Clash of Clans Best Rusher's Guide

The guide will be split into 3 parts.

Myth Buster - Debunk all the popular myth people keep blabbing on about related to rushing TH in this forum

FAQ - Most asked questions about rushing TH.

Walkthrough - Complete guide on how to rush properly.

Choosing whether or not to rush your TH is a personal choice and you are free to play how you want DO NOT come in this thread and advise people to not rush TH.

Here are the pros and cons of rushing TH. Some of the pros and cons will be explained further in the different sections of the guide.

Pros
- Farm faster so you will be able to gain the max amount of resources in the shortest period of time spend playing
- 3 star opponents who have spent much longer than you developing their base.
- Donate stronger troops and be more of an asset to your clan.
- Better builder and resource management with more resource dump and cheap/faster upgrades along side expensive/slower upgrades.

Cons
- Negative stigma for rushed bases by the general clash of clans player pool who doesn't understand how the game works. Your friends or clan mates might make fun of you until you show them what you can do.
- It bothers some players that a lower TH level can destroy their base. (Only a con if you care about this).

Myth Buster

1. Can't defend your loot
I lost average 40k of each a day rushing, see link in the original thread for details. The amount of loot loss is so small and shouldn't affect your progress. Even if you lose the max amount you will be able to raid it back in 1 or 2 raids. If you can't save up loot for big upgrades means you're doing it wrong and read through the walk through for details. Remember, you only go on defense once every 12hrs or when you intentionally break shield but can attack many many more times in the same time period.

2. Loot penalty will hurt
Loot penalty exists for attacking lower TH but there's no reason to attack lower TH. TH10 needs to attack TH8 about as much as TH8 needs to attack TH6. Higher TH has more loot and higher league has bigger bonus. The only thing that stops you from farming higher TH at higher league is your offensive power to get the loot and maintain trophies with an efficient farming army.

3. Rushed TH causes clan war mismatches
I don't know how this one came about but TH level has nothing to do with clan wars match making. Read the FAQ in the clan war section for details. Higher TH exclusive defense structures like xbow and inferno towers carry much bigger weight in match making. You do not have to build those structures when you reach higher TH. See the walk through for more details. As long as you can 3 star your own base, you will be an asset to your clan in wars.

4. My base will be 3 starred in clan wars and hurt my clan's chances of winning
It's true that your base will be 3 starred but same goes for any non rushed bases that spent the same amount of time in development. Any competent attacker will at least 2 stars their equal so best case scenario of non rushed base is you save 1 star for your team or waste a higher TH attack from opposing clan. Trade off is that you will gain 6 stars from much stronger bases so from a min/max point of view it's a huge advantage to rush

5. Need to be extremely active and 100s of attacks per season to be a successful rusher
You only need to attack about 3 times in between log offs to show a profit. If you can't do that clash of clans isn't for you, whether you max or not. You do not need to raid much to keep your lab going none stop which is the only thing improving your offense after the initial upgrades, most can be saved up before you hit new TH level. You need to net about 100k elixirs or less a day to keep lab going none stop, collectors will do the rest. Therefore, you do not need to be highly active to experience the benefit of rushing as long as you can gain enough elixir before your lab finishes. Of course, you will progress faster by being more active, this is true whether you rush or not. Even if you hardly raid TH10 has more collectors and better defense so you can even collect resources faster without raiding by rushing to TH10.

6. Rushing is risky, if you screw up your account is totally screwed with no way to recover
It's impossible to screw up your account so much in clash of clans that the only way to continue is starting a new account. If you rushed TH without maxing farming troops, stop upgrading TH and work on farming troops. You got enough gold to upgrade the TH so now just work the same magic except for elixir and upgrade your troops. See Faq for details.

Faq

1. Am I ready to go to the next TH?
You're ready to go to the next TH if your farming troops and 1 3 star war army combination is maxed. Walls, defenses and hero levels is not a factor. It's recommended to work on walls and heroes at TH10 because you can farm all 3 resources at the same time with higher efficiency. We don't raid with walls or defenses. You can gain way more loot than you can lose as long as you raid in sessions. We don't sit round with max storages every time we log off and people can't take what's not in your storages.

2. What farming compositions do you use?
Barch.

3. How to farm Dark Elixir?
Upgrade to TH10 and barch in master's league and you will have more DE than you know what to do with. There's no need to specifically target DE if your intention is to rush to TH10. See walk through for more details.

4. What army to use in clan wars?
TH2-6 hogs in CC with healer or just barch with healers(you will only spend about 2 weeks here).
TH7-8 dragloon
TH9-TH10 lavaloonion

5. What league to farm in?
TH8 and under silver league. TH9 gold3-gold2. TH10 masters 3 and up. See walk through for details.

