It's finally here--the guide to using hog riders. There have been many changes with hogs, mostly due to luring mechanic changes. Throughout clash history, at TH8 and 9, GoHo variants have been the most stable and secure attack on the three star market--although it might possibly have just been surpassed by GoWiVa in this past update. If you can successfully negate/avoid big bombs, then GoHo will prove successful. So without further ado, here is the guide to Cold Blooded GoHo.
Step 1: Cold Blooded Kill Squad
Lure mechanics have just had a huge change with the poison spell no longer killing idle troops. I will have to write another article on how to properly lure with new mechanics so for now I'll tell you how we did it back in the golden years.
The most widely used option is to bring two witches with your cold blooded kill squad to distract the CC. The skeleton spawns will cause the CC troops to continually retarget and change direction while your witches and two wizards mow them down. Works especially well when Dragons and Balloons are in the CC, which is good since that is the most commonly used composition.
Lure mechanics have just had a huge change with the poison spell no longer killing idle troops. I will have to write another article on how to properly lure with new mechanics so for now I'll tell you how we did it back in the golden years.
The most widely used option is to bring two witches with your cold blooded kill squad to distract the CC. The skeleton spawns will cause the CC troops to continually retarget and change direction while your witches and two wizards mow them down. Works especially well when Dragons and Balloons are in the CC, which is good since that is the most commonly used composition.
So remember, your Cold Blooded strike team should:
1) Lure and Kill the CC
2) Kill the defending AQ
3) Destroy 25% (17 buildings at TH8, 20 buildings at TH9)
1) Lure and Kill the CC
2) Kill the defending AQ
3) Destroy 25% (17 buildings at TH8, 20 buildings at TH9)
Step 2: Hog Streams
Here we have a few options depending on the base. The first and most important rule is that you should NEVER deploy all of your hogs in just one stream. This is for a few reasons:
a)it's a huge waste of time. You will have to wait for your hogs to circle the entire base instead of moving in an organized sweep across the base. You will run out of time, assuming your hogs even survive the constant pounding from turrets. Remember, the longer each turret stays alive the more DPS there is honing in on your hoggies. More time = -% of attack success
b)stacking all your hogs into one place increases the effectiveness of splash damage against your attack. Mortars and Wizard towers have a much higher damage output if all your hogs group up.
c)Big bombs become even deadlier against your hogs if every hog is in one stream and that stream hits a bomb or two. Then there's absolutely no way you can recover from that.
So now I will walk through the reasons you would use each of the different methods of hog deployment.
Two Streams:
Pros-This is the most classic method of deployment for any hog attack. Using two streams is a good way to make sure your hogs are evenly dividing up a base while staying in large enough groups that each of your heal spells will heal every hog in each respective group. This makes it very easy to use two heal spells on each stream. Make sure when you deploy the streams that the streams are far enough apart that they won't just join together after targeting a different first defense. The streams should stay distinct throughout the whole attack until the clean up phase. In other words, don't cross the streams.
Cons-There really isn't any big con to using this method. It should really be your default method of deploying hogs. Sometimes there will be very situational bases where if you deploy in two streams there will be a few turrets directly between the streams that might cause some weird pathing issues like having your hogs ignore those turrets at the beginning and then they are forced to cross the whole base a second time just to destroy those first turrets. Which brings me to the second method...
Three Streams:
Pros-If a base has a really strange turret layout and deploying in two streams will miss buildings between the streams then using three streams is generally a great idea. The best part of using three streams is that if performed correctly the middle stream will split off and join into the two other streams when you drop your heal spells. Three streams is compact enough so that you can target all your hogs with two heal spells at a time, without getting too spread out and not being able to use heal effectively.
Cons-Can be very tricky to deploy correctly. Also makes it harder to effectively heal all groups of hogs without losing control on a stream. This method should really only be done when there is a turret or two sticking out in the middle of your two streams and you want to secure a good path for your hogs. Pretty situational.
Asian Hog Wall:
Pros-While this may sound like a cop out answer, you want to use the Asian Hog Wall when there are most definitely double bomb spots, or giant bomb spots you can't avoid or negate, but you know hogs will definitely destroy the base and that your kill squad will stay alive and get half the base on its own. Works better the higher level your heroes are, also works better when you do a shattered attack since that kind of attack gets half a base by itself.
Cons-Extremely tricky to navigate through a base effectively. It may appear easy to just deploy in a wall but you still have to be very careful. It also makes using heal spells much tougher. This is for very high level play only though. You should never need to use the hog wall at TH8, it's really not until near max TH9 and above that you see this strategy being used. Once you are familiar with the attack it will be obvious when you should be using the Asian Hog Wall. Ask me or Mephistopheles for more information on its uses.
Surgical Hogs:
Pros-Most intense usage for Hog Riders. Super effective if used properly but does require the most practice. This is generally a method where you use Hog Riders as a supplemental backside force for your real attack. The highest level of play uses a giant first to take all the initial turret fire while you drop a predetermined number of hogs behind that will take out certain areas or compartments of a base. Usually what you will do is drop a giant, drop hogs, drop a heal spell for just that group, then repeat in the same order for 3 or 4 of the exact same groups. This method gets around double big bombs, bases designed specifically to take out hogs, and compact defenses for negating GoWiPe. Besides being the most skill intensive this is the other best deployment method and sees play at the highest level.
Cons-It really is the single hardest hog attack in the game. With two streams you just don't need to be super accurate or have a really specific plan but with surgical if you don't scout like a mofo you won't succeed with this attack. So when you find yourself getting to be a medium level TH9, start practicing this method and you will definitely use it as a Max TH9 and as a TH10 most likely.
