"This colossal menace soaks up huge amounts of damage and bashes anything in his path. He guards his territory fiercely when defending, and can launch into a devastating rage when attacking once his Iron Fist ability is unlocked!"
Barbarian King Skins
Barbarian King
Gladiator King
P.E.K.K.A King
Skeleton King
Jolly King
Primal King
Clockwork King
Party King
Champion King
Pirate King
Warrior King
Rogue King
Summary
The Barbarian King is a larger, stronger, more aggressive, more impressive, and more powerful Barbarian. He is the first hero to unlock at Town Hall level 7. He is automatically summoned once the Barbarian King Altar is constructed, which costs 10,000 Dark Elixir. So, the Dark Elixir Storage is required to get him.
The Barbarian King is an immortal unit, so he only has to be summoned once. However, if he is injured or gets defeated in an attack, he must regenerate his health by sleeping for a period of time before he can be used again. The maximum period needed for him to regenerate depends on his level; the higher it is, the longer it takes for him to regenerate.
The Barbarian King will defend the village whenever he's not regenerating health from a previous attack. The Barbarian King only defends his territory around his platform and will retreat if lured too far out. If the village is attacked while he is regenerating health, his altar will be empty. If he locks onto a troop, he will follow that troop until he dies or that troop is killed. Once the troop is killed, and he is outside of his patrol zone, he will return to patrolling around his altar, even if the altar is destroyed. You do not need to knock out the Barbarian King to three star a base.
If he is damaged or defeated on defense, he does not need to regenerate health afterwards.
The amount of time he sleeps to regenerate is directly proportional to the health he has lost by the end of the battle. If he is not damaged (or is fully healed before the battle ends), then he is ready to fight immediately, however, if he falls in battle or is defeated, then he must sleep for some time to regenerate. The more the Barbarian King is upgraded, the more time it will take to fully regenerate his health.
The Barbarian King has very high health but moderate damage so he is best used as a tank. Deploy him first to distract the defenses then deploy lower health units (Like the Archer Queen) to do the damage. But, at lower levels, like Town Hall 7-9 you might want him inside the base since your heroes are a good damager. Another way to use him is for funneling. He is very clear where to funnel and his ability (Iron Fist) makes the funnel very easy.
Hero regeneration after a Multiplayer Battle starts as soon as the player begins to search for a Multiplayer opponent. So, if the player spent some time searching for an opponent to attack before completing an attack, part of the regeneration will be completed by the time the player returns to his/her village. However, if the player cancels the attack by pressing "End Battle" before completing an attack, the regeneration will be reset. This effect is more noticeable in the highest leagues below legend where a significant amount of time can be spent searching for such opponents.
Starting at level 5, the Barbarian King obtains an ability called Iron Fist which can be used on the battlefield. It partially heals him by a set amount per level of the Iron Fist, summons a horde of additional Barbarians, and grants the Barbarian King and his summoned Barbarians increased damage and speed. This does not stack with the Rage Spell and does not affect any other troops, including other Barbarians belonging to the regular army. This ability gets more powerful every fifth level.
If the ability is unlocked, once the Barbarian King is deployed, his icon in the troop deployment window becomes the activation method for Iron Fist. Simply click on his icon again and Iron Fist will be activated.
If the ability has not been used before the Barbarian King is about to be defeated, it will by default automatically activate. However, this feature can be toggled off in the settings (by turning off "Automatically use Hero Abilities on KO").
Since the Barbarian King summons Barbarians from his ability, it is good to upgrade your Barbarians from the laboratory so that it will make the summoned Barbarians stronger, and can destroy buildings even quicker.
Offensive Strategy
The four Home Village heroes serve different roles in raids. The Barbarian King is the tank specialist hero, while the Archer Queen is the damage specialist, the Grand Warden is the support specialist and the Royal Champion is the defense specialist.
The Barbarian King can often be used to create funnels; if there are no gaps in nearby Walls, he will stay outside the Walls and clear out buildings placed outside. As he is able to tank a lot of damage, he can used to clear areas covered by high-DPS defenses, like a Tesla or X-Bow farm (where multiple of the same defense type is grouped to provide concentrated damage). However, air troops may be better suited for the funnel if anti-air DPS is lacking in such areas, and one should still be wary of single-target Inferno Towers, which can quickly defeat him and end the funnel.
A common way to use the Barbarian King is as a tank, to distract the defenses to allow troops with low hitpoints to survive. For example, you may use him with the Archer Queen; he tanks the damage and the Archer Queen inflicts the damage. This is a common use and starting phase for the heroes in air attacks, where they serve little purpose with the main army. The Grand Warden can also be shielded by the Barbarian King at the same time because of his Life Aura.
