Town Hall 16 Upgrade Guide
Town Hall 16 shipped on 11 December 2023 and it introduced two systems that still shape how bases and attacks work three levels later: building merging and Hero Equipment. It also gave the game the Root Rider, which is still the backbone of the ground meta in 2026.
What Town Hall 16 adds
- Building merging, the first time in the game that two buildings become one.
- Multi-Archer Tower, a merge of two maxed Archer Towers, which attacks three targets at once.
- Ricochet Cannon, a merge of two maxed Cannons, whose shot bounces to a second target.
- Hero Equipment, the system that replaced flat hero ability upgrades.
- Root Rider troop.
Merging, and why you should not rush it
A merge needs both source buildings at maximum level, and it cannot be undone. That is the whole decision. You cannot merge a level 19 Cannon with a level 21 Cannon, and you cannot get the pair back afterwards if you decide you preferred the coverage.
The count shift looks like this:
| Building | Count at TH15 | Count at TH16 |
|---|---|---|
| Cannon | 7 | 3 |
| Ricochet Cannon | 0 | 2 |
| Archer Tower | 8 | 4 |
| Multi-Archer Tower | 0 | 2 |
Four Cannons and four Archer Towers go into four merged buildings. That is eight footprints becoming four, which frees a real amount of space inside your walls and quietly changes your compartment plan. Most Town Hall 15 layouts do not convert cleanly, so treat the merge day as a base rebuild rather than a swap.
Because reaching Town Hall 17 requires the merges, the practical order is: max the Cannon and Archer Tower pairs you intend to merge first, merge them, then rebuild the layout around the new footprint set.
The rest of the defence set
| Defence | Count at TH16 | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-Archer Tower | 2 | New here |
| Ricochet Cannon | 2 | New here |
| Cannon | 3 | |
| Archer Tower | 4 | |
| Hidden Tesla | 5 | |
| X-Bow | 4 | |
| Mortar | 4 | |
| Wizard Tower | 5 | |
| Bomb Tower | 2 | Reaches level 11 here |
| Inferno Tower | 3 | Reaches level 10 here |
| Eagle Artillery | 1 | Still a separate building at this level |
| Scattershot | 2 | |
| Spell Tower | 2 | |
| Monolith | 1 | |
| Air Defense | 4 | Reaches level 14 here |
| Air Sweeper | 2 | |
| Walls | 325 | Upgradable to level 17 |
The Eagle Artillery is worth calling out. It is still a placeable building at Town Hall 16, and at Town Hall 17 it disappears into the Town Hall itself. So the layouts you build here are the last ones where the Eagle and the Town Hall are two separate things to protect.
Hero Equipment and hero caps
Each hero equips exactly two pieces per attack, and you can swap between attacks at no cost. Equipment is unlocked and upgraded at the Blacksmith using three types of Ore. Common pieces max at level 18 and Epic pieces max at level 27.
Your Hero Hall level, 10 at Town Hall 16, is the ceiling for every hero at once, which makes it a first day upgrade.
| Hero | Cap at TH15 | Cap at TH16 |
|---|---|---|
| Barbarian King | 90 | 95 |
| Archer Queen | 90 | 95 |
| Minion Prince | 70 | 80 |
| Grand Warden | 65 | 70 |
| Royal Champion | 40 | 45 |
| Dragon Duke | 10 | 15 |
The Dragon Duke unlocks at Hero Hall 9, which is a Town Hall 15 building level, so you arrive at Town Hall 16 with a sixth hero already in the roster.
Upgrade order
- Hero Hall and Laboratory, because both gate long queues that run while you sleep.
- Blacksmith, which is what actually moves your attacking power now that equipment matters more than raw hero level.
- Storages, then the collectors and drills that fill them.
- Air Defenses, which reach level 14 here.
- Inferno Towers and the splash cluster in your core.
- The Cannon and Archer Tower pairs you plan to merge, followed by the merges themselves.
- Walls, funded by Wall Rings rather than by pausing a defence.
Base changes to make at Town Hall 16
The Root Rider is the reason most Town Hall 16 bases lose. Root Riders barge through walls with Healers behind them, and they keep going as long as the Healers live. The layout answers are specific:
- Layer the walls so the Riders keep retargeting, which buys your splash defences seconds they would not otherwise get.
- Leave dead zones between compartments so the Riders pull away from the Healer stack and get shot alone.
- Hold a Poison Spell Tower on the likely lane to break the Healers. You have two Spell Towers, so one Poison and one of something else is a real choice, not a formality.
- Point your Air Defenses so they can shoot the Healers, not only the far side of the base.
- Do not leave the Town Hall one wall break from the outside on the widest face.
Beyond that, keep the Eagle Artillery and the Monolith in separate compartments, since a Blimp is paid by how much value it reaches in one drop, and avoid straight lines of expensive buildings, which is exactly what hero equipment burst is designed to eat.
Two guides go deeper on the thinking behind all of this: base design principles for compartments, funnels and trap zones, and anti 3 star vs anti 2 star for choosing which of the two you are actually building.
Where to go next
Start from TH16 layouts, or go straight to TH16 war bases and the TH16 anti Root Rider set. Every layout page shows the full base picture to rebuild in your in game Layout Editor, and the finder filters by the attacks a base is built to stop. When the merges are done and Town Hall 17 is next, read the Town Hall 17 upgrade guide.