Defensive Towers & Buildings List

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As your Town Hall and trophy count increase in level, you will face opponents possessing with larger and larger armies consisting of stronger and stronger units. The higher your Town Hall level, the more loot enemy players can steal during raids.  Defensive structures (towers, walls, and the Clan Castle) will help protect your valuable loot so that you can save up for expensive upgrades in relative peace.

In this section, we will provide a full list of defensive structures along with an overview of the function of each structure and the best strategy for using it. You will also find a link to a full guide on each particular structure detailing specific stats like damage, cost, levels & upgrades, and additional strategy.

Wall

Walls can be used to build barriers around your resources and defensive structures. Enemy ground units must destroy walls before they can get to whatever is inside. Walls start out with very little HP, but a significant amount of health with each upgrade. As upgrades increase, Walls become very difficult for enemy units to break through.

Be careful with your wall placement. Enemy units can be dropped just two empty spaces away from any structure. As a result, if you make a big square wall but leave open space in the center of that wall, the enemy can drop units in that open space. Additionally, try to avoid 4-way intersections with your wall placement. This style of wall-in allows an enemy unit to break down just the midpoint in the intersection and access each area within the wall.

Ideally, you want your opponent to have to break through multiple walls in order to reach your resource storage points. You also want your enemy to have to break through multiple walls in order to reach all of your defensive towers. This ensures that your Towers have enough time to defeat the enemy’s army. Defensive towers do a lot of damage but do not have much health, so protecting them with walls is extremely important.

Clan Castle

The Clan Castle is the most powerful defensive structure in Clash of Clans, although it is frequently terribly misused by new players. The Clan Castle allows you to store units inside (donated by Clan members) which will come out and attack enemy units when enemy units come within the Clan Castle’s range. Units will not leave the Clan Castle until enemy units come within its range.

Most new players make the mistake of sticking the Clan Castle on the outside of their walls and not considering the Clan Castle a defensive structure. The enemy can just drop 30 Archers on top of the Clan Castle and take out all of your units stored inside. Instead, the Clan Castle does best when placed at the heart of your base. This way, the enemy will be within range of your defensive structures by the time your units come out of the Clan Castle. The enemy will then have to deal with your Clan Castle units in addition to your towers.

Centralizing your Clan Castle becomes particularly important at Town Hall 7. Before Town Hall 7, you do not have enough structures to prevent enemy players from drawing out your Clan Castle units.

Cannon

The Cannon is the first defensive tower you get access to in Clash of Clans. It fires quickly with moderate range and can only hit ground units. The Cannon scales very well with upgrades and has many levels; it starts out very weak and becomes very strong by its highest level.

Cannons are good all-around defensive structures. They need to be upgraded regularly in order for a single Cannon to outpace the Healer’s output. Fully upgraded Cannons shine versus small numbers of units but easily get overwhelmed by large forces.

The Cannon should be placed towards the outside of the base; it has no minimum range and is not a crucial structure so it does best towards the outside of your defensive set up.

Archer Tower

Much like the Cannon, the Archer Tower is an early defensive structure that deals single-target damage. The Archer Tower does not deal quite as much DPS as the cannon, but has a longer range and can hit both air and ground units. Archer Towers, much like Cannons, are good all around structures that perform well against a handful of units but get overwhelmed by larger numbers.

Archer Towers do well spread out around the perimeter of a base given their long range and all-around strength. It is ideal to pair Archer Towers with Cannons so that Cannons cannot be sniped by enemy air units.

Mortar

Mortars are the first source of splash damage in Clash of Clans. The very slow but high-damage round that a Mortar fires out will explode upon impact, dealing damage to all units caught within its blast. Upgrading your Mortar is extremely important as this allows it to one-shot enemy Archers. A Mortar will one-shot Archers of the same level (or less). For example, a level 4 Mortar will kill enemy 4-star Archers in one hit. A Mortar that is able to kill a group of Archers in a single hit significantly reduces the effectiveness of mass Archer armies.

Mortars have long maximum range, but cannot hit any enemies that get too close (i.e. there is a minimum range). Due to their minimum range and their relative importance, Mortars should be placed towards the interior of a base so that they have some protection against enemy units.  Ideally, an enemy will have to break down at least two walls to reach a mortar. It is also helpful to pair an Air Defense tower with the Mortar to protect it from enemy air units.

