Dark Troops Overview and Upgrade Priorities

The dark barracks is the only place in Clash of Clans that you can use dark elixir to train dark elixir troops.  Each dark elixir troop is specialized for use in certain kinds of attacks.  These troops make great additions to certain armies, and even make some armies possible.  The dark barracks becomes available at TH-7, and you can upgrade it to level 2.  At TH-8 you can upgrade the dark barracks to level 4, and you can max it out at TH-9 at level 6.  So this means at TH-7 you can get the minion and hog rider, at TH-8 you can train the valkyrie and golem, and at TH-9 you can get the witch and the lava hound.  Here we will briefly go over each dark elixir unit, then talk about some ways these troops can be prioritized in their upgrades.

*A few tips on the dark barracks:

The dark barracks will stop any troop training when being upgraded.  Any troops that were being trained when the barracks upgrade began will resume training once the upgrade is complete.  Upgrading a dark barracks will greatly increase the amount of time it takes to train your dark elixir troops for your army because you will only have one barracks to use until the other is finished upgrading.  If you are TH-7, you will only have one dark barracks and upgrading it will cause you to lose the ability to train dark elixir troops until your upgrade has finished, so keep that in mind when you decide to upgrade.  If the dark barracks is destroyed in battle, troops being trained inside will continue to be trained and sent to the army camps just like normal.

There are 2 ways to speed up the dark barracks.  When you are training troops, you can instantly finish their training time by using gems.  The amount of gems needed is proportional to the amount of time the training has left to completion.  The other way to speed up the dark barracks is by boosting it.  You can boost it by tapping the boost button and spending 10 gems.  This speeds up all training times by 4x for 2 hours, but remember to make the most of your boost, it will continue to count down even when you are not training any troops.

One last tip is to start training more troops even when you have full camps.  This is for 2 reasons:  One, troops will train until the first troop that would put your camps over the limit is finished. At this time, training will pause until there is more room in the camps.  This is very beneficial because you can actually have your next army training while you are searching for and attacking an opponent.  If the training time has been paused as I said above, it will automatically resume as soon as you begin looking for a multi-player opponent or single player map, and it will continue to train the entire time you are searching for an opponent and the time you are actually fighting an opponent.  The other reason for doing this is hiding your resources.  If you know you will be away from the game for a while and know you won't have a shield or will lose your shield before you play again, hide your elixir and dark elixir by filling your camps then training as many troops as your barracks and dark barracks will hold.  This spends elixir and dark elixir, taking it out of the pool of loot that can be stolen from you, and when you get back, you can remove the troops from the training queue and get 100% refunded.  This is a great way to decrease the amount of loot that can be stolen from you while you are away!  Just don't forget to remove the troops when you log back on, or they will start training as soon as you donate or attack someone and you will not be able to get your resources back.

The troops that will hide the most elixir for you is the witch (she is the most expensive dark troop per housing space).  Put as many witches as you can in the queue and finish off filling up with hogs then minions if you have more space.  In this way, you can hide over 5,000 dark elixir with max level dark barracks and max level troops for your TH level.


Dark Barracks (Dark Elixir) Troops

Minion

 Minion:

The minion is an air troop that has low hit points, high movement speed, and moderate damage.  Minions only take up 2 housing space, so you can take a lot of them to battle.  They are relatively cheap as well, only costing a few dark elixir each.  Minions cannot be targeted by seeking air mines, so you cannot use them to check for seeking air mines but they can be used to look for normal air mines.  They can attack both ground and air troops, and only attack one target at a time.  Minions work great with balloons and lava hounds, as part of the very effective Lavalooion, Balloonion, and GoLaLo attack strategies.  Minions are rather strong against point defenses like the archer tower, because they can overwhelm these defenses since point defenses by definition only target one troop at a time.  They are weak against splash damage though, and groups of minions that are caught in the explosion of an air mine or hit by a wizard tower can be quickly wiped out.  For this reason, it is usually best to use minions with a tanking unit to distract the defenses while the minions do their work.

Hog Rider

Hog Rider:

The hog rider is a favorite of many clashers, if not for his battle prowess at least for his hilarious and actions in the Clash of Clans commercials and advertisements.  The hog rider is the only ground unit that can jump over walls.  Hogs are fast moving, with moderately high health, and do high damage while also having a fairly high attack speed.  These mounted units specifically target the defenses, and being able to jump over the walls means that they will path much like a balloon would (if a balloon was much faster that is).

