Bowler

Bowler is a 5-Elixir Epic ground troop that hurls a slow, heavy boulder which rolls through and knocks back every ground unit in its path rather than hitting only one target. His short 4-tile melee/sight range is offset by a much longer boulder throw distance (currently 7 tiles after an August 2026 nerf). His Hero variant adds an activatable "Stone Swish" ability that roots him in place for a burst of long-range boulder throws, which Supercell has separately nerfed in June 2026.

• At tournament standard (level 11), Bowler has 2,081 hitpoints and each boulder throw deals 289 area damage, working out to 115 damage per second given his slow 2.5-second hit speed. He still gets his first throw off quickly — just 0.5 seconds after landing — rather than waiting out a full attack cycle first. He costs 5 Elixir and has been a staple Epic troop since launching in July 2016.

• Bowler only needs enemies within 4 tiles before he'll fire, but the boulder itself travels much farther than that. Supercell trimmed that throw distance from 7.5 tiles down to 7 tiles in its August 2026 balance patch, specifically to stop the boulder from unexpectedly clipping the Crown Tower from behind the bridge. Otherwise he's unchanged: a slow-moving, single-unit, ground-targeting troop that takes a full second to deploy.

• Bowler's boulder doesn't stop at the first thing it hits — it rolls straight through and knocks back every ground troop in its path, which makes him one of the best answers to swarms like Barbarians or the spawns coming out of a Barbarian Hut or Furnace, since one throw can hit several of them at once. That knockback has a limit, though: the heaviest troops, like P.E.K.K.A or Mega Knight, simply shrug it off and keep walking.

• HeroBowler's Hero form has an activatable ability called Stone Swish. For just 2 Elixir — the cheapest activation cost of any Hero ability in the game — he plants his feet, stops moving, and starts throwing boulders out to 11.5 tiles instead of his normal range. The window originally lasted 9 seconds, long enough for four throws, but Supercell cut it down to 7.3 seconds in its June 2026 balance patch specifically so he'd only get three shots off instead of four.

• Bowler got a significant rework in Supercell's August 2020 balance update: his melee range was cut from 5 tiles down to 4, but his boulder's throw distance was extended from 6 tiles to 7.5, along with an 8% hitpoints boost. The stated goal was to make him more useful on offense — able to reach the Princess Tower right after crossing the bridge — without weakening his defense.

• Bowler launched at 6 Elixir, not 5 — Supercell dropped his cost by a full Elixir just seven weeks after release, in an August 2016 balance update, while also trimming his hitpoints by 7% and his damage by 10% to compensate for the cheaper price.

• Because the boulder rolls through everything in a straight line instead of just hitting one target, Bowler decks often pair him with the Tornado spell — pulling scattered enemy troops into a single cluster, or dragging them directly in front of a Crown Tower, so one throw can hit all of them at once.