What is the best hero equipment in Clash of Clans at Town Hall 18?

The tier list

Data for the chart: Life Gem adds the most: 19 three-star points over an empty slot

Item	Group	Value (Points over an empty slot)	Low	High
Life Gem	Grand Warden	18.7	17.2	20.2
Heroic Torch	Grand Warden	15.9	14.4	17.4
Eternal Tome	Grand Warden	12.7	11.2	14.2
Healing Tome	Grand Warden	11.2	9.7	12.7
Rage Gem	Grand Warden	10.2	8.7	11.8
Lavaloon Puppet	Grand Warden	6.6	5.1	8.2
Fireball	Grand Warden	4.0	2.5	5.5
Action Figure	Archer Queen	9.3	8.6	10.1
Magic Mirror	Archer Queen	6.6	5.8	7.3
Healer Puppet	Archer Queen	5.1	4.3	5.8
Archer Puppet	Archer Queen	3.9	3.2	4.7
Giant Arrow	Archer Queen	3.0	2.2	3.8
Frozen Arrow	Archer Queen	3.0	2.2	3.7
Monolith Arrow	Archer Queen	2.2	1.4	3.0
Invisibility Vial	Archer Queen	2.2	1.4	2.9
Stick Horse	Barbarian King	8.8	8.1	9.5
Snake Bracelet	Barbarian King	8.1	7.4	8.8
Spiky Ball	Barbarian King	7.2	6.5	7.9
Earthquake Boots	Barbarian King	6.8	6.1	7.5
Barbarian Puppet	Barbarian King	5.9	5.1	6.6
Giant Gauntlet	Barbarian King	3.3	2.6	4.0
Vampstache	Barbarian King	2.9	2.1	3.6
Rage Vial	Barbarian King	2.1	1.3	2.8
Revenge Deck	Dragon Duke	8.5	7.4	9.6
Fire Heart	Dragon Duke	7.6	6.5	8.7
Electro Fangs	Dragon Duke	6.1	5.0	7.2
Flame Blower	Dragon Duke	5.2	4.1	6.3
Stun Blaster	Dragon Duke	4.9	3.8	5.9
Rocket Backpack	Dragon Duke	4.7	3.6	5.8
Electro Boots	Royal Champion	8.0	7.1	8.9
Rocket Spear	Royal Champion	6.9	6.0	7.8
Hog Rider Puppet	Royal Champion	5.1	4.3	6.0
Frost Flake	Royal Champion	4.9	4.1	5.8
Royal Gem	Royal Champion	3.8	2.9	4.6
Seeking Shield	Royal Champion	3.1	2.2	4.0
Haste Vial	Royal Champion	2.8	1.9	3.7
Metal Pants	Minion Prince	6.3	5.1	7.5
Meteor Staff	Minion Prince	6.1	4.9	7.3
Henchmen Puppet	Minion Prince	5.1	3.9	6.3
Dark Crown	Minion Prince	4.8	3.6	6.0
Dark Orb	Minion Prince	4.2	3.0	5.4
Noble Iron	Minion Prince	2.4	1.2	3.6

Every item beats an empty slot, and the Grand Warden’s items beat everyone else’s. His top five each add 10 points or more; the best item of any other hero, the Queen’s Action Figure, adds 9.

What makes an item good is how much more of the base the whole army takes, not how hard the hero hits. Life Gem adds 6.8% of the base for the rest of the army and 0.8% for the Warden. Rocket Backpack makes the Duke destroy more than any other item does (+9.6% of the base), yet it ranks last for him, because it mostly takes buildings the army would have taken anyway.

Many items sit within a point of a tier edge, so neighboring tiers are close. Each item’s value is good to about ±1.5 points (the lines on the chart).

Best pair for each hero

Each pick was played again on 240 fresh bases per army, 3,600 attacks per pair; differences under about 2 points are a toss-up. The Prince’s top five pairs land within 1 point of each other, so any of them works. The rates compare pairs of one hero while the other three heroes keep their usual kits, so they don’t compare across heroes.

Switching all four heroes from their usual kits to these pairs took the 15 test armies from 58% to 70% three stars on 120 bases no step had used. Air armies gain the most (54% to 69%); ground armies gain less (66% to 73%), because their usual kits are already close to best.

Where the guides agree, and where they don’t

Six tier lists published between August and early October 2026 (AllClash, ClashOS, Webhat, GamsGo, SkyCoach and TrophyCoach) agree on one anchor item per hero and split on the second slot.

The Queen and Champion picks match, and so does Spiky Ball for the King with ground armies. The big disagreements:

• Life Gem. The four lists that rate it give it B, C+, C and A; measured, it is the most valuable item in the game. Its value shows up in the army, not in the Warden, which is easy to miss when you watch the hero.
• Dark Orb. Every guide’s Prince anchor measures C tier (+4.2), behind Metal Pants (+6.3) and Meteor Staff (+6.1). Its slow is an ability, and a player who times it well gets more from it than the simulated one does.
• Fireball and Stun Blaster. Three guides pair Eternal Tome with Fireball, and three pair Fire Heart with Stun Blaster; both measure near the bottom for their hero (+4.0 and +4.9). Three of the lists recommend Fireball only from level 24.

The 17 October changes

Supercell’s 17 October 2026 post changed two items, and both changes went live in the 20 October maintenance break. The simulator played the old and the new version on the same bases.

Three-star points over an empty slot, all 15 armies. The new Fire Heart has about 8% less bonus HP, no bonus damage and heals 140 per second instead of 150; the new Frozen Arrow slows 70% instead of 65% and hits for 175 instead of 168 at max level. Fire Heart drops from A to B tier, behind Revenge Deck. The Frozen Arrow change is inside the noise.

Version and platform notes

Max TH18 levels (Common items at 18, Epic items at 27), with Supercell’s October 2026 changes in: they went live in the 20 October maintenance break, and Fire Heart and Frozen Arrow came in as announced. Portal Pendant, the Minion Prince item from the October event, isn’t tested yet. Everything here applies the same on iOS and Android.

How we counted

• The simulator: a TH18 battle simulator calibrated against real ranked results (the best TH18 army page shows the calibration), with the Life Gem aura rule as in the game: the bonus ends one second after a troop leaves the ring.
• The armies: the 13 army families used most in ranked (TrophyCoach tracker, 30 days to 5 October 2026), weighted by use, plus the best ground and air armies. Air armies carry 68% of the weight.
• The test: every pair of each hero’s items, and every item next to an empty slot, on the same 120 generated max TH18 bases with the same dice: 1,800 attacks per pair, over 300,000 in all. Only the tested hero’s items change; the other heroes keep the kits top players run.
• The value: each item’s value is fitted across every pair it appears in, so it doesn’t hang on one partner. The bases were split into two sets of 60, and the two agree to about ±1 point.
• The checks: each hero’s leading pairs were played again on 240 fresh bases per army (3,600 attacks per pair). The King’s three leading ground pairs then played 940 more bases each, and Spiky Ball + Snake Bracelet won all four batches, by 2.0 ± 0.2 points.
• The guides: the six tier lists in Sources, read on 6 October 2026, counted by which items they put first for each hero.

Limits

• Max level only. Lower levels can change the order, most of all for items whose value is mostly raw HP and damage.
• Simple ability timing. Each hero uses one ability per battle, by simple rules. A player who times abilities well gets more from active items such as Fireball, Dark Orb and Eternal Tome than these numbers show.
• Generated bases, not real ones, and a simulated player who doesn’t make hand-timed plays such as Queen walks.
• Pairs within about 2 points are ties, on any one line of the tables.