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What to upgrade first in Clash of Clans

A practical upgrade order for every town hall level, built around one rule: never let a builder, the laboratory or a hero sleep if you can help it.

Guide, updated 2026-10-11 Pairs with the time planner

The short answer

Offense first, defense second, walls with leftover loot. Concretely, at almost every town hall:

  1. Laboratory, spell factory and army camps before anything else: they raise what your army can do, and the lab is the longest track in the game.
  2. Clan castle as soon as it is affordable: extra troops and spell space in every attack.
  3. Heroes, always in the background. They never use a builder, so their only cost is dark elixir and patience.
  4. New defenses (the buildings you just unlocked): a new tower at level 1 is usually worth more than one more level on an old tower.
  5. Splash defenses, then point defenses: mortars and wizard towers protect against farming armies; archer towers and cannons add steady war weight.
  6. Resource buildings and traps last, and walls whenever storages are about to overflow.

Upgrade order by town hall era

TH1 to TH5: learn the loop

Everything is cheap and fast. Upgrade the town hall as soon as the lab and army camps are maxed, build every new defense slot the same day it unlocks, and do not stress about walls. The only real mistake at this stage is letting builders idle while you wait for a "perfect" order.

TH6 to TH9: the classic maxing grounds

TH9 is where the game opens up: two heroes, serious dark elixir demands and the first long upgrade times. Maxing TH9 fully (walls included) is still a popular stop for war-focused players. Priorities: queen and king continuously, lab on your war army, archer towers and air defenses, then splash, then walls with overflow elixir. The cost calculator will show you what your plan costs before you commit to it.

TH10 to TH12: jump smart, not scared

This is where strict maxing starts to cost you months. The common pattern: max your war army and lab level, get heroes into the 30s and up per TH, build and level the signature defenses (infernos at TH10, eagle at TH11, and the workshop so siege machines are craftable), then jump. Catch-up happens naturally while the next TH's new buildings are going up. Check what the jump actually costs on the cost to max tables.

TH13 to TH16: the long game

Builder time explodes and heroes, pets and research become the real bottlenecks. Keep every hero and pet upgrading in the background, keep the lab running 24/7, and put builders on the new signature defenses first (scattershot, then monolith, then the TH16 defenses). Walls stop being a chore and become a resource sink: dump overflow into walls any time. The time to max calculator shows why: at these levels the lab and hero bars dwarf the builder bar.

The three rules that matter more than any list

  1. Protect the critical path. Whatever your time planner says is the bottleneck (lab, heroes or builders) gets every resource first. Everything else can wait a week.
  2. Loot follows levels. Higher town halls generate more loot per hour even with weaker relative armies. Do not camp at a low TH out of fear; camp because the math says so.
  3. Overflow goes to walls. Walls take no builder and no time. They are the answer to "my storages are full and every builder is busy".

Frequently asked questions

Should I max everything before upgrading my town hall?
Not anymore. The classic advice was to max each TH, but the consensus today is to keep your town hall moving once your key upgrades are done: at TH9 and below, maxing is cheap enough to finish. From TH10 up, jump when your war-relevant defenses, heroes and lab are at or near max, and let cheap leftover buildings catch up while the next TH unlocks new levels.
What should I never upgrade late?
Your laboratory and army camps. Every day the lab sits idle is a day of research you never get back, and the research track ends up longer than the builder track for most players. Same for spell factory and clan castle: they directly change what your army can do.
Heroes or defenses first?
Heroes, whenever you can afford them. Hero levels never occupy a builder, so they should always be upgrading somewhere in the background, and at high town halls the hero track is one of the longest in the game. Defenses compete for builders; heroes only compete for dark elixir.
How do I keep 5 builders busy without rushing?
Keep a buffer of cheap, short upgrades (traps, mines, collectors) queued behind the big ones, and do walls whenever a builder is about to go idle and your storages are full. Walls take no builder time, so they are the perfect overflow valve for loot.