Clash of Clans: Where Is The Best Loot?

One of the most important questions, but the answer is actually very complicated, and it varies; that’s why nobody seems to know.

TL;DR: The best loot is where nobody else is looking, which right now is the mid trophy range for your TH level.

• Whether you are talking about storage loot or collector loot, the best loot is in the middle trophy range for your TH level: where ever you’d end up with a normal base layout if you didn’t play for a few weeks.
• If you drop too many trophies, you’ll end up amongst the loot-desert of goblin-knifers and Barchers. If you rise too many trophies, you’ll struggle to get 100% loot available, and the collectors will all be empty.
• To do Goblin-Knife best, make your defense as strong as possible so you rise while you’re offline and have further to fall before you drop out of the inactive middle range, and climb back automatically while offline.
• To do 3-star looting best, make your defenses moderately weak so you fall out of the “high” trophy range each time you get into it.
• You’ll get even better loot during CWL when players aren’t doing many raids, and most of all during Clan Games, when players regularly trash their shields, keep raiding while storage is full, and skip past 1 million gold/elixir each, because they have a specific objective to carry out.

Table of Contents: (i) Game Mechanics of Loot Availability (ii) Relationship Between Trophy Level, Activity Level, and Available Loot (iii) Where (and when) is the best loot? (iv) Conclusion

(i) Game Mechanics of Loot Availability

In order to understand “where the best loot is,” we have to touch on some topics of statistics and probability, as well as some economics, psychology, and sociology. Get out your thinking cap. Before any of that, however…

We begin with the game mechanics. If you want all the specifics of how loot amounts are calculated, start by reading up here. It’s very technical, though, so I made some graphs to help simplify things.

These are the numbers for the maximum possible loot, broken up to show how much you can get from the storage and how much you can get from the generators, and how much you can get from the castle, at each TH level, assuming they have everything maxed out and you’re the same level.

Now, as you’ve probably noticed, it is exceptionally rare that you ever find a base that has the maximum possible loot available. Indeed, most of the time, the available bases have less than half of the maximum possible. Why is that?

Simply put, keeping your storage full usually means emptying generators regularly. Leaving your generators full usually means leaving your storage empty. So, looking back at the graphs above, in practice raiders will usually only get a good generator-haul or a good storage-haul; not both. Now a lot of more nuanced information:

Some loot dynamics revealed by all these graphs together:

• You can get more loot from collectors than storage, but for the most loot per attack, you need targets that have both generators and storage full. However, players with full storage tend to have empty generators.
• DE fills up very quickly. At TH7 and 8, by the time even a 30% shield expires, they will be full again. Even at TH11+, the drills will be full within a couple of hours of a 16 hour 90% destruction shield expiring.
• Gold and elixir reach capacity much more slowly. Very early in the game, they take a couple of days to fill. The longest natural shield is only 16 hours, so they can only add 1/3 capacity while protected.
• The maximum loot payout only occurs when a very active player maxes out storage and castle, then takes a couple days off, and nobody attacked them during that entire time until you found them.

Okay, now let’s explore the dynamics of exactly what happens to the loot available from a Town Hall 8 base that is permanently abandoned at full loot capacity, with empty collectors. We will use the following assumptions: The base will be raided 2 hours after the shield goes down, the same amount of destruction each time. 30% destruction means all the collectors and 33% storage were destroyed; 60% destruction means all the collectors, the castle, and 2 of each storage were destroyed DE destroyed 2/3 times; 90% destruction means all the resources were raided.

Alright, now a few lessons can be gleaned from these graphs. Firstly, you’ll notice that bases which get completely wiped out every attack have more time to generate loot between attacks, which is why easier bases always seem to have more loot in their collectors.

Secondly, you’ll notice that bases which don’t get destroyed all the way retain a lot more loot. That is obvious, but it has deeper implications: bases which are harder to defeat are more likely to retain storage even over the very long term. We’ll come back these points later.

