Bats

Bats is a 2-Elixir Common troop that deploys a swarm of five identical, very fast, melee, Air-transport troops that can each target both Air and Ground. Individually paper-thin (81 HP, 81 damage at level 11) but cheap and numerous, they're used for cheap chip damage, tank support, and air defense. Its Evolution turns the swarm into "Vampire Bats": every attack triggers two self-healing pulses, letting an Evolved Bat overheal up to double its HP the longer it survives in combat, at the cost of needing 2 non-evolved cycles between evolved deployments.

• Base Bats at tournament-standard Level 11: 2 Elixir cost, spawns x5 troops, 81 hitpoints and 81 damage per hit each, Very Fast movement speed (120), 1 sec deploy time, Melee range classified Medium (1.2 tiles), targets Air & Ground, and the troops themselves are Air-transport (they fly).

• Evolutionevery attack landed by an Evolved Bat triggers its self-heal — 2 healing pulses spaced 0.5 sec apart, each restoring 38 HP (76 HP/sec while pulsing) — but the heal only applies to the individual Bat that made contact, not the whole swarm.

• Evolutionthe self-heal can overheal an Evolved Bat past its listed 122 HP, up to a cap of 244 HP (exactly double) if it keeps landing hits without dying. A Bat that has dropped to near 0 HP already surpasses its 122 HP base value after just 2 attacks (4 heal ticks × 38 HP = 152 HP healed, more than the base HP pool), and one that keeps attacking without dying can fully cap out at 244 HP after about 7 heal ticks total (~4 attacks worth of healing).

• EvolutionBats' Evolution slot needs 2 cycles between evolved deployments — after an Evolved Bats play, the next 2 times Bats is played from that slot it comes out as regular (non-evolved) Bats before the following play evolves again, so roughly 1 in every 3 Bats deployments is the evolved version.

• Balance history: on November 13, 2023, Supercell buffed Evolved Bats' First Hit Speed from 0.5s to 0.2s (+60%) specifically so the evolution could "activate their vampiric Hitpoint stealing faster," extending its effective lifespan in fights.

• Balance history: on May 7, 2024, Supercell nerfed Evolved Bats by changing their "Bonus First Hit Speed" from 0.3s to 0.6s (removing the extra-fast opening strike the evolution had over base Bats), stating "Evolved Bats will have as much potential as before, but getting maximum value will require more support." The same patch separately buffed Evolved Valkyrie: her tornado-pull evolution ability "will now destroy Skeletons and Bats in one attack" — a documented combat interaction that affects Bats, but this is Evolved Valkyrie's evolution ability, not the separate Tornado spell card.

• Combat interaction: The Log and other ground-only spells/troops cannot hit Bats at all, because Bats are classified as an Air-transport troop (despite themselves being able to target Air & Ground) — a 2-Elixir Log whiffs completely on a Bats swarm, forcing players to use an air-capable answer (Zap, Arrows, an air-targeting troop, etc.) instead.

• Historical: shortly after Bats' general release, Supercell temporarily reduced their spawn count from x5 to x4 in a mid-2017 balance update, before restoring it to x5 later the same year — the count has stood at x5 ever since (matching the current LOCAL_SNAPSHOT).