The Battle Cats - Let's talk about Growing Strange, Again

[@SilumanTomcatReborn]

Growing Pain

[@LucasIVYT]

Pain no more

[@Technomanicat]

Pain pain go away come again another stage

[@noahbattle3452]

Growing yay

[@NaLian605]

@@SilumanTomcatReborn No pain no gain(ing true forms)

[@ranaw8171]

​@@NaLian605battles 2...

[@meatballmustard7658]

Let’s talk about growing red

[@deadclawh3851]

1:54 growing red mention 🤑

[@patfad7243]

Let's talk about helpful cat (normal)

[@filippvarelis1999]

So true

[@battlebotsfan4260]

why is there so much growing red slander

[@WtfGadiel]

​@@battlebotsfan4260 Returner mode slander

[@ДмитроНикишенко]

0:41 absolute cinema levels of editing

[@LucasIVYT]

LMAOO they dont have an asset for battle cats so i had to edit it myself

[@hoglin7]

Agreed

[@Minun-and-me]

@@LucasIVYTWHAT THE HELL ITS SO GOOD!? good job😅

[@A_Cat321]

@@Minun-and-me who the hell is nell😭😭

[@Minun-and-me]

@@A_Cat321 sorry I ment “what the hell”

[@waluigiwaluigireal]

Growing strange? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time

[@lightbulb129]

Well. Isn't that strange

[@EldaKusnia]

@@lightbulb129 I feel like that name is growing into me

[@celestialwaffle1491]

Easily the most annoying part for me is the schedule for it appearing. It's every day, sure, but a lot of the time it's early or mid-day, which can and does clash with regular life. It might just be me, but it can easily get annoying.

[@donstan9392]

just timezone hop

[@anilsaini-gg8ut]

Timezone glitch:

[@joeyh6767]

@@donstan9392time zone hopping without actually being in that time zone will break your game for like 3-4 days.

[@donstan9392]

@@joeyh6767 really? The only side effect I get is unable to skip with cpu

[@AciciileS]

​@@joeyh6767 If you know how to do the -2/+2 method then you can easily tricked the game in your favor. There's a time travel guide on google doc that help you practice time travelling.

[@ChillholaCh]

*BUFF GROWING STRANGE!!* *BUFF GROWING STRANGE!!*

[@constellar6330]

buff the drop rates!! buff the drop rates!! 😭😭😭

[@warionumbahone7642]

solution: add behemoth enemies in every stage

[@mikadosannoji553]

give surge to wild doge

[@ViTheClown]

NO

[@Skelephaser]

PLS NO

[@GresSimJa]

There is absolutely no way Growing Strange was six years ago. I feel ancient.

[@drxavier1870]

One could say its a Relic

[@KirboTheChamp]

@@drxavier1870BAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

[@wompmichael]

​@@drxavier1870nice

[@constellar6330]

​@@drxavier1870*insert maniacal wheezing*

[@ivanthaboi]

Nah same i remember being excited for the end of SoL as a little kid and now i have a job

[@julelaryllea.magnaye369]

A less than 20 min of Lucas yappin video in 2024 is rarer than labyrinth in 2024

[@scheeep7376]

Growing Strange is pretty cool in hindsight tbh, despite its flaws. Its gimmick is actually pretty interesting, unlike whatever the hell we have nowadays: 1000 Energy for a single farming stage? Only completable once per day? Continue stages which have a chance to just not appear at all? The stage having enemies which trounce you when you're grinding the stage for its resource but which you can trounce with units which you get from farming the resource that the stage gives? ...yeah, the concept of "the ultimate generalist lineup" is so much cooler lol.

[@deadclawh3851]

You didnt mention, Getting elder catfruit was only obtianable with growing strange back then Now even user ranks, infernal tower, heavenly tower gives elder catfruit I am pretty sure I played growing strange 20 times only. didnt touch it afterwards. Here I am, with 17 Elder catfruit in my storage. Almost every tf that requires elder is done.

[@LucasIVYT]

thats true too, yeah I also get a stock of elder fruits from tower lmao

[@scheeep7376]

That's moreso because Elder Catfruits are only used for very few units. That's a problem with quite some farming stages, where a brand new evolution material is created only for it to be used on a few specific units. (e.g. Growing Epic, Mining Epic) Why can't we just have fewer types of catfruits or - yk - Awakening stages?

