Quick Loot Guide

Well, I typed some stuff, then they changed it a day later!  For the new loot system details, go here.

Loot Penalty/Loot Bonus

• 5% of available loot for attacking a TH level 4+ lower (TH8 vs TH4 or lower)
• 25% of available loot for attacking a TH level 3 lower (TH8 vs TH5)
• 50% of available loot for attacking a TH level 2 lower (TH8 vs TH6)
• 90% of available loot for attacking a TH level 1 lower (TH8 vs TH7)
• 100% of available loot for attacking a TH level equal (TH8 vs TH8)
• 110% of available loot for attacking a TH level 1 higher (TH8 vs TH9)
• 150% of available loot for attacking a TH level 2 higher (TH8 vs TH10)

Essentially, attacking any town hall 2 levels lower is not profitable.  When someone with a th9 or th10 talks about loot penalty killing their ability to farm resources, this is what they're talking about.  Inversely, a th7 or th8 can find a great deal of loot from a th9 or th10.

Farming for Dummies

There seems to be a little bit of confusion about what "farming" is. I see a lot of people who claim to be "farming", but the dragons in your camp and half-full elixir collectors tell me otherwise.  Farming is profit.  High-speed, low cost, profitable attacking.  Plain and simple.

Rule #1 - Kick the town hall outside the walls.

Way out.  Some people like to stick teslas and traps around the town hall to toy with attackers.  That's fine - whatever floats your boat.  I'd rather keep all my teslas and traps protecting my money.  Personal preference.

We have some links (to your left) for various farming setups.  There are a million others - google is your friend.  The core principle of a good farming setup is protecting resources - not trophies.  You want the attacker to destroy your town hall, take the trophies, and run.  Leave the money alone.  You want your defense log to look like this:

Losing trophies?  Don't care.  The money is safe, therefore you can get my upgrades done, therefore you win.  Keeping the town hall inside your walls is a challenge to come get it - and any of that loot in the way.

"Free Shield"???  What's that?  Every time your town hall gets destroyed, it's an automatic 12-hour shield.  Go play outside.  Make some Play-Doh animals.  Take a bubble bath.  Let your collectors do their thing, and come back to even more money.

Rule #2 - Army Composition

There are a million different army compositions to use.  To name a few:

Barch - Barbarians and archers.  Maybe a few wallbreakers.  Cheap, fast to train.  Great for collector raids, not so much if you're trying to get into the storages.  Some folks like to sprinkle in giants as well, but I personally don't find them necessary.
BAM - Barbarians, archers, and minions.  Same as Barch, but with a faster training time - building minions in dark barracks offsets some of the regular barracks training time.  Also has the added benefit of an air troop in the mix.  Downside - you're spending dark elixir.  Not much, granted, but some.
Giant/Healer - The ever popular mix of giants, healers, archers, and goblins.  Slow training time, but very effective at getting into the storages.  Excellent army for farming dark elixir.  Downside - takes forever to train, nearly triple the cost of Barch of BAM.

I'm not going to break down the ins and outs of each of these strategies - YouTube has millions of videos with examples of each.  At the end of the day, just use whatever combination you're comfortable with, as long as it's profitable.  Dragons and PEKKAs are not profitable, and take forever to train.  Stop.  You're wasting time and money.

Rule #3 - Picking the Right Target

So, you've found a base with a ton of loot - those storages are full and juicy looking.  If you want to try to bust through into each compartment and get all that tasty loot, that's great.  And if you're farming for dark elixir, chances are you need to this.  But, if you're farming for gold and/or elixir, why are you wasting your time?  There's an even tastier treat (and easier to get) 5 skips ahead.  This is what you're looking for:

There are 4 things you want to look for when farming.  These 4 things make up what is commonly referred to as a "dead base".
1.  No shield - They haven't been online to attack yet.
2.  Full collectors - so juicy!  You're going to take every penny from this guy, and won't have to use a single wallbreaker.  If you see full collectors, you're looking at easy money.
3.  No clan - the probability of there being troops in the clan castle is slim to none.
4.  Gravestones - this base has likely been repeatedly worked over.  This means bombs/traps have already been used up, and no clan castle troops.

You need to exercise the "Next" button to find these.  Don't be scared to skip 30-40 bases before you find the right one.  In the image above, you could grab all the loot with around 40 archers.  Low cost, easy, profitable.

Rule #4 - Trophy Range

Typically, you drop to a lower trophy range when farming.  This is completely up to you - wherever you're finding loot is where you should be.

You're probably going to "lose" 50% or more of your attacks.  It doesn't matter.  With farming, profit is winning.  All you're concerned with is staying in a trophy range where you are finding profitable attacks.  That's it.  Profit pays for upgrades, which increases your chances of success during a trophy push.