6. What is the difference between a premmie and a rusher?
Premmie is someone who upgrade their TH prematurely without understanding how this game works. They often have poor attacking skills and is likely the cause of negative stigma towards rushed bases. Rusher is someone who upgrade their TH with knowledge of the game and looking for the most efficient way to progress.

7. How can I tell the difference between a premmie and a rusher when I meet one in game?
Look at the player's offensive abilities. If the player has maxed spell factory, clan castle, spell factory, army camps or has a builder working on them while the lab is busy and has a farming troop combination maxed from previous TH, they are a rusher. If your clan is recruiting for war, rusher will have at least 1 3 star troop combination maxed from the previous TH level. Any player who doesn't fit this profile is likely to be a premmie.

8. How do I recover if I rushed too fast?
In the event that you did not follow the guide and upgrade TH without maxing farming troops do not panic. You manage to save up enough gold to upgrade your TH now think about how you did this. If you farmed great, do more farming except for elixir to upgrade your troops. If you gemmed, unfortunately, you're going to have to spend little bit more money. Do whatever it takes to get archers to lv5. Even at TH10 with lv5 archers, you will be able to farm 100k elixir a day hitting dead bases and snipping THs to upgrade archers to lv6 in 10 days assuming that you have maxed elixir collectors. Put all your gold into upgrading your elixir collectors and walls. Patience in this game is key if you don't want to spend real money so be patient while your troops and collectors upgrade. Collectors are extremely cheap upgrades and you will be able to keep them upgrading with just the gold from your mines.

9. Should I worry about my walls while rushing? (Credit to Sservis)
To the extent that you cannot productively use elixir on village improvements, it is a waste of time to focus on walls before TH9. For example, at TH8, 225 skulls means farming 112.5 million gold, and wasting almost all of the elixir. At TH9, 225 skulls means farming 112.5 million gold and converting about half of the 225 walls to lego for "free" with the elixir that would have been wasted at TH8. A similar point applies at all lower TH versus TH9 with a lower return in free legos. Walls should be upgraded when you have gold to dump, but wait until TH9 or later to farm for walls. If you are rushing to TH10, you can farm for walls in TH9, but don't wait on walls, upgrade when the important parameters (farming/war offenses) are ready.

Walk Through

Forward- very important for new players
So you decided to rush? please note that there are different degrees of rushing. It's not required that you upgrade your TH soon as you meet the bare minimum requirement. Your attacking skill must match your base progression to gain all the advantages of rushing. Otherwise, you can quickly become the much hated premmie. I will point out the best places to stop and let your skill catch up throughout the guide.

General upgrade order at any TH
Spell Factory, Clan Castle, Lab > Army Camps > Heroes > Barracks/Dark Barracks > Collectors > Defense

General Pointers
- Keep TH outside of the base without traps around it
- Don't even bother rearming your traps as you just lose more loot
- Don't worry about base design until you're at a stopping point. I had no base design until TH9.
- Do not break shield unless you can raid at least 3 times.

The early part of the game
This refers to TH1-6. Just keep upgrading TH none stop and keep upgrading your gold storages so you can gold enough gold for next TH upgrade. Before TH6 farm with all barbarians instead of barch is more efficient. Make sure your lab is going none stop upgrading barch. This is because at TH7 you unlock the 4th and final barracks. Your farming efficiency will be much higher when you can train your army with 4 barracks. DO NOT worry about base design as you will be rushing through this part really fast.
Clan wars only
upgrade one barracks to max at each TH level so you can get dragons at TH7 ASAP.

Town Hall 7 - Stopping Point Alert

TH7 is when efficient farming starts with the addition of the 4th and final barracks. This is a good place to stop and catch up on lab upgrades if you rushed a bit too fast on the earlier THs. Maxing out spells, barch is highly recommended but you will not be screwed if you choose to rush on. Farm in silver 3 to silver 1 and do not worry about trophies. If you can drop 40 troops take out the collectors and lose cups do it. Do not bother snipping THs unless you really need the cups. Do not worry about the barbarian king or upgrading him. Farming DE at TH7 is very very inefficient and you will get enough DE to get the barbarian king later easily. It's recommended that you upgrade all your barracks when you have extra loot and no need to farm fast.
Clan wars only
Upgrade one of your barracks ASAP to get dragons. Dragons are extremely powerful at TH7. 10 level 1 dragons can easily 3 star any TH7 with 3 lightning spells. Drop lightning spells on one air defense and drop your dragons near the other one almost guarantees a 3 star. Practice using other troops, like balloons with your dragon army to reduce the cost and gain valuable attacking experience. DO NOT upgrade your dragons since they become useless after TH8 and we're going to rush straight past TH8. Maxing out balloons is highly recommended for clan wars as they will become the default attacking strategy at later THs.

