Clash of Clans Archer Unit Guide: Stats, Upgrade Levels, & Strategy

The Archer is the second unit and first ranged unit you get access to in Clash of Clans. Despite having low hitpoints and dealing only moderate damage, it makes up for it with its range. The short range of the Archer’s attack allows it to shoot over walls to attack defensive towers, resource storage buildings, or even enemy troops (from the Clan Castle).

In this CoC Archer guide, we will be covering this unit in its entirety. We will start with stats and upgrades and then move into unit strategy.

Archer Basic Information, Stats, and Levels

Training Time: 25 seconds
Supply Cost: 1
Movement Speed: 24
Targets: Ground & Air
Preferred Target: Any
Barracks Required: Level 2

Level	Damage Per Second	Attack Speed	Damage Per Hit	Hitpoints
1	7	1 attack per second	7	20
2	9	1 attack per second	9	23
3	12	1 attack per second	12	28
4	16	1 attack per second	16	33
5	20	1 attack per second	20	40
6	22	1 attack per second	22	44
7	25	1 attack per second	25	48
Level	Training Cost	Upgrade Cost	Laboratory Level	Town Hall Requirement
1	50	None	None	1
2	80	50,000 (12 hours)	1	3
3	120	250,000 (2 days)	3	5
4	160	750,000 (3 days)	5	7
5	200	2,250,000 (5 days)	6	8
6	300	6,000,000 (10 days)	7	9
7	400	7,500,000 (14 days)	8	10

The Archer possesses below-average health, average damage, and above average speed. While it does not win any contests in terms of survivability or damage, its low cost, fast training time, and range make it a very common unit for use both offensively and defensively.

Like its counterpart the Barbarian, the Archer scales well with upgrades and improves noticeably between levels 3 and 4 and 4 to 5. Level 5 Archers are many times more durable than their predecessors, gaining enough health by level 5 to survive getting hit by a level 4 Mortar. As a result of its steady improvement with each level, the Archer remains a viable unit throughout Clash of Clans.

CoC Archer Strategy

In Clash of Clans, the Archer is a unit which you will use regularly. It is useful as a trophy pushing unit as soon as it is introduced (great for sniping Town Halls in farming base setups). The Archers is also one part of the popular “Barcher” (Barbarian and Archer) army composition. I believe Barcher is the best farming composition at Town Hall 7 and is also useful for low-cost trophy pushing and war battles.

Archers for Farming or Trophy Pushing

Archers are one of the most commonly-used units in Clash of Clans. While I think Archers are a bit over-used at low levels, I do believe that It is practically impossible to farm effectively at Town Hall 7 and above without using the Archer in some capacity.

For all of their strengths, Archers are very fragile. It is important to understand how to strategically use these units in order to get the best use out of them. Below, we will discuss deployment and attack strategies, how to attack towers, and how to handle Clan Castle troops and heroes with Archers.

Unit Deployment and Positioning

Archers should always be spread out. Since Archers are ranged, you can even spread them out when you want them to attack the same target. Archers constantly need to be spread because it limits the damage they take from area of effect (AoE) towers.

One of the most important things to learn about using Archers is that even if you want your Archers to attack the same target, you never have to deploy all your Archers at once. You generally only need to deploy around 20 to attack a given section of your enemy’s base, deploying the next set of 20 after the first set starts to thin out. This limits the effect of traps (bombs) and Mortar attacks.

Additionally, it is very useful to deploy tanking units ahead of the Archers, such as Barbarians or Giants. These units can soak up hits from Wizard Towers or Mortars deep in the enemy base, allowing your low health Archers to deal damage over the walls without taking damage.

Archers are great at destroying junk buildings (Barracks, Mines, Army Camps, and so on) on the perimeter of the enemy’s base. If you plan on using Barbarians to tank for your Archers, be sure to get rid of all the junk structures you can safely attack (i.e. buildings your Archers can attack without being hit by enemy towers) so that the Barbarians do not have to spend time taking out these junk structures while being hit by enemy towers.

