March of Giants The Mole Build Guide: Best Abilities, Items, and Tips

The Mole might be the most misunderstood Giant in March of Giants. Community reports routinely call it the worst pick in the game, yet a well-executed March of Giants The Mole build turns it into one of the fastest, tankiest lane bullies on the battlefield. Below you’ll find the ability priority, item path, and matchup rules that make this March of Giants The Mole build genuinely work — along with the mistakes that make new Mole players feed.

Why Players Call the Mole “The Worst Best Giant”

There’s a strange contradiction at the heart of this character. In the same breath, experienced players will tell you the Mole is the weakest Giant in the game and then admit they keep winning lane with it.

The reason is simple: the Mole’s power is almost entirely matchup-dependent. Against other melee Giants, the trade pattern is close to unbeatable. Against ranged Giants, it’s a miserable experience.

According to player experience from recorded playtest sessions, the Mole’s identity boils down to a few core traits:

• Fastest movement speed in the game. Burrow (W) is described as faster than anything else on the map.
• Strong melee trades. The Shell (E) ability absorbs damage, reduces incoming damage by 15%, and returns a chunk of what it soaks up.
• Excellent soldier clear. The Shell explosion wipes out entire soldier waves, which matters enormously in a game built around army control.
• Awful ranged matchups. Players describe laning into ranged Giants as “very sad.”

The Mole’s Kit at a Glance

The Mole’s kit is built around mobility and damage mitigation. Here’s how the community breaks it down:

A frequently repeated warning from playtesters: do not treat the ultimate like a guaranteed kill tool. It’s closer to an area-denial setup than a solo assassination.

Ability Leveling Priority for the Mole Build

This is where the March of Giants The Mole build separates good players from great ones. The upgrade system forces real choices, and one combination stands above the rest.

The consensus priority is duration on Burrow (W) first, then cooldown reduction on Shell (E). Burrow duration is widely described as the single most powerful upgrade on the character — it turns a short dash into roughly ten seconds of maximum-speed repositioning.

The catch: some duration upgrades appear to be mutually exclusive. Taking duration on the Shell may lock you out of the duration upgrade elsewhere, and the tradeoff almost never favors Shell duration.

Item Build: Shields First, Then Shield Breaker

If there’s one piece of community advice that dominates every Mole discussion, it’s this: shield items are overtuned. Stacking them early gives the Mole a durability curve nothing else in the game can match.

Player experience suggests that starting with shield-focused items and only pivoting to damage once you’re unkillable produces the smoothest games. The trap is over-committing: once opponents stack shields too, you need an answer.

Two notes that come up constantly in community reports:

• Skip boots. The Mole’s burrow is faster than any boot upgrade. Spend that gold on attack speed or damage instead.
• Anti-shield math matters. Because shield items are so strong, Shield Breaker isn’t a niche counter — it’s a core purchase in most games.

For context on the game itself, the official March of Giants Steam page describes it as a free-to-play 4v4 MOBA where you lead an army rather than just a hero, with Soldiers, Battleworks, and Giants all scaling across a match.

Matchup Guide: Pick Your Fights Carefully

The Mole’s win rate swings wildly based on who it lanes against. Use the table below as a quick reference before you lock it in.

One repeated lesson from recorded play sessions: never go alone under an enemy tower. Even with a full shield stack, a lone Mole dies to tower pressure after a failed dive, and that death usually costs a full lane of tempo.

Playstyle Tips That Actually Win Games

Beyond items and abilities, the March of Giants The Mole build lives or dies on decision-making. These habits show up in almost every winning Mole game:

1. Use Burrow to get back to lane, not just to escape. The Mole’s biggest advantage is tempo. Taking a bad trade, burrowing back, and arriving before your opponent resets is a real win condition.
2. Spam Shell in every trade. With cooldown reduction, you can keep the damage-reduction window active far more often than opponents expect.
3. Hold your ultimate until it kills. Community consensus is blunt: don’t burn the entomb just because it’s off cooldown. Use it to secure a kill or trap someone for a teammate.
4. Clear soldiers with Shell explosions. In a game where army control decides objectives, wiping a wave is often worth more than a hero trade.
5. Contest Siege Dozers early. Burrow mobility makes the Mole the fastest responder to siege objectives on the map.
6. Sell your cooldown item late. Once you’re capped on items, trading a cooldown item for raw damage or anti-stun is often correct.

It’s also worth tempering expectations about match length. Community reports consistently note that playtest matches run long — sometimes stretching toward 50 minutes when the design target seems closer to 30 — and that matchmaking is still finding its footing. That means late-game item decisions matter more than they should in a typical MOBA.

For a wider view, our March of Giants tier list, Warship build guide, builds hub round out the picture from different angles.