The Battle Cats Beginner's Guide: Everything You Need to Know in Your First Month

The Battle Cats looks simple — send cats down a lane, watch them fight, occasionally fire the Cat Cannon. Then you hit a wall somewhere around Japan in Empire of Cats chapter 1, and suddenly the game isn't simple anymore.

This Battle Cats guide covers what actually matters in your first month: which cats to upgrade, how to spend Cat Food, where to farm XP, and when to start pulling the gacha.

Upgrade Your Normal Cats First

This is the single most important Battle Cats tip for new players. Upgrade your basic cats — Cat, Tank Cat, Axe Cat, Gross Cat, Cow Cat, Bird Cat, Fish Cat, Lizard Cat, Titan Cat — to level 10 before you spend XP on anything else.

At level 10, each Normal Cat evolves into a stronger form. Cat becomes Macho Cat with more health. Tank Cat becomes Wall Cat with massive durability. Lizard Cat becomes Dragon Cat with long range. These evolved forms are your foundation for the entire game.

After evolving them, push to level 20+10 through silver tickets from the Normal Capsule. Getting Wall Cat to level 20+20 takes time, but it's the best investment in the game.

Cat Food: What to Spend It On (And What Not To)

Cat Food is The Battle Cats' premium currency. You get some for free from clearing stages, event rewards, and daily login bonuses. How you spend it determines how fast you progress.

Spend Cat Food on:

• Guaranteed Uber 11-draws (1,500 Cat Food during guaranteed events). This is the only efficient way to get Uber Rare cats. Never do a regular 11-draw without a guarantee.
• Storage and Cat Capsule upgrades during sales (though these are lower priority).

Don't spend Cat Food on:

• Continuing after you die. Revives are a trap. If you can't beat a stage, you need better cats or a different strategy, not a continue.
• Speeding up upgrades. The time gates are the game's pacing mechanism. Wait them out.
• Single rare capsule pulls. The rates are terrible, and you get nothing guaranteed.

XP Farming: How to Level Your Cats Fast

XP is the bottleneck in The Battle Cats, especially once your cats start costing millions per level. The XP Stage in Legend Stages is your main source.

Sweet XP (Easy) — run this when you're just starting. It's manageable with level 10 Normal Cats and gives enough XP for early upgrades.

XP Megablitz — once you have Bahamut Cat (clearing Empire of Cats chapter 3) and a few anti-Black units like Pizza Cat or Ring Girl Cat, you can farm this stage. It drops roughly 500,000 XP per clear and appears on specific days.

XP Colosseum — the endgame XP stage. You need a developed roster, but the payout exceeds 1,000,000 XP per run.

Always use Cat Jobs (the battle item that doubles XP earned) before running these stages. It doubles the payout.

Stories of Legend: Your Main Progression Path

After clearing Empire of Cats (all three chapters), Stories of Legend unlocks. This is where the real Battle Cats begins. There are 49 sub-chapters with eight stages each — nearly 400 stages in total.

The key milestones:

• Ururun Wolf drops at sub-chapter 18 (Jail Break Tunnel). The first Legend unit, solid backline attacker.
• Nyandam at sub-chapter 23. Decent crowd control.
• Mina at sub-chapter 28. Mediocre but free.
• Musashi at sub-chapter 37. Strong anti-Black unit.
• Mecha Bun at sub-chapter 43. Good rusher.

Don't rush. Stories of Legend scales gradually, and you'll hit walls that require specific anti-trait units to break. That's normal. Farm XP, pull during guaranteed events, and come back with a stronger roster.

Gacha Strategy: When to Pull

The Battle Cats gacha rotates banners every few days. Each banner has different Uber Rares available. The two most important banners for new players:

Uberfest (first weekend of every month) — 9% Uber Rare rate instead of the normal 5%. The best time to spend rare tickets, but wait for guaranteed events to spend Cat Food.

Epicfest (mid-month) — Same boosted rates, but with a different Uber pool. Both fests are good.

Guaranteed Uber events — These happen every few weeks on specific banners. Spend your 1,500 Cat Food here. A guaranteed Uber from a strong banner (like The Almighties or Ultra Souls) is worth more than three random pulls from Uberfest.

Anti-Trait Coverage: What You Need

The Battle Cats has nine enemy traits: Red, Floating, Black, Angel, Alien, Zombie, Metal, Aku, and Traitless. Each requires specific counters.

For new players, focus on covering these traits first:

• Red — Courier Cat (free from Behemoth Culling) is your best anti-Red unit and it's completely free.
• Floating — Fish Cat/Bishop Cat handle early Floating stages.
• Black — Ring Girl Cat/Pizza Cat are Rare units that shred Black enemies.
• Alien — Surfer Cat/Seafarer is the best anti-Alien non-Uber unit.

Don't worry about Zombie or Metal enemies until much later. They appear in specific stages and aren't roadblocks early on.

Final Tips

Treasure hunting is tedious but mandatory. Each stage in Empire of Cats has three treasure drops, and getting all Superior treasures from a chapter gives massive stat boosts — including a 50% increase to cat health and attack damage. Skip treasure grinding and you'll hit a wall you can't break with strategy.

You can download The Battle Cats on APKPure. The game updates regularly with new events, collaboration stages, and balance changes, so there's always something new to clear.