Quick answer: Crafted Defenses Season 4 opened August 1, 2026 with three new defenses — Cake-A-Pult, Hero Hunter and Hot Candle — available from Town Hall 11 this season. Each sits at Level 3 with three independently upgradeable modules, all keep defending while upgrading, and you can switch between them at any time. The current Crafting Phase runs to roughly the end of December 2026, so this set is your defensive furniture for about five months rather than one.
The Crafting Station opened on August 1, 2026 with three new Crafted Defenses — Cake-A-Pult, Hero Hunter and Hot Candle — available from Town Hall 11 this season, which is lower than the usual gate as a 14th-Clashiversary concession. Each sits at Level 3 with exactly three upgrade modules that upgrade independently, each with its own gold cost and a build time of roughly 4 to 8 hours. All three share a base of 1,600 hitpoints. The current Crafting Phase timer reads about 149 days from the start of August, placing the phase end around the end of December 2026 — so this is a five-month decision, not a monthly novelty.
What Are the Three Crafted Defenses?
| Defense | Hitpoints | Damage | Third module | Flavor text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Candle | 1,600 | DPS 80 | Total Seconds Active: 95 | "Goes blow for blow with any troop!" |
| Hero Hunter | 1,600 | DPS 145 | Poison spell level: 3 | "Heroes are dealt a bad hand." |
| Cake-A-Pult | 1,600 | Damage per hit: 195 | Explosion Damage: 400 | "Face-seeking Frosting!" |
All values above are Level 3, read from the in-game panels on 2026-08-03. Supercell has published no stat table for these anywhere, so if you have seen numbers elsewhere, check where they came from.
Each defense has three modules and you choose which to upgrade. Two are always Hitpoints and Damage; the third is what makes each defense distinct.
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The third module is the whole decision, because Hitpoints and Damage are common to all three.
Hot Candle — the one with a time limit
Total Seconds Active: 95. This is the most important number in this guide and it appears in essentially no other coverage.
Hot Candle has finite uptime, not a duration debuff. It burns for 95 seconds of active time and then it is done for that attack. At DPS 80 it is the lowest-damage option of the three, and its damage is not the point — its 1,600 hitpoints and burn duration are.
The planning consequence is unusual: where you place it determines whether it fires at all. A three-minute raid that reaches your Hot Candle in the last thirty seconds gets a defense that has been burning down since the attack started. Placed deep in a core that attackers reach late, it may contribute almost nothing. Placed where troops arrive early, it spends its 95 seconds where they matter.
This makes Hot Candle the most placement-sensitive defense in the set, and the one most likely to disappoint if you treat it like a normal building.
Hero Hunter — the anti-Queen-Charge pick
Poison spell level 3, and DPS 145 — the highest sustained damage of the three.
Hero Hunter specifically punishes heroes, which matters far more than the damage number suggests. Modern high-Town-Hall attacks are built around hero funnels: Queen Charges, hero dives, Warden walks. A defense that applies a level-3 Poison to heroes degrades the exact part of an attack that most compositions depend on, and poison's slowing and damage-over-time effect is worse for a hero than raw DPS because heroes have the hitpoints to tank DPS and the ability windows that poison eats into.
If you expect Queen Charge or hero-dive attacks — which is to say, if you are at TH13 and above — Hero Hunter is the default pick.
Cake-A-Pult — the splash option
Damage per hit 195, plus Explosion Damage 400. The flavor text calls it "Face-seeking Frosting," and the two-part damage profile is what to plan around: a per-hit figure plus a substantially larger explosion.
Explosion damage well above per-hit damage is a splash signature — the value is against grouped troops rather than single targets. Against mass compositions where troops arrive in a clump, that 400 is doing far more work than the 195.
How Do Crafted Defenses Work?
Supercell's system rules, verbatim from the in-game screens:
- "You can switch between them anytime" — the choice is not permanent within a phase. If Hero Hunter is not earning its slot against the attacks you actually face, swap it.