When attacking, he can be deployed just like any other unit. When he is damaged, he must sleep to regenerate health before he can be used again. The regeneration time is directly proportional to how much health he must recover. He can be instantly brought up to full health with Gems.
He is best used with support from ranged troops, such as the Archer or Wizard.
He is also good for helping to destroy the remaining buildings of a village, after most or all defenses have been destroyed.
The Barbarian King can be easily swarmed by a group of Archers or Barbarians, as he only attacks one target at a time and has a somewhat slow attack speed against swarms.
As the Iron Fist ability recovers some health, you should let your Barbarian King take some damage before activating this ability to maximize the recovered health provided by activating the ability. The exception is at the end of a successful battle where the Barbarian King survives with taking very little or no damage. The Iron Fist ability can be used to speed up the process of clearing the base.
The Barbarian King can be healed by Healing Spell or a Healer while battling; however, this healing occurs at 55% of the rate of that of normal troops.
Avoid using the ability when the King approaches a Bomb Tower or an area where you suspect a Giant Bomb will be, unless you desperately need to recover health. If you do so, the summoned Barbarians will most likely be wiped out by the resulting explosion.
You can negate the explosion by using the Eternal Tome ability of the Grand Warden, but you may find it more useful to save the ability for tackling a more heavily-defended section of the base.
Enable "Automatically use Hero Abilities on KO" in the settings, as there is no real downside to doing so; his hero ability enhances his survivability and boosts his damage output.
If you do not need to use his ability during battle, you probably shouldn't. If the battle ends and he does not use his ability, after battle he will recover health equal to the ability recovery.
Defensive Strategy
Though he is very strong on offense, he only attacks one target at a time on defense which makes him easy to kill with multiple units, so protect him with splash-damaging defenses.
It is a good idea to place the Altar in the middle of a group of storages or other areas that you wish to protect.
The Barbarian King is a melee troop, meaning he cannot damage air units (though all the other heroes can).
Unlike troops in the Clan Castle, the Barbarian King cannot be lured to the edge of the map and then destroyed out of range of the defenses (unless his Altar is near the edge). If his target moves out of his patrol area, he will retreat and engage another enemy inside his patrol area. If no enemies remain in his patrol area, he will resume patrolling.
Although the Barbarian King cannot be lured outside of his patrol range, he will lure attacking troops towards him, sometimes ignoring the structure they were originally targeting. This may be a problem in some cases; if you put the Barbarian King near your Town Hall, the attacking troops can be lured toward the Barbarian King, and consequently get closer to the Town Hall.
Against a Barbarian King
If a defensive King is causing trouble to your troops, use some small troops, such as Barbarians, behind a tanking troop. This will ensure the King is defeated with minimal loss in troops.
If the base has no Archer Queen, or if she is far enough away from the Barbarian King, then attack with air troops, away from buildings that target air troops. You may have to deploy ground troops periodically in order to keep the Barbarian King in an area where your air troops may safely attack the King, so this strategy may not always be effective.
Air troops such as Balloons and Minions have little to worry from a Barbarian King; he can usually be ignored in such cases. While the Barbarian King cannot retaliate against air troops, he can still distract them away from other valuable targets, such as the Town Hall.
Although swarms of troops are effective against the Barbarian King, the P.E.K.K.A is also effective for taking down low level Barbarian Kings.
You can distract the enemy Barbarian King with troops such as Giants or Golems, and send in high damage troops behind such as Wizards or the Archer Queen. This tactic can defeat the Barbarian King fairly easily.
The Barbarian King will never go farther than 7 tiles from his altar so troops place over 7 tiles away can attack him without retaliation.
If the Barbarian King moves the troops may come into range of the Barbarian King's tile and be attacked.
Trivia
Every slash he makes on a building or unit creates a mini explosion.
When you tap on him he will yell a low pitched battle cry, stand still for a moment and play an animation. The battle cry and animation varies between skins:
In the default skin, the Barbarian King has two battle cries (one is identical to the sound he makes when deployed, and the other is a normal battle cry); which battle cry he makes when tapped in this case is random. He also raises his sword in the air.
The Gladiator King and P.E.K.K.A King perform a similar animation when tapped, and share a slightly different, muffled battle cry.
The Skeleton King makes the same sounds as the default King, but has a different animation where he takes off his head and bows to the player.
The Jolly King waves his non-sword hand at the player (followed by raising his sword once) and makes a Santa Claus-esque laugh.
