Clash of Clans Th8 B.B. Guide

Th8 B.B. Guide

Introduction

Hello, I’m *antny from OneHive Origins. Recently, when th8 B.B. has been brought up many people laugh about it saying they could 3* any base with hogs or drags. Today I’d like to change your mind and show you that rather than th8 B.B. just being a thing, many times 8v8 hitrates are lower than 9v9. Please note, this is not the only way to build th8 bases, I am just showing you how I like to build bases, hoping you will take my base building style and create your own.

Terms to know

• Ad=Air Defense 
• Cc=clan castle 
• Dgb=double giant bomb
• Gb= giant bomb
• Atkz=archer tower kill zone 
• Bt=bomb tower
• Wt=Wizard tower
• At=archer tower
• Ks=kill squad 
• Wb=wall breaker 
• Dps=damage per second 
• Fc=friendly challenge 
• Lv=level
• Th=town hall

Starting a base

When I start a new base I usually have an idea in mind, either if that is something new I want to incorporate into a base or just try a different outline. I like to plan out where I am going to put my king first, then I build around the king. This way I don’t have to find a spot for the king later on, I already know where it will be. I do not like building a wall layout then putting in the buildings as I find that it is easier to visualize what you are building without just an outline. 

1.What type of bases I am showing how to build

There are 2 types of bases, one is called ic8 bases, where there are specific rules you must follow when attacking, such as no mass drags. Due to these restrictions, people will build bases to defend these attacks. The other type of building is just normal building, where you want to defend everything with out any attacking restrictions. Below is an example of an ic8 base,notice how the air defenses are not protected.

If you would like to use ic8 rules they are:

-Max 15 hogs

-Max 15 loons

-Max 2 peakas

-Max 5 drags

-Max 8 valks

-No gowipe

-th8 only troops in your cc

Defending Hogs

2.The Basics

 Let’s talk some obvious basics first, such as no skelly traps,gb’s, or teslas by the king.Make sure springs are between 2 defenses and gb’s/dgbs are between defenses. Most attacker’s will want to get the king so putting extra things near it such as a skelly trap makes it easier for the attacker. Always have skellys on ground since dragons will melt them making them useless. Also make sure you separate your skelly traps. Skellys should be put in an area away from the king where the attacker will not come from. With the attacker most likely bringing 2 poisons for a hog attack, one for the cc and one for skellys, if your skellys right, they can only take down one trap.

3.Springs

Since the basics are down let’s move into some things that you need to understand. Springs are one of your best friends when defending. With only level 6 army camps, most likely, the maximum amount of hogs someone can bring with a 2 golem Attack is at most 20. With 6 spring traps and 3 hogs per spring, that is 18 hogs that could possibly be taken out. To ensure that the hogs will be sprung, you must use wall to funnel the hogs in. Below are a few examples that will work.

3.Anti Wizard Compartments

With springs down, you know understand how to help screw up hogs. Now we need to learn how to screw up wizards. Anti wizard compartments make it easier for golems to get taken down while the wizards are useless. By putting defenses 2 squares in it makes it so that the wizards can’t shoot the defense but the defense can shoot to wizard. This is an extremely important part of th8 B.B, as it takes away the power of the tanking being done by the golems.  When using these anti Wizard compartments it is sometimes better to put an at or cannon instead of an wt as at’s and cannons have a further range making it easier to take out Wizards. 

4.Clan Castle 

The clan castle is usually put to support these anti wizard compartments. Contrary to common th9 placement, you don’t want to put the cc in the center of the base, since there is physically not enough wall at th8 to make an unlurable cc without making a super big, wide open base. An offset let’s you choose where the attacker will have to come from. It is ok to have an extremely offset cc such as the first picture in the document shows. For example if you put king and cc on one side, then put all your gb’s and teslas on the other side, so they get no value. Dragging a cc to the other side of the base, especially if it has a witch in it, makes it extremely hard to deal with. 

Example of an offset cc

5. Giant bombs 

Using anti wizard zones are a great place to sneak gb’s in.Giant bombs are an extremity effective way to deal with hogs if used right. First off, make sure they are between defenses and away from the barb king. You need to make sure that the hogs will hit the gb and not skip it. Gbs can be put inside the base or on the outside of the base with a tesla or mortar.

Example of a gb with a Tesla

Example of using just a mortar

Example of a gb inside the base

6. Double giant bombs

Just like gb’s, dgb’s can be devastating to an attack if used correctly. Dgb’s have to be much more selective in placement. One of the most effective ways to take down hogs is using a dgb, unlike th9-11, a dgb will take out hogs if placed right. The obvious downfall to a dgb is that if a ks takes it out you are down 2 gb’s. For this reason you must be very careful with the placement of you dgb, you need to have it in an area where hogs will clump up. Do not put the dgb on the outside of the base as the attacker will not spam hogs from there.