In this way, many players like to use hogs for their attacks because it is much simpler to determine what their path will be when released from a certain location.  Since the walls are not a factor for hogs, it is much simpler to calculate how they will path through the base from one defense to another, and therefore much easier to plan out exactly how to engage the base in your attack.  You can attempt to locate any double giant bomb locations (which are 2x4 tile spaces where enemies can set two giant bombs beside one another and will kill a group of hogs instantly), hidden teslas that may throw off your planned path, and any other small bombs or spring traps, and choose the safest route to send your hogs to keep them alive the longest.

Also take heal spells that you will drop ahead of the hog groups on top of several defenses you know they will spend some time at, to make sure they get the most out of each heal.  You also HAVE to TAKE OUT THE CC TROOPS or your attack will fail for sure.  You will have to use 1-3 hogs to ensure a full CC pull, then have some separate troops ready in case your poison spell doesn't finish off all the troops, so you can finish them off the traditional way.  You cannot forget to pull the CC in a hog attack or you will no doubt fail the attack with no stars.  This is because the hogs focus on defenses, and they will ignore everything else including CC troops attacking them, until every defense has been destroyed.  So, the CC troops will simply follow the hogs all over the map attacking them until they are all dead.

More recently, hogs have been used with golems in what is called a GoHo attack.  The GoHo attack adresses the problem of both the CC troops and the enemy heroes, specifically the Archer Queen.  The archer queen is almost as bad as the CC for hogs, she can shoot at them from a long way away and does massive damage.  Upgrading hogs increases their damage and substantially increases their hit points.  I will be posting a detailed guide for this attack as well as straight hogs soon, and we will discuss these topics much more there.

Valkyrie

Valkyrie:

The valkyrie is a dark elixir troop with high damage, moderately high speed, and high health.  She also has a unique attack style.  While she is a melee troop, she attacks by swinging her large ax in a circular, whirlwind-like fashion.  This allows her to strike foes and buildings all around her at the same time, effectively causing area of effect damage in a circle around her.  She is great for taking out smaller CC troops, even wizards cannot stand up to her swings.  Players have began taking her along for GoVaPe strategies, making use of her unique attack, high damage and health to give the army more longevity and fire power.

Upgrading the valkyrie increases her life and damage by moderately high amounts.  She is also fun to take along on farming raids as she is not too expensive and takes the same amount of time as a wizard to train.  The biggest fault of the valkyrie is that she cannot attack any air troops, they will just sit there and shoot her down while she is helpless to defend herself.  She can make a great CC troop, but if you think there is a good chance of being attacked by air troops, you may be better off with wizards or some other troop that can target air units as well as ground units.

Golem

Golem:

Ah, the golem... The golem is the ultimate tanking unit in Clash of Clans.  Golems have a huge amount of health, but do almost no damage and are extremely slow.  They specifically target defenses, just like giants, hogs, and balloons.  The golems take up 30 spaces and because of that most players will only take 2-3 with them into a fight.  Golems have their value in the fact that they can take insane amounts of damage from multiple defenses, and when they go down 2 golemites (smaller versions that have 1/5 the hit points of a golem, but do higher damage) rise and continue to target defenses and tank for the army.
Golems are used in several variations of attacks where they are the key unit.  I will have some posts out soon on all these attacks so I won't go into all the details here.

Upgrading the golem increases it's life substantially, but doesn't do much for the damage.  It is still very much worth upgrading because the amount of life gained from the upgrade is significant.  They don't make the best CC troops on defense, since they don't do much damage.  Some players still find them useful because their high hit points really slow down the attacking army.  Golems are great offensive CC troops however, for lower level clan mates attempting to perform a golem based attack, a high level golem can make a huge difference in the success of the attack.

Witch

 Witch:

The witch is a specialized dark troop whose strength lies not in her life or damage, but in her ability to relentlessly raise skeletal warriors similar in health and damage to barbarians.  These skeletons deal fairly good damage, and also distract the defenses while the witch hangs back and continues to raise skeletons as they fall.  Her skeletons are highly vulnerable to mortars and wizards towers, as well as bombs and other traps, and can quickly get wiped out.  Once the skeletons are wiped out, the witch is extremely vulnerable and will usually fall soon after her skeletons if she cannot raise more in time.

Upgrades to the witch will increase her life and damage, but more importantly, will also increase the number of skeletons she can have summoned at a time.  This is a very useful troop to upgrade, because with more life, damage and skeletons the witch get much more useful with each level.  Currently, the max level for a witch is only 3, but this will continue to rise as new TH levels and new defenses are added to the game.  She is also a useful troop in offensive and defensive CCs, as well as in GoWiWi and other golem based attacks, especially when upgraded.

