GOVAHO CLAN WAR STRATEGY

Clan War Strategy: Golem, Valkyrie & Hog Rider Attack Breakdown

Unless you are really into farming on your own or trophy pushing, clan wars are the focus on your experience in Clash of Clans. It is the best form of competition the game has developed thus far, even with the rampant and known issues with match making and engineering. So, have a strong war attack strategy that you can use against most bases is critical to your success and that of your clan. Enter the Golem, Valkyrie and Hog Rider attack – aka the GoVaHo.

The great thing about the GoVaHo is that it is a clan war strategy that can be used successfully from Town Hall 8 through Town Hall 10. (Note: While it is still useable at TH11, the Eagle impacts dropping the heavy initial wave in this attack). So let’s look at which troops you need to make for Town Halls 8-10, ideal bases, and the execution of the attack.

Troop Breakdown

Here is the number of troops and spells you will need to complete the GoVaHo attack at Town Hall levels 8, 9, and 10.

Town Hall 8 (Camp Space 200):

• 2 Golems
• 14 Hog Riders
• 4 Valkyries
• 8 Wizards
• 3 Wallbreakers
• 1 Rage Spell
• 1 Heal Spell
• 3 Earthquake Spells
• Clan Castle: 3 Valkyries & 1 Earthquake Spell
• Note: At each Town Hall you can adjust the numbers of Hog Riders and Valkyries based on your comfort level with each, level of your troops and troops you are able to get in your clan castle.

Town Hall 9 (Camp Space 220):

• 1 Golem
• 14 Hog Riders
• 10 Valkyries
• 8 Wizards
• 4 Wallbreakers
• 1 Rage Spell
• 1 Heal Spell
• 2 Jump Spells
• Clan Castle: 1 Golem & 1 Poison Spell

Town Hall 10 (Camp Space 240):

• 1 Golem
• 14 Hog Riders
• 10 Valkyries
• 8 Wizards
• 4 Wallbreakers
• 1 Rage Spell
• 1 Heal Spell
• 2 Jump Spells
• 1 Poison Spell
• 20 Capacity based on design (Perhaps archers or minions to pick off outside buildings, or more Hog Riders or Valkyries if the base has more or less compartments.)
• Clan Castle: 1 Golem, 1 Giant & 1 Freeze Spell

Which Bases to Target with the GoVaHo?

This is where learning this attack style really becomes helpful. There are very few base designs that cannot be three starred by this attack. Every Town Hall 8 and 9 can be broken down by GoVaHo. Town Hall 10s are usually a safe two-star, with the third star depending on Hero levels, the defenders Inferno Tower levels and the attackers’ skill level with the strategy.

The only ones to potentially avoid are circle bases since it becomes harder to predict the pathing of the golems and valks at the start. Typically, a Queen Walk is ideal for the start for those bases.

Attack Strategy

Here is the step by step guide for how to execute the Golem, Valkyrie, Hog Rider (GoVaHo) attack.

1. Prior to Attacking – Thoroughly scout the base to (a) confirm where the Archer Queen is (you want to avoid your Hog Riders heading towards her), (b) determine if the castle troops can easily be pulled out, or if not at which point they will be triggered, (c) confirming how wide of a funnel you need to ensure the troops head into the core of the base, and (d) where you want your wallbreakers to hit.
2. Golems & Wizards – Once you’ve identified the side of the base you are starting from place your Golems apart from each other along that wall. Then behind them space out individual wizards to clear out the outside buildings. Make sure to have your Golems drawing fire from the defenses on that side.
3. Wallbreakers & EQ/Jump Spell – As the final buildings are falling outside send in 1 test wallbreaker to the ideal spot, then the remaining ones once you’ve determined if any springs or bombs were placed there. After that go ahead and drop your earthquake or jump spaces to set the path for the golems.
4. Heroes & Poison – At this point the defensive castle troops are likely headed your way. Place the heroes right behind the Golems and immediately get the poison onto those castle troops. For TH8s, you’ll be without a poison spell and the Archer Queen, so make sure you have enough wizards centrally to kill those troops.
5. Valkyries & Rage – Once the castle is dead, send in 1 test valk to test the pathing and then the remaining once you confirm they will enter the core of the base. Never let a castle dragon or loon destroy your attack by sending in the valks too soon. Place your Rage Spell over the valks inside the base and watch the chaos.
6. Hog Riders & Heal – With the defenses distracted and the middle of the base gone, launch the Hog Riders on one side, letting them work clockwise or counterclockwise, based on your entry point. Be ready with the Heal Spell for when they encounter a giant bomb, Wizard Tower or Bomb Tower.

