Lightning Spell



"Electrocute your enemies with bolts of lightning! Cast this spell at the enemy village to damage buildings and units inside a small area."


 * Summary
 * The Lightning Spell is the first spell unlocked in the Spell Factory, and is automatically unlocked once the Spell Factory has finished construction.
 * When this spell is used, a number of lightning bolts drop from the sky, damaging all Buildings and enemy Troops randomly within a circle 7 tiles wide, with the exception of Gold Storages, Elixir Storages and Dark Elixir Storages. The only spot that receives the full damage of the spell is the one-tile area onto which it was targeted.


 * Offensive Strategy
 * Lightning Spells are often used to take out an enemy's strong defenses, such as Mortars, Wizard Towers, and Air Defenses. Two Lightning Spells are usually enough to destroy a Mortar or Wizard Tower, unless the target is much higher level than the Lightning Spell. Air Defenses almost always require at least three Lightning Spells. See the "Hits to Kill" (HTK) tab on the Unit Calculators page for more details.
 * Another major use for Lightning Spells is to take out enemy Clan Castle Troops. When they are bunched up, a single spell can completely destroy an entire group of Tier 1 troops with ease.
 * If you need to destroy just one more building to reach 50% destruction, a single Lightning Spell can be used to destroy a Builder's Hut, the Barbarian King or Archer Queen Altar, a Barracks (if its level is not higher than your Lightning Spell) or an Army Camp.
 * A good Trophy-hunting strategy is to use Lightning Spells to take out an Air Defense and then deploy Dragons. It takes no less than 3 Lightning Spells to take out an Air Defense of any level, and higher level air defenses require higher level Lightning Spells to take them down. Jorge Yao stated in his interview that he used this tactic to help him reach number one on the top players' list.
 * Lightning Spells can also be used as pseudo-Wall Breakers if necessary. Often your troops will have partially damaged a wall during a raid before being wiped out by the defenses. As a result, other troops may be targeting buildings other than the ones you intended, because a path wasn't opened for them. If the wall is lower level or sufficiently damaged, you may be able to use one or more Lightning Spells to finish off the wall and open the path. Beware, however, that higher level Walls have a great deal of hitpoints, and may require several Lightning Spells (or have too much health entirely).
 * Dropping a pair of lightning spells directly between two Defensive Buildings (e.g. a Wizard Tower and a Mortar) which have been placed adjacent to one-another can actually destroy both structures if the Lightning Spells are of sufficient level.
 * A common strategy is to use lure Clan Castle troops near defenses and then drop a Lightning Spell to eliminate the troops if their health is low enough and simultaenously damage the defenses in its radius.
 * Normally two Lightning Spells can take out a mortar or a wizard tower, depending on the levels. This strategy can be used so attacks with high quantities of weak troops won't get completely wiped out with one or two shots of a mortar or wizard tower.
 * Mistakes usually made by people with a level 1 Spell Factory is that they use the spell on the Town Hall. Since one Lightning Spell is not very effective on Town Halls and other Defensive Buildings, it is recommended that it is used on troops hidden inside a Clan Castle.
 * Lightning Spells can be used to kill/injure Heroes directly by dropping Lightning Spells on them and simultaneously kill Clan Castle troops if the timing is correct.
 * As of the July 1, 2015 Update, Lightning Spells will no longer damage Gold Storages, Elixir Storages or Dark Elixir Storages. However, they can still damage Gold Mines, Elixir Collectors, Dark Elixir Drills, Clan Castles and Town Halls.
 * At Town Hall 8, a level 6 Air Defense can be destroyed with a level 1 Earthquake Spell and 2 level 5 Lightning Spells, making room for an extra Rage Spell that will dramatically improve Mass Dragon attacks.


 * Trivia
 * The Lightning Spell used to take 2 hours to make, but it was reduced in an update to 1 hour. The update on 17 Apr 2013 further reduced the creation time to 30 minutes. The July 1 2015 update reduced it again to 20 minutes.
 * Supercell posted a teaser on it: Lightning Spell Video
 * The Lightning Spell's total damage goes up by 30 points after every upgrade.
 * It takes 2.4 seconds for all the lightning bolts to strike.
 * Although the Lightning Spell can be upgraded to level 2 in the level 1 Laboratory, only Troops and Spells that are already unlocked will appear in the Laboratory upgrade interface. The Lightning Spell will not appear in the Laboratory until the Spell Factory is built (which requires Town Hall level 5). Most players already have a level 3 Laboratory by that time; if so, the first three upgrades will be available as soon as construction of the Spell Factory finishes.
 * Similar to the Bomb and Giant Bomb, the Lightning Spell leaves black scorch marks where the lightning hit, which remain for a few seconds.
 * During the 2013, 2014 and 2015 Halloween event, the spark effect which the Lightning Spell normally produced was temporarily replaced with a swarm of bats.
 * Five level 7 Lightning Spells can take out a level 6 or lower Town Hall; however, this isn't a recommended strategy.
 * When the Spell Factory was first introduced to the game as part of the 18 Sep 2012 update, all Spells required Gold to create. The 6 Nov 2013 update changed the required resource for all Spells, including the Lightning Spell, to Elixir.



For additional statistics and information, see the Unit Calculators page. The ZapQuake Bible - Th9'Killing the Archer Queen using Lightning Spells'Zap Quake strategy