What Buildings to be Upgraded First After TH Upgrade

I will be talking about one of important topic today; what should we upgrade first?

In FBCS, I already give this tips. After each TH upgrade completed, you should upgrade according to this sequence: Laboratory, Spell Factory, Clan Castle, and Army Camp.

Diagram 1. Tips for upgrade (Resource: Facebook Cikgu Suraya) 

This of course applicable for offensive strategy. With new experiences and understanding, I would like to make some changes or making this guide more detail, more TH level oriented and strategy oriented. I will be using Relax&Rebel Chart (RRC) to make my explanation easier.

I think the most important criterion is whether you focus on war or normal. If you focus on war, Spell Factory is priority follow by Clan Castle and Laboratory. At TH8 and TH9 however, Clan Castle Level 4 (25 capacity) and Level 5 (30 capacity) are insanely important for war especially for ground attacker. This enables you to bring P.E.K.K.A and Golem respectively. So, I recommended you to upgrade Clan Castle first before Laboratory and Spell Factory. At TH10, Laboratory or Spell Factory is more important than Clan Castle.

When deciding which to upgrade first whether Laboratory or Spell Factory, you should look at your attack strategy used in current war and what attack strategy you want to use next. For example, at TH8 you currently use Dragon attack primarily on TH8. At TH9, you have 2 options if you want to continue using Dragon attack. First is to upgrade Dragon Level 4. Second is to use additional Spells. Both can increase your firearm tremendously. Although you are TH9, technically you are still TH8. So, you probably mirror TH8. Therefore, both options enable you to defeat TH8 easily. I recommend having 4 Spells which enable you to use 4 Lightning + 2 Earthquake that destroy 2 Air Defense. Plus, getting Dragon Level 4 will take longer time as you need to upgrade Laboratory before Dragon. Point here, if you know what to do next, you can plan which option you should chose.

The recommendation for war oriented strategy according to TH and attack strategy as follow:

1. War TH8 (Ground): CC>Lab

2. War TH8 (Dragon): Lab>CC

3. War TH9: CC>Spell Factory>Lab>Army Camp

4. War TH10: Spell Factory>Lab>CC>Army Camp

Diagram 2. RRC showing 4 war oriented strategy

If you focus on Farming (I. OWF and IV. DWF in Diagram 2), you should prioritize Laboratory before Spell Factory because you need to upgrade farming troops as soon as possible. Troop for war, Spell Factory or Clan Castle can wait as you dont need to improve your war firearm yet. Your mirror enemy is not much different compare to your previous level TH.

As for Defensive strategy that want to focus on war as well (III. DWT and IV. DWF in Diagram 2), you should follow this general step; upgrade for war first before defense. So, you should upgrade Laboratory, Clan Castle or Spell Factory before any defense buildings. As for Trophies Push strategy (II. OWT in Diagram 20), similar upgrade strategy is recommended. You only need upgrade these buildings once compare to tons of defense buildings. So, the benefits of Laboratory, Spell Factory and Clan Castle should outbid the benefits of defenses immediately.

The recommendation for normal oriented strategy according to TH as follow:  

1. Normal TH8: Lab>CC

2. Normal TH9: Lab>Spell Factory>CC>Army Camp

3. Normal TH10: Lab>Spell Factory>CC>Army Camp
4. Normal TH10 (Defensive): Inferno Tower I>Inferno Tower II>Lab>Spell Factory>CC>Army Camp

 Diagram 3. RRC showing 4 normal oriented strategy 

If you focus on normal strategy, you can upgrade Laboratory before Spell Factory or Clan Castle. This is because you dont need much Spells in normal attack. Somehow in Farming (I. DNF in Diagram 3), you dont need Spell at all if you wisely use farming troops or choosing suitable bases. However, if you are Trophies Push, then upgrading Spell Factory can be handy. This however not necessarily means its better than Laboratory.

As you can see from recommendation list above, Normal strategy doest have any significant attributes in upgrading buildings. You should always make Laboratory as priority, then Spell Factory and CC. This is because you dont need to push to get war troops. You can leisurely upgrade anything you want. Frankly, there is no benefit of getting Laboratory either unless you are Farming and want to upgrade farming troops like Barbarian, Archer and Goblin.

There are special case that I want to stress here which is related to Normal, Defensive and Trophies strategy (IV. TND in Diagram 3), Inferno Towers are the best building defensively. You will deter most people that want to attack your village. Personally I will not attack base with Inferno Tower to get Trophies because I will need to use powerful firearm including my Spells. In most cases, village protected by Inferno Towers can only be defeated by Freeze Spell. When I farming, I usually not bring Freeze Spell. Even if I bring one, I will not easily using all Spells just to take trophies. So, in defensive point of view, Inferno Towers are important building at TH10 and you should get it as soon as possible.

In all cases, you should upgrade Army Camp last because it is not possible to upgrade all four Army Camps at once. This required tremendous amount of Gold. To make sense of upgrading Army Camp, it should give you 20 spaces. Each Army Camp upgrade only give you 5 additional spaces. What can you do with 5 spaces? Maybe 1 Wizard,1 Giant, 1 Hog or 2 Wall Breakers. Only 20 spaces will give significant addition like 1 Dragon. For example, Dragon attack at TH8 composes of 10 Dragons. Usually additional of 5 spaces does not affect that much as you probably add 1 Balloon. In most cases, you will not look at this Balloon at all and does not know what to do with it. Army Camp can’t be upgraded at TH8. So, next available upgrade will be at TH9 and TH10. At TH9 and TH10, Spell Factory, Laboratory and Clan Castle are more important. Maybe at TH10, you can upgrade Army Camp before Clan Castle  as Clan Castle Level 6 (35 capacity) is not that significant.

To summary, this is only general guide. There is no correct way to each one. You can decide what ever you want depending how you gonna play this game. This article only give some idea behind such decisions. As you notice, this recommendation primarily base on game strategy whether War, Normal, Offensive, Defensive, Trophies or Farming. Sometime what you upgrade depend on situation rather than what strategy you want to play. For example, if you have extra Gold, you can upgrade Army Camp or Clan Castle before anything else. If you currently in war, you should focus on war thus delaying Spell Factory upgrade. If you have troop or spell to upgrade first before upgrading Laboratory itself, you should delaying Laboratory and continue upgrading that troop or spell first. If you really need additional 10 spaces to make 9 Dragon and 1 Lava Hound, you can upgrade Army Camp first. These are many situations that can happen that require you to make the best decision at current moment.