Clash of Clans Update – March 2016
As you may know, Supercell have recently posted a bunch of Sneak Peeks in order to release information of new features and improvements that will be coming soon to the number one game on the App Store, Clash of Clans. There has already been much speculation as to guess what will be added to the game in the coming update. This update will most likely be more focused on many additions to Town Hall 11 which is still relatively new and lacks any real unique aspect apart from the Grand Warden and Eagle Artillery. There has also been speculation in whether a new troop or spell will be released. I’m estimating the whole update to be rolled out to the public before the end of March, it would be surprising if Supercell left this update too long (Supercell actually brought the out on Monday 21 March). Read on to indulge yourself in the many different things that will be integrated into the game we know all too well – Clash of Clans.
Sneak Peek #1 – 18 March
This recent release of information from Supercell started off the series of sneak peeks for the March update. Supercell, Clash of Clans’ developer told us of the new level of mortar and inferno tower. These are only available for Town Hall 11 players who have been recently complaining due to the lack of features unique to Town Hall 11.
Comparison between the Level 8 Mortar (left hand side) and the Level 9 Mortar (right hand side). The Level 9 version of this defence is larger now with more defined gold decorations on the silver body of the Mortar. There is also golden chain which runs along the front and back of the Mortar and this chain seems to be a trend in this update.
These are the statistics for the new, Level 9 Mortar. This new level of mortar will be even more effective against strategies like Barch (Barbarians and Archers) and also other farming strategies.
The old, Level 3 Inferno Tower (pictured on the left side) and the new, Level 4 Inferno Tower (on the right side). There is a golden chain evident at the top of the Inferno Tower and other aesthetic changes to make it look more majestic than previous levels of the infamous Inferno Tower.
These are the statistics for the level 4 Multi Targeting Inferno Tower.
These are the statistics for the level 4 Single Targeting Inferno Tower
There have been other changes announced in this Sneak Peek, most of which are aesthetic. Supercell have played around with different designs for the Hero Altars (where the heroes sleep when regenerating health) and they have finally come to rest with new, crisply designed Altars with a more modern appearance. The old Altars were quite boring and didn’t really stand out which was ironic since the heroes are probably the most important units for the attacking aspect of Clash of Clans. It is only right that they deserved a revamp to the design of their Hero Altars.
This image depicts the new Altars of the Grand Warden (newest hero which was brought along with the long awaited Town Hall 11), the Classic Archer Queen and of course the Great Barbarian King shown from left to right respectively.
However that wasn’t the last of updates shown in the Sneak Peek #1! Air Defences which have been left unattended for a few years have also been redesigned. The stats of every level of Air Defence has remained constant but they now have a new look which seems to be another trend Supercell are bringing into their regular updates.
This shows the new designs of Air Defences. There is no chronological order in the image, they are random levels of Air Defence. The Air Defence on the far right side of the image is the maximum level.
Another cool addition that came along with the first sneak peaks was a tab next to the builders’ icon which concisely shows you what each builder is doing and how long until the upgrade is done. If you click on one of the tabs, it will show you the corresponding buildings in your base. This will be very useful for players who want to factor in time with their update schedule in order to make progression through the game more efficient and rapid.
Here is a crude example of how this will work. A green progress bar shows how far the upgrade is until completion, just like the actual buildings or obstacles would have. Except this is all in one place!
Sneak Peek #2 – 19 March
After a massive overhaul of information from the previous day which commenced Sneak Peeks, Supercell decided to tone down the amount of information in the Sneak Peeks. This Sneak Peek mainly focused on the tweaks and fixes to existing troops in addition to some other bits and pieces.
3 vintage troops of the Clash of Clans collection received additional upgrade levels, one rather surprisingly but two were definitely deserved.
I was not expecting the Hog Riders to receive an additional upgrade level from 5 to 6 as they have already been classed as a very overpowered troop – especially against Town Hall 9s. Even though they were nerfed last year and were given the dreaded 1.5 times more damage from Giant Bombs, they still managed to persist and ruin the days of Town Hall 9 players. Although the upgrade to Level 6 Hogs is exclusively available to Town Hall 10 and 11 players it will still have a large effect, particularly in war for cleanup attacks. Aesthetically, the Hog Riders haven’t changed much, they still maintain their notorious orange, mohawk hairstyle. They appear slightly larger and have a bigger, gold tinted sledgehammer to ferociously destroy buildings with.
