Whenever Grandpa Cell came to visit, he always brought Little Chief a present. This time, when Little Chief asked what it was, Grandpa Cell gave him a small (data) package. "Oh boy! A new defense!" said Little Chief as he jumped with joy. Grandpa cell giggled a bit before saying, "Now Little Chief, this is no ordinary defense. It can only shoot things within a 120* angle." Little Chief stares blankly. "You have to figure out the best way to aim it to protect your base! Isn't it ingenious?!" exclaimed Grandpa Cell. "Does it come with instructions?" asked Little Chief as he looked up at Grandpa Cell in confusion. Grandpa Cell smiled and said, "Of course! There is a link to them hidden somewhere in the terms and conditions!"

    Well, as you see in the story, we have been given a great gift with no instruction on how to use it. But fear not! This guide will try to show you all the ways in which the Air Sweeper can be used. So read on and learn the tricky tricks that you can master in this Trikipedia: The Air Sweeper Trikipedia!

    Ok, to start, let's go over some basic information about the Air Sweeper. It has a range of 16 tiles, but only for 120*, or 1/3rd of a circle, in the direction it is facing. The Air Sweeper cannot hit troops directly above it. Additionally, its blast does not hit the entire area at once. When it fires, the blast initially forms a 165* angle and a forms a terminal angle of 35* (I measured this myself). This change in degrees is because the blast does not expant as it travels, instead it stays a constant 5 tiles wide across the entire 15 tile range. However, while the length of the blast stays the same linear length, the blast still takes on the shape of an arc, and pushes troops like an arc would. Troops fan out as they are hit by the blast because of this. For specific information one each level, you can visit the Clash of Clans Wiki here: http://clashofclans.wikia.com/wiki/Air_Sweeper

    Before I continue any further, as a forewarning, TH6's may not find the rest of this post very beneficial to them, simply due to the comparably few defenses (especially when it comes to air defense) that TH6's have. That being said, read on for information, for curiosity, or for some sort of masochistic pleasure that comes from reading longs posts. Also, I am writing this post as if you are building a warbase and the enemy will have time to plan elaborate and powerful attacks. The information and tactics discussed here can certainly be applied outside of war, but for simplicity sake and easy examples, I will be writing it with the idea that it is for war.

    Now, with great power comes great aggression. The Air Sweeper, despite doing no damage definitely has the potential to be very powerful. If you have your Air Sweeper sitting outside your base and aiming away from it, then it will not be a serious target for the enemy to take out. They will likely ignore it's existance and attack from wherever they want to without paying it much attention. This shall not do! You must make your enemy recognize it as the mighty defense that it is! Now the only question is how?

    Because the Air Sweeper pushes troops backwards, you will want to place it so that it can cover other air defenses like Air Defenses and Wizard Towers. Protecting Air Defenses will especially help against dragons and lava hounds, where concentrated high damage can turn the tide of the battle. Protecting Wizard Towers will especially help against balloons and minions, where they are often clumped into hordes that are more susceptible to splash damage. Protecting your Town Hall would obviously be valuable try to prevent the enemy from getting stars. When you are protecting something, you will want the range to extend a bit beyond what you are guarding. There is little the Air Sweeper can do to help a defense if it can't push troops away from it. As the Air Sweeper slows down the enemy air troops, the defenses within the range will get valuable extra time to take them out. A few seconds can mean the battle in Clash of Clans, a fact any experienced player would agree with.

   Ok, you just designed a new war base that makes great use of the Air Sweeper to protect your TH and air defenses. All of a sudden, you check and some guy used mass dragons to 3 star you. What happened?! Well, if this does happen to you, (and I hope it doesn't) then I would be willing to bet that you either made your base vulnerable by trying to over-integrate the Air Sweeper or you didn't protect your Air Sweeper well enough with air defenses. I can hear you now, "Say WHAT?! You just told me to use this thing to protect my air defenses! Now you're telling me the air defenses are supposed to protect it? Make up your mind!"

    Well, let me address each issue before I follow up with an example. If you pile all of your Air Defenses and Wizard Towers into one slice of your base to be guarded by the Air Sweeper, then all the enemy has to do is take out the Air Sweeper and then drop a few rage or heal spells. They will have very quickly taken out all of your air defenses. Don't get me wrong, overlapping your defenses' ranges is good, but smushing them all in one bunch is very risky. If the enemy can get in there, you are in trouble, and if they make it out of there, you're screwed. So remember, a little spread is good.