The Primal King makes the same sounds as the default King, but has a different animation where he smashes his bone sword on the ground while using his non-sword hand to scratch the ground.
The Clockwork King also raises his sword like most skins, but also raises and extends his non-sword hand. He also has a unique battle cry that sounds mechanical.
The Party King plays his guitar before striking a pose, and a chord can be heard.
The Champion King waves his sword in the air and grunts while a fanfare plays.
The Pirate King grinds his hook (which replaces his non-sword hand) on his cutlass while making a grunt.
The Warrior King spins his sword around before brandishing it toward the player.
The Rogue King will take off his crown and bow toward the player. Like the original skin, he has two "cries".
At max level, the Barbarian King has the most HP out of any troop in the game.
When the Barbarian King 'falls' in battle, an explosion occurs and a bright beam of light is sent up into the sky temporarily. He is then seen standing dazed with stars flying around his head for the remainder of the battle.
Prior to the January 2014 update that introduced hero abilities, and before sleeping button was removed, the original description for the Barbarian King, along with the Archer Queen, were "Heroes can attack enemy villages or guard your village. Heroes can be injured, but are immortal. Heal them by letting them sleep or using the Heal button. Heroes won't defend the village while sleeping."
Each successive upgrade of the Barbarian King adds approximately 2.5% health and 2% damage, but every five levels also add a constant two minutes to his total regeneration time. As a consequence, the Barbarian King's regeneration rate changes as he levels up.
Regeneration rate for each level; click to enlarge
The Barbarian King's regeneration rate fluctuates each level, with drops in regeneration rate every fifth level and small increases for every other level. From an initial regeneration rate of 170 HP per minute at level 1, it reaches a maximum of 183 HP per minute at level 4 and shows a downward trend up to level 15, where there is a minimum of 150.13 HP per minute. Beyond level 15, the drops at every fifth level are outweighed by the increases from the other levels, eventually reaching 265.79 HP per minute at level 74 before dropping once more to 257.5 HP per minute at level 75.
Prior to the July 2014 update, the Barbarian King, as well as the Archer Queen though slightly, used to have a higher damage and hitpoints than he currently has, which made him more powerful than the P.E.K.K.A. Before being nerfed, the level 40 Barbarian King's damage was 571 and his hit-points were 5701.
While attacking, if your opponent's Barbarian King Altar is empty and the King wakes up during your battle, the Altar will sparkle like he is waking but there will be no Barbarian King to defend the base. This sparkle also occurs in the Village Edit Mode when you have placed the Altar.
Some of the Barbarian King's skins have four fingers, while the other skins, including the default one have five fingers.
This is because his skins appear with one of three different versions of the appearance of the King.
The Barbarian King is the first hero to have a skin, which is the Gladiator King skin.
The P.E.K.K.A King, along with the Jolly King, are the only skins for the Barbarian King that wields a sword that glows.
With most of his skins, the Barbarian King will alternate between hitting the building with the sword and his fist. However, both types of strikes do equal damage.
An exception is the Party King skin, where all of his attacks involve his guitar (which he attacks with in two different ways, either by slamming the guitar's body at the target or doing a stabbing motion with the guitar's body as a blade).
The Pirate King skin uses his sword in both his attack animations, slicing the target in two different ways.
The Barbarian King was also a part of the Town Hall Level 7 Starter Pack which came with the Barbarian King, a level 3 Hidden Tesla and 1,200 gems which cost $9.99.
The Barbarian King has the most current skins of any hero, currently 12.
The Barbarian King is the only hero in the Home Village which its attack type is melee and can only attack ground units.
Before Hero Skins were added, the original Barbarian King texture had visual changes at levels 10, 20 and 41.
Initially, the Barbarian King appeared similar to a giant Barbarian, with a steel crown, steel gauntlet, and steel shoulder guard. He used a blunt sword with a stone hilt.
At level 10, his gauntlet changed from steel to gold.
At level 20, his shoulder guard's edge turned to gold, and the central spike turned gold as well.
At level 41, his crown turned gold.
Levels 1-9 (Old Sprite)
Levels 10-19 (Old Sprite)
Levels 20-40 (Old Sprite)
Levels 41-60 (Old Sprite)
Statistic Modifiers
Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly
The below table denotes the months in which Barbarian King skins were available. They are typically only obtainable by reaching the final tier of Season Challenges after purchasing that season's corresponding Gold Pass.
Skins that are still available from an ongoing season are highlighted in yellow. Skins that are not available from a Gold Pass are highlighted in blue. Skins that are purchasable through Gems are highlighted in green.