There is a video of th9 GoVaHo attack:

Farming with Goblin Knife

Goblin Knife is one of the most effective farming techniques currently and is famous for farming Dark Elixir while upgrading Heroes. The name describes the attack pretty well – it’s a very fast attack that goes right into the heart of a base within seconds. When this technique came up, it was just a fast-stealing technique, but it can be used very viable today if used correctly.

How Goblin Knife Works

This farming strategy uses Giants and Wallbreakers to open up the base and then some Archers to make the funnel.

 When this is set, the Goblins will be deployed, multiple-finger-style, and run for the Storages and the Town Hall in the core. To achieve this, you can use either Earthquake Spells or a Jump Spell.

Which Town Hall Levels does Goblin Knife Farming work for?

Town Hall 8 to Town Hall 11 (yes, you read that right!)

Main Purpose

Primarily Dark Elixir, but you will also get a load of Gold.

Pros of Goblin Knife:

+Fast trained

+Very high success rate & often also League Bonus

+ High Profit, also without Heroes

Cons of Goblin Knife Farming:

– Sometimes it takes some time to find a good base to use it against

– Expensive in Elixir

Goblin Knife Step by Step

First, I want to explain the basic mechanics of Goblin Knife farming.

If I break it down to the very basics, this farming strategy has 3 Steps:

1. Scout the right base and the right location to start in the base
2. Build a funnel and open the outside layer
3. Get those Goblins in and drop the spells

Sounds too easy? Well, it is easy as long as you manage to create your funnel.

There are some things that are very important and if you do them wrong, you wasted the attack:

• Scouting the right base!
• Planning the path to the core!
• Funneling!

I will give you the important things you need to consider below when I walk you through step-by-step. 

Here’s the troop setup you should go with:

• 8-12 Giants (depending on your Town Hall Level)
• Golem Clan Castle
• 6-8 Wallbreakers (you need to be sure to open up the wall!)
• 20-30 Archers
• Fill with Goblins (should be around 100 Goblins)
• 1 Jump Spell
• 1 Rage Spell
• 1 Healing Spell

That’s all you need.

               Alternatively, you can also take 4 Earthquake Spells instead of the Jump Spell. That costs some Dark Elixir, but is sometimes easier to use because you don’t  have the timing pressure of the Jump Spell.

Step 1: Scouting

Scouting is the most important part of this strategy. You need to find a base you can use it on effectively and quickly plan your attack.

You’ll see that sometimes you just don’t notice something and your attack might fail. In this section, I’ll give you some valuable information that will help you with that.

You will need to look out for a base that:

• Offers enough resources (3k+ Dark Elixir & 100k+ Elixir to make up your army costs)
• A layout that can be “knifed”

You want to go for bases like this:

The important thing is that you can crack open 1 layer with your Wall Breakers (1) and then open up the core with your Jump Spell (or Earthquake Spells, depending what you prefer).

Don’t try bases like this:

Not because there is only a little Dark Elixir available, but because your Goblins will circle around the island after the Collectors are down.

There are plenty of TH11 bases that also work. I see bases like this in Titan League a lot:

You will get the 1 Star without using a single Hero on this base.

Step 1.1: Scouting Dark Elixir

The next step, once you have found a base with a layout that’s working for Goblin Knife and with enough Dark Elixir and resources, is to know where the Dark Elixir actually is located.

Check the Dark Elixir Drills; they can be taken with 5-8 Goblins and sometimes also offer a big load of Dark Elixir.

Step 1.2: Path Scouting

The next important step is to know the route your Goblins will take. The easy thing to remember is that they will always go for the Town Hall, Storages or Mines & Collectors first.

So all you have to do is to make sure that they won’t be running around following the Mines & Collectors. The initial base is a great example:

You will have to prevent your Goblins from following the outside route. This is why you need to build a funnel first.

Step 2: Building Your Funnel

This step will open up the base and clear the outside route.

You will deploy 2-3 packs of Giants (and your Clan Castle Golem) and then add your Wall Breakers and your Archers.

If you see that something went wrong (outside Hidden Tesla, lots of traps, etc.), you can also use 10 Goblins on each side to clear of the outside a little bit.

Step 3: Loot!

Now here’s the fun part.

Deploy your Rage Spell and send in your Goblins as fast as you can (use as many fingers as you can):

They will be so fast in the core and take down everything that you won’t even be able to follow it.