    To the second issue. You have to defend the Air Sweeper with air defenses and defend air defenses with the Air Sweeper. We have already gone over why defending your air defenses with your Air Sweeper is good, but you have to remember that the Air Sweeper not only has a limited range, but also does no actual damage! You will want to have a few air defenses, preferbly Air Defenses and Wizard Towers, that at least have range over the Air Sweeper itself. If they can shoot a little beyonf the Air Sweeper, that would be even better, so long as you don't make a power zone like was talked about in the previous paragraph.

    Now let me show you a little bit about what I mean and what you need to think about, and counter-think about, when placing the Air Sweeper. So, for my example, I will be refering to my war base design, The Comet. The link to the base is here: http://clashofclansbuilder.com/plan/754696
Also keep in mind that any references to direction will be based on the orientation that the base appears here, on Clash of Clans Builder. In The Comet, the Air Sweeper should be facing North-East, which when implemented will put the left boudary straight throught the center of the Cannon to the North and the right boudary straight through the center of the Cannon to the East. In this position and orientation, it can protect the Town Hall all of the air defenses except for 2 Wizard Towers You will also see how it is in range of the Wizard Towers and Air Defenses. If you were to place it North of the Townbetween the Archer Tower and the Cannon and aim it South, it would be able to cover all of the air defenses except for 1 Wizard Tower. So why isn't that the final design? There are 2 main reasons.

    The first issue involves 'the thought' of the placement. If you place that there, you may be covering more air defenses, but you are covering less of them well. One of the other Wizard Towers and one of the Air Defenses are both barely within it's range. Dragons would be able to attack both of them from just beyond it's range, and balloons would barely be in the range enough to be affected. All of a sudden you are actually protecting less wven thought it initially appears you were protecting more.

    The second issue involves 'the counter-thought' of the placement. Before, when the Air Sweeper was located on in the South-West portion of the base, it would be beneficial to launch an air attack from that side to take it out first. Now, with it placed in the Northern section of the base, it is more beneficial to attack from there to take it out fast. The bad thing about this is that by attacking from the North, they are now also very close to your Town Hall. Despite the Air Sweeper covering about as much of the base as before, and actually having a farther range over the Town Hall, that actually makes it a higher priority target for the enemy, meaning that they are more likely to attack from the side it is not defending.

    What I just said above is the true conundrum. You use the Air Sweeper to protect one part of your base better against air attacks, and you want to have it guarding your air defenses, but that makes it a more important target, so they attack from the side it is not defending! A well placed Air Sweeper will make a thoughtful attacker attack from the side it is not defending. The true irony of this defense when used well, is that wherever this defense is aimed is likely where the enemy will not attack! The more you think about it, the wierder it gets. Defend the air defenses, they attack from behind the Air Sweeper, defend the region behind, they attack the air defenses, you defend the air defenses, etc. You see that a well used air defense creates a loop of how to defend against a thoughtful attacker (if they are not a thoughtful attacker they will attack the air defenses and fall mercy to the Air Sweeper, or they will attack the Air Sweeper when it is not aimed at the air defenses and waste time and resources).

    How do you get around this paradoxical nonsense?! You can't! You just have to go with it and plan for it! In The Comet, I know that the Air Sweeper is well placed, so a thoughtful attacker will want to try to take it out, so I guard it in a careful way. I have air defenses cover it with their ranges so that if and when the enemy attacks from the South-West to try to get it, they will be taking hits from the air defenses. I am careful, however, to keep the air defenses spread out a bit, so that if they do take it out, then they now have the rest of the base to face. A very key strategy I think that will be seen emerging with the Air Sweeper is the idea of having fallback zones. The enemy can either destroy the Air Sweeper first and then have to face the rest of the base, or face the air defenses first and deal with the effects of the Air Sweeper. Either way, the enemy will have to use a lot of it's spells to assist in taking out one or the other, but they may not have enough strength to take out both, thus a fallback. It is hard to destroy one without the interference of the other.

    These are just a few ideas for how to use the Air Sweeper. You now also see just how complex it truely is. Hopefully you are now prepared for the revolution that is to come, both for attacker, and defender.



    Signing off, this is Legojedi. May the Force be with you.