Minion

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For the Builder Base counterpart, see Beta Minion.

For the Clan Capital counterpart, see Minion Horde.

"This terror of the skies was born out of Dark Elixir. Undetectable by the Seeking Air Mine, Minions materialize with ease, but are fragile in our world."

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Level 1-2

Level 3-4

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7-8

Level 9

Level 10

Level 11

Level 12

Summary

• The Minion is the first Dark Elixir Troop unlocked in the game, and is automatically unlocked once the Dark Barracks has finished being built. It is a fast and weak air troop with short range, spitting Dark Elixir to damage its targets.
• Its appearance is that of a gargoyle with large horns, stubby wings, and large hands with sharp vicious claws covered in what seems to be Dark Elixir.
• Minions are immune to being targeted by Seeking Air Mines.
• Minions have no preferred target when attacking; they will simply attack the closest building. However, if they become aware of enemy Clan Castle troops, Heroes, or Skeleton Trap skeletons (either by being attacked themselves or by being near another friendly troop under attack), and can fight back against them, they will leave their previously targeted building and instead engage the enemy troops. Once all of the nearby enemy troops are defeated, the Minions will proceed to attack the nearest structure.

Strategies

Offensive Strategy

• Minions are generally very useful utility troops despite their obvious weakness of low health.
  • It is extremely useful to carry a small number of Minions (3 or so) to pick off buildings that are defended by ground defenses only (Mortars, Cannons, Bomb Towers, and Ground Mode X-Bows). This is especially useful in Clan Wars, as they move fast and can easily take out the passive distraction buildings once the majority of the base is destroyed. The same also applies to buildings at the corners since they will be usually unprotected and can be easily destroyed by 1 Minion.
• Minions are relatively cheap and take up only 2 housing space, making them well suited to use in a group rush strategy, providing if there is enough tanking and spell support.
• Minions are a part of a very efficient farming attack strategy for Town Hall 7s, 8s, 9s, and even 10s, called Balloonion. It often consists of Rage Spells, Minions, Haste Spells, Poison Spell, and Balloons. The player will make a wall of Balloons where the air-targeting defenses mostly are, and if needed, support them with either a Haste Spell or a Rage Spell. Then, they deploy the Minions to clean up behind once the first layer of defenses are taken down. However, Air Bombs can seriously ruin this attack if many Balloons or Minions were clumped up because Air Bombs can fully take out Minions and leave Balloons damaged, or even destroyed completely unless a well-timed Healing Spell is dropped to prevent the Balloons from being destroyed.
  • Lavaloonion is a variant of this strategy where Lava Hounds are used to shield the Minions and Balloons, which can be effective as Lava Hounds can occupy enemy anti-air defenses for extended periods, allowing the Minions and Balloons to destroy everything.
• Since they are vulnerable to the Air Bomb, try to look for places where one could be potentially hiding and use stronger air troops or a single minion to waste it.
• As is the case with all flying units, Archer Towers, Wizard Towers and Air Defenses (if possible) should be taken out before deploying Minions.
• Using Giants as a distraction when using Minions to attack other buildings is a good idea since the Giants can destroy defensive buildings and occupy those like the Archer Tower while the Minions can demolish buildings nearby since they don't have any preferred targets. However, beware of Air Defenses since the Giants cannot occupy its attention.
• Like Balloons, Minions are exceptionally useful in the Single Player Campaign. You can simply destroy all of the Air Defenses, Archer Towers, Wizard Towers and any Goblin Castle troops that can target air, then deploy a single Minion. It will destroy every building. It takes a bit of patience, but it pays off at the end. In the Single Player Campaign, there is no time limit, so one unthreatened Minion will eventually destroy every building.
  • Important note: In many cases, a single Minion will take enough time to destroy the remaining buildings that your game will time out due to inactivity, which will cause your attack to end prematurely and be unsuccessful (regardless of how many stars you had earned to that point). To prevent this from happening either deploy multiple Minions, move your screen around, tap in the red zone, or simply change the view every few moments by panning or zooming.
• Minions can overpower Air Defenses as they are single-target defenses, and will take too much time to retarget, allowing Minions to inflict massive damage. However, they are still very weak to faster turrets with area splash or multi-target such as the Archer Tower, a multi-target Inferno Tower or the Wizard Tower.
  • For splash damage defenses, you can tank them with the Lava Hound or Dragon. Beware of Seeking Air Mines, single-target Inferno Towers and any potential Clan Castle Troops.
• In Queen Walks, placing a Minion when a defending Lava Hound is defeated can save a lot of your Healer's health.

Defensive Strategy

• Try to place Air Bombs near locations where Minions are likely to be placed in swarms.
  • In this regard, place all Air Bombs deeper inside your base. With sufficient firepower, Minions can't trigger it before they were easily destroyed by the defenses.
• Remember that Seeking Air Mines won't work. However, Air Bombs will.
• Properly cover the Air Defenses, Wizard Towers, X-Bows, and Archer Towers so that Minions can't sneak in and be protected by stronger individual troops. Minions in large numbers are unstoppable if they aren't dealt with splash damage or rapid-fire.
  • However, this can be countered if the opponent chooses to use Lava Hounds, since these defenses won't be able to take the Lava Hound out quickly before they are demolished by Minions.
• Minions are decent defenders to have in the Clan Castle. They occupy less space and have moderate damage, on top of being aerial troops. This allows them to devastate strategies that rely on troops unable to hit aerial units.
• Since Minions are normally used as cleanup troops, they rarely come alone. Try to counter strategies they do well with instead.

Upgrade Differences

The Minion undergoes significant visual changes at all levels but levels 2, 4, and 8.