Make sure to drop your Healing Spell in the core as soon as they are all deployed! The Healing Spell will keep them up, no matter if there are Inferno Towers or anything else around.

Conclusion

Goblin Knife is a great farming technique that will score you lots of resources and trophies.  The key factor is to pick your bases carefully.

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Inferno Tower: Multi or Single Mode – What’s Best?

The Inferno Tower is, next to the X-Bow, the only defense with different modes. Unlike the X-Bow, the Inferno Tower will not change between what kind of troops it attacks, but you can switch it between attacking multiple targets with constant damage, or one single target with damage rising to an astronomic amount. In this post, we will take a look what the different modes will do and which one will work best for you, especially after the December 2017 change that the Inferno Tower doesn’t block healing anymore.

Which Inferno Tower Mode Is The Best?

Before we answer the question which mode is right and which one isn’t, I want to get a little more into detail what the two modes do and what they are best used for.

The Single Target Mode

This mode is dangerous for tanking troops like the Golem, Lava Hound, and Heroes. Also, mass Dragon has a problem because it takes down Dragons very fast. Using setups that have a high number of troops like Hog Riders, BARCH, Balloons etc. don’t really care about single target mode because it will mathematically not deal more damage than a regular Archer Tower before they die.

The Multi-targets mode

This mode doesn’t deal that much damage, but it will lock on 5 targets at the same time and can’t miss and deals its damage constantly. It used to be great against Bowler, Valkyries, Hog Rider and all other attacking composition that used Healer or Heal Spells, but now that the heal blocking effect got removed, it’s not that great anymore.

The Meta after removing Heal-Block

As mentioned in the beginning, the December 2017 Update removed the Inferno Towers’ ability to block any heal on troops that are targeted by the Inferno Towers beams. This is considered one of the most drastic balancing changes in the past couple updates, because this will change a lot, especially in wars:

• Heal Spells will get more viable on TH10 & TH11 again
• Troops like Hog Riders & Valkyries will make a comeback on TH10 & TH11
• War Base Designs will move away from Inferno Towers in compartments (probably X-Bows will now take their place in compartments)
• TH9 can now beat TH10 bases without that big trouble and even go for TH11 bases

Those are only some assumptions and I will update here as soon as we see how this whole balancing change will turn out in the end.

Now, the interesting question for all of is – which mode is now the mode to choose?

The best mode for your Inferno Towers

The biggest advantage of the Multi-Mode was for sure the blocking of any healing effect on troops and with 5 troops simultaneously blocked, this was a big threat to many attacks. Now that this blocking is not happening anymore, the Multi-Mode is nothing else than a defense dealing a total of up to 285 DPS (5*57 at the max level) – that’s effectively not more than 2 maxed Archer Tower deal.

Well, bottom line the truth is that the Inferno Tower is now a lot less powerful than before the December 2017 Update and all we can do is trying to make the best out of it.

This leads to the Single-Mode, that will smash tank troops and heroes merciless with an extremely high DPS after a couple of seconds. This is now a better option than the low DPS dealt by the Multi-Mode, although it’s more of a gamble.

The Inferno Tower has no favorite target, so it also can happen that it will simply target another troop that’s not a tank and will be pretty useless – in case the tank gets targeted by the Single-Mode Inferno Tower you might be able to crush an attack with it.

I often say that strategy is not relying on randomness but in this case, it’s the best option (with one single exception I will talk about below) since the Multi-Mode is pretty useless. A maxed Healer heals 90 HP per second which easily covers the 57 DPS dealt by the Multi-Mode and is not that much that you will stop an attack at all.

So, I rather take the shot of the Single-Mode to target a hero or tank instead of selecting a mode that will fail in defending for sure.

Also, if the Single-Mode Inferno Tower targets a Bowler or something similar, you can be sure that this very unit will go down due to the insane DPS dealt after 1.5 seconds instead of watching this troop get healed up or not losing significant hitpoints by the Multi-Mode.

You remember that I had one exception? Well, if you’re TH10 or TH11 and you are in a lower League like Master or even lower and see many attacks with Giants (like Goblin Knife), you might consider Inferno Tower being a better option since there are so many tanks and small troops that the Single Mode will not be effective at all.

However, this is the only exception and in higher Leagues and Clan Wars, everybody takes big tanks (Golem or Lava Hound) to the attack and that’s where your Single-Mode Inferno Tower has a way higher chance of defending.