- "Strategize by choosing which stats to upgrade! Crafted Defenses will defend even while upgrading" — unusual and important. Almost every other building in Clash of Clans is offline while it upgrades. These are not, so there is no defensive downside to starting an upgrade.
- "Defenses last until a Crafting Phase ends. A new set is released with the next phase" — a Crafted Defense is scoped to its phase, not permanent.
- Available "only for Chiefs at higher Town Hall levels" — TH11+ this season.
A Defense Overview screen also exists, showing your current set.
How Should You Sequence the Upgrades?
Because the modules upgrade independently at 4 to 8 hours each and the defense keeps working while upgrading, there is no reason to wait for a quiet moment.
Start on August 1, not in September. With a phase ending around the end of December, upgrades started early compound across roughly five months of war and ladder defense. Upgrades started late do not.
Upgrade the distinctive module first. Hitpoints and Damage are the same on every defense — they are what you would get from any building. The third module is the reason you chose this defense over the other two, so it is the module with the highest marginal value.
Do not spread across all three defenses. You can switch anytime, but upgrades are per-module and gold is finite. Pick the one that matches the attacks that actually three-star you and invest there.
Match the pick to your attackers, not to the tier list. If your war log is full of hero-led attacks, Hero Hunter. If it is mass-troop compositions, Cake-A-Pult. If your base funnels attackers into a specific early corridor, Hot Candle can spend its 95 seconds well.
Is This a One-Month Event?
No, and this is the most common misreading. This is Crafted Defenses Season 4, a recurring rotation, and the in-game Crafting Phase timer places this phase's end at roughly the end of December 2026.
Two consequences:
- The investment horizon is about five months. Treating these like a monthly event and skipping them means going without three defensive buildings for most of the rest of the year.
- A new set arrives with the next phase. Whatever you build now does not carry forward — Supercell's own wording is that "defenses last until a Crafting Phase ends."
For the rest of the August calendar — Clash of Cards, the Awesome Medal Event, the two mass-troop windows — see the August 2026 season guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Town Hall do you need for Crafted Defenses in August 2026?
Town Hall 11 and above. Supercell describes the three new defenses as available "starting from TH 11" this season, which is lower than the usual Crafted Defenses gate — a 14th-Clashiversary concession rather than a permanent change.
What are the three new Crafted Defenses?
Cake-A-Pult (195 damage per hit, 400 explosion damage), Hero Hunter (DPS 145, level-3 Poison spell module) and Hot Candle (DPS 80, 95 total seconds active). All three sit at Level 3 with 1,600 hitpoints and three independently upgradeable modules.
What does "Total Seconds Active: 95" mean on Hot Candle?
Hot Candle has finite uptime: it burns for 95 seconds of active time per attack and then stops. It is not a duration debuff — it is a hard limit, which makes placement unusually important. A Hot Candle attackers only reach late in a raid may contribute very little.
Which Crafted Defense is best?
It depends on the attacks you face. Hero Hunter is the default at TH13 and above, because its level-3 Poison module degrades hero-led attacks — Queen Charges and hero dives — which most high-Town-Hall compositions depend on. Cake-A-Pult is stronger against grouped mass-troop attacks thanks to its 400 explosion damage. Hot Candle rewards a base that funnels attackers past it early.
Do Crafted Defenses work while upgrading?
Yes. Supercell states explicitly that "Crafted Defenses will defend even while upgrading," which is unusual — almost every other building goes offline during an upgrade. There is no defensive cost to starting one.
Can you switch between Crafted Defenses?
Yes — "you can switch between them anytime." The choice is not locked in for the phase, so a defense that is not earning its slot can be swapped.
How long do Crafted Defenses last?
Until the current Crafting Phase ends: "a new set is released with the next phase." The in-game timer places this phase's end at roughly the end of December 2026, so the August 2026 set is about a five-month asset.
How long do Crafted Defense modules take to upgrade?
Roughly 4 to 8 hours each, with its own gold cost per module. Each of the three modules upgrades independently, so you can prioritise the one that makes your chosen defense distinctive rather than levelling all three evenly.