This is an example of a bad dgb because the hogs may funnel in from the eastern side rather than the southern or northern side

This is a dgb that is inside the base and there is no way the hogs can accidentally trigger it.

7. Baiting the attacker/king placement 

With most of the hog defending traps down, let’s talk about making an attacker think they are getting good value. Now we are on to the more advanced stuff for defending hogs. When building a base, you must think about how the attacker will attack. If you have no wt’s or a bt, by the king, the attacker will most likely not attack from there because they will get no value. So the job of the defender is to try to put just enough defenses such as wt’s of a bt near the king that the attacker will think they are getting enough value to attack from there. Then on the backside, where there is no value, you can put all the nasty stuff like teslas and gbs. Commonly I see people try to put all their anti hog defenses as far as possible away from the king. This is a common mistake because if the attacker comes in from a different side than the king is on, you will have nothing that is anti hog on that side.

In this example, I have a lot of value near the king which will most likely cause the attacker to come from there as all other sides have little known value.

8. Bomb tower

Bt is a defence that the attack is usually looking to get. Bomb tower is one of the strongest anti hog defenses. The attacker will almost always heal over the bt. You do not want to have the bt as a first layer defense,or a directly targetable defence. Imagine the bt as if it is just another gb. 

9.Mini bomb placements 

Mini bombs are something that bb’s usually don’t consider an important defence although these small things can wreck a raid all together. There are 2 ways to use mini bombs. You can either clump up all the small bombs to make a gb, or you can use them on the outside to try to mess up wb’s. The best way to decide which way you should do is what you are trying to defend and how skilled your attackers will be. The downfall to try to stop wb’s is that if it doesn’t work, then you are possibly wasting 6 small bombs. Essentially, if you are trying to defend a ks attack like goho, you may want to try to screw up wb’s. If you are looking to defend mass hogs use the 6 small bombs together,it will cause the attacker to have to heal. Your mini bombs must be 2 tiles away from the wall.

10. How to defend goho

Once you understand the trap part of defending hogs, let’s move into defending a specific attack. Goho is one of the most popular attacks at th8 because it is able to get enough value from the ks and then have backend hogs with usually at least 2 heals. One of the most effective ways to defend goho is to spread up the value, for example, don’t have all your wt’s in one compartment as that is great value for a ks to take. Ideally, you want compartments to be 9 by 9. This limits the value the attacker can get. We will go into more depth on where to put teslas and gb’s to spread up value in #12. We will also explain a very effective way to deter golems in #13. Another very simple way to defend goho, is if you have left over storages, but them on the corners of your base, this makes it harder for funneling and may screw up and attack.

This is an example of a 9 by 9 compartment

11. How to defend mass hogs 

Another popular attack is mass hogs is one of the most used attacks at th7 and is still a viable attack at th8. Th8 is rarely used in leagues such as EWL but is still commonly used in random wars.There are 3 essential things needed to defend mass hogs.One of the very best ways to defend is a dgb, remember, you have to make sure that the dgb will work. Next, making hard pathing for the hogs also helps screw up an attack by creating 2 packs of hogs instead of 1.

His of an example of a hog split where hogs will split up. Red is the path of the hogs

12. Advanced use of gb’s and teslas

With the basics of defending down, let’s move into advanced techniques to defend hogs and make the attacker use heals. When building an anti hog base, you need to create multiple areas where the attacker will have to heal. You do not want to put a gb in a tesla farm. With 3 heals the attacker will obviously just heal over the Tesla farm which would include the gb in there, making it useless. You want to put the gbs somewhere will they won’t expect it unlike a Tesla farm. Essentially, you want to split up your teslas and gb’s. Imagine it like this, if the attack has deployed his hogs and runs into a Tesla farm, he will be able to heal over it. If you have gb’s near or in that Tesla farm as well it will just be healed over. You get more value as a defender if you split up gb’s and teslas

12.5. Teslas

Teslas are one of the defenders most valuable defence due to the fact that the attacker doesn’t know where they are. Never use a troll Tesla as they are ineffective for the most part. Rather put a builder hurt in the corner than a Tesla for mass drags.Tesla farms are very effective if done right, as talked about in #12. When using Teslas, make sure they are not right next to each other, but at least one space apart. This way loon drops can’t get 2 teslas in one drop.If you are really looking to defend goho, you can use them on the outside to make it hard for the golems on the funnel.

