If you plan on playing Clash of Clans for a while, you’ll want to get a good grasp on the units you’ll be going into battle with. A good amount of your time on the game isn’t spent farming elixir and gold with your mines and elixir collectors, but rather with battle. If you know how to properly use your troops, there is no limit to what you can do in Clash of Clans. You can fill up your elixir and gold storage in a matter of minutes if you attack properly and use your troops effectively.
If you’re a new player, or want to know more about troops you already have, this unit list will definitely be able to aid you in choosing the right troops for combat, as well as choosing good troops to pair together when attacking an opponent. We’ll go in-depth about every single normal unit in the game. Surely by the time you finish reading through this list, you’ll have a good grasp on every single normal troop in the game, and you’ll be ready to dive straight into battle on Clash of Clans. Throughout this unit list we’ll give little tips and hints for using the troops as well so you’ll be able to get the maximum effectiveness out of each troop. Without further ado, let’s move onto the list!
Barracks Units
Tier 1:
Barbarians:
The first unit you’ll unlock in Clash of Clans is the barbarian. You’re likely very familiar with the barbarian if you’ve even tried combat at all, and this unit doesn’t have a whole lot of neat stuff involved with it so we won’t go too far into detail about the barbarian. It’s a fairly basic unit that runs and attacks. Nothing too special with the barbarian. It will take 20 seconds to make a barbarian, which makes it one of the easiest units to produce in the game.
Barbarians are useful for attacking at a basic level, but if your opponent has wizard towers or mortars set up, it’s strongly advised to not use barbarians, as they’ll all be taken out easily by enemy forces with splash damage. If your opponent doesn’t have a wizard tower or mortar set up, barbarians are extremely useful and can plow through enemy forces in no time if you unleash a lot of them.
Archers
Archers are the second unit you’ll unlock, and are one of the more intriguing early-game plays you can use when attacking your enemies. Unlike the barbarian, with archers you can attack at a distance, making them a bit more useful if you know how to use them properly. To get the best use out of archers, try using them not to attack the opponent in a brute-force kind of way, but moreso in a sneaky way, as archers have very little health.
They are killed incredibly easily so you need to use them in a smart fashion. If you can learn to get the most out of your archers, they can help you rack up tons of trophies, elixir, and gold in the earlier levels of Clash of Clans.
A good way to utilize your archers is to send in a few troops to distract enemy forces at first, and then drop archers near the enemy forces to take out whatever’s attacking your other troops. The archers will have an easy go at the enemy forces, and while your other armies take some damage, the archers will remain primarily unscathed. Try using giants, goblins, or giants for this in the early phases of the game and you won’t regret it. You’ll rack up trophies incredibly quickly if you can find out how to do this right.
Goblins
Goblins are what you’d assume them to be. They’re fast, and greedy, just like they are when depicted in movies or books. The goblin is the fastest unit in the entire game, but you can’t use a goblin to take out enemy attacking forces. Goblins will only go for resources, and will completely ignore the fact that they’re being shot at if they are. A Goblin can be face to face with a cannon, for example, and will just run past to try to get to resources.
Like barbarians, goblins are very prone to splash damage. They have low health and can be taken down by a few hits from a mortar or wizard tower. Goblins can be useful for many things though, even later in the game, where they actually can become more useful. As soon as you can upgrade your goblins, be sure to do so. You will not regret it.
As your goblin forces get stronger, they’ll decimate enemy forces in seconds. Send them in with a few giants and archers to take out enemy forces, and you have yourself a very basic, early-game strategy. Later in the game, use goblins with the rage and healing spell and watch them go to town on your enemy’s walls. They’ll be gone in as little as a second.
Tier 2
Giants
As you’ll notice with all of the tier 2 units, they’re more specialized than the tier 1 or (later on) the tier 3 units. The giant does what you’d expect it to do. They have tons of health, and are basically used as a juggernaut capable of sustaining huge amounts of damage. The giant is one of the most dangerous units in Clash of Clans if used properly. You can use a giant in the early stages of the game to distract enemy attacking forces while your barbarians, goblins, or archers promptly take out the rest of the enemy forces.
Giants are best when paired with goblins, archers, and wall breakers. Although giants are very strong and can take a lot of damage, they don’t necessarily dish it out. That’s where wall breakers, archers, and goblins come in. Try sending in a giant or two along with some wall breakers. Let the wall breakers do the initial damage, destroying the enemy walls, and then have the giants walk straight through the holes the wall breakers left. After the giants have taken the attention of attacking enemy forces, send in your goblins and archers to clean up the rest.
Wall Breakers
Like the giant, the wall breaker is also a very specific unit with one main task in mind: taking out enemy walls. Wall breakers are just about the most useful supporting unit in the game, but you have to use them properly or they’ll be useless. If you can learn to time your wall breakers right, they can be the difference between a successful victory with a great trophy yield and a failed attack. Try to send them in between mortar strikes so they aren’t taken out easily.
