Clash of Clans defense guide
Your defenses decide how many stars attackers pull from your base. This guide lists every defensive building in Clash of Clans, when it first unlocks, how many you get and its maximum level, then walks through which defenses to prioritise at each Town Hall for war and trophy pushing.
Track your own defenses against these maxes in the ClashTrack buildings tracker.
Every defense in the game
Pulled live from the ClashTrack catalog. “Unlocks” is the first Town Hall the building appears at; count and max level are shown at the current maximum, Town Hall 18.
| Defense | Unlocks | Max level | Count at TH18 |
|---|---|---|---|
 Cannon | TH1 | 21 | — |
 Archer Tower | TH2 | 21 | 2 |
 Mortar | TH3 | 18 | 4 |
 Air Defense | TH4 | 16 | 4 |
 Wizard Tower | TH5 | 17 | 2 |
 Air Sweeper | TH6 | 7 | 2 |
 Hidden Tesla | TH7 | 17 | 5 |
 Bomb Tower | TH8 | 13 | 2 |
 X-Bow | TH9 | 13 | 4 |
 Inferno Tower | TH10 | 12 | 3 |
 Scattershot | TH13 | 7 | 2 |
 Monolith | TH15 | 5 | 1 |
 Spell Tower | TH15 | 4 | 2 |
 Multi-Archer Tower | TH16 | 4 | 3 |
 Ricochet Cannon | TH16 | 4 | 3 |
 Firespitter | TH17 | 3 | 2 |
 Multi-Gear Tower | TH17 | 3 | 1 |
 Revenge Tower | TH18 | 2 | 1 |
 Super Wizard Tower | TH18 | 2 | 2 |
Which defenses matter most
Not all defenses pull equal weight. A handful do most of the work, and those are the ones you should never leave under-levelled:
- Splash defenses — Wizard Towers, Mortars and the Multi-Archer / Inferno-style towers shred swarm armies (Barch, Goblins, mass Dragons). Splash damage is the single biggest deterrent against cheap spam attacks.
- Inferno Towers (TH10+) — single-target inferno melts heroes and heal-reliant pushes; multi-target inferno punishes swarms. Their damage ramp is why maxed heroes still die on a strong base.
- Eagle Artillery (TH11+) — a base-wide sniper that only activates after enough troops are deployed. Centralised, it forces attackers to commit before it starts firing.
- Air defenses & air sweepers — cheap insurance against LavaLoon, Dragons and Electro comps. A single low air defense is often the crack that lets an air attack three-star you.
- X-Bows & Scattershots — high sustained DPS that anchors the core of a TH11+ base.
Defense upgrade priority by Town Hall
A simple rule holds at every level: upgrade splash and area defenses before point defenses, and never leave a brand-new defense at level 1 while everything else is maxed.
- TH7–TH9: Air Defenses first (Dragons rule these levels), then Wizard Towers and Mortars for splash. Get Air Defenses even across the map.
- TH10: Inferno Towers are the headline unlock — prioritise them, then X-Bows. Decide single vs multi target based on whether you face more hero-dives or more swarms.
- TH11–TH12: Eagle Artillery and the Giga Tesla (TH12 weaponised Town Hall) are top priority, followed by Inferno and X-Bow levels.
- TH13+: Scattershots and the new hero/defense unlocks come first. Keep splash defenses within one level of max so you're never soft against spam.
Because defenses gate whether you can even upgrade your Town Hall, plan the order with the upgrade priority guide and check the exact costs on each Town Hall guide.
What defences are actually for
It is worth being blunt: at competitive Town Halls, a good attacker will three-star almost any base. Defences do not exist to make you unbeatable. They exist to make attacking you expensive enough that the average raider moves on, and to win you the occasional defence in war where the attacker was slightly under-prepared.
That reframing changes what you prioritise. Splash damage beats single-target damage, because the armies that farm you are cheap and numerous. Central placement beats even coverage, because the loot is central and the attacker has to reach it. And the buildings that change how an attack has to be planned — the Eagle Artillery, Scattershots, the Monolith, the Town Hall weapon — are worth several ordinary defence levels each.
Splash, single-target, and the mix that works
Single-target defences like Cannons, Archer Towers and Inferno Towers on single mode exist to delete tanks: Golems, Lava Hounds, heroes. Splash defences like Wizard Towers, Mortars, Bomb Towers and Scattershots exist to delete the swarm behind the tank. An attack fails when both jobs get done; it succeeds when a base is heavily weighted to one and the attacker brings the composition that ignores it.
The practical implication is that upgrading evenly across your defences is usually better than pushing one type to the cap. A base with everything at level N is harder to attack than a base with half its defences at N+2 and half at N-2, because the attacker only needs a composition that beats the weak half.
Traps do more work than their cost suggests
Traps are cheap, fast to upgrade and disproportionately effective, and they are the single most-neglected category in the game. A well-placed Giant Bomb pair ends a Hog attack outright. Seeking Air Mines delete a Lava Hound’s support. Tornado Traps hold an army inside your splash coverage long enough for it to matter.
Because they are invisible until they fire, traps also punish repeat attackers specifically — the ones farming you daily. Move them occasionally. A trap layout the attacker has already seen is worth a fraction of one they have not.