Note that if you core into an enemy’s base and almost reach a valuable storage structure (but a wall still blocks your way), you can often pile on it with Archers and take it out in a sacrifice-style of attack. This works great when you reach a Dark Elixir storage, but you do not have the strength needed to take down the final wall. Drop a rage spell on the Archers in this case and they will typically take out the structure even under heavy fire from Mortars.

Taking Out Towers

The primary advantage of Archers is their ability to attack structures behind walls. Archers excel at taking out Cannons and Archer Towers behind walls; 12+ Archers will easily take out a Cannon or Archer Tower.

Your biggest problems will be Mortars and Wizard Towers. When taking out Mortars, no unit can easily tank for you, as melee units attacking a wall directly attacking a Mortar cannot be hit by that Mortar. You can drop a distracting Giant or hero unit, but as soon as that unit goes down from Archer Tower or Cannon fire, the Mortar will switch back to your Archers.

Instead, your best bet is to generally spread your archers so that one Mortar shot cannot hit more than one-third of the Archers. You should also spread out your Archers in waves so that you do not lose more than 3-4 Archers from a Mortar shot. If you attack the Mortar this way, you will only lose a handful of Archers.

Attacking a Wizard Tower is much easier with distracting units. Giants work best, but Barbarians also can work. You usually have to refresh the Barbarians if you are using Barbarians to tank for the Wizard Tower. In other words, if a Wizard Tower is behind a wall, drop 4-5 Barbarians, spread out a bit so that the Wizard Tower can only hit 2-3 per attack. Drop 5 Archers behind this Barbarian wall, then immediately drop 5 more Barbarians. As the first set of Barbarians is going down, the second set will be in range. By the time the second set goes down, your Archers should have finished off the Wizard Tower.

One great strategy for using Archers once you have your Barbarian King is to use your Archers to kill off all single-target DPS buildings like Archer Towers, Cannons, and Hidden Teslas. At Town Hall 7 or Town Hall 8, the enemy will only have Wizard Towers and Mortars left. Since these towers do very little DPS, your Barbarian King can then come in and wipe out the enemy’s base. This works surprisingly well when the enemy stacks their resources, Mortars, and Wizard Towers in the deep center of the base and puts all the single-target towers on the perimeter of their base.

Dealing With Enemy Clan Castle and Hero Units 

Archers are the best unit in the game for dealing with enemy Clan Castle and hero units. The first step is to drop a unit within range of the enemy’s hero or Clan Castle in order to get its attention or to get the units to come out of the CC. Typically a melee unit like a Goblin or Barbarian is best for this purpose.

Once the enemy units have been alerted, you can drop an Archer in a safe spot where it can hit an enemy building but it not be in range of any towers. The alerted enemy hero units as well as any Clan Castle units will now head for this Archer. Once you have safely lured these units away, deploy Archers to take out the enemy units. Drop 15 archers to handle an enemy hero unit. For enemy Clan Castle units, drop approximately the five more Archers than the enemy has in their Clan Castle.

Archers As a Clan Castle Unit

Archers are hands-down the best cheap unit to use in the Clan Castle. There are three primary advantages of using Archers: high damage, range, and ability to shoot air units. While the Archer’s damage is typically not considered high due to its propensity to get easily killed, it is not so easy to take out Archers on defense.

Since enemy Giants or Hog Riders always target towers first, your Archers can just plow into these enemy units without any recourse as these enemy units always go for towers first. Melee units like Barbarians will have to take down walls before they can access Archers, allowing the Archer’s damage to add up thanks to its range.

Finally, the ability to hit air units is very useful for the Archer. Balloons are particularly susceptible to Archers in the Clan Castle, as Balloons always target towers first. If you have 25 level 5 Archers in the Clan Castle at Town Hall 8, the Archers can deal a combined 500 damage per second – enough to take out an enemy Balloon or Giant every second that the Archers are alive!

Thank's and support to tutsplus.com
visit website design.tutsplus.com