[@klpliper]

if only ponos would let heavenly tower come out to play. ITS BEEN SO LONG PONOS

[@EricBlanchBrines]

@@klpliper last time i saw it was when i recently beat eoc 3 about 5 months ago.. now im waiting to see if i can go to stage 50 when it comes xd

[@ziaahmadfidai9918]

We also have the second part of the monthly gauntlets that provides a elder seed.

[@SloopYGO]

honestly growing evil is probably more of a pain nowadays because it only gives 2 aku seeds at best, but most ubers need 3 aku fruits so you need to clear it a stupid amount of times (and you cant gold cpu for some reason???)

[@kinsmanne98]

The fact that you can’t gold cpu it makes me so irrationally mad. Like I have a good chunk of anti-aku ubers that I haven’t true formed entirely out of spite

[@SloopYGO]

@@kinsmanne98 same lol like you can gold cpu all the regular growing stages why not this one

[@fulicious2991]

​@@kinsmanne98 Exactly this 🙏 Getting elder catfruits was easier for me than akus 😭

[@Silksongfan]

I thought they fixed it so growing evil is golden cpu’able now

[@LucasIVYT]

Growing evil by stage design isn't bad but the droprate is abyssmal for sure

[@wah9928]

I don't know why, but Growing Strange is easily my most played stage (Yes more than Facing Danger by about 200) I just find it fun to make a lineup for all the stages, especially when I started doing no uber and then minimal units and I'd actually like to try the Un-Nerfed version of it since I wasn't done with SoL before it got nerfed. Edit: Lowest Unit Lineup I got working was: Bio-Bone, Pizza Cat, Slapstick, Ramen, Cameraman Cat and Maximum the Fighter (I swear Courier Cat does worse on Color of Blood than maximum, could be because of the +20 on it idk)

[@grassy556]

13:24 the one time wushu doesn't consistently zkill zamelle

[@CrusaderOmniMan]

After Heavenly Tower becoming my new source of Elder Catfruits and seeds I haven't touched growing strange at all. I don't even remember what strategy I used for it. It's not that I hated the stage design or anything (I actually thought the idea of having to prepare a line up for several different continuation stages was fun), it's just that it takes time to grind as well as it being on during set times of the day (notably when I am at school). And holy fuck, growing strange was introduced 6 years ago? That's about 40% of my time on earth!

[@jacknguyen5220]

bro making me feel old fr

[@JerielChew]

Imagine growing a epic catfruit from elder catfruit seeds. Imagine that. Growing trauma is real

[@thegreatestcheese]

epic catfruit?

[@JerielChew]

@@thegreatestcheese yeah that’s what I meant, thanks

[@ivanthaboi]

So damn painful. All of those clears for another addition to my 50 epic catfruit collection/500k xp

[@shoeskode136]

I remember when i was trying to get evolved akira [Im missing 3 yellow and 8 blue now] I had gotten 9 cat fruit jubilees in like practically a row. I went from 1 epic catfruit to 6

[@Charmander1352-zg3ns]

No don’t give ponos ideas NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[@qiaoqiao06]

Funny how this stage turns from a challenging fight to get scraps to a afterthought i often forget

[@Blowter]

Hell yeah I love growing Strangely

[@hix8792]

11:28 korea hardest stage it even needed to be nerfed

[@yya1795]

too hard, make it have 1 less doge

[@SunshineCo225]

As someone who is tragically right at the part where this stage is basically mandatory... I needed this video to ease my pain

[@NorielBenMiel]

Hearts of Darkness is definitely the stage I dislike the most here. Clash of Steel being completely RNG is kinda annoying, but with enough Catasaurus spam and Cameraman nuke crits, any Metal enemy will crumble to dust. Plus I can just bring Waitress if I don't feel like gambling today Hearts of Darkness sucks because of the win condition of keeping your Bomber stack alive. If your Bomber stack gets killed, most of the time you will just get mowed down by the Razorback with very little chance of recovery. The existence of Tackeys also discourages the use of backliner Ubers, which in turn, makes defending your precious Bomber stack even more difficult.

[@LucasZhang-n6i]

by the way, the Chinese word that appears when wushu attacks is "meow."

