Skeleton Trap

  • Summary
    • Skeleton Traps are structures that remain hidden until they are activated by an attacking troop moving into their trigger radius.
    • Once triggered, the coffin rises from the ground and multiple Skeletons appear in the area around the coffin to attack nearby troops depending on whether it is set for ground or air troops. You can see the difference above using the Toggle Mode feature.
    • They can be configured to attack either ground troops or air troops.
    • They will remain invisible if set to ground and an air troop passes over (and vice versa).
    • The number of Skeletons released depends on the level of the Skeleton Trap.
    • The Skeletons released have a small skull icon next to them to signify they came from a Skeleton Trap (as opposed to being summoned by a Witch), similar to the icon displayed next to Clan Castle troops. The reason behind this is because they play an equal role to the Skeletons summoned by a defending Witch in the Clan Castle.
    • The Skeletons from the trap have exactly the same stats as the Skeletons summoned by the Witch.
    • Skeleton Traps set to defend against air troops have wings instead of a skull on the face of the coffin. Skeletons that arise from being triggered while set to defend against air troops float through the air with the aid of two small red balloons, the same balloons as those on the Air Bomb.
    • Skeleton Traps were added in the 2014 October 22 Halloween update, but are a permanent addition that will remain available after the holiday has passed, unlike in previous years.

Seeking Air Mine

  • Summary
    • The Seeking Air Mine is a trap that affects a single flying unit. It consists of a bomb attached to three black balloons with white skulls painted onto them.
    • Unlike the Air Bomb, the Seeking Air Mine does not cause splash damage but it does inflict a great amount of damage to powerful units like Dragons or Lava Hounds.
    • The Seeking Air Mine is incapable of taking out Minions, Lava Pups or Healers, and cannot be triggered by them.
    • This trap will attack Lava Hounds, Dragons, Balloons and the Grand Warden if he is set to air mode.
    • Like all traps, once it is activated, the Seeking Air Mine must be re-armed in order to be a part of the next defensive Layout (with the exception of Clan Wars, where all Traps are active for every enemy attack).

Air Bomb

  • Summary
    • Explodes when a flying troop comes into proximity. Essentially an airborne version of the normal Bomb, though the trigger radius and blast radius of the Air Bomb is much greater.
    • Extremely effective against large groups of Minions, and does a significant amount of damage to Balloons (especially level 3 and below). It’s much less effective against higher health targets such as Dragons.
    • Once activated, traps must be re-armed in order to be a part of the next defensive Layout.

Giant Bomb

  • Summary
    • Explodes when an enemy comes into proximity. Essentially a much more powerful (and expensive) version of the Bomb. This creates splash damage to all enemies within a 3-4 tile radius, depending on the Giant Bomb’s level.
    • If you love using Giant Bombs and you want to get a good amount of troops with it, place it where you commonly see a large amount of troops deployed when you are being attacked.
    • Once activated, traps must be re-armed in order to be a part of the next defensive Layout.
    • Although Hog Riders are the “preferred targets” of Giant Bombs, the bomb will still be triggered by (and damage) any ground troops that venture into its range.
    • Giant Bombs of all levels deal enough damage to instantly destroy all Tier 1 troops and Wizards, regardless of their level.

Spring Trap

  • Summary
    • ​Causes instant death to the first group of enemies that step on it, bouncing up to 15 housing units of Troops. For example, it will bounce 15 Archers or 3 Giants.
    • P.E.K.K.As, Golems and Heroes are unaffected due to the fact that they take more than 15 housing space.
    • If put in a strategical way, Spring Traps can ruin a raid, including the infamous Giant-Healer combo.
    • The Spring Trap often does not affect the Goblin either, but this is because the Goblin is too fast for the Spring Trap to bounce it away (it usually is able to move out of range before the Spring Trap has the opportunity to affect it). However, if the Goblin doesn’t continue moving once the Spring Trap has been triggered (stopping to attack a resource building, for instance), it will be bounced similar to a Barbarian or Archer. Also, if there is a horde of Goblins, the Spring Trap will bounce the Goblins in the back, since the Goblin in front triggered it first.