On the other hand, Valkyries were hinted to be buffed in this update due to the severity of their weakness against defences, especially in the higher leagues like legend, Titan and champion leagues. Valkyries are normally exempt from all army compositions and are rarely seen throughout all of Clash of Clans. Valkyries have been given an additional level making the maximum level, 5. Even though the health the female warriors has been slightly reduced, the damage has been greatly increased. Hopefully this allows Valkyries to intergrate better into different army choices and maybe even form their own strategies. As the image depicts, Level 5 Valkyries are following suit of Level 6 and 7 Giants due to the black fur coat that is seen on both troops.
The last troop to receive an additional level were the Goblins. This was a very long awaited upgrade as it was estimated that the Goblins would follow suit after the Barbarians, Archers and Giants all received upgrades to Level 7. The design of the Goblins did not change too drastically although there was an added emphasis to the red hat or hair that the Goblin has.
Getting away from troops now, the time for brewing spells has again been reduced which has been met with joy from the Clash of Clans community. Regular Spells (such as Lightning, Rage, Jump, Freeze and Heal) have been reduced from 30 minutes to 20 minutes. Dark Spells (such as Poison, Earthquake and Haste) have been reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes. This will allow us to get in more attacks as it is normally the spells which take longest to get ready.
There has been a controversial tweak to Poison Spells. If an enemy clan castle troop is not focused on anything and a poison is used on it, the troop will try to move out of the poison radius to lose the slowing effect and health loss effect. However if the clan castle troops are occupied with another troop then they will remain in the poison and make no attempt to leave the harmful radius. Even if troop is leaving the radius, it is still subject to being slowed, harmed and will have less attack damage. The speed of the troop leaving the poison radius depends on the troop, for example: a goblin would leave very quickly while a golem would take a long time to get out of the poison spell radius.
Sneak Peeks #3 and 4 – 20 March
At this point of the Sneak Peeks people were getting anxious to see if the rumours of a new troop were true. Of course they were!
The Bowler! This character, which looks like a cross between a goblin and a minion is able to be trained in the New Level 7 Dark Barracks which is also visible in the image above. In attacks this troops can be likened to the Grenadier from Boom Beach (who throws grenades) except The Bowler has a more accurate approach. The Bowler has a large range and each of the rocks it throws is able to bounce so it can hit two targets instead of just one. The health of a bowler is relatively low and they will be taken out quickly if exposed to Archer Towers and Cannons. These bowlers may also be quite useful for defence, especially against witches, who are being used very frequently at the moment. The second bounce of the boulder would most likely hit the witch and eventually kill her. The Bowlers have been seen to be very effective when under the influence of a rage spell, especially if the rage spell is at a high level.
These are the stats of The Bowler. However they have only just been released so I would expect some editing and adjusting to make sure they are not too underpowered or too overpowered. In order to make use of this troop, I would recommend that you upgrade him to the maximum level for the optimum effectiveness. At lower levels The Bowler seems to be quite weak and is taken out relatively quickly. I would also recommend that you use a few Bowlers in your army compositions, alongside a few golems would make them perfect for picking up the extra percentage and getting you the extra stars in War or Multiplayer Matchmaking.
Additional Updates
In this section I will not repeat any of the information I have mentioned above in the article. That is why you may think some aspects of the update are missing but do not fret, by the end of this article you will realise that everything has been covered.
Town Hall 8 and Above Players
The HP of all levels of Wizard Towers has been increased. In early stages of the game Wizard Towers are sometimes the most important defence for taking out multiple troops however later on in the game it was seen that Wizard Towers were being taken out way too easily. The HP of Wizard Towers Level 5-9 has increased a lot more than the lower levels in order to make Wizard Towers more useful in Clash of Clans.
Town Hall 9 and Above Players
The hit points for skeletons has now been slightly reduced, the main function of this was to make it possible for Archer Towers to take the annoying skeletons out with one arrow. This will make it slightly more difficult for people to use witch dependant strategies. Now skeletons do not trigger traps such as bombs and giant bombs. Before this update it was extremely easy for people to clear traps by using skeletons as decoys but now it may be witches or wizards who are blown up by the bombs and giant bombs.
Now that Level 7 Goblins have been released for Town Hall 10 users, Supercell have kindly moved the Level 6 Goblin upgrade for Town Hall 9 players. This will be very useful for people who use GoBarch (Goblins, Barbarians and Archers) or other farming strategies which utilises Goblins.
The X-Bow now does increased Damage Per Second for Levels 2-4. At higher levels it was seen that X-Bows do not actually do much damage to high health troops such as the golem or lava hound. Now that the Damage Per Second has been increased, it will mean that the X-Bow will be able to efficiently target these tanks troops. This will also cause the X-Bow to be more effective against the Queen Walk or Immortal Queen (this strategy uses your Archer Queen alongside 4-6 Healers behind her who continually heal her when she is under fire from a defence) which has been growing exponentially in popularity, especially in wars.