[@dabludino2831]

Fun fact: When I finished evolving every SOL legend unit, i discovered that I have NEVER gotten clash of steel😂

[@DaAxel1212]

found out that growing strange is 6 years old and the little segment of a returner mode where you asked if people knew Regit makes me feel ancient af ngl

[@tahmiduddin1868]

2:26 is it just me but making the stage a mix of traits for the first stage is kinda lame cause that’s literally just catfruit jubilee “gimmick”

[@LucasIVYT]

I think one of the main reasons is when relics first appeared there was barely any relic enemies at all and the only true 'boss' enemy was Relic Bun - which is like the entire point on why you wanna farm GS at the first place

[@SomeGuy-kj8dp]

Reverse Catfruit Jubilee

[@ImpatientJackal]

I once got the 1% and immediately got Mina

[@Darktanyan]

Man of culture

[@TaseenAlim]

i also got the one percent and I immediately TFed slapsticks with it lol

[@astralbirthvoid2551]

​@@TaseenAlim same choice of cat to true form, actually had to grind seeds

[@ABluebud]

Moral of this video: Don't gambling and just do tower to get elder catfruit.

[@larslarsen329]

7:04 That name makes me wanna add extra pickles to my big mac

[@warioman9116]

I remember playing these atrocious stages back then in high school, this was before the considerable nerfs to it overall. The main thing that made it so difficult was the rng factor after beating the main stage. Me and my friend would always make a joke that as long as it's not the metal seal stage we would be fine. However I would get the metal seal about 90% of the time lmao.

[@pokedaaby]

One time I was grinding Elder catfruit seeds and actually got the 1% chance of getting the full Elder catfruit

[@crushash9322]

13:23 the timing of that line is crazy

[@LucasIVYT]

you say that but the zamelle wasn't even zkilled LMAOOOOO

[@crushash9322]

@@LucasIVYT courier: how can I make this about me 😈

[@Pudding404]

I remember when growimg strange was painful, even after the general nerf, but like all things, we grew and it isn't so bad anymore. I say when Ponos decides to do a revamp of the stages for a new evolution material. . .

[@WookieRookie]

I only knew about two instances of stage nerfs: first is Corrupt Valkyrie Moon, where Valkyrie's damage output was significantly decreased, and second is one of ITF outbreaks, where magnifications of peons were decreased for some reason, really insignificant actually. The only buffs stages get are usually no continues condition. Growing Strange is a new for me.

[@Distraction_XP]

Not even joking, I took notes of all the continuations I got and here were the results out of 20 times: Color of Blood (2nd most comfortable): 3 times Hearts of darkness (3rd most comfortable): 2 times Fear of Flying (1st most comfortable): 1 time Clash of Steel (7th most comfortable - Not able to beat): 10 TIMES Holy Wrath (4th most comfortable): 1 time Seas of death (5th most comfortable): 2 times Galactic Threat (6th most comfortable - Not able to beat): 1 time. I swear this game hates me.

[@caoinhnamkhanh2795]

metal is the biggest 'fuck you' in all of game design, like how did they manage to make something astronomically bad?

[@Distraction_XP]

@@caoinhnamkhanh2795 I'm glad someone agrees lol

[@scheeep7376]

@@caoinhnamkhanh2795 Metal enemies which recommend crit hitters but don't require them, such as Croconator, are fine. What's not fine is Sir Metal Seal, who has so much health you are forced to bring a crit hitter or you're dead. At least Super Metal Hippoe is an interesting pusher enemy with many knockbacks which encourages usage of strong crits rather than weak crits... Sir Metal Seal is just an irritating wall which exists to go "better hope you brought Crazed Moneko or Waitress/Soba or you're screwed lmfao".

