How does new shield system work?
The shield system has been changed in the following ways as part of the 10/12/2015 update:
- Shields are no longer awarded on destruction of town hall. Also, your town hall holds much more loot (1/5 of total). As such, trophy farming has been massively nerfed.
- You get a free 12 hour shield at 30% destruction
- You get a free 14 hour shield at 60% destruction
- You get a free 16 hour shield at 90% destruction
- The attacker must use at least 1/3 of a full army for their TH level1
- Attacking through a shield removes 3hrs on first attack, 4 hrs on second attack, 5 hrs on third, etc (attacking no longer removes it entirely). Shield time is deducted on attack (i.e. when you drop a troop), hence you can search for bases without draining your shield.
- Shields can now be dismissed at any time by clicking the red minus sign on the shield icon.
Another shield-like mechanic called the Village Guard was also introduced in this update.
- The village guard acts like having the app open and online. You cannot be attacked and you can attack as many bases as you like without depleting it. Note you can dismiss it at any time, like shields.
- You can buy 2 hrs of village guard once a day in the store for 10 gems.
- Buying a shield from the store will remove any active village guard.
- Between 30 min and 4 hrs of village guard is automatically activated after a shield wears out. The time given scales with league level.2
- Any attack which does not result in a shield awards free village guard depending on your current league level (explained below)
- The village guard counts towards the Personal Break timer
You may be asking: what's the difference?
- Village guard lasts for a short period, while shields last for a long period
- You can attack through both the shield and the village guard, however attacking through a shield removes time
- Free village guard time scales depending on league2, however shield time is the same for all players
Footnotes
1While the wiki and other sources suggest that the shield is only awarded when at least 1/3 of their troops are deployed, the official developer forum posts say that:
Attacks of less than a 1/3rd maximum army capacity (based on the Army Camp, Spells and Hero capacity of the defender's Town Hall level) will not grant any shield
2Free village guard time awarded upon shield expiry:
Master I League players and below: 30 min
Champion League players (all levels): 1 hour
Titan III League players: 2 hrs
Titan II League players: 3 hrs
Titan I and Legend League players: 4 hrs
Sources
From the Dev's Desk: Shields - Part I: Attacking and Defending
From the Dev's Desk: Shields - Part II: Village Guard and Personal Breaks