Town Hall 10 and Above Players
Multi Targeting Inferno Towers now switch target much quicker than before. Pre-Update there was a delay added because the Inferno Tower used to be too good against Witches but now the delay has been removed due to the release of Level 3 witches and other features.
Now that more people have upgraded to Town Hall 11, the likelihood of Town Hall 10 and 11 users finding each other in Multiplayer Matchmaking has been greatly reduced. This will be a lot more useful for farmers who want to find dead bases instead of strong Town Hall 11 bases. This change will not apply to the Champion, Titan and Legend league which will remain the same as before.
Town Hall 11 Players
The range of the Grand Wardens Eternal Tome and Life Aura has been slightly decreased in size. Normally the Grand Warden can be recklessly and still be effective due to his AI which makes him follow other troops. Now that the Eternal Tome and Life Aura have been reduced in size people will need to play more tactically and place the Grand Warden in a suitable location to attain his maximum effectiveness in battle.
War
War sizes: 35 versus 35 and 45 versus 45 have now been removed to force more clans into the 30 v 30, 40 v 40 and 50 v 50 war size and therefore decrease the time it takes for a matchup between two equally strong clans to occur.
You can now see the number of remaining War Attacks you have by looking at the Clan War tab on the main screen. Instead of having a star button to show your war status, there is now a bigger “War Details” button which displays the same information about the current war you are in. The War Events tab has been redesigned to be more concise and easier to understand. Supercell wanted to make it clear who was attacking who and how many stars were gotten. A new addition to the Clan Profile Page now shows your clan’s “War Win Streak.” Once you lose a war, unfortunately the count is reset to 0.
The Clan War Matchmaking has been tweaked in order for Clans to be matched up more fairly. For more information, see this post: https://boostbot.org/clash-
Other
The time limit for all attacks, including War attacks and Multiplayer Matchmaking attacks have been reset to 3 minutes. The extra 30 seconds was proving too long and was making the Queen Walk or Immortal Queen strategy very overpowered as this strategy required a lot of time for the raid to work properly.
Finally revenge attacks now provides the user with a League Bonus and the attacks will contribute towards the Star Bonus. This has been an avidly requested feature which Supercell have finally added to the game.
The construction of new buildings now cannot be cancelled due to an exploitation of this feature in wars. Upgrades of existing buildings can still be cancelled, only brand new buildings cannot be cancelled. People would buy defences such as the Eagle Artillery during the War Preparation phase and this would allow them to place the building on their War Base and give them a very unfair advantage over the enemy clan during the Battle Day. Straight after this they would cancel the upgrade so they could do this again but the defence would still be set as their active war base.
If you are attacking and a troop hasn’t been deployed yet and it isn’t in the user’s sight because it requires them to start scrolling, there will be an arrow pointing in the direction to scroll. This will help to make sure that no one accidentally forgets to place a troop (Trust me, it happens!). Traps that explode such as bombs and air bombs will have a more distinct showing of the range in which they cause damage. This only applies to splash damage traps which excludes traps such as the seeking air mine and the spring trap. Battles will now automatically end if only poison spells can be used and all other troops are dead. Supercell have now fixed the instance when the battle would automatically end because the user still had an earthquake and all other troops were dead. The earthquake spell could theoretically been used to destroy a building.
The player profile has been revamped yet again and the new unit, The Bowler has been added to the list. The Army Overview tab now shows how long until your troops are completely trained or when your spells are all brewed. The system is very clever and even factors in boosted barracks or boosted spell factories to show a fully accurate time period. In the attack and defence log, more replays can be saved in the log and your replays will be kept for a longer time period.
Instead of tapping the loot cart and then it showing the amount of loot collected now the process has been changed. You can now tap the loot cart and it will show you how much resources are able to be collected. This will just make it easier for people to know how much they are receiving and it is a pretty nifty feature. The game developers have also added in more visual states for the Gold, Elixir and Dark Elixir storages so that it is easier for people while searching through bases to realise how much loot there is in each storage.
In the Future
As you may have read, there were a lot of new features, tweaks and changes to Clash of Clans in this update. This update brought a range of interesting new ideas for the game which is still growing at a fast rate. It has left us with potential ideas which may be released in the next update but it would be too soon to predict anything for definite. The next large update will not be released any time soon though. Hopefully we will get another update within 3 months but again, nothing is confirmed.
Thanks for Reading!