[@scheeep7376]

I guess you could call it the "Razorback issue", an enemy that exists to be hard-countered by specific units and nothing else. It's essentially a lock-and-enemy, which boils down to "bring this unit or die", a complete insult to any semblance of strategizing. (That's part of the reason why Behemoths suck, they basically force you to bring Courier in every lineup that features them. Or Mushroom for Rajakong, Naala/Luza for Magamojoe etc... that's what you get for Behemoth Slayer being such a stupidly ridiculous multiplier, what is this, EVA/Witch Killer?) (Well, I guess you could call it the UltraBaaBaa issue or some other infamous lock-and-key enemy, but Razorback came first and is most iconic, at least UltraBaaBaa allows for comedic stacking stages and Youcan is an interesting and deadly enemy even after his barrier is broken, plus nowadays Breakerblast exists right?) Metal is essentially that but applied to an entire trait, with a whole slew of units whose only purpose is to counter that trait since their stats and abilities are often (most of the time, there are exceptions) too bad for anything else. Metal enemies are a cool concept admittedly, a ability that creates wall enemies you can't do much about and will just have to tough it out. Or at least that was the case for Metal Hippoe. That's why low-HP metals such as Croconator are acceptable, they don't force you to bring Catyphoon or Soba or whatnot.

[@The-gg6lc]

0:41 this is actually the perfect way to sponsor. show the topic of the video in the sponsor its literally perfect

[@mrsquackyesreally1915]

17:25 those who know 💀

[@bsemz5836]

I literally grinded for saki TF yesterday

[@palitodequeso1234]

Maybe we can talk about Mining Epic now? 1000 energy and you have to fight the 3 beasts simultaneously in order to upgrade UL legends? That is some bs

[@TaseenAlim]

Just get Cat egg pod. Its not that hard.

[@bortly4648]

It's not 40 minutes long?!?! 😔😔😔😔 I was gonna expect as long as the regit video😢😢. I feel scammed. Just like og growing strange😔

[@ToranDoesGaming1]

Guys I think this video might just be Lucas talking about Growing Strange again

[@fifablockly9752]

Alternative title: "Random People Wearing Lucas' Hat"

[@wesc8935]

Fun fact! If you have shigon cat, even in his evolved form, at level 40 can clear seas of death pretty easy! Level 50 seems to be a solo with true form while you’ll need to send some support for non true formed and under leveled shigon, so easy I’m always glad to see it

[@getoofednerd2738]

Holy god a 18 minute Lucasiv video

[@chillguy7009]

Maybe talk about the ethics of seed tracking pros and cons?

[@GoonShredder9000]

Ok, but why the fuck isn't it called Growing Old??

[@King_crimson_lol]

I've just beaten sol (one star) and unlocked growing strange, I'll mainly steer away from the metal and angel heavy stages, the former due to how I'm not making a antimetal load out for a 14% chance to get clash of steel, and the latter due to how I'm still struggling with angels even though I have 3 heavy hitting anti angel ubers (none are a ultra soul)

[@Ratswithnointentions]

Pros: after getting the SOL true forms and Slapsticks, you're probably not gonna need to do it for a while Cons: literally everything about the actual stage

[@liyanaahmadsofri1973]

5:08 holy rat 😂

[@Fahed-pc1qb]

WE NEED THAT

[@MrFoxelzorro]

Ok please don't make fun of Lucas's accent not being rude but it's kind of disrespectful 😢

[@Nightmared98]

I like that huntress teruns appears in this video, teruns one of my favorite and highest leveled ubers and i remember getting her within the first day of her being in the set.

[@wagiqwq]

Going Strangelove: or how I stopped worrying and started learning to love the bomb

[@darryllmaybe3881]

I never really had a problem with growing strange. I don't even remember what my first line up for it was, but I feel like it had to do with I had like 1 or 2 fests and some over leveled super rares.

[@sh_aspking]

so many updates since 7.0 and no changes to growing strange, good work ponos

[@qwerty-hp6kq]

It brings me great joy to think about how Lucas probably has an album full of stock images with the red hat tacked on

[@LucasIVYT]

i do!

[@starkar91]

growing strange more like growing stupid like and share if you agree

[@Chickenwing-z1q]

How do you share a comment

[@smileyriley4630]

@@Chickenwing-z1qscreenshot it duuuuh

[@Froppy240]

@@Chickenwing-z1q yes

[@wudut_]

Where is the 1h and 30min of my man yapping

[@echoneon9491]

17:04 I in fact was one of those victims 🚬

[@Spinalcord802]

I have a lineup that can consistently clear every follow up stage, though its pretty ubercarry. Duel Erasers Level 20+61 and 50 Ramen. Level 50 plus 20 Slime. Level 50 Catasausus Level 40+12. Max crit and cost talents. Can can. Level 50+9. Max talents except for alien target Octopus. Level 40+7. Pizza. Level 45+7. Max wave and cost talents Dasli level 50 Mitama level 45 This lineup works so well for me, though seas of death and clash of steel are pretty annoying.

