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Raise a Floppa - The Loop
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An Elder Secret (Merciless) is the first stage in Growing Strange. Beating this stage allows the player to access one of seven random Continuation Stages. The possible Continuation Stages include:
- Color of Blood (Merciless)
- Fear of Flying (Merciless)
- Hearts of Darkness (Merciless)
- Holy Wrath (Merciless)
- Galactic Threat (Merciless)
- Clash of Steel (Merciless)
- Seas of Death (Merciless)
Each is based around a different enemy type, with a 99% chance of yielding an Elder Catfruit Seed and a 1% chance of an Elder Catfruit. (At least one reward is guaranteed.)
Battleground
- 2 Mr. Angels (200%) spawn after 10 seconds300f, delay 1.33 seconds40f.
- 1 Ginger Snache spawns after 20 seconds600f.
- Infinite Ginger Snaches spawn after 22.67 seconds680f, delay 53.33 seconds1,600f.
- When the base reaches 99% HP:
- 1 Mr. Angel (10%) spawns as the boss.
- 1 Berserkory spawns.
- 4 Mr. Angels (200%) spawn, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Maawth spawns.
- 1 Shadow Boxer K spawns.
- 1 Zory spawns.
- 1 Zory spawns.
- 3 Ginger Snaches spawn, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns.
- 2 Heavenly Hippoes spawn, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Metal One Horn spawns.
- 5 Ginger Snaches spawn, delay 5~10 seconds150f~300f.
- 2 Mr. Angels (200%) spawn, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
Strategy
Since you will have to deal with another level afterwards, you can use one of these 2 methods to beat this:
- Hope for 1-2 specific follow-up level(s) and go with a focused army that can defeat them easily. (Very luck-based and inefficient, but MUCH easier.)
- Example 1: You can use Eva Unit-01, Ganglion/Orbital Platform Armageddon and anti-Zombie, Alien or everyone as general attackers, so if the Alien stage or the Zombie one comes out, you can beat them without much trouble, but you will fail against the other 5 stages (unless you have enough free spaces for other cats), getting the Catfruit Seed 2/7 of the times on average.
- Example 2: You can use an army such as: Ramen, Jiangshi, Cat Machine Mk 3, an anti-Zombie and a Critical Hitter for this level, then add something to make a couple of stages doable. For example, you can add a Metal staller or 2 for the Metal stage, an extra unit who is strong against Zombies for Zamelle in the Zombie stage, Bombercat and a unit who deals very high damage to Black for the Black stage, etc.
- Go with an anti-everyone loadout that can defeat (almost) all follow-up levels. Difficult without good Ubers or high levels, but gets the most out of the stage.
- Example: You can use a combination of certain cats and some anti-everyone to have a chance against every possible follow-up level except, maybe, 1 or 2, this way you WILL have an hard time, but if you can manage it, the chance to win (and get the Seed) will be higher, maybe even guaranteed.
Here are some units that can help greatly on this stage:
- Manic Eraser Cat, Eraser Cat, Ramen Cat, and/or Shigong Cat – good choices for meatshields, with Ramen having extra use against the Angel stage and Sifu being specialized for the Zombie stage. Don't bring too many: two or three of these should be enough to get by, and you will need the extra slots.
- Cyborg Cat, Kasa Jizo, and/or Baby Gao – powerful spammable attackers, although if using the latter 2, a good backliner for the Angel stage is needed as Ramen cannot solo it without support.
- Bombercat – nearly required for the Black stage unless you have some very powerful Ubers that can brute force it.
- Cyberpunk, Aphrodite, or Bardiel – using any of these will guarantee a win on the Alien stage, although Cyberpunk must be stacked for best effect.
- Roe Cat, Cat Machine Mk 3, or Tokyo Miku – for stalling the Berserkory in the first stage, as well as for the Red stage.
- Generalist ubers with excellent damage and/or a good crowd-control effect (Gao, Amaterasu, Mighty Rekon Korps, Kasli the Scourge, Mitama, MOMOCO, and/or Chronos to name a few) can help on more than one stage and are a great use of your precious 10 slots.
- Waitress / Soba Cat, Paladin Cat, or Hayabusa – critters for the Metal One Horn in the first stage as well as the entirety of the Metal stage. Note that Soba is more consistent for the former with her 100% crit, but the Ubers are more consistent for the latter as they have Area Attack.
You must also remember that items do not carry over, meaning that Treasure Radars will be useless and you can't get any extra help in the second stage, but you can use a weaker anti-everyone army that can only beat the first stage with the help of items to focus a bigger part of the army on the second level.
Walkthrough
| Video | Player | Notes |
|---|---|---|
 The Battle Cats Growing Strange An Elder Secret All Stages No Uber! How to get Elder Catfruits? |
WaffleCat | No Ubers |
Trivia
- Prior to version 7.5, this stage contained a 400% Calamary instead of a 1,600% Maawth.
- In the speech-bubble reference beside the event name, this level is labeled "Deadly", although it should be "Merciless".
- This stage's gimmick is the opposite of the regular Catfruit stages. The first level is similar to Catfruit Jubilee, while the Continuations are similar to the other "Growing" stages, featuring enemies of one trait.