Now let’s look at the same graphs, but this time for Dark Elixir.

As with Gold and Elixir, you can see that the amount available in storage drops remarkably faster if it is getting raided more often. However, also note that even if it is raided every single time, it doesn’t decline as fast as gold and elixir.

Now, let’s move on to looking at how much loot would be available from these at each successive time they are attacked.

Okay, so using these hypothetical bases that always get attacked the same way, we can see the decline in available loot as they go down from full capacity over the course of being attacked 50 times. The asymptote at the bottom occurs when the loot generators replenish what is lost at the same rate that it gets stolen.

Now, although the bases which are usually only hit for less than 60% destruction have more loot available, it’s also important to remember that they are much harder to defeat — that’s why they usually don’t get the 60% shield!

So, let’s look at the distribution of loot available from each of these types of base as well. After all, what good is it to find a base with maxed out storage when all you brought were goblins or Barch?

Okay, so if we put all of this together, what we have is a complex situation where the “best” loot depends on what kind of loot you’re looking for, and also on what kind of army you are using and how good you are with it.

For example, you can get almost as much gold and elixir from a base dead base that has been abandoned as you can from an active base with full storage and empty collectors. Meanwhile, for maximum loot per attack, you need an active base with full collectors.

If you are looking for DE, then the amount possible to steal from the castle and storage is potentially much greater than from the drills. Furthermore, the drills lose 75% instead of 50% so they cap out much sooner, meaning abandoned bases are not as much of a benefit.

However, it is important to remember also that the graphs above do not take into consideration that loot generators can be raided without giving you a shield! This has very important implications for where the “best” loot it.

(ii) The Relationships Between Trophy Level, Activity Level, and Available Loot

Where you are in the trophy ladder compared to others with the same town hall level and similar defenses determines what kind of players you are matched against, which in turn affects what kind of loot you will find.

(1) First, let’s talk about matchmaking. When you click, “attack,” the search engine runs through a program that looks something like this:

• Set of all unshielded bases
• Add 100 points for bases that are the same TH level
• Add 50 points for bases that are 1 TH level off
• Add 25 points for bases that are 2 TH levels off
• Add up to 100 minus X points for how big defensive weight differs
• Add up to 300 minus Y points for how much trophies differ
• Each base gets a raffle ticket per point. The winner of the raffle is what you are matched against.

Just so we are clear, I made up the number values in an attempt at backwards engineering the formula based on my experiences. I do not have information regarding the actual code they are using, and the magnitudes and proportions of my values may be substantially divergent from actuality. However, the general principles definitely hold true, and the “fudge factor” volatility of finding loot is very high, so the specifics in this case aren’t that important.

Anyway, the effect of that algorithm above, or whatever they are using, is a system in which you will mostly face opponents within 1 TH level, and almost always within a couple hundred trophies of yours.

(2) Now, let’s talk about trophies as they relate to the power of your base. For the purposes of illustration, let’s consider one players who has four bases that are all identically maxed at TH10.

Base 1, he sets up his war base layout for trophy pushing. Base 2, he sets up a standard home base layout for trophy pushing. Base 3, he sets up a really weak configuration that is easily 3-starred. Base 4, he sets moves town hall from Base 2 outside to the corner.

With how many trophies will each of these bases end up if he plays the same otherwise? I’ve ordered them from 1–4 by how high they would naturally rise, on their own, from enemies defeating or losing against them.

With the exact same base levels, this player now has four different “equilibrium” resting trophy levels. That is, the level where they gain as much on average as they lose on average from being attacked.

~ ~ ~ ~

Now, with each base, he might pursue each of these four play styles:

a) Drop trophies by sniping collectors (falls from equilibrium) b) Raid whatever is available at his level (stays at equilibrium) c) Push trophies, raiding storage coincidentally (rises from equilibrium) d) Abandon his base completely (stays at equilibrium)

Let’s examine the combined possibilities: For our purposes, we will assume that active players keep collectors empty and storage full enough to give the capped amount, unless it is likely that they will be raided very often for being weak among their peers.

