Earthquake Spell

[[File:{{{Alt}}}|28px|link=]]

For its equipment version, see Earthquake Boots.

"Weaken Walls and buildings with crippling earthquakes!
Earthquake Spells damage structures based on their maximum hitpoints. Repeated Earthquakes deal decreasing damage to the same buildings, but increasing damage to the same Walls. No Wall can withstand the might of four Earthquake Spells!"

Summary

• The Earthquake Spell is the second Dark Spell unlocked at level 2 Dark Spell Factory, requiring the Town Hall to be at level 8. It deals a percentage of damage to all buildings and walls within its area of effect, except for storages. It does not deal any damage to units (like Heroes, Clan Castle troops and Skeleton Trap Skeletons), unlike the Earthquake Boots.
  • Like the Lightning Spell, Earthquake Spells cannot damage resource storages, but can damage resource collectors. However, Earthquake Spells can also damage the Town Hall and the Clan Castle. This is likely because while those buildings do store resources and can be looted from, they do not leak resources when damaged like proper Storages do, instead releasing all available loot upon destruction, and Earthquakes dealing diminishing damage with repeated usage means they cannot take out the Clan Castle or Town Hall by themselves.
• Successive Earthquake Spells do less damage on the same structure. The second dropped on a structure will do 1/3 of its normal damage. The third will do 1/5th, the fourth will do 1/7th, and so on. Damage percentage is scaled on the structure's max health.
  • This pattern continues regardless of the level of Earthquake Spells, so if you have multiple Earthquake Spells with different levels (which is possible through Clan Castle reinforcements), the damage done will be different depending on the order you drop them in. To maximize damage, one should drop their highest-level Earthquake Spells first.
• Four Earthquake Spells will destroy Walls of any level under all conditions. However, 3 Earthquake Spells of any level cannot destroy a Wall of any level. This is caused by the nature of the Earthquake Spell, which only deals percentage damage and no absolute amount of damage at all.
  • The Earthquake's damage formula is slightly different on walls: the $n$th quake will do $1/n$ as much damage, but every quake after the first also does additional damage equal to $5(n-1)^2$% of the wall's maximum health (i.e. 5, 20 and 45% extra for the second through fourth Earthquake Spells respectively).

