What is a .5 strategy?
The .5 strategy was developed in response to the clan war matching system to help players who have just leveled up their town hall avoid becoming a liability in war.
Because defense is weighed much more heavily than offense in the war matching system, players who have just upgraded their town halls and follow what would otherwise be a sensible upgrade plan end up having difficulty in war. Their shiny new xbows match them against players with similar or slightly higher defense, but with significantly more developed offense, so while they may only have been capable of getting 1 or 2 stars against their mirrors, their mirrors were getting 2 or 3 stars on them.
The basic idea behind a .5 strategy is to manage your war weight by holding off building most of your new defenses until you've had a chance to get your offense up to speed. Depending on how far you take it, this strategy can lead to engineered bases that can sometimes give your clan an advantage in war, though mostly it's used as a transition phase to help avoid putting you or your clan at a disadvantage.
It should be noted that the effectiveness of this strategy also depends on the size of your clan, and where you fall within it. The smaller your clan, and the closer you are to the top, the less effective this strategy will be. That doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, but it does mean that any advantage to using it will be more short-lived.
Defense
1. Air Defense, Sweeper, Bombs, Mines, Walls
The key to the 8.5 strategy is only building select defenses. Building your air defense, sweepers, traps, bombs, and walls, and leveling them up to the level of your other defenses will keep your war weight low enough that you should usually get matched up against a max TH8, or in some cases a rushed TH9. Building any other defenses, even if they stay low level, is likely to bump up your weight enough that you start seeing full TH9s.
2. Storages
You might not think of this as a defense, but it won't affect your war weight, and at over 2000 HP each, your new storages can help prevent 3 star attacks, particularly when defending against dragons or GoWiPe.
3. Clan Castle
Many players underestimate the value of the Clan Castle and put it off for far too long, but it really should be about the first thing you do at any new TH level, as it gives you added offense and defense, as well as added loot storage. Just think of all the attacks you've done that end in 47 or 97%, where 5 extra spots could have easily been an extra star.
4. Skeleton Traps
Maxing your skeleton traps is relatively cheap, quick, and won't affect the war weight much, but those added skeletons can end up making a big difference.
5. Neglected defenses
If there are any defenses you didn't max at the previous TH, now is the time to do them.
6. Level 8 Walls
It's understandable if you didn't do level 8 walls before moving to TH9--walls are boring and expensive, and worse, causes many TH8s to sit around with full elixir storages and nothing to spend it on. If you haven't done at least 40 or 50 level 8 walls before going to TH9 though, it's a good idea to dump some gold into your walls at this stage. Not only will it make you less of a target while you're trying to save large amounts of E and DE, you'll thank yourself later when you finish your E upgrades well before your gold upgrades are done, and have nothing to do with your E but upgrade those level 8 walls to level 9.
7. Maxing TH9 Point Defenses
If you're really looking to milk the .5 strategy, you may consider upgrading some of your existing defenses to TH9 max before building any more new ones, as this will have less impact on your war weight. Air defenses will make the least difference to your weight, but teslas will make the biggest difference in helping defend your base, followed by archer towers.
8. When to Build the Rest of Your New Defenses
Generally, if your mirror in war is consistently the same TH as you with all their defenses built, then it's time to build the rest of your defenses. Don't base it on just 1 or 2 wars though, as you can easily get matched against clans with numerous rushed bases, and a mirror that has all their defenses but has a significantly rushed base is not a good indicator.
Offense
1. Lab, Spell Factory, Camps, Archer Queen
The spell factory and army camps are the obvious place to start when trying to improve your offense. And if you finished all the major lab upgrades at the previous TH, you'll want to upgrade the lab right away as well. If you didn't do PEKKA 3, you might do that first, as it is a pretty important component of your offense at this stage. And of course, buy your Queen.
2. Unlocking Your Queen's Ability vs Max Hogs
Unlocking your Queen's ability is important, but starting with max hogs will keep your lab busy while freeing up your elixir to complete your camp upgrades, and possibly even start working on your drills. Max hogs also provide a good alternative to GoWiPe that can help you 3 star many low to mid level TH9s, and even high TH9s if the layout is right and you know what you're doing. So you basically have a choice here--do your Queen to 5 right away, or leave her at level 1 for a bit while you max your hogs. Either way, these are the first 2 things you should do with your DE.
3. Heal Spell
The heal spell is used in a wide variety of attacks, but will boost the effectiveness of your hog attacks in particular, so consider upgrading this early if you like to use hogs.
4. Balloons
If you neglected balloons at previous THs, you need to catch up. Max balloons are extremely useful for numerous attack strategies at TH9 and 10. If you are still attacking TH8s, balloonion or dragaloonioon can be a very effective 3 star strategy, particularly if you have a hound in your clan castle. Against TH9s, they are a good support troop for GoWiPe and Golem/Wizard attacks, where they are typically launched near the end to deal with a few remaining defenses. They're also good for raiding for loot, and become an essential component of higher level TH9 armies once hounds are unlocked.
5. Raiding Troops
You'll probably have time to do one or more of these while you're working on your hogs and Queen's ability, and then saving for your next DE upgrade. As far as raiding troops go, giants will give you the biggest bang for your buck if you use them. Barbs are probably second, as their increased hitpoints make a bigger difference than the stat increase to archers. Archers come next, then healers.
6. Golems
Once your hogs are maxed and your Queen's ability is unlocked, upgrading your golems is usually the best bet for increasing the strength of your war armies, but at this point it really depends on whether or not you're ready to become a full TH9 or not. If you are, then you may be better off unlocking witches and hounds in quick succession, and then immediately upgrading hounds, as it is generally faster to get a fully upgraded lavaloon army than it is to upgrade golems twice, and upgrade witches.
7. Haste
Unlocking haste while still in the 8.5 stage isn't a bad idea either. It won't affect your weight much at all, and will put you one step closer to a max air army. Upgrading it is helpful too, but like hounds, it is still relatively effective even at level 1.
8. Dragons?
Level 4 dragons typically make it pretty easy to flatten any TH8, but they're still not all that effective against most TH9s, as 4 air defenses, 2 sweepers, and 4 air mines is usually too much to overcome unless the base is very poorly designed and/or rushed. Plus there are plenty of other options that are more useful later on, making dragons 4 rather unnecessary. They may have been your bread and butter for a long stretch during TH7 and 8, but at this point you probably still have plenty of more useful things you could be spending your elixir on.
Witches are a big deal at TH9, and many players want to get them as soon as possible. The problem, however, is that unlocking witches will affect your war weight more than anything except building xbows, so in many cases you'll find that once you unlock witches, you'll start seeing a lot more full TH9s, which means you're done with 8.5 and it's time to build the rest of your defenses.
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