1a) Very strong base, mid trophies, (empty collectors, full storage) 1b) Very strong base, high trophies (mid collectors, full storage) 1c) Very strong base, very high trophies (Empty collectors, full storage) 1d) Very strong base, high trophies (Full collectors, mid storage)

2a) Medium base, low trophies (empty collectors, full storage) 2b) Medium base, mid trophies (mid collectors, full storage) 2c) Medium base, high trophies (empty collectors, mid storage) 2d) Medium base, mid trophies, (full collectors, empty storage)

3a) Weak base, very low trophies (empty collectors, full storage) 3b) Weak base, low trophies, (mid collectors, mid storage) 3c) Weak base, mid trophies, (empty collectors, mid storage) 3d) Weak base, low trophies (full collectors, empty storage)

4a) Strong base, very low trophies (empty collectors, mid storage) 4b) Strong base, low trophies (mid collectors, mid storage) 4c) Nobody trophy pushes with their TH on the outside. 4d) Strong base, low trophies, (full collectors, empty storage)

~ ~ ~

Okay, now let’s make that jumble into something useful to look at:

A few important things to point out:

• The best collector loot will be in the low-mid range, the best storage loot will be in the mid-high range. Combined best will be in the mid range.
• The higher trophies you go, the harder the defenses will be, on average. Getting all the loot available is more difficult at higher trophy counts for your TH and defensive level.
• The higher trophies you go, the more active the players are, therefore the more likely they’re at capped out for storage loot available.
• Very active players will usually either be very high or very low in trophies. Inactive players will be clustered in the middle “equilibrium” range where their defense wins enough on average to counteract trophy loss from being attacked, even if they never log in.
• As you drop too far into the low range, you’ll encounter more bases below your own, which give 80%, 50%, or even 25% normal loot amounts. So, once again, the low-mid range is superior in what you’ll have available.

(3) The Mistake of Dropping Too Many Trophies

There is a very common belief among Clash players that you will receive more loot the lower you drop. There was a time when this used to be true; however, it is based on “game theory” meaning that it depends on what everyone else is doing. So if everyone does the same thing, it stops working.

This piece of advice originated from the way that inactive bases used to be the lowest ones, since anyone who was even a little bit active would probably rise in trophies more than if they were inactive. As a result, all of the lowest bases were dead bases, and if somebody dropped down to that range, they could pick up all the easy collector loot.

Unfortunately, when a lot of people started to notice this trend, it destroyed itself. That is, so many people have now dropped very low in trophies for their TH level that you will find more highly active bases trying to snipe collectors than you will find dead bases (especially the higher level you are)! Furthermore, those dead bases you DO find will already have been ransacked by the over-saturation of goblin-knifers, each doing many attacks per hour. The chance for a base with full collectors to go unnoticed for long in that goblin-knife range is a very small chance.

There are four reasons that the belief of the efficiency of this strategy persists. Firstly, cultural entrenchment; many of the most experienced players know that it worked when they were much lower level, and they don’t realize that the situation is different now at those low levels. So much has changed in 8 years! How long ago was your advice accurate? Careful with that.

Secondly, there is no easy way to compare loot at different trophy levels; not only is loot extremely variable at every trophy level (partially because the loot from each individual enemy increases until they get attacked), also you can’t be in two leagues at once to see the difference unless you’ve got two accounts at the same level. The kind of statistical analysis required to make a serious evaluation would take a lot of preparation and time, plus prerequisite skills, without a whole lot of obvious benefit. Virtually nobody has attempted it.

Third, players who have pushed up to the very high range will experience increases in loot as they drop all the way until they get to the “very low” range, at which point they will gradually wade into the saturation of fellow trophy-droppers who keep pushing each other back up to the same level every time they log out.

