to maximise my DE storage. What I think is that I had 1 rune of DE which I used two days ago, then I claimed a second rune from the season challenge rewards and upgraded her again. Well, AQ is maxed again for this account.

Now on to troop balance. Really long post ahead (est 15-20min read), tl;dr on the final paragraph.

As I discussed in my post 2 days ago, heroes grow exponentially albeit very slowly. Each BK/AQ level increases their stats by 2.5-3.5%. This means their stats double approximately every 20 levels and about 40-45% every 10 levels. This allows their stats to be relevant when you upgrade them.

However, troops follow a completely different formula, almost all their stats at TH10-12 increase linearly. For example, golems gain 300 hp every single level and valks gain 100 hp every level. This makes their stats obsolete really quickly because each upgrade gives less proportion of stats.

Electro dragons have 240 dps and 3200hp at level 1, they gain 30 dps and 500 hp per level.

• Upgrading them to lvl2 will increase their stats by 30/240 = 12.5% hp and 3700/3200 = 15.6% dps.
• Upgrading them to lvl3 will increase their stats by 30/270 = 11.1% hp and 4200/3700 = 13.5% dps.
• Upgrading them to lvl4 will increase their stats by 30/300 = 10% hp and 4700/4200 = 11.9% dps

As you can see, the proportion of stats they gain when leveling up decreases steadily. This is the problem with linear scaling as growth diminishes as you upgrade it. Even if we gave gigantic growth at lvl2, let’s say lvl2 has 360 dps and 6400 hp (50% more dps and 100% more hp); at level 10 electros will only have 10% more dps (1320/1200) and 11.1% more hp (32000/28800).

I can only speculate why SC does this, my hypothesis is to maintain balance at low levels. If you donate high level troops to low levels, they become obscenely strong. You can see that when TH9s use maxed TH12 golems. At TH12, golems with 7800 hp are made of glass while at TH9 those golems are nigh indestructible. This is why I think SC introduced the warden to complement troop hp growth, so that regular troops don’t become obscenely powerful at low levels.

However, doing so only compromises high level balance as troops become not worthwhile to upgrade. As I established in my previous post, TH12 only has 20% increase in strength compared to TH11 not including heroes. For TH12, this is a poor progression system because you need to spend so much time upgrading heroes just to be superior to TH11s. It takes months and months just to be marginally stronger than someone who put in much less effort.

This also means that balance revolves around warden. If you don’t have your warden, that’s 33% of your army gone. If your troops go out of his range (valks) or you use split armies (goho), your troops suffer because they do not receive the much needed warden buff. Warden being so polarizing is not healthy for game balance either.

SC has to address this issue one way or another. My proposed solution includes limiting clan castle donations. Lower levels should not be able to receive significantly higher level troops. I would put my limit at +1 TH/level. For example:

• Lvl2 witches are maxed for TH9 so their limit is only lvl3 witches. If a TH12 donates lvl5 witches, they would be downgraded to lvl3.
• Lvl6 balloons are maxed for TH9, but there are no upgrades for TH10. So TH9 cannot receive lvl7 balloons and they would be downgraded to lvl6
• TH9 cannot build miners, so they can only receive lvl1 miners in their clan castle, but not lvl2-3 even though TH10 has lvl3.
• Lvl3 miners are maxed for TH10, while TH11 can increase it to lvl5. Despite that, TH10 are limited to lvl4 miners
• TH9 cannot build electro, and neither does TH10. So TH9 cannot receive electro dragons AT ALL in their clan castle.
• With this change, all lvl1 troops would be nerfed to limit donations. For example, electro at lvl1 would only have 2400 hp and 160 dps (instead of 3200 hp and 240 dps). Their stats would remain the same for lvl2 and above (3700 hp and 270 dps). This is done to limit donations as well so even a TH10 cannot use strong electro dragons

To solidify the suggestion above, I would also increase stat growth so that troops remain relevant and strong at higher levels. An example using miners is shown below: (all numbers are hypothetical)

• Lvl1 (TH10): 80 dps + 550 hp to 50 dps + 400 hp
  • To limit donations so that TH9 gets the cheap version. As a reminder, TH8 and below cannot receive miners at all
• Lvl2 (TH10): 88 dps + 610 hp remains the same
  • Stats at lvl2 remain the same so that TH10 can use their normal version
• Lvl3 (TH10): 96 dps + 670 hp remains the same
  • Miners are already pretty strong at TH10 and there is already good balance at TH10, so the growth and retain
• Lvl4 (TH11): 104 dps + 730 hp remains the same
  • They don’t get a buff at lvl4 because they are still accessible to TH10. At TH11, the warden would make lvl4 significantly stronger than lvl3
• Lvl5 (TH11): 112 dps + 800 hp to 120 dps + 850 hp
  • This is where the growth begins, scaling improves so that TH11 has 120/96 = 25% higher dps and 850/670 = 26.9% higher hp.
  • This would probably allow TH11s with lvl5 miners to crush maxed TH10s with punitive ease
• Lvl6 (TH12): 120 dps + 870 hp to 156 dps + 1130 hp
  • This makes TH12 miners 30% stronger than TH11 and warden could bring it to 60-70%. With this preserved

Important note: of course defenses would scale accordingly to match offensive growth

Increasing stats directly while not addressing the clan castle is feasible too, but that would also destroy balance between TH levels. Imagine a TH9 using lvl9 (TH15) miners and just crush TH10s easily. That isn’t good balancing either. This is why I would always try to suggest a change in the clan castle system before any changes are made to troop growth. Otherwise we would see TH20 troops in TH9 cc used to crush TH11s.

Another thing SC could do is to change how troops grow. Instead on focusing purely on hp and dps, troops can have secondary growth as well. This is how troops grow in the builder base. Troops gain 10% fixed stats as well as improved utility, power and troop space. I think the main base can have such upgrades too, like 20% improved hp, reduced army camp space, faster attack speed.

The difference here is that I think these improvements should stem for the lab upgrade directly, or some separate building/upgrade. This means that these upgrades scale directly with TH levels so that it cannot be accessed by lower levels. For example, upgrading the lab at TH11 improves all troops whether or not you upgrade them. So maybe once upgraded lab at TH11, your miners gain attack speed buff, baby dragons get increased rage damage, archers gain +4 dps and some buff to every single troop. With this a new 1-week old TH11 would have significant strength advantages compared to a maxed TH10. Even if you have lower level troops (maybe lvl1 miners for TH11), your troops would feel and work differently from TH10 troops.

Tl;dr: This concludes this post about how troop upgrades suck and two ways of fixing this problem. I think troop upgrades need an overhaul because the gap between TH levels is getting smaller and smaller. This makes dipping very hard unless you’re maxed for your TH level. The reward of upgrading your town hall should be superiority of the lower level, but this is not seen when you upgrade to TH11/12 unless you maxed your warden. These changes would serve to improve strength dramatically and ensure proper scaling between TH levels.

Hope the wait for this was worth it!