Lava Hound

Lava Hound:

The lava hound is the newest dark elixir troop, specifically designed as a tank for the air troops against the air defenses.  They have a very high amount of life, low damage, and moderate speed.  They specifically target air defenses and will pass by any other building until all air defenses are down.  A unique aspect of lava hounds are the lava pups that result from the explosion of a lava hound when it is killed.  An upgrade to the lava hound will greatly increase it's health, and slightly increase it's damage.  Since the lava hound takes up a whopping 30 spaces, you must carefully decide how many you need to take to a battle.  Usually, 4 hounds is the most a player will use, in the attack known as Quatro Lavaloonion.  But, it can also be beneficial to only take 1, 2, or 3 of them, depending on your situation and the base you are attacking. 

The lava pups are a similar troop to minions, and because of this lava hounds are often used as an added unit in balloonion attacks.  They explode out in all directions, causing havoc and confusing defenses.  They don't last very long, but are much better at damaging structures than the lava hound, especially when they are accompanied by minions and balloons.

Upgrade Priorities

The dark troops are highly specialized, and like your elixir troops you should first upgrade the troops that you use the most.  I suggest upgrading both your favorite ground unit and your favorite air unit, so that you will have a good option for attacking both anti-air bases and anti-ground bases.  Eventually, all these troops will need to be upgraded, but you should first focus on the ones you will be using in war attacks.  Dark elixir troops are not normally used very often in farming attacks, unless you are in a higher league.  So for a long time you will only be using the dark troops that are included in your war attacks.

You should definitely upgrade them when you can though, because high level hogs can devastate a base when used correctly, and high level golems can survive attacks from almost all defenses at once for a surprising length of time, witches at level 2 can seemingly create an endless army of skeletons that constantly resupply your army with soldiers to fight for them, and the minions and hounds are great for using with balloons or dragons.  Valkyries are a great support troop in GoVaPe or other golem based attacks. 
   

Building, Defenses, and Structures - Upgrade Priorities

     We have all had that moment, you know the one...its one of those moments when you look back and say "If I could go back, I would have done this this way or done that that way".  Most of us never heard or even thought about using forums, guides and blogs back when we were a low Town Hall, and because of that we probably made quite a few questionable choices in our upgrades hierarchy.       We probably upgraded our goblins before any other troop; thinking that since it helps us get the loot, it must be the most important troop...well now we know better, but unfortunately we can't go back in time and change those choices.  On the other hand, if you are actually playing through your first account with Clash of Clans and somehow found your way here, congratulations!  You are about to learn what to upgrade when, and why you should do it that way, so that you will never look back and have that moment of regret.


Defenses

     Your defenses will always be a priority when looking at what to upgrade next.  In general, you want to have your defenses upgraded as high as possible as early as possible when you upgrade your TH level, and you don't want to upgrade your TH until your defenses are upgraded to max level or at the very least within one level of maximum.  There are exceptions to this strategy though, most of which have to do with war (which we will talk more about later in this post).

Early in the Game (Low TH Levels):

     When you are early in the game and your TH is still low level, your upgrade priorities are a little different from later on in the game.  At lower levels, your mines and elixir collectors (and later, your dark elixir drills) will contribute the majority (or at least a large portion) of the resources you gain in the game.  Because of this, you will want to upgrade them as high as you can, as early as you can.  You will be glad you did after you see the difference it makes in the amount per hour they can produce, it makes a significant improvement in how much you can gain in a day's time.
     Once you get your heroes, you will want to begin upgrading them as soon as possible, and try to keep one of them upgrading at all times.  You're probably thinking this sounds nuts because the heroes are so expensive, and it is difficult to save up when you first become able to raid for it, but the reason I say its good to begin upgrading them as soon as possible is that in total it will take 227 days to reach the max level of 40 on each of your dark elixir heroes.  So the way I see it, the sooner you start, the better, not to mention this can give you a leg-up on the competition since most players put off upgrading  their heroes until later on when they can acquire and save up dark elixir more easily.  This will really shine in wars, when you will be expected to attack the member on the opposing clan that is supposed to be your equal, and upgrading heroes is not weighted nearly as heavy as upgraded defenses are, so you will not be moved up the war ranks by upgrading heroes, making your war targets much easier to defeat. 