Air Defense

Air Defense towers are the only tower in the game that can only hit air units. While Air Defense towers can only hit air units, they have by far the highest single-target DPS of any defensive structure in the game. The Air Defense tower also has a very long range. As a result, no air unit can survive for long when within range of an Air Defense tower.

The Air Defense tower is crucial for defense against both Healers and Dragons. You will want to spread these out and keep them towards the interior of your base in order to simultaneously protect the Air Defense towers while allowing them to defend most of your base.

Unlike many other structures, Air Defense Towers do significant damage even at rank 1. You never want to upgrade more than one Air Defense Tower at once or you leave yourself very susceptible to enemy attacks that are supported by Healers.

Wizard Tower

The Wizard Tower deals relatively low DPS, but has a fast attack that deals splash damage. It can hit both ground and air units. It has a short range (but no minimum range), making it like the opposite of the Mortar. The Mortar fires slowly and hits enemies far away, while the Wizard Tower fires quickly and hits nearby enemies.

The Wizard Tower does best when placed towards the interior of the base (but not in the complete center of the base). It especially shines when near resource storage buildings, as the Wizard Tower is particularly strong against clumps of Goblins that may come rushing in to steal your loot. The Wizard Tower is by far the best counter in the game to mass Goblins. Goblins will outrun Mortars but cannot outrun the Wizard Tower.

Hidden Tesla

The Hidden Tesla is a trap and defensive structure Hybrid. It can only fire once enemy units get close to it (or the enemy reaches 51% of a base destroyed). Once activated, it fires a very fast attack that can hit either ground and air units at a moderate range. When upgraded, it does very high single-target DPS, but upgrading it takes an unusually long amount of time. Upgrading a Hidden Tesla up to its max level takes nearly 2 months!

The Hidden Tesla only takes up 4 total units of space (2×2); other defensive structures take up 9 units (3×3).

X-Bow

The X-Bow is a high-level tower that costs Elixir to fire. It fires a very fast attack that deals light damage with each attack. Despite the similar damage levels to the Cannon or Archer Tower, the X-Bow’s fast firing rate makes it a bit more effective against light units like Barbarians or Archers that can otherwise easily overwhelm a single Cannon or Archer Tower.

The X-Bow has two modes; one is a very-long range ground-only attack while the other can hit both ground and air units but has a shorter range – there is no difference in damage between modes. In either mode, the X-Bow has a very large range (11 units for ground & air, 14 units for ground-only). Due to its long range, the X-Bow does well when placed towards the center of the base. This allows it to cover a large portion of the base, allowing it to protect you from any side from which the enemy may make an attack.

The range of the X-Bow is its real strength. With the X-Bow, ring-shaped base layouts become viable, as the X-Bows are able to cover large areas to mow down enemy units that target defensive structures (Hog Riders, Giants, and even Golems) that may be being sent in a ring-shaped pattern. High level bases that rely on the X-Bow for a ring-shaped defense are often called “ringus” bases.

Inferno Tower

The Inferno Tower is the highest-level tower in the game (you must have a level 10 Town Hall). It is powered off of Dark Elixir and will only attack when loaded with Dark Elixir. The Inferno Tower’s special effect is that units that are being targeted by it can no longer be healed. This prevents units like Healers or from Healing Spells for keeping units alive while attacking an Inferno Tower.

The Inferno Tower has two modes: multi-attack and single attack. The multi-attack feature allows the Inferno Tower to deal modest damage to up to five enemy units within range, whereas the single attack feature allows the Inferno Tower to deal extreme damage to an enemy unit, but only after targeting it for five seconds. The multi-attack feature works best against most units, but the single attack feature is very effective against high health units like Dragons or Golems.

Most players seem to prefer the 5 target setting, as the healing debuff is perhaps the real strength of the Inferno Tower rather than its damage alone. Some may put both towers near each other with one set to each mode so that the towers can protect one another from attacks.

The Inferno Tower generally should be placed in the center of your base. This not only ensures that the Inferno Tower is one of the last defensive structures to be destroyed, but it also ensures that the tower does not fire against weak attacks as it has to be reloaded with Dark Elixir to function.