Strategies

Offensive Strategies

• It is best used on buildings with high hitpoints, as the amount of hitpoints it takes away will be higher, due to the percentage being constant. It will not be as effective on buildings with lower hitpoints, such as the Builder's Hut.
  • Against buildings with sufficiently high hitpoints, an Earthquake Spell will do more damage than a Lightning Spell. Thus, one Earthquake Spell is often used with a complement of Lightning Spells if one wishes to destroy high-hitpoint buildings. This is commonly referred to as Zapquake. The best example is that a max level Earthquake Spell can replace 3 max level Lightning Spells in the case of a max level Eagle Artillery.
• You cannot destroy any building using only Earthquake Spells. The damage scaling (even at max level) means that a full complement of Earthquake Spells will only be able to do approximately two-thirds damage at most.
• They are great pseudo-Wall Breakers. As Earthquake Spells deal increasing damage to Walls, they are much more effective than using its counterpart, Lightning Spell, against Walls. They are therefore very useful for ground attacks if walls might get in the way.
• Unlike the Lightning Spell, Earthquake Spells can damage Town Halls and Clan Castles. While the latter is never a good target (unless also using Skeleton Spells to attempt to destroy it before the defending troops emerge), one should consider targeting the former to take away a large chunk of its health.
  • Versus Town Halls of level 12 up to 16, if using defense-targeting troops, consider purposely triggering the Town Hall's defense by using an Earthquake spell so these troops will begin to target the Town Hall.
• A single Earthquake Spell can be used to weaken buildings sufficiently for direct-damage Hero abilities to finish them off. A particularly notable use case for this is with the Fireball, which can benefit greatly as the extra damage added by the Earthquake can be enough to destroy key defenses like the Scattershot or Monolith.
• Four Earthquake Spells are best suited against bases with close enclosures, as it has a wider radius than the Jump Spell, which has a smaller radius and a limited duration, whereas Earthquake will take them out entirely. Thus, they are a good alternative for Town Hall 8 players in place of Jump Spells.
  • Against buildings that are close to a weaponized Builder's Hut, note that the Builder will be able to slowly repair all affected buildings in the radius. It is thus not advised to use four Earthquake Spells to open a compartment and/or damage the target buildings until your troops are nearing the compartment to be opened, to minimize the effects of the defending Builders. However, do not leave it too late either, as not doing so in time might mean your troops may be unnecessarily stuck on Walls or move away from the unopened compartments.
  • On the flipside, it could be advisable to instead use a Jump Spell to bypass a single compartment of Walls to optimize spell capacity in your army. Using 4 Earthquake Spells for a single compartment of Walls would often be inefficient and unnecessary in most cases.
• Against opponents with Town Hall 14 or higher, Builder's Huts should be watched out for if attempting a Zapquake attack, as the Builders can repair buildings while the spells are doing damage. To prevent the Zapquake from failing, one should drop all of the spells involved as quickly as possible. It is advised to also bring more damage than is needed to destroy the target defenses, such that the Builder's repair fails to save the target defenses.
• There are notable interactions when pairing this with Hero Equipment:
  • Using the Fireball alongside the Earthquake Spell will destroy a huge area of the base, provided that if both of them are sufficiently leveled to destroy main defenses.
    • Otherwise, they will be severely damaged, and said defenses will eventually take out most of your army, if not all.
    • Using the second Earthquake Spell can also allow it to increase the chances of destroying major defenses.
  • The Seeking Shield can heavily damage defenses if they survive, which the Earthquake Spell can then be used to destroy them.
    • If in the case if the defenses do survive, the Royal Champion's Rocket Spears can destroy them, provided that if they have low enough health to be destroyed.
  • The Spiky Ball will damage buildings, and the Earthquake Spell can be used to take them down, especially if they are defensive buildings.
    • Take note that resource storages are immune to damage by Earthquake Spells, so keep that in mind.
  • The Giant Arrow can be used to damage buildings and pairing with the Earthquake Spell will help finish them off, provided if they do not have enough health to survive.
  • For the the Earthquake Boots, the Equipment's effects are reduced against buildings that have already been hit by one or more Earthquake Spells, with the damage reduction dependent on the number of Earthquake Spells already used and scaled similarly. The reverse is also true: Earthquake Spells will have reduced effects against buildings that have been damaged by the Earthquake Boots.

Defensive Strategies

• Earthquake Spells are only effective in destroying Walls in large numbers. Consider not allowing much value by either having very large or very small compartments.
• Earthquake Spells are also used in Zapquake attacks, where the attacker brings lots of Lightning Spells, and some Earthquake Spells to bring down extra strong buildings like the Eagle Artillery. Prevent value by spreading out defenses.
• Do not put your main defenses and Heroes too close to each other, otherwise the attacker will get a lot of value from Hero Equipment such as the Fireball or the Spiky Ball!

Statistics

Statistic Modifiers

Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly

ⓘ

Gold Pass modifiers

	ⓘ
	ⓘ

ApplyReset

Damage Type	Housing Space	Targets	Favorite Target	Dark Spell Factory Level Required
Area Splash	1	Buildings & Walls	Walls	2

Level	Damage	Radius	Research Cost	Research Time	Laboratory Level Required
1	14.5%*	3.5 tiles	N/A	N/A	N/A
2	17%	3.8 tiles	6,000	12h	6
3	21%	4.1 tiles	12,000	1d	7
4	25%	4.4 tiles	25,500	3d	8
5	29%	4.7 tiles	42,000	3d 12h	9

*Exact value as found through observation and confirmed in game files. In-game, this statistic displays rounded down to 14%.

