"Summon an army of Skeletons anywhere on the battlefield!
Put a few extra swords when and where you need them most. Skeletons do not trigger traps."
Summary
- The Skeleton Spell is the 4th Dark Spell unlocked at level 4 Dark Spell Factory that requires the Town Hall to be at level 9. When casting this spell, it summons several Skeletons on the battlefield. These Skeletons are very weak, but can provide a good distraction.
- Like Skeletons summoned by Witches, they do not trigger Traps or Clan Castle troops.
- The spell's skeletons do much less damage to resource buildings. In particular, this affects its interaction against the Town Hall, preventing it from destroying it easily.
Offensive Strategy
- In Valkyrie raids, it’s pretty common to have at least 1 compartment at the end with defenses inside that could take down your troops. Once those defenses are distracted by your troops, drop your Skeleton Spell right on top of them.
- In Balloon raids, if your Balloons usually clump up and your Lava Hounds don’t burst, it will take a lot of time to finish off non-defensive buildings. Dropping a Skeleton Spell or two will help you clean up the base.
- If you decided to leave the defending Archer Queen for something else during your opening phase, a good idea is to wait for the Balloons and Lava Hounds to come around, rage them and drop a Skeleton Spell. The spell will distract and take out the Queen and possible other buildings, and with the added bonus of raging your main army. However, beware of splash surrounding the Queen. If there is a Bomb Tower nearby, consider taking the Queen out during the opening phase.
- In GoHo (Golem + Hog Rider) attacks, you may encounter Skeleton Traps which spawn a few Skeletons to follow and damage your Hog Riders. Dropping a single Skeleton Spell will help get rid of the Skeletons chipping away at your Hogs' health. Wait until your Hogs run into a Healing Spell, then drop your Skeleton Spell.
- Skeleton Spells could be very effective against single-target Inferno Towers. The Skeletons will be able to distract the Inferno Tower while other troops finish it off. However, multiple-target Inferno Towers will negate this spell very quickly.
- More generally, the Skeleton Spells are effective against compartments containing only single-target defenses and slow-firing defenses (which includes the Mortar and Scattershot). They can be used to cover troops as they advance through this compartment; in particular, the Royal Champion on her own can be used in conjunction with Skeleton Spells in this manner to clear such a compartment without taking significant damage.
- Skeleton Spells can be used to destroy unguarded defenses with dead zones like the Mortar or Eagle Artillery. At 1 spell slot, this can be very valuable to any attacker. However, defenses beside this might spoil the strategy, to try to distract the defenses surrounding it and then place skeleton spells.
- However, the poison spell tower will counter this, because it will take 2 ticks to kill the skeleton (1 for shield,1 for the skeleton themselves).
- Attackers using the Skeleton Spell can use the “Backdoor” strategy. The goal is to distract the defenses and deploy Skeleton Spells on the Eagle Artillery, Town Hall, etc. However, if the defender keeps the core of their base well guarded by splash defenses, a backdoor will fail and the spells would be wasted. A popular strategy known as Skelly Donut in which the player brings some Skeleton Spells, Invisibility Spells and a Rage Spell to take out the Clan Castle (and other nearby defenses if possible). This is especially useful in Clan Wars where opponents typically fill their Clan Castle with defending troops, even more so at higher levels if the Clan Castle is very hard to lure without a significant use of troops. However, the Invisibility Spells must be placed carefully so as not to make the Clan Castle invisible, and the strategy will be difficult or even impossible to execute if the Clan Castle is enclosed closely by Walls (making it very hard for Skeletons to attack the Clan Castle while spawning inside the Walls).
Statistics
Statistic Modifiers
Input values into these modifiers below to modify the statistics in the tables below accordingly
Gold Pass modifiers 
| ApplyReset |
Radius 
|
Housing Space 
|
Targets | Dark Spell Factory Level Required 
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.5 tiles | 1 | Ground | 4 |
| Preferred Target | Attack Type | Movement Speed | Attack Speed | Range | Damage per Second | Hitpoints | Armor Hitpoints |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | Melee (Ground Only) | 24 | 1s | 0.4 tiles | 25 | 30 | 30 |
Level
|
Skeletons generated
|
Research Cost
|
Research Time
|
Laboratory Level Required
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 2 | 13 | 11,000 | 1d | 8 |
| 3 | 14 | 17,000 | 1d 12h | 8 |
| 4 | 15 | 25,000 | 2d 6h | 9 |
| 5 | 16 | 40,000 | 3d | 10 |
| 6 | 17 | 50,000 | 4d | 10 |
| 7 | 18 | 75,000 | 5d | 11 |
| 8 | 19 | 135,000 | 7d 4h | 13 |
Gallery
Skeleton Spell icon in Chinese server
Ditto, but green version
Updated version currently used in Chinese server
History
| October 26, 2012 | The user named Sinos suggested adding the spell that summons undead on forums. | |
|---|---|---|
| Patch | Type | Description |
| May 19, 2016 | Sneak Peek | Announced the Skeleton Spell, with 4 levels.
|
| May 24, 2016 | Update | Added the Skeleton Spell. |
| October 12, 2016 | Update | Skeleton Spell now spawn much more Skeletons, but over a longer time. |
| October 25, 2016 | Event | Temporarily reduced brewing cost and brewing time to 1 minute to celebrate Halloween. |
| June 11, 2018 | Update | Added the level 5 Skeleton Spell. |
| June 26, 2018 | Balance Changes |
|
| December 10, 2018 | Update | Retextured the Skeleton Spell's icon. 
|
| June 18, 2019 | Update |
|
| December 9, 2019 | Update |
|
| March 30, 2020 | Update | Reduced upgrade cost at levels 2-3. |
| May 20, 2020 | Balance Changes | Increased spawn count of level 7 Skeleton Spell from 16 to 17 Skeletons. |
| October 12, 2020 | Update | Increased spawned Skeletons by 1 for all levels. |
| December 9, 2021 | Update | Reduced upgrade times at levels 2-4. |
| June 27, 2022 | Update | Increased spawned Skeletons by 1 at levels 1-6. |
Trivia
- In the Chinese version, the Skeleton Spell appears green, instead of red. This is because it looks too much like blood, and the Chinese government banned the depiction of blood in video games. Prior to the February 16 update in the Chinese version, the Skeleton Spell in the Chinese version looks like this.
- The Skeleton Spell could have been inspired by the Skeleton Army card in Clash Royale. On 16/10/28, the Graveyard was added to Clash Royale, and share similar mechanics to the changed Skeleton Spell, as they are both spells which summon Skeletons gradually (rather than all at once).
- The Skeleton Spell and the Bat Spell are the only spells that do not affect troops or buildings, but spawn troops.
- Placing the Skeleton Spell on top of multiple Walls removes all possible spawning tiles from the Skeleton Spell, meaning that it would not spawn any Skeletons, effectively wasting the spell. This holds true even if the Walls are broken midway through the spell's duration.