How to Choose Hero Equipment for Your Attacks
Hero equipment changed how Clash of Clans attacks work, and it gave players a new way to overthink things. There's a constant stream of "best equipment" tier lists, and like army comps, they go stale every balance patch and every new release. The useful skill isn't memorizing which epic is strongest this month — it's understanding how to pick equipment for the attack you're running. Get that, and you can read any tier list critically instead of following it blindly.
(Framework guide, current through Town Hall 18. For how the Hero Journey hands you equipment, see the Hero Journey equipment planning guide.)
Equipment changes a hero's job, not just its stats
The mistake is treating equipment as a flat power boost — "equip the strongest one." Equipment actually redefines what a hero does in your attack. The same hero can be a tank, a wall-breaker, a burst-damage dealer, or a support unit depending on what it's holding. So the first question isn't "what's strongest?" — it's "what job do I need this hero to do in this army?"
That reframes everything. A piece of equipment that's "weaker" on a tier list but does the job your army needs is the correct choice. A "stronger" one that doesn't fit your plan is dead weight.
Match equipment to the four questions of your attack
Recall the four questions every attack answers (from how to choose your attack army): how do I open, what's my core damage, how do I funnel, what do my spells protect against? Equipment is one of your best tools for answering them:
- Opening / funneling: equipment that lets a hero punch through walls or clear a flank fast turns that hero into your funnel-maker.