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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.)
Contents
Battleground
- 2 Mr. Angels 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 Berserkory spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 4 Mr. Angels spawn after 0.07 seconds2f, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Maawth spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Shadow Boxer K spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Zory spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Zory spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 3 Ginger Snaches spawn after 0.07 seconds2f, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Pigeon de Sable spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 2 Heavenly Hippoes spawn after 0.07 seconds2f, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Metal One Horn spawns after 0.07 seconds2f.
- 5 Ginger Snaches spawn after 0.07 seconds2f, delay 5~10 seconds150f~300f.
- 2 Mr. Angels spawn after 0.07 seconds2f, delay 0.07 seconds2f.
- 1 Mr. Angel spawns as the boss after 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 (Mk 3 is for the Pigeons, it will die and be resummoned in time for Berserkory as well, Eva Unit-00 is worse here because it can't be resummoned nor resist Berserkory), then add something to make a couple of stages doable, such as 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. (VERY hard, but efficient.)
- 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 using this strategy:
- Manic Eraser Cat, Eraser Cat, Ramen Cat, and/or Shigong Cat - They are good choices for meatshields, with Ramen having extra use against the Angel stage and Sifu being specialized for the Zombie stage.
- Cyborg Cat, Kasa Jizo, and/or Baby Gao - Powerful spammable attackers, although if using the latter 2, a good unit for the Angel stage is needed.
- Bombercat - Nearly required for the Black stage unless you have some very powerful Ubers that can brute force it, notably ultramaxed Jizo.
- Aphrodite, Bardiel, or Cyberpunk - Using any of these will guarantee a win on the Alien stage, although Cyberpunk must be stacked for best effect.
- Roe Cat, Cat Machine MkIII, 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 CC effect (Amaterasu, Kasli, Ragnarok, 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.
Trivia
- Prior to version 7.5, this stage contained a 400% Calamary instead of a 1600% Maawth.
- In the speech-bubble reference beside the event name, this level is labeled "Deadly", although it should be "Merciless".
- After the Version 10.7 Update the difficulty was changed to star difficulty.
- 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 (only that a Metal and Zombie level were added as well).