* For more on the heroes, read the posts about the Barb King and Archer Queen.    
(Also refer to the * at the bottom of the page for information about upgrading spell factories and laboratories)    

     Next, you will want to upgrade your defenses, and I recommend splash damage defenses first, since they are the most effective at taking out hordes of barbs, archers, and goblins, and this is what you will face most of the time.  So upgrade your mortars first, then your wizard towers, then any traps that do splash damage (like bombs and big bombs).  After all that, you can upgrade point defenses like cannons, archer towers, and air defenses.  Once you start being able to build and upgrade hidden teslas, you can include them with the other point defenses in your upgrade priority hierarchy. 
     After the defenses are upgraded, you will want to upgrade your walls.  The level of your walls makes a huge difference in how hard it is for attackers to get to everything in your base.  Early on they won't even have wallbreakers, but even when they do have them, they will only be able to break through 2-3 layers of walls max (if they know how to deploy the wallbreakers properly).  After that it will be up to their troops to fight through each layer of walls to get to each enclosure, and higher level walls equals much more time spent hitting walls and likely getting wiped out by defenses before they can get to too much of your base.
     When you have upgraded your other structures, you can upgrade the air sweeper and any barracks you still need to upgrade.  When you are still working on upgrading your barracks and dark barracks to get new types of troops, you will move them up the priority list so that they are one of the first things you upgrade.  But after you have at least one of them maxed out, your barracks can be moved down on your priorities list unless you need more to be able to make the armies you want faster, but that decision is all up to you. 

Later in the game (later TH levels):

     At later TH levels, your heroes should still take priority but the mines, collectors and drills should be maxed out.  If they are not, go ahead and get them all maxed out (the drills especially may need upgraded because they cannot get maxed out until TH-10).  Keep in mind that your heroes can only be leveled up to 10 at TH-8, but at TH-9 you can upgrade them all the way to level 30.  This will take quite some time, so get to work on them as soon as possible, because if you can get them to level 30 you will have a huge advantage over other TH-9's because very few of them will wait, and will go to TH-10 with level 15-20 heroes or even lower.  (Also refer to the * at the bottom of this post for more information pertaining to upgrading spell factories and laboratories)
     Your splash damage defenses will still be high on the priority list, but will now fall behind upgrading your heavy defenses, such as your X-bows and Inferno Towers.  These defenses have high damage output, and also have high hit points, so they really add a great deal to the difficulty level of 3-starring your base or stealing your resources.  They are expensive and take a long time to get upgraded, so get to work on them early on.  Once you get them upgraded however, your base will look much more imposing, and the site of fully upgraded inferno towers and x-bows will send many would-be attackers running for the hills! 
     Once your heavy defenses have been upgraded, your next project will be to work on your mortars and wizard towers.  Since these cause splash damage (and wiz towers are very useful for protecting your resources from large numbers of smaller troops), they will be more useful in most cases than the point defenses.  You can also take on a strategy of upgrading 1-2 splash damage defenses and 1-2 point defenses at a time, so that you are upgrading them simultaneously.  This will make it take longer to finish both kinds of defenses, but it allows them to both be upgraded at the same time. 
     If you choose to focus on your splash defenses, finish them off then begin upgrading your point defenses.  These defenses are great at working down giants and other high hit point troops because while they can only focus on one target, they have a higher damage output than splash defenses.  Upgrading all of your cannons, archer towers and air defenses (all your point defenses), will significantly increase your base's ability to deal with giants, golems, and PEKKAs.  The air defenses will be able to quickly take down any level air troops, even dragons and lava hounds when they are maxed out, and players with these kinds of armies will notice this when they are deciding whether or not to attack you.  When you add in the fact that your infernos and x-bows are already upgraded (or should be), your base will be very hard for players to have any success against, no matter how strong they are. 
     The rest is basically the same as with lower THs, and a lot of it is left up to your preference.  If you want to be able to make dragons, PEKKAs, witches and lava hounds in all your barracks and dark barracks instead of just being able to make them in one of each type of barracks, you can work on upgrading them next.  If you would rather get those air sweepers and your traps upgraded, go for that next.  It really all depends on what you feel will help you the most at that time. 
     Now it comes time to start on those walls.  They should already have been at the max level for the TH level below you, so you should only have to upgrade each wall 1-2 levels to once again max them out.  At these later levels, the walls get extremely expensive and it can take a very long time to upgrade them all completely.  To help with this, the game begins allowing you to choose to use gold or elixir to upgrade each wall starting at level 8 walls (the black walls with white skulls).  Since it will take so long, you may be best served to go ahead and start upgrading your walls as soon as you run out of other critical upgrades that cost elixir (like troop upgrades and any essential barracks or storage, lab, or spell factory upgrades).  This way, you won't be sitting there upgrading walls and have everything else already finished. 

* It should be noted that at both low and high TH levels, you will include your Laboratory and Spell Factory in the top of your upgrade priority list.  These should preferably be upgraded as soon as you can afford to do so, because upgrading these buildings will give you access to new spells and upgrades for your spells and troops.  Since upgrading troops and spells in your laboratory will not take up a builder, you can do the troop and spell upgrades without slowing your progress in upgrading your defenses and other buildings.  There is much more information about this in the post titled "Spell Factory and Dark Spell Factory - Upgrade Priorities".