To use wall breakers properly, send in a few other units beforehand. You want your wall breaker to make it to the enemy wall unscathed, and the only way to ensure this is to make sure the enemy forces are busy attacking other units. Try sending in a few barbarians, goblins, or giants as a “wall breaker sacrifice”, as we like to call it.
They may go down, but the wall will be destroyed in no time. After you have easy access into the enemy base, it’s game over for them. They won’t be able to stop you or slow you down any further. It’s worth losing a giant or two or a few barbarians/goblins if you’re able to get into the enemy base.
Balloons
Once you unlock the balloon you might be ecstatic that you finally have something to take out those pesky enemy mortars and cannons, but sadly you’ll find that, putting it lightly, the balloon unit sucks at first. You’ll find that it’s immensely slow, deals little to no damage, and frankly isn’t worth the 8 minutes it takes to train it.
We’d suggest upgrading your balloons a few times before actually using them. Feel free to try them out once just to see what we’re talking about, but after that we’d recommend staying far away from the balloons until you can take the time to upgrade them to level five. Once they’re at level five they become pretty stellar to use.
Try using balloons with the rage spell for maximum effectiveness. A level five or six balloon with the rage spell can do some serious damage to enemy forces. They’ll be moving incredibly quickly, and destroying anything your enemy has in their way in seconds as long as they’re upgraded to level five or above. Try taking 5 or so balloons, equipping them with the rage spell, and watching what they can do. It’s a real treat, and it’s one of the best ways you can use balloons in the game.
Wizards
If you liked the archer, you’re going to love the wizard. The wizard is essentially similar to the archer, except on steroids. They have more health, deal more damage, and let’s be real, wizards look a lot cooler than archers too. You can utilize wizards in a lot of the same ways that you used your archers, but they’ll just get the job done better. They do cost a little over 4 times the elixir that an archer does, and they take eight minutes to train, but if you can get over the cost, you’ll find yourself loving the wizard.
Try pairing up the wizard with a few giants or P.E.K.K.As to enforce the maximum amount of damage on your opponent. Send in the supporting juggernauts to protect your wizards, and let them do the damage. Another great strategy is to drop a few wizards, along with two healers to keep them afloat. This is a great strategy as enemy forces simply will not be able to take down your army.
You’ll run right through the enemy. They won’t even know what hit them. One thing you’ll want to watch out for with wizards is giant bombs. To avoid this, simply scatter your wizards a bit, instead of dropping them all in the same spot.
Tier 3
Healers
Healers are just about the most useful supporting unit in the game. They do exactly what it sounds like they do: they heal any units surrounded by them. The main thing you need to watch out for with healers, as they’re fairly easy to use, is just air defenses. There isn’t a whole lot that can take out a healer, but air defenses will obliterate healers in as little as seconds, and that’s just no fun.
To take out air defenses, and keep your healers alive, try sending in a basic attack to take out the air defenses first, then send in the healer(s) and some wizards later on to clean up the rest of the enemy forces. A wall breaker, a few barbarians, and a few giants is definitely enough to take out an air defense or two.
After you take out the air defenses your healers will be able to keep the rest of your army afloat until they’ve taken out whatever is left to be taken out. The best way to learn how to use the healer is by experience though. Make sure to use it lots after you unlock it, and you’ll find yourself loving this unit in no time!
Dragons
The dragon is like the balloon and wizard combined, in a way. Like the healers, the main objective before using dragons is to take out air defenses, and then send the dragons in. Air defenses will take out dragons in no time, but if there is no air defenses in the way, dragons will decimate your opponents with their crazy amounts of damage.
Dragons are moreso used to gain trophies rather than elixir or gold, as they take forever to produce (30 minutes), and cost a lot to produce as well. Dragons are one of the best units to use to grab trophies though. Take a few dragons, and utilize a lightning spell to take out enemy air defenses, and your dragons will be able to wipe out anything else in their way.
P.E.K.K.As
P.E.K.K.As are the last unit you’ll unlock in the normal barracks. They are also one of the most devastating units, if used properly. They can take out enemy bases incredibly quickly, and are by far the most powerful non-dark ground unit. They deal between 600 and 950 damage per hit, so they’ll take out just about anything in a few hits. The only thing that can really stop P.E.K.K.As are hidden teslas, as they’ll deal twice as much damage to P.E.K.K.As because of the unique armor they have.
To utilize this unit in the best way possible, try using them in pairs to decimate enemy walls incredibly quickly. The walls will go down in seconds, even they’re upgraded fully. Try using a few pairs of P.E.K.K.As all around an enemy base, equipping them with a rage spell, and watching them disintegrate a base quickly. It’s ridiculous if you think about when you started the game with your level 1 barbarians, now to think that you have these crazy units that can take down the best of walls in literally no time.
Well there you have it! There are the ten normal units in Clash of Clans. Hopefully after reading this article you’ll know how to use every unit to your advantage, and you’ll know what each unit does, and what they’re effective at. If you aren’t at the point in the game where you’ll have all of these units at your disposal, be sure to look forward to the time when you do. The game is a lot more fun once you have more damaging units that you can use in more ways than you’d ever imagine.