TH17 Upgrade Priority: What to Upgrade First in 2026

That's the short version. The rest of this page explains why each step sits where it does.

I read the Town Hall 17 update notes again before writing this, because half the advice online still treats it like the old altar days. It isn't. The Hero Hall, the Helper Hut and the merged Inferno Artillery all change what a smart first month looks like.

The goal is simple. Keep attacking well while your builders catch up.

Here's what the Town Hall 17 update brought, straight from Supercell's release notes:

• Inferno Artillery. The Town Hall and the Eagle Artillery merge into one building that shoots four projectiles at once, each looking for a different target, with damage over time.
• No death bomb. The notes say Town Hall 17 no longer has one.
• Firespitter. A new aimed defense, like the Air Sweeper, with an extremely fast attack speed but less precision.
• Giga Bomb. A trap with massive damage in a large area and strong pushback.
• The Hero Hall. It replaced the old altars and manages every hero, with attack and defense slots.
• Thrower and Revive. A long range troop with high HP, and a spell that brings a defeated hero back, available from Town Hall 15.

You can read the full list in Supercell's Town Hall 17 announcement.

Research is the longest queue in the game. You have one Laboratory, and every troop, spell and siege level waits for it.

A builder that sits idle for a day costs you one day. A lab that sits idle for a day costs you a day on a queue that's already months long. That's why it goes first.

The Laboratory upgrade also unlocks the new research levels that Town Hall 17 added. Until it finishes, your army stays at Town Hall 16 strength.

Once it's done, start your main war troop and your most used spell. Don't research a troop you never bring. A maxed troop you don't use is the most expensive decoration in your village.

The Lab Assistant from the Helper Hut speeds research up, so keep it busy too.

Heroes decide more attacks than any single defense decides defenses. That's the case for putting them near the top.

The cost is real, though. A hero that's upgrading can't fight, and a long hero queue means weeks of attacking with one fewer hero.

So don't start every hero at once. Upgrade one at a time and keep your best war hero available during war days whenever you can.

The Hero Hall changes the rhythm a little. It holds every hero in one building, with slots for attack and defense, so you're no longer hunting for altars around the base. It doesn't change the basic rule. The heroes you attack with are the heroes you level first.

If you're not sure which army you'll run, read our TH17 attack strategy guide first.

Pick by your army, not by habit.

If your war attacks lean on a ground push, the Barbarian King and Archer Queen do the heavy lifting. If you run an air army, the Minion Prince and Grand Warden matter more. The Royal Champion is the usual finisher for a ground attack that needs to clean up the last defenses.

Here's a simple test. Open your last ten war attacks. Which hero died last most often? That's the hero carrying you. Level it first.

Then look at the hero that died first. If it keeps dying early, it's either underleveled or badly placed. More levels fix the first problem. Better pathing fixes the second.

Don't split levels evenly across every hero. Even spreading feels fair, and it's slow.

After the lab and your first hero, go straight to the buildings that grow your army.

The Clan Castle adds troop and spell space from your clan. The army camps add housing space for every attack. Both work the moment they finish, on every single attack after that.

That's why they beat most defenses early. A new defense level protects you against some attacks. A bigger army helps you on all of them.

The Spell Factory and the Dark Spell Factory come next if they have new levels waiting. One extra spell slot changes how you funnel and how you handle the core.

Barracks upgrades usually come last among offense buildings. You only need them to unlock a troop you'll actually train.

Now the defenses. Start with the two new ones.

New buildings begin at level one. An early level of a new building costs far less than a late level of an old defense, and it adds a whole new threat to your base on day one.

The Firespitter matters most against the troops that walk into its aim. Place it where attackers must path, not in a corner nobody visits.

The Giga Bomb is a trap, so its value depends on where it sits. Its pushback can shove a whole group of troops off their path. Put it where a funnel is likely to form.

If you want to see where good players put both, browse the Town Hall 17 layouts in our base library before you place yours.