Sounds

Sound Effect	Captions	Description
	Spell vial drops	When the Earthquake Spell is dropped
	Ground shakes vigorously	When the Earthquake Spell damages any building

History

October 16, 2012		The user named Sunk818 suggested adding the Earthquake Spell on forums.
June 29, 2015		Announced the Earthquake Spell, with 4 levels.
Patch	Type	Description
July 1, 2015	Update	Added the Earthquake Spell.
July 10, 2015	Optional Update	Fixed Player profile for Dark Elixir Spells (showing unlocked when that was not the case).
September 9, 2015	Update	Reworked and improved the Earthquake Spell. Earthquake Spells deal much more damage, and do damage based off the building's maximum hitpoints, rather than their current hitpoints. Repeated Earthquake Spells now deal diminishing damage to the same buildings. For example, if an Earthquake Spell has 29% damage, the first Earthquake spell cast on a building will always deal 29% of maximum HP damage, thus destroying any building with under 29% HP remaining. Repeated Earthquake Spells on the same building deal less damage: 29/3 %, 29/5 %. 29/7 %, etc. This diminishing damage means that it is still impossible to destroy buildings only using Earthquake Spells. Four Earthquake Spells will still always destroy any level of Wall. There are no longer any special "building execution rules" for Earthquake spells - a building just needs to be reduced to 0 HP.
March 21, 2016	Update	Reduced brewing time from 15m to 10m
May 4, 2016	Balance Changes	Reduced brewing time from 10m to 5m
October 12, 2016	Update	Reduced brewing time from 5m to 3m
June 26, 2018	Balance Changes	Reduced upgrade time at level 2-4. Level 2: 6d -> 4d Level 3: 8d -> 5d Level 4: 12d -> 9d 12h
June 18, 2019	Update	Added the level 5 Earthquake Spell. The Earthquake Spell's radius now increases the more you upgrade it.
April 12, 2021	Update	Reduced upgrade cost at level 2-4. Level 2: 30,000 -> 20,000 Level 3: 60,000 -> 40,000 Level 5: 90,000 -> 75,000 Reduced upgrade time at levels 2-4. Level 2: 4d -> 2d Level 3: 5d -> 4d Level 4: 9d 12h -> 7d 12h
December 9, 2021	Maintenance Break	Reduced upgrade cost at level 2-4. Level 2: 20,000 -> 15,000 Level 3: 40,000 -> 30,000 Level 4: 75,000 -> 60,000 Reduced upgrade time at level 2-4. Level 2: 2d -> 18h Level 3: 4d -> 1d 12h Level 4: 7d 12h -> 5d
June 27, 2022	Update	The Earthquake Spell no longer requires Dark Elixir to brew, same goes with every spells in Home Village.
March 27, 2025	Clash Anytime Update	Removed training time.

Gallery

Trivia

General

• Mathematically speaking, to completely destroy a building, it would take:
  • 137,256 level 1 Earthquake Spells,
  • 18,056 level 2 Earthquake Spells,
  • 1,920 level 3 Earthquake Spells,
  • 418 level 4 Earthquake Spells, or
  • 138 level 5 Earthquake Spells.
• In order to destroy a building with only 14 Earthquake Spells (including Clan Castle Reinforcements), assuming the same damage formula, the first Earthquake would need to do at least 43% damage.
• Assuming the damage formula on Walls holds for arbitrary damage values, the first Earthquake would need to do at least 450/11 = 40.91% damage in order to destroy Walls with three Earthquakes. Conversely, the minimum damage needed to destroy Walls with four Earthquakes is 14.4%, which is barely exceeded by level 1 Earthquake Spells.
• The cracks in the ground are like the cracks when the Stone Slammer drops a stone, that are created by the Earthquake Spell remain for the entire duration of the raid, and slowly fade when the player logs in or another raid is conducted.
• The Earthquake Spell's brewing time has been reduced multiple times, from 15 minutes all the way down to 3 minutes.
• If you use 14 Earthquake Spells all of the same level, you can do about:
  • 33.9% of a building's max health at level 1
  • 39.7% of a building's max health at level 2
  • 49.1% of a building's max health at level 3
  • 58.4% of a building's max health at level 4
  • 67.7% of a building's max health at level 5

Comparisons

• The Earthquake Spell, Haste Spell and Poison Spell were the first Dark Elixir Spells to be added to the game.
• The Earthquake Spell takes the least Dark Elixir out of any Dark Spell to upgrade to max level, taking a total of 180,000 Dark Elixir.
• Unlike its Clash Royale counterpart, it can only hit buildings and Walls, has penalties or bonuses with repeated uses and is unable to affect enemy troops or Heroes.
• It is one of the earliest spells that can be maxed out, at Town Hall 11. The Haste Spell also shares this distinction.