Fourth, the legendary promised land of low trophy loot still does exist. However, it becomes increasingly difficult to reach it the more trophy droppers there are trying to get there, both because they eat up the top of it when they reach it, and because they create a thick layer you have to drop through to get there. At this point, the layer of droppers has become so thick that it is a huge waste of time to try to get to the bottom of it. (count the time in the clouds, too…)

(iii) Where (and when) is the best loot?

As a result of that misconception, the low-mid trophy range is the new promised, inactive land. Players who snipe collectors will fall out of the range quickly into the very low range, sometimes hundreds of trophies in an hour. Players who climb trophies will rise out of the range fairly quickly, and anyway they only attack a couple times per hour at most.

Who is left in the middle range? Players who don’t attack often or at all. Who in that trophy tier is active to raid others’ collectors? Not really anybody. How strong are their defenses? Moderate or weak. What about their storage? A lot of them will have considerable storage to steal.

Some exceptional circumstances

We have talked a lot about the “selection bias” which controls how full of loot a base at a given trophy level will likely be, considering trophy droppers and trophy pushers.

However, before we can conclude, it would be remiss not to discuss, at least briefly, how the proportions of active and inactive players and their playing priorities may vary during the game’s internal cycle.

Clash of Clans runs on a monthly cycle, with various events that can be expected to have impacts on how players interact with the game.

• Each month begins by releasing the contents of the season bank, filling everyone’s storage at the same time. Additionally, it resets the builder boost from 20% to 0%, meaning that it takes longer for everyone to spend all that extra loot. Additionally, because many players’ storage is already overflowing, they cannot collect generator resources and they are less likely to do raids. As a consequence of these four interrelated factors, loot amounts will be very high during the beginning of the month.

• Each month also begins with Clan War League, which can be time-consuming and distract players from normal raids, allowing even more loot to accumulate for those who do keep raiding. Also, CWL wins pay out huge amounts of loot per attack, reducing the need for raiding to keep workers busy. And, remember? The workers are already all busy from the season bank. Much more loot available during CWL.
• The period between CWL and Clan Games is a couple of weeks, and those are the dead weeks. Supercell usually throws out some minor individual challenges with a few potions as a reward. This is the “grinding” period, with relatively little reward from doing raids and nothing else exciting going on to bring inactive players on more. This period is the longest, and the one during which is is most important to try to stay in the low-mid trophy range. Highly active players will be at the lowest available loot they are ever going to be at in this period, and they will stray furthest from the middle during this time.

• Finally, each month ends with Clan Games. You will get the most loot during this period by far, particularly at the beginning of the games, because: - Players are skipping high loot targets if they don’t match whatever Clan Games challenge they happen to be working on. - Players who have full storage already may drop their shield to keep attacking, for the sake of the games. You can then find and loot them! - Very lower players stretch their abilities to attack too high, for the sake of the games, accidentally losing (or clearing a specific target building) pushing some inactive bases higher in trophies, without raiding their collectors first. As a result, inactive bases rise from the bottom to where more players can find them.

(iv) Conclusion:

Okay, so just to reiterate everything, the best loot is in the low-mid range, because that is where players are likely to maintain their storages somewhat full, and don’t collect their generator loot very often, and because raids are just uncommon at that level so collectors aren’t sacked, and because too many people try to drop trophies to get easy loot, and because trophy mechanics make it easier to drop than to rise, and because bases in the middle range are likely to be moderately weak, and because as you go too low the TH levels get too low, too, and your loot gets reduced to 50% or 25% if the matchmaker even finds you a target.

However! The location of the “best loot” will move back down into the low trophy range to the extent that everyone learns about the new meta and tries to stay in the middle, ignoring the bottom again as in the beginning.

The best loot is wherever nobody else is looking for loot! Therefore, common wisdom on the topic will always be wrong.

Fascinating, eh?

I hope you enjoyed this guide to understanding the dynamic loot economics of Clash of Clans! If you would like to check out more of my theory and analysis regarding this game, check out and follow Mr. Way’s School of Clash!

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