Town Hall 8

TH8 is a very weak TH in terms of offensive gain. You gain no additional army camp space, no additional spells or heroes. Upgrade your barch, rage spell while your builders work on storages, CC and move on. You can start the TH upgrade soon as your level 5 archers are done. The 10 days it takes up the TH to upgrade will allow you to max balloons and barbarians. Make sure your DE storage can hold at least 40k DE before your TH finishes upgrading to TH9, you will not have spare elixir to upgrade it as a new TH9. Staying longer a TH8 to max out spells is ok but not necessary.
Clan Wars only
You will mostly be attacking with ballonion or dragloons. Level 1 dragon and Level 5 balloons with max balloons in the CC is capable of 3 starring most mid TH8s. Since we're going to rush right past this strategy you don't need to worry about attacking advanced TH8s. Max out a dark barracks so you can have access to lava hound soon after hitting TH9.

Town Hall 9 -Stopping Point Alert

TH9 gains huge amount of offensive power and army composition availability from TH8. You gain 20 extra army camp space, bigger CC, archer queen and many max troops. This is a great place to stay and practice different troop combinations and strategies. Upgrades start to become expensive and slower so it's more important that you plan your upgrades. Highly recommended to finish TH upgrade with max elixir and 5mil gold and 40k DE for the archer queen.
Building order is
Gold: CC - > dump all your gold into walls
Elixir: SF, Lab -> camps, dark barracks(cw) -> DE drill

Notice that there's no xbow in the build order for early TH9. This is because defenses are useless to protect your loot, especially if you rushed from previous TH. Reloading xbows cost elixir and you can't waste elixir or valuable builder time on xbows. Keep your TH outside of your base without traps. You will not be a desirable target as you only have elixir and no gold so it's less likely someone will attack you before your TH gets snipped. If you get raided don't worry just raid it back. This is the best TH to stop rushing at if you are a new player. It was enjoyable for me to practice all the 3 star attacking strategies at TH9 such as holo/golo/gohowiwi with my first account.
Clan war only
DO NOT BUILD xbows until you have unlocked lava hound.
Highly recommended to upgrade balloons first over barch. Level6 balloons has a huge boost and soon as you have balloons upgrades you will be able to 3 star maxed TH8 and early TH9 even with level 1 minions. Upgrade a dark barracks none stop to unlock lava hound. Once lava hound is unlocked, even at level1, you will be able to 3 star maxed defense TH9 with favorable lavaloon layout. From there upgrade your lava hound hogs, golems, witches, wiz to practice the various group attacks available. Pekka is not impressive as it does not gain any new levels at TH9. Minimum recommended troops to rush to TH10 if you're in a warring clan is lava hound, balloons and barch. Highly recommended to master all the ground based 3 star strategy if it's your first account.

Town Hall 10
The final stretch, recommended farming range crystal 2 - crystal 1 for new TH10, Masters 3 + with level 7 troops. Loot is amazing in the master's league, I average 400k of each gold/elixir and 2.5k DE per army. Farming is very different at TH10 as you can only raid TH9s and TH10s, there's a significant drop of full collectors inactive bases available to you so a big portion of your loot will come from the league bonus.

New TH10 should farm in crystal 2 to crystal 1 league with barch but the inactives are gone. DO NOT listen to anyone that tells you to raid storages. While if you had max troops you can raid storages with both heroes and spells but it's highly inefficient and doesn't produce much elixir profit. Your main focus as an early TH10 is to get your offense up which means it takes significant amount of elixir. This means you need to farm league bonus. I would train up barch and with 1/3 of the army finished I would start nexting for TH to snip. Each snip nets me 50k-65k elixir while army is training. If I find a collector base I will take it and lose cups. If no collectors base found in 20min I return to base, get full army and search for elixir storages to raid. This way you will next away lots of gold but gain lots of elixir. I was averaging 1mil elixir/hr unboosted. First lab upgrade should be a dark troop, lava hound or minions depends on if you war or not. DO NOT build inferno towers or new defenses. Not only are they useless in defending your loot, they will upset match making if you do clan wars.

Once you have level 7 archers, farming in the master league will yield about the same amount of gold/elixir as TH9 but 3 times more DE without even trying. I constantly have maxed DE storage with both heroes upgrading none stop. This when you will see the true power of rushing when you work on heroes and walls at the same time instead of raiding for DE or walls specifically. You can farm in the master's league as TH9 with barch and both heroes but that defeats the purpose of all this extra DE.
Clan wars
Only build inferno towers once you have maxed lava hound and can comfortably 3 star your own base without heroes.

#COC , #Clash