Ruin Witch in COC 2026: The Buff That Makes Her Usable

Both changes came in the August update, and they are small on paper. In practice the decay removal is the bigger of the two by a distance.

I read the official notes rather than the chatter, and then I compared them against the guides. Her name gets mangled constantly, and several write ups call her the Rune Witch, which is a different word entirely.

The old Ruin Knights spawned strong and then quietly died on their own.

That single behaviour ruined the troop. You would drop the Witch, get your knights, watch three of them evaporate before they reached anything, and conclude the unit did not work.

Worse, it punished good play. A patient funnel meant more walking, and more walking meant more decay. The troop rewarded rushing, which is the opposite of what a summoner should do.

Removing the decay fixes that completely. Knights now live until something kills them, which is how every other summoned unit in the game has always worked.

Two extra knights reads like a small number. It isn't, because of how the cap interacts with losses.

Under the old cap you spent most of an attack below eight, because dead knights freed room and the Witch refilled slowly. The ceiling was theoretical.

Now the ceiling is real, and with no decay you actually sit at it. So the change is not eight to ten. It is roughly five in practice to ten in practice.

That's the difference between a distraction and a genuine damage source walking beside your tanks.

Spread bases. That's the honest answer and it has not changed.

Knights walk, so they want targets that are reachable. A base with buildings scattered outside the core gives them something to chew while your real damage goes down the middle.

They also soak. Ten bodies pulling single target defenses off your heroes is real value, and that value scales directly with how long they survive. Which is exactly what the buff improved.

On a tight compact base they still clump and die to splash. Nothing in this update fixed that.

People want this to be a straight upgrade. It is not.

The normal Witch produces skeletons, which are disposable, fast and endless. They are a soaking tool and they are excellent at it.

Ruin Knights are fewer, tougher and slower. They soak worse per unit and deal more damage per unit.

So pick by base. Against a base where you need bodies in front of an Inferno right now, the normal Witch wins. Against a base where you need sustained damage on the way in, the Ruin Witch now genuinely competes. Our older Ruin Witch guide covers her mechanics from before the buff.

She's expensive, and that hasn't moved.

A couple of Ruin Witches eats the room you would otherwise give to a Golem or a stack of Valkyries. That's the trade you're actually making, not Ruin Witch against normal Witch.

So the question to ask is whether ten knights do more for your attack than the tank you gave up. On a spread base, now, often yes. On a compact base, still no.

And she's dark elixir, which at max town hall is the tightest resource you have.

Before the buff I would have told you not to spend dark elixir on her at all, and I did tell people that.

That advice was right for the troop as it was. A unit whose summons died on their own was not worth a single level.

Now it depends on whether she makes your armies. If you've run her twice in the last month, level her. If you've never trained her, leave her until your heroes are done.

She sits behind heroes and pets in any sensible dark elixir order, which is a subject in itself.

This is where I would actually test her first, because it costs you nothing.

A defending Ruin Witch with knights that no longer decay is a real problem for an attacker. The old version handed out free time as the knights faded.

She's expensive in castle space though, so she competes with an Ice Golem or a Head Hunter, both of which are excellent defenders.

If your clan donates her, ask for one and watch a defense replay. That's a free read on whether the buff landed. The clan castle defense troops guide covers what she is competing against.

Behind the tank, never in front. Knights walk into splash damage happily and they do not dodge.

Drop her after your funnel is open, not before. She isn't a funnelling troop and using her as one wastes the knights on the first two buildings.

Give her a rage if you're committing to her. Ten knights under rage is a genuine wall of damage, and that combination did not exist before the cap went up.

And do not pair her with a second Ruin Witch unless your army is built around them. Two is a plan. One is a garnish.

The number that matters is how many knights are still standing when your heroes reach the core.

Under the old behaviour that number fell on its own, whatever the defender did, because the knights were losing health to the clock. Every second of walking cost you knights.

Now nothing takes them except actual defenses. That is the whole buff in one sentence. Their damage did not change. They simply stop dying for free.

On compact bases the count still drops fast, because splash damage gets them rather than the clock. So the base shape matters more than it did, not less.

The August update was a small one and this was the most interesting thing in it.

Most of the patch was quality of life. Wall rings without a builder, a revive spell fix, the gold pass moving down to Town Hall 3, and a pile of hero journey repairs.

The Ruin Witch change is the only one that alters what goes in your camp, which makes it the one worth reading properly. The full list sits in the August update notes.

It also tells you Supercell is willing to fix a troop rather than abandon it, which hasn't always been true.

If you're below Town Hall 14, ignore it. You've better things to spend dark elixir on and better troops to master.

If you run air, ignore it. She's a ground troop and nothing about her helps a Hydra or a Lalo.

If you're mid way through hero upgrades, ignore it. Heroes first, always, and a troop level has never won a war on its own.

And if you tried her before and hated her, try her once before deciding. The thing you hated is the thing they removed.

Train one. Not an army, one. Put her behind your usual tank on a spread base in multiplayer and watch what the knights do now.

If they reach the core alive, she's earned a slot in your farming army at minimum.

If they still die on the way in, your base selection is the problem rather than the troop, and no buff fixes that.

Then decide about levels. And while you're testing, browse the current war layouts to see which shapes people are building against ground armies, because that is who she is for. The rest of the changes are on the Clash of Clans site.