[@Terrified_Dartanyan]

I forgot this stage even existed to be honest 💀

[@antisemantics3232]

I was thinking about how that video was kinda ancient now lol. I brought it up with a couple friends a few weeks ago, its neat to see it updated now.

[@antisemantics3232]

Supposedly you posted about making this before then tho so idk

[@lightning2665]

6:43 for anyone who wants the info

[@hanhtu5363]

Growing strange went from growing pain to growing painless

[@raymanthelegend8820]

I beat SoL last night so Lucas uploading this now is hilarious

[@MagoDraws]

For Color of Blood, instead of bringing the obviously powerful Courier, I instead chose to bring Roe cat instead so that I can have a unit to take a lot of hits and protect the backline.

[@toxicspikes098]

I think that nowadays the issue with the growing stages (as well as several other farming stages, really) isnt really how hard they are, but how tedious they end up being to farm. Like, the highest difficulty for the regular catfruit stages is Insane difficulty, and they dont even have a 100% chance to give any drop at all, let alone a fruit- and all of that is for *regular* fruits. Aku Fruits dont even let you skip the stage with CPUs, not to mention the generally low drop count.

[@RealCat222]

Perfect video to watch while i grind starred UL to prepare for next update Edit: when you brought up the collapse checker nerfs i was playing it in 2 star lol

[@sharkjira1945]

Bruh I sew the old one and thought to myself damn I'm going to suffer the day I finally clear SoL (yes I'm still not done with SoL even though I finished all of the Behemoth's stages)

[@buglium]

Insert obligatory growing red joke here

[@Blahblahblah28504]

In a pretty major case of powercreep, in addition to the stage being nerfed, if, for some funny reason, you happen to have Phono and Izanagi, Growing Strange becomes a free stage.

[@Darkatanyan]

0:40 totally not sponsored 👍

[@Viscidsquare040]

Weirdly enough it might actually not be because he doesn’t have a link or promo code anywhere on this video lol

[@Darkatanyan]

@@Viscidsquare040 true

[@sleepyboi1350]

12:55 did you make that?

[@LucasIVYT]

LOL yea i made that for the scooby doo sherrif meme video

[@potionion]

I remember walking up to Sean in the Singapore Meet… Buff growing strange…

[@A_Ali173]

If they made it so the first stage guaranteed a seed and the second stage guaranteed a fruit, it would be perfectly fine. Also, I do think it’s still harsh that someone who’s finished SOL has to somehow build a loadout that can take care of a random boss between Razorback, Zamelle and metal enemies

[@ThatPurpleWurmple]

My only concern are the small time windows they appear for; Growing Strange is only open for TWO HOURS daily, and the time is different for every day smh.

[@BenjaminBroom-n4r]

I feel like they should make a new stage growing old where you fight (weakened) relic enemies

[@HarrisonBurpeau]

I haven’t had to farm growing strange yet, but judging by the enemies and the Ubers I have, I think cats in the cradle or Anubis (both units I already use) could be great in this stage, because of citc’s crazy damage and tanking, along with wave attack to clear peons, plus freeze immunity making him perfect against maawth, and Anubis being immune to Cory’s waves, and having Z killer for the zombies in the stages, I also recently got orbital platform Armageddon, who I think could do great damage against all of the stages, as there all fully traited

[@ivanjm2707]

Love how you made the first video of this 6 years ago and the only thing Ponos has done for this is a slight nerf lmao brilliant stage design by them

[@Catornado]

17:50 I have been here since growing strange was launched (i did not play it at the time due to progression) and to this day I don’t have an answer to this because I haven’t played every single one. The thing is elder fruit is not exclusive to growing strange anymore, so I get most of my fruits from HT47 and never touched the stage again.