Bombs

  • Summary
    • Bombs are inexpensive traps that remain hidden until they are activated by an attacking troop moving into their trigger radius.
    • Once triggered, Bombs must be re-armed, for a small fee, in order to trigger again during an enemy raid. For example, if one’s village successfully defends against an attack, but several Bombs are triggered, then any attacks after that will not have to deal with those Bombs until they are re-armed.
    • Although they are the weakest of all the Traps, Bombs can still have a positive impact on the effectiveness of a village’s defense if properly placed. But only if they are always re-armed after triggering.
    • Even though Bombs are classified as “Defensive Buildings”, they are not buildings and do not need to be triggered/destroyed for your enemy to reach 100% destruction (nor do they count toward it).
    • The Bomb explodes approximately 1.5 seconds after an enemy comes within 1 tile of it, causing splash damage to every enemy ground troop within 3 tiles. This delay means that you’ll want to place the bomb in an area where troops are likely to remain for a period of time, like right next to a building they’re attacking.
    • By itself, a single Bomb will not do a great deal of damage to even the weakest of Troops (although every bit helps). However, several Bombs in a cluster can significantly damage or even destroy an entire group of Archers or Goblins.

Walls

  • Summary
    • Wall placement is a key point in designing a well-defended village. Walls are the main fortification for defense and are capable of withstanding a great deal of damage from attacking enemies. However, the effectiveness of Walls is greatly lowered if they are not constructed to completely enclose the structures they are designed to protect. Any gaps in the continuation of the Wall structure will render it useless, as enemy troops will simply walk through the broken area.
      • An exception to this rule is the funneling strategy, where a player deliberately leaves a gap in order to group troops together and subsequently take them out using the splash damage of defensive units such as Mortars or Wizard Towers. Alternatively (or additionally) you intruders can be caught off-guard by filling the openings with traps such as Bombs or Spring Traps.
    • Walls block all ground units with the exception of Hog Riders and the Grand Warden. The use of Jump Spells allow ground units to bypass walls.
    • Walls can be bypassed entirely by air units such as Balloons, Dragons, Minions and Lava Hounds.
    • Wall Breakers immediately target Walls upon deployment, inflicting 40x normal damage to them, but also blow themselves up in the process. The holes created by Wall Breakers allow ground units to gain access to buildings within the Walls, making Wall Breakers the ideal troop for getting past Walls.
    • If there are 2 layers of Walls, the Wall Breaker’s blast radius will affect both layers.

Eagle Artillery

  • Summary
    • The Eagle Artillery is a very powerful Town Hall 11 exclusive defense that has a range that covers almost the entire map but has a dead zone, similar to but bigger than that of a Mortar.
    • During a defense, the Eagle Artillery remains dormant at the start, and activates only after at least 150 housing spaces worth of troops has been deployed (Each Hero is worth 25 spaces, each spell is worth 10 spaces and each dark spell worth 5 spaces), regardless of level. Note that activating the Archer Queen’s or Barbarian King’s ability will not add more troop space. It fires a volley of three successive shots at regular 10 second intervals, and is able to deal devastating damage to the unit it targeted with extremely small splash damage to units near its target.
    • The Eagle Artillery targets according to a “heat map” or “hitpoint map”. In other words, it targets the area with the largest density of hit points.
      • Unlike other defenses which keeps targeting the same troops until they die, the Eagle Artillery recalculates its targets each volley.

Inferno Tower

  • Summary
    • The Inferno Tower shoots jets of flame that burn through even the thickest armor.
    • The lava stream on the Level 10 Town Hall may be indicative of one’s access to Inferno Towers.
    • The flame in single-target mode takes a while to heat up, making it most effective against the strongest troops.
    • Stop Heroes, P.E.K.K.As, and Golems in their tracks, and shoot Healers and Dragons out of the sky with the powerful single-target mode Inferno Tower!
    • When in single target mode, the Inferno Tower can be overwhelmed by large groups of weaker units, such as Archers.
    • In single-target mode, the Inferno Tower causes progressive damage to a single target. The longer the tower stays focused on the same target, the more damage it deals.
    • In multi-target mode, the Inferno Tower causes constant damage to up to five targets simultaneously.
    • Troops targeted by the Inferno Tower (in either mode) are not able to be healed, either by Healers or by the Healing Spell. However, the Inferno Tower doesn’t block the regenerated health from using abilities of Heroes.
    • Similar to the X-Bow, the Inferno Tower must be reloaded periodically. However, reloading it requires Dark Elixir rather than normal Elixir.
    • The Inferno Tower doesn’t have a favorite target, nor does it deal more damage to any particular troop. However, in single-target mode it does deal more damage on average to troops with higher hit points, due to its progressive DPS.

X-Bow

  • Summary
    • The X-Bow is a rapid-firing turret that is unique in two ways. First, it must be loaded with Elixir in order to function. Second, it can be configured to target ground units only (at a 14-tile range) or both ground and air units (at an 11-tile range).