THE BASICS

The Drop Ship is a unique troop that does not deal any damage itself. It also drops fairly weak troops that do low damage so on paper the Drop Ship seems like it could be a high level troop with low potential. The Drop Ship is a Balloon that has an endless supply of Skeletons diving from the Balloon onto defending buildings and troops. The Drop Ship is the opposite of the typical Clash of Clans Balloon. The Balloon is a low HP and high DPS troop known for their devastating air strikes while the Drop Ship has a very low total DPS and relatively high HP. The Drop Ship has been tricky for most payers to use. Have you ever been attacked by the Drop Ship? I have one time. There is not a huge desire to run these troops across your Builder Base as of yet but that could change with one tweak or with one great player finding the secret to their success.

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COST

The Drop Ship starts out at a high 1,100,000 to upgrade to level 2. From level 2 to 9 they go up 100K each level and at level 10 the jump up to a 200K increase for each new level. The Drop Ship is prices as a high end commodity. In addition to their actual cost there is another cost that everyone needs to consider. That is their War Weight cost. If you have been keeping up with the War Weight situation you will know that as of 1/20/2018 the most reputable site that was posting War Weight was the Reddit CoC Guide. This was made by Spancer who has been a huge contributor to the community with his insightful dives into the Supercell API pulling out highly sought after info like the War Weight numbers. The last time Reddit posted the War Weight for the Drop Ship it was the exact same as ours is on this page… what a coincidence. The Drop Ship maxed out as 15.2K War Weight, which is very close to the Cannon Cart for a good comparison. This is worth mentioning because if a troop carries a high weight by means of War Weight it has to produce for you to justify the increased difficulty level of your opponents. The Builder Base is perfectly balanced between offense and defense in regards to their weight so maxing out all of your troops will definitely bring stronger opponents… make sure this troop is worth it to you before investing in it.

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THE SKELETON BURST ABILITY

When the Drop Ship is finally depleted of all of its hit points it goes down with a bang and then some. The Drop Ship deals from 100 to 300 area damage on its collision with the ground and then bursts into a group of skeletons. There are 4 ability levels at this point. Level one Drop Ship spawns 4 Skeletons which is not really enough to do anything but level 4 spawns 12. That's a very significant number. That number, may be the part of this troop that so many people have over looked so far. Honestly I believe that 4 is too low. The Drop Ship should start out with somewhere around 8 Skeletons at the 1st ability level. That would help justify the 1.1 million elixir price tag. We know from the Skeleton Spell in the Home Village that it takes large numbers of Skeletons to make a difference in an attack and even after the buffed the Skeleton Spell through the roof it still needs the assistance of a well placed Rage Spell to take down a high value target. There are no spells in the Builder Base. The Drop Ship really feels the effects or lack there of in this case, of the Rage Spell. As it is now once you have a maxed level Drop Ship you will get the rewards of the troop. As soon as a Drop Ship goes down and the 12 new Skeletons join the fight somethings is turning into a pile of rubble.

THE SCOUT

This is not an easy proposition for anyone that wants to try to choose the best possible troop combination and include the Drop Ship. Not with the current Meta the way it is and so many players having such a hard time achieving 3 star attacks with the Drop Ship as part of their arsenal. You are looking for bases that have spread out their air targeting defenses as much as possible. This will assist in their longevity even though I believe a big part of using this troop is to use it in a multi phase attack that utilizes the Drop Ship's ability as part of a surgical attack (much like the popping of the Lava Hound) The Drop Ship is a hard troop to use and even harder to use and benefit from every attack. The good news is that there is a reason why many players have had little success with the Drop Ship, two reason actually.

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EASE OF USE

1st reason is because players have had a tendency to use the Drop Ship like they would use the Balloon on the Home Village. The Balloon is used as the "damage specialist" used in combination with the Dragon or the Lava Hound both of which are "tanking specialists" The Drop Ship is nothing like the Balloon other than the round floating ball. It is actually the tanking specialist, mush like the Witch is in the Home Village. (unlike the Night Witch which can not tank for herself never mind other troops- another example of similar looking troops with completely different capabilities) Therefor do not send in the Baby Dragons (for example) ahead of the Drop Ship. Allow the Drop Ships a few moments to get all of the defenses attention and just as they are about to go down send the Baby Dragons in. The Drop Ships will start dropping in front of the Baby Dragons and exploding into Skeletons and as the high powered Baby Dragons continue to reign fire down on the defenses the Skeletons with swarm them from the ground.

2nd reason is a lack of patience from the players that have tried to use the Drop Ship. The Drop Ship will be another max or nothing troop, much like the Bowler of the Home Village. Level 1 Bowlers are very difficult to use because of how flimsy they are while 2 short (but expensive) upgrades later they are powerhouses. Will the Drop Ship be like the Bowler of the Home Village and start wiping out Builder Bases for you the moment they are maxed… no. They may have a role moving forward for anyone that invests the time in them, and for those who understand exactly how to use them in their specific niche.

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DEFENSE

The best defense against the Drop Ship is to pair of your defenses and to make sure there is not any one part of your base that gives attackers from the air a moments rest. Many bases that have all of their defenses surrounding the Builder Hall may find it difficult to defend against a strong Drop Ship and Baby Dragon attack or the pair that may be the most dangerous the Drop Ship/ Night Witch attack. Attackers can surround your base with  4-6 Drop Ships that will take 100% of your defenses attention, then as the Drop Ships all begin to fall o the ground time their Baby Dragons or Night Witches to apply secondary pressure as the Skeletons from the Skeleton Burst ability swell up to 70 Skeletons (that’s 6 maxed Drop Ships all falling around the same time, and that’s 70 on top of however many are already on the ground) The Drop Ship's main advantage will be shear numbers so as the defensive player you want to consistently damage the actual ship while eliminating the Skeletons as soon as they touch down.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

I believe that there is a buff in the Drop Ship's near future. Their lack of popularity and effectiveness is mainly because their ability starts off a little too low to keep the logical players from risking the additional War Weight they will absorb if they max out this troop. I think the Skeleton Spell is the perfect example of how the Skeletons need large numbers to have a good chance for success. Once the Skeleton Spell made enough troops people started having success with them, this took some trial and error from Supercell's Dev team. This is a troop that they have to be very careful with too. If they raise the max number of Skeletons to 25 on the Skeleton Burst that may be enough to entice players to max out and give the Drop Ship a chance but… it could also give the attacking player a 3 star machine that will be unstoppable unless an follow up nerf fixes the number. Keep in mind the one thing players dislike more than an underpowered troop is a troop that gets a big buff only to get nerfed a week or 2 later after the player has made a sizable investment in the troop that they can not take back with a player account "patch" The Drop Ship is currently one of the hardest troops to use, hard to justify maxing out due to its hefty war weight but… maybe someday soon we will all see the Drop Ship's shadow floating through our builder base in the 3 AM moonlight.