This is the building people ask about most. It's also the one that needs the least planning.

The Inferno Artillery arrives through the merge of your Town Hall and your Eagle Artillery. According to the notes, it fires four projectiles at the same time, each seeking a different target, and deals area damage over time.

That means it punishes groups of support troops and swarms. It's a strong reason to keep your core compact, so every projectile has something worth defending.

One more change matters for layouts. The notes say Town Hall 17 no longer has a death bomb. If your old base relied on that blast to finish off attackers near the core, rethink the core.

Don't copy a Town Hall 16 core and hope.

Once the new defenses are placed and running, the rest is a long list. Here's how to order it without a spreadsheet.

First, defenses that cover a big area. Splash defenses and air defenses hurt whole armies, not one troop.

Second, defenses in your core. They fight in every attack that reaches the middle, so their levels count more often.

Third, point defenses near the edge. They matter, but attackers can often path around them.

Your war log is the tiebreaker. If the same defense falls early in every attack against you, it's underleveled or badly placed.

Keep one rule. Never leave a builder idle just because the ideal upgrade is too expensive today. Start the next best thing.

Builders aren't your slowest resource at Town Hall 17. Ore is.

Hero equipment upgrades in the Blacksmith use shiny, glowy and starry ore. You can't speed ore up with a builder potion, and you can't buy your way past it cheaply either.

That's why spreading ore across every piece of equipment is the most common mistake at this level. Every hero feels a little stronger, and none of them feels finished.

Pick two heroes you use in every war attack. Pick their two best pieces each. Put your ore there and ignore the rest until they're done.

If you're stuck choosing pieces, our tier list for every hero's equipment ranks them.

Walls used to be the thing you did with spare gold. They still are, but there's a better trick now.

I checked the August 2026 update notes, and one change matters for everyone at this level: wall rings no longer require a free builder. You can drop a ring on a wall even while all your builders are busy.

That changes the maths. You never have to choose between a wall ring and a building upgrade again. Use rings the moment you have them.

For gold, keep walls as your overflow sink. When your storages are close to full and every builder is busy, spend the gold on walls rather than letting it cap.

Don't upgrade walls before offense buildings. A higher wall won't win a war attack.

Dark elixir is where Town Hall 17 players get stuck next.

The Town Hall 17 update notes say Supercell reduced all dark elixir troop and spell costs by 50% and all pet dark elixir costs by 25%. That makes pets and dark research less painful than they used to be.

It doesn't change the order, though. Heroes still eat most of your dark elixir, and they still come first.

After heroes, level the pet that follows your main hero. A pet on your best hero adds value on every attack.

Dark troops come last, unless one of them is the core of your army.

If your storage keeps hitting its cap, you're not spending fast enough. Start a hero or pet upgrade.

Not yet. Wait until your heroes and main army are close to Town Hall 17's limits.

Here's why. Town Hall 18 raises the caps again and adds the Guardians. The Town Hall 18 notes list two, Smasher and Longshot, and only one defends at a time. It also merges two Wizard Towers into a Super Wizard Tower.

None of that helps your attack. Your heroes arrive at Town Hall 18 at the same levels they left Town Hall 17 with, and now they're further from the new cap.

The players who struggle most at Town Hall 18 are the ones who rushed with weak heroes. They meet stronger bases with the same army.

Finish offense first. Then move up.

Put it all together and the first month looks like this.

Week one. Start the Laboratory and your main hero. Place the Firespitter and Giga Bomb. Put a ring on a wall whenever you have one.

Week two. Clan Castle and army camps. Start research on your main war troop the moment the lab frees up.

Week three. Your second hero, the spell factories and the first core defenses.

Week four. Splash and air defenses, then the rest in your war log's order.

Equipment ore runs in the background the whole time, on two heroes only.

If you came up from Town Hall 16, compare this with our TH16 upgrade priority guide. The logic is the same, and only the new buildings change.