• Initially, the Minion appears to be a light-blue gargoyle with a small pair of wings on its back, with 2 horns on its head.
  • At level 3, the Minion's skin changes from light blue to royal blue, with its horns and forearms a slightly darker shade of blue.
  • At level 5, the Minion's skin turns gray, and its horns and forearms both turn black. It grows a bit bigger, and the eyes also glow a ghostly white, making it resemble a fully-fledged gargoyle.
  • At level 6, the Minion's skin turns reddish-purple. Its wings also turn into light-colored purple, similar to Level 2 Dragon.
  • At level 7, the Minion becomes a rough orchid. Its horns become orange near the tips, and his wings turn orange.
  • At level 9, the Minion's skin turns blue-violet and its wings and horns gain an icy blue fade at the edges. Light blue spikes appear on its back. It appears to be bigger and bulkier than its previous levels.
  • At level 10, the Minion's skin turns blue-green and the horns have a white, blue and red top to bottom fade. The wings become a darker blue.
  • At level 11, the horns and wings of the Minion become dark green and its tips glow white.
  • At level 12, the Minion's skin is now colored pink, and its wings get slightly darker.

Statistics

Statistic Modifiers

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

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Gold Pass modifiers

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Preferred Target	Attack Type	Housing Space	Movement Speed	Attack Speed	Dark Barracks Level Required	Range
None	Ranged (Ground & Air)	2	32	1s	1	2.75 tiles

Training Time of Minions
Dark Barracks available	Dark Barracks upgrading
18s	36s

Level	Damage per Second	Damage per Hit	Hitpoints	Research Cost	Research Time	Laboratory Level Required
1	38	38	58	N/A	N/A	N/A
2	41	41	63	2,000	8h	5
3	44	44	68	5,000	16h	6
4	47	47	73	10,000	1d	6
5	50	50	78	20,000	2d	7
6	54	54	84	30,000	2d 16h	8
7	58	58	90	63,000	3d 12h	9
8	62	62	96	95,000	5d	10
9	66	66	102	150,000	7d	11
10	70	70	108	200,000	11d	12
11	74	74	114	230,000	12d	13
12	78	78	120	320,000	14d	14

Super Troop Boost

Super Troop	Boost Cost	Minion Level Required
Super Minion	25,000	8

History

Patch	Type	Description
March 12, 2013	Update	Added the Minion, with 5 levels.
April 17, 2013	Balance Changes	Reduced upgrade times. Reduced hitpoints for level 5.
January 29, 2014	Update	Added the level 6 Minion.
December 10, 2015	Update	Added the level 7 Minion.
June 11, 2018	Update	Added the level 8 Minion.
March 30, 2020	Update	Added the level 9 Minion. Reduced upgrade costs for level 6.
October 12, 2020	Balance Changes	Research costs and times reduced across lower levels.
April 12, 2021	Update	Added the level 10 Minion.
December 9, 2021	Balance Changes	DPS Tweaked.
October 10, 2022	Update	Added the level 11 Minion.

Gallery

Minion icon

Minion's old look

Trivia

• The Minion was added in the March 12, 2013 update, along with the Hog Rider and Valkyrie, making them the first Dark Elixir Troop to be added to the game.
• The design of the Minions resembles gargoyles. The gargoyle is a fantasy and horror monster inspired by the gargoyle architectural element. While they were believed in mythology to frighten away evil spirits, the idea of such statues physically coming to life is a more recent notion. They are usually made of magically animated or transformed stone, but have animal or chimera traits and are often guardians of a place such as a cathedral or castle. They can also be depicted as vessels for demonic possession or as a living species resembling statues.
  • In the Japanese and French language settings of the game, the Minion's name translates to "Gargoyle".
• You can have a maximum of 160 Minions at one time in a complete set of fully upgraded Army Camps. This number increases to 185 if you include 25 that can fit into a fully upgraded Clan Castle. On the battlefield, you can clone an additional 84 Minions with four fully upgraded Clone Spells (three from the regular spell inventory and one from a level 10 or higher Clan Castle), for a total of 269 Minions.
• Tapping on the Army Camp will make the Minion "sneeze," and they "sneeze" more when at levels 6 to 8.
• The Minion is the fastest flying unit, and one of the fastest troops overall along with the Goblin, Sneaky Goblin, and Headhunter.
  • Minions, Goblins, and Sneaky Goblins can move up to 7.8 tiles per second under the effect of a maximum-level Haste Spell.
• The Minion, referred to as "gargoyle", was suggested by a person on the forums, on January 13, 2013.
• The Minion is the only flying troop that is undetectable by the Seeking Air Mine.
  • This does not include sub-troops like the Lava Pup and Ice Pup.
• As part of the June 17, 2013 update, the colors of the levels 1-2 Minion and the levels 3-4 Minion were swapped. Twister, a Supercell Community Forum moderator, has confirmed that this was an unintended change and was reverted on June 24, 2013.
• Compared to their Clash Royale counterpart, the Minion vomits Dark Elixir, rather than throwing it with their arms.
  • This might explain why the Minions in Clash of Clans have a noticeably longer range than those in Clash Royale.
• The Minion is 1 of 9 troops to be featured as a monster in the game Squad Busters. The others are the Wall Breaker, P.E.K.K.A, Golem, Skeleton, Lava Hound, Bowler, Baby Dragon, Ice Golem, and Yeti.
• A moving Minion can outrun an Air Bomb.
• The Star Level 3 skins of the Minions and Minion Horde in Clash Royale resemble the level 3 Minion in Clash of Clans.