Here we have a few options depending on the base. The first and most important rule is that you should NEVER deploy all of your hogs in just one stream. This is for a few reasons:
a)it's a huge waste of time. You will have to wait for your hogs to circle the entire base instead of moving in an organized sweep across the base. You will run out of time, assuming your hogs even survive the constant pounding from turrets. Remember, the longer each turret stays alive the more DPS there is honing in on your hoggies. More time = -% of attack success
b)stacking all your hogs into one place increases the effectiveness of splash damage against your attack. Mortars and Wizard towers have a much higher damage output if all your hogs group up.
c)Big bombs become even deadlier against your hogs if every hog is in one stream and that stream hits a bomb or two. Then there's absolutely no way you can recover from that.
So now I will walk through the reasons you would use each of the different methods of hog deployment.
Two Streams:
Pros-This is the most classic method of deployment for any hog attack. Using two streams is a good way to make sure your hogs are evenly dividing up a base while staying in large enough groups that each of your heal spells will heal every hog in each respective group. This makes it very easy to use two heal spells on each stream. Make sure when you deploy the streams that the streams are far enough apart that they won't just join together after targeting a different first defense. The streams should stay distinct throughout the whole attack until the clean up phase. In other words, don't cross the streams.
Cons-There really isn't any big con to using this method. It should really be your default method of deploying hogs. Sometimes there will be very situational bases where if you deploy in two streams there will be a few turrets directly between the streams that might cause some weird pathing issues like having your hogs ignore those turrets at the beginning and then they are forced to cross the whole base a second time just to destroy those first turrets. Which brings me to the second method...
Three Streams:
Pros-If a base has a really strange turret layout and deploying in two streams will miss buildings between the streams then using three streams is generally a great idea. The best part of using three streams is that if performed correctly the middle stream will split off and join into the two other streams when you drop your heal spells. Three streams is compact enough so that you can target all your hogs with two heal spells at a time, without getting too spread out and not being able to use heal effectively.
Cons-Can be very tricky to deploy correctly. Also makes it harder to effectively heal all groups of hogs without losing control on a stream. This method should really only be done when there is a turret or two sticking out in the middle of your two streams and you want to secure a good path for your hogs. Pretty situational.
Asian Hog Wall:
Pros-While this may sound like a cop out answer, you want to use the Asian Hog Wall when there are most definitely double bomb spots, or giant bomb spots you can't avoid or negate, but you know hogs will definitely destroy the base and that your kill squad will stay alive and get half the base on its own. Works better the higher level your heroes are, also works better when you do a shattered attack since that kind of attack gets half a base by itself.
Cons-Extremely tricky to navigate through a base effectively. It may appear easy to just deploy in a wall but you still have to be very careful. It also makes using heal spells much tougher. This is for very high level play only though. You should never need to use the hog wall at TH8, it's really not until near max TH9 and above that you see this strategy being used. Once you are familiar with the attack it will be obvious when you should be using the Asian Hog Wall. Ask me or Mephistopheles for more information on its uses.
Surgical Hogs:
Pros-Most intense usage for Hog Riders. Super effective if used properly but does require the most practice. This is generally a method where you use Hog Riders as a supplemental backside force for your real attack. The highest level of play uses a giant first to take all the initial turret fire while you drop a predetermined number of hogs behind that will take out certain areas or compartments of a base. Usually what you will do is drop a giant, drop hogs, drop a heal spell for just that group, then repeat in the same order for 3 or 4 of the exact same groups. This method gets around double big bombs, bases designed specifically to take out hogs, and compact defenses for negating GoWiPe. Besides being the most skill intensive this is the other best deployment method and sees play at the highest level.
Cons-It really is the single hardest hog attack in the game. With two streams you just don't need to be super accurate or have a really specific plan but with surgical if you don't scout like a mofo you won't succeed with this attack. So when you find yourself getting to be a medium level TH9, start practicing this method and you will definitely use it as a Max TH9 and as a TH10 most likely.
Step 3: Clean Up
You should always save 2 wizards from your Cold Blooded attack to be clean up. So if you bring 10 wizards, only expect to use 8 of them in the kill squad. These two wizards should be drop behind where you deploy your hogs so that they are never ever ever targeted by a turret. Make sure to drop them on different corners of the base so they stay separated for as long as possible. This will save you the most time overall and will stop you guys from getting more 99% 2 stars that make you want to throw your phone at a wall.
Summary
That's really all there is to doing GoHo. Lure the CC with your kill squad, drop a golem and heroes to kill the enemy AQ, deploy hogs, drop two wizards behind. That's all there is to it! Granted it has become slightly more difficult now that you can't just use only poison to kill the clan castle but that just means it's only as hard as it used to be and I'm sure with a little practice you guys will get it in no time!
Stay spooky everyone,
-S
You should always save 2 wizards from your Cold Blooded attack to be clean up. So if you bring 10 wizards, only expect to use 8 of them in the kill squad. These two wizards should be drop behind where you deploy your hogs so that they are never ever ever targeted by a turret. Make sure to drop them on different corners of the base so they stay separated for as long as possible. This will save you the most time overall and will stop you guys from getting more 99% 2 stars that make you want to throw your phone at a wall.
Summary
That's really all there is to doing GoHo. Lure the CC with your kill squad, drop a golem and heroes to kill the enemy AQ, deploy hogs, drop two wizards behind. That's all there is to it! Granted it has become slightly more difficult now that you can't just use only poison to kill the clan castle but that just means it's only as hard as it used to be and I'm sure with a little practice you guys will get it in no time!
Stay spooky everyone,
-S