X-BOWS are available in Th9. They are the 1st of the 3 Elite defensive structures in the game. They are not an unlimited free defensive structure either. They use Elixir as they defend your base and a lot of it. You must reload your X-Bows after every 3rd-4th raid to ensure that the X-Bow will not run out of ammunition in the middle of a raid. X-bows have incredibly long range. They are great positioned in or near the core of your base for that reason. They are also similar to the Skeleton Trap where they can be set to attack ground troops or set to attack both land and air (unlike the skeleton traps that can ONLY attack ground OR air.)

       X-Bows have one of the highest Hit Point rating of all of the building, defensive structure or resource collectors/ storages. This makes them excellent candidates to protect Town Hall both for their fire power and for their shielding. Make sure several other defenses are in the range of the X-bows because the attacking troops will be on the X-Bow for a little  while before they take them down. Use that time to pound down on the enemy with  your Area Splash Damage defenses like the Wizard Tower, Mortar or Bomb Tower.

       X-Bows are built to be the Hero stoppers on TH9. The Heroes can bulk up to Lvl 30 in TH9 but a maxed X-Bow (lvl3) in TH9 has more than enough power and range to lock on to the Heroes and chop them down. In TH 10-11 most players like to arrange the X-bows in a triangle pattern on their base which allows at least 2 of them to lock onto a Hero as soon as the enter the bases' walls. If the X-bow is set to ground, their long range may start to peck away at the Heroes before they every break through the 1st set of walls. Setting the X-bows to air or ground will

decrease the range of the X-bows bolts BUT it does have an intimidation factor so if the attacking player notices that the X-bows are set to both air and ground they may pass up your base when resource hunting or turn to a ground based attack if given the opportunity to study your base in a Clan War attack.

       When considering Base Weight in making a decision to acquire your X-Bows for the 1st time or deciding on when to upgrade them to the next level you must take multiple factors into consideration. 1st is the most important.. Adding your X-Bows to your base will automatically force the game to match your base up with another TH9 in war no matter what the condition of the rest of your base is in.. In short if you have the X-bow your now a TH9. If you are a player that is using the .5 Upgrade Method this means a lot. Adding the X-bow last, long after all of your troops are maxed out for TH9 and long after the rest of your defenses are bought and upgraded will be the only way that you will be able to keep the .5 rating and enjoy a 50/50 shot at the TH8s in war on your 1st attack (if your clan attacks their mirror bases in war). X-Bows are extremely expensive and time consuming to upgrade so plan ahead. ( remember to pull your X-bows out from the core of your base when upgrading, that’s valuable real estate in there and you don't need a dormant defensive structure in or near the core at any time.

       One last thing to remember while we are on the topic of Base Weight (also known as War Weight or Raw Weight). The X-Bow is not a particularly "heavy" defense. It maxes out just over 1500 raw weight. Compared to the Bomb Tower at 2200 or the Wizard Tower at 3200 the X-Bow is relatively "light" if you compare the Weight to the Value. Keep in mind while many players are concerned about the defense's weight there is not nearly as much emphasis on the defense's overall value. I think NirvDamage is the perfect example of this. If she runs across a great base when farming with tons of available loot, she may not even attack it if it has Lvl 3 X-Bows. In her case the potential defender wins by default just because he HAD the X-bow, it was maxed for his TH9 and it intimidated her. That is a great example of some of the value a defense can bring to your base that the stats can not generate a number for... number of potential attackers that NEXT instead of attack.      

       Overall the X-Bow is well worth the wait. You have to get all the way to TH9 before you have the luxury of acquiring them but once you have them you won't be able to live without them! As of October 2016 SuperCell gave the X-bow a huge buff, adding a LVL5 X-Bow to the TH11 and lowering the upgrade costs to the LVL 2-4 models. With these major changes in this elite TH9 defense there will be much more defending villages!

      Following the October 2016 Buff of the X-Bow SuperCell decided to take the elite status of the X-Bow down a notch in the Winter 2017 Update by Nerfing levels 2-4 DPS by 10. This was a game wide overhaul in hopes to boost the offense enough to keep the players that are not able to spend the long hours needed to play at a high enough level to 3 star the TH9-11s. The X-Bow was one of a couple of elite defenses (Inferno Towers were the other) that got the Nerf while several troops got a big increase in hit points. They added another level to the Army Camps to round out this aggressive push to enhance the casual players overall attacking capability which in turn was part of SuperCell's long term plan to help influence players to advance past TH9 and enjoy the top tiers of the game.