13. Golem trap

One of the most effective ways to kill a golem quick is a golem trap, a golem trap is where defenses will be shooting the golem without the help of the wizards. You want to make sure that you put the golem trap between 2 compartments to maximize the dps on the golem. This is an extreme example of a golem trap you don’t have to have such a big one.Also a good idea to put a storage in it as well.

Red is the defenses that will shoot the golem while the wizards are useless until a wall is broken

14.Morters for Hogs

Most guides won’t tell you where to put the morters, but I find they are important enough to talk to you about them. For goho you want to put morters to pull golems to areas that the attacker wouldn’t want, ideally on the outer corners so that the middle won’t be tanked. Make sure to test in fc’s that the golums will pull to the morters. Next, don’t put a mortar near the king if possible, this way the Wizards won’t be able to snipe the king while he is focused on a golem. For mass hogs use morters to make areas where they will start their mass hogs. Morters usually are where someone will start the hogs so make it so after the morter the pathing is bad for the attacker.For the most part don’t put the morters inside the base, there are better things that can be used to take up space.

Defending Dragons

15. Air defense placements

Drags are one of the strongest attacks in the game and can be very hard to defend. Don’t put your ad’s in a straight line as that makes it much easier for the attacker to take out. One of the most effective ways to defend drags is to create an ad island, as long as you create adequate buildings around it for the drags, the dragons will not path around it. Another effective way is to have mini ad islands, just make sure the ad is at the back wall. Next, you do not want to make easy pathing to ad’s from backend loons. Have at least 4 defenses a loon has to go through before it reaches an ad. You need to have at least 2 storages by every ad, this way it will take a while for the drags to get through the storages and to the ad. The ad must be able to hit the drags while they are hitting on the storage. 

Above example of bad ad placement

Above middle is an example of an ad island, bottom one is the correct use of a half ad island. Top one is a bad way to put the ad in the half island.

-Recently I have noticed a lot of people putting their ad’s in a long diagonal line like the picture above then putting defenses on either side, essentially cutting the base in half. This is the wrong way to B.B. as this makes it very easy for a ks. 

Above shows good loon pathing where no matter where they come in from, it will take 5 defenses to get to the ad. 

16.Mortars 

Mortars are a great way to direct possible backend loons into where you want. You also can use them so that the attacker would have to haste earlier to get them through the mortar. 

Without the mortar they would go straight to the ad

16. How to defend mass drags

One of the most effective ways to defend drags is the atkz, or archer tower kill zone. This is a zone that composes of at least 4 at’s. You always want to have the attacker end on the atkz. This makes it so one of the easier ways to do this is put a ad near or in the atkz, then put 2 ad’s on the opposite side so to lure them to bring their dragons in from there. The downside to the atkz is that the rest of the base can be susceptible to surgical loons. You need to make sure that there is no where where a surgical loon will work. Put at least 2 storages in the atkz to deter dragons further. 

Above is an example of an atkz

Example of how you want the attacker to come in from

17. Air trap placement 

Black bombs can either be placed nearer to the outside of a base to try to screw up the funneling or the drags. Or you can put the black bombs in areas where you think the attacker would come in from. Red bombs should be clumped together, yes, clumped all together in the middle of the atkz. If you are not using the atkz, place the red bombs, still clumped together, where you think an attacker would bring loons in.

18. Teslas

To defend drags, put Teslas in high air targeting defenses so that dragons will be melted. You should have at least one Tesla in the atkz(if you are using it.) Put the tesla or teslas right in the middle of the atkz.

20.Sweeper

The sweeper for the atkz should be facing at the atkz always. A sweeper should always be facing one of the sides where the 2 corners of the map meet. On a non atkz base you should face the sweeper where it can’t collect the most dps in it.

Red is showing all the sides the sweeper could be facing that is good.

21.Clan Castle

One of the best ways to make your base anti drag is to put your cc right in the middle of the atkz. The cc also counts as a storage for the atkz. Remember, you don’t want the cc central, so make sure it is still extremely offset in the atkz. Normally you would have your atkz nearer to the outside of the base, but just in case the atkz is central, make sure cc is still off set

What a finished atkz could look like

Final thoughts 

One thing that I have learned to do is look at your opponent’s pre trained armies. Most th8s pre-train their armies and don’t change it up when war starts. If you notice that more than half of their th8s have drags pre-trained, then you may want to build more anti drag bases for the upcoming war. Th8 is a hidden gem that most people consider a stepping stone th that is not a stage to stop and and really try to become good at that th lv. Currently, in league wars, good built th8 bases will cause the opposing team to dip every time. Th8 hitrates when defending good bases are currently lower than 9v9. With good th8 bases I commonly see the hr at around 30%. Th8 B.B. can win you wars if the opposing team has to dip 3 or 4 times. I hope you take what I have taught you today and create your own B.B. style.