[@Catornado]

0:57 “farm tickets for the up coming superfest” mate, superfest is now and been so since yesterday

[@Azmie11]

I'm thankful i don't have to farm this stage anymore even though it didn't trouble me, cuz i just used chillhola lineup

[@ncj9381]

*Laughs in Meow-Sketeer - D'arktanyan*

[@ayzeee9855]

This video pops up right as i was thinking about grinding elder fruit to tf my unused sol legends just for collection's sake

[@someonecheat]

Wonderful vid, Lucas. This vid boils down to "Not even RNGFest Growing Strange is immune to powercreep" Also, I was watching some Milky Mew vid and saw a person in her Twitch comment named "LucasTheFourth". I was wondering if that was you or an impersonator?

[@Darkcore77]

🔥🔥🔥

[@LucasIVYT]

lunch taken

[@Snekyboy]

Me who is halfway through SoL: hm yes I will store this information.

[@theregularterrarian3933]

thanks for the reminder to get on the battle cats again

[@canastitadeguayabas]

I think it also depends on your progression, like for example: If you rushed in SOL because of courier cat , you're gonna have A LOT of trouble beating growing Strange. However, if you instead farmed to get most of your key gachas to level 40, prioritized talents correctly and even slowly grind 2 and 3 star SOL before doing Growing Strange, you'll actually have a chiller time on int. I'd personally recommend not investing NP specifically for this one level as a priority. You shouldn't do this unless you've already covered some basic upgrades on your key gachas wich actually doesn't even need THAT heavy of an investment to work well. For example, you can give a level 5 Attack Buff to units like Pizza Cat or Fish man, because they have good stats and the massive damage ability, this is a very worth investment and you don't need to ramp all the way to level 10 because at level 5 it already improves the unit damage by 10% Another good examples are Roe Cat, Ramen and Octopus Cat. Because they have the resistance ability, giving them a 10% increase in health can seriously improve their performance against their specific trait. Besides, it's quite a humble investment, it's only 50 NP for super rares and like 25 NP for rares. I personally recommend grinding it only after you've cleared both 3 Star SOL as well as COTC outbreaks. This way, your leaderships will be much more efficient, and you'll have an actual inventive to grind it wich is true forming your legend cats for the 4 crown restriction. Also, after beating An ancient curse you can upgrade most units to level 50 with cat eyes, which can help with consistency.

[@jesseyu162]

That happened to me but it wasn’t because of courier it was because of dasli lmao

[@dumq5575]

Growing white Actually nvm ponos would just turn it into an r. Ost and henry spam

[@KylerNoon]

i have never gotten the zombie one. Ever.

[@thegamerstg1811]

ngl behemoth grinding makes growing strange look like a saint

[@maniacmohawk5513]

For some unknown reason a long time ago i farmed a ton growing strange to never ever touch the stage again, up to this day I still have 9 elder catfruits waiting to be used lol

[@CupapiTG]

Haven't played that stage in a looong time. Not sure about my current lineup, but my first lineup had Luminalia and Chronos as the only 2 ubers. Whats YOUR lineup like, red-hat-man? Also, I played it like 25 times max, and, tower's given me the rest of what I need (+ excess). The only fruit I'd need farm is growing evil

[@wilale]

Goated gabriel dropout png's, pure cinema

[@OATHOFVIRTUE]

I'm gonna be honest, It's important to mention that growing strange isn't even that needed, you get enough elder fruits and seeds from UR rewards and maybe you'll need to play it around 15 times right after SOL and then I never touched it again, and you don't need to true form all the Legend story units, other than Ururun the rest are easily replaced

[@Mr.Perkins]

The old video is 6 years old?💀 I thought it was like 2-3 years ago

[@shahmatits]

Remember building a team for every possible continue stage, only to beat rbb with cyberstack anyway

[@patchareewanjanweerachai5933]

10 years part 2 anniversary 😢

[@marukomu_7105]

I dont even do growing strange anymore as every infernal tower gives some

[@maglev0789]

Im surprised you didnt bring up how Humanity Catified was much closer to proper Legend awakening stages (and a lot of legenda now, like the Tower trio and Idi, straight up have proper awakening stages). Also, in a post-yellow behemoth crystal world, I think most people would be begging for Growing Strange again.

[@Google-En-Passant]

I've beaten growing strange only 20 times yet I have all most of my relevant anti relics true formed and 11 elder fruits in the storage. It definitely isn't a stage you have to replay a lot

[@tonkura5940]

how do i get energy flags ps. great video just subsribed

[@hbbug9400]

hi question is returner mode still availible plus is it only on certain devices it lets u do it?