March of Giants Heroes: Goliath & Strongest Picks

March of Giants heroes are the deciding factor in almost every match of Ubisoft’s army-brawler playtest, and right now one of them is running lanes unchecked. If you have queued into a Goliath who buries you under endless soldiers before you finish your first item, you are not imagining it — player experience reports consistently call him the most oppressive early-game character in the current build. Learning how March of Giants heroes create, multiply, and control units matters far more than memorizing damage numbers, because in this game your army is the actual weapon.

March of Giants Heroes 101: Your Army Is the Real Weapon

Most hero brawlers ask you to out-trade one opponent. March of Giants asks you to out-manage a battlefield. Every hero is tuned around soldiers: how many they can field, how fast they can replace them, and whether their kit punishes clumped units. That is why a hero like Goliath, who can flood several full waves at once, feels unstoppable even against players who are clearly laning better.

The game is still in playtest, and the developers are active daily on Discord and the subreddit, which means balance swings fast. You can track the current playtest window and community channels on the official March of Giants playtest page on Ubisoft.com. Community reports from October 2026 describe a meta where a small number of heroes sit far above the rest — especially in the first ten minutes.

Goliath: The Most Oppressive Early-Game Hero in the Current Build

Community reports are blunt about Goliath: he is the strongest early-game character anyone has tested so far. He is ranged, he self-heals with one of his abilities, he has two nuke-style damage tools, and he can charge units into a fight using airship loads. In one recorded match, a single Goliath player reportedly controlled up to 600 soldiers and kept three full-size waves alive at once.

What makes that so frustrating is how little counterplay it leaves. Even if you clear one wave with your full combo, he simply sends two more — and now your abilities are on cooldown while he free-farms from range. Players who bought heavy anti-soldier items still almost died to him while sitting two thousand gold ahead. That is a sign of a numbers problem, not a skill problem.

How to Survive a Goliath Lane

You are not going to out-soldier him, so stop trying. The realistic plan is to survive, farm safely, and convert elsewhere.

• Never trade your full combo into his soldiers. If your whole rotation goes into one wave, you have nothing left for the hero.
• Buy the soldier resistance item early. Community testing suggests the roughly 2K-gold defensive pickup visibly improves survivability against minion swarms.
• Bait the charge near your fort or bunker. Players report that fighting under your own structures is one of the few spots where a charge becomes punishable.
• Take side objectives while he pushes. If he is occupying a lane with three waves, your team should be trading outposts, siege dozers, and boss timers.
• Group up in the mid-to-late game. Multiple reports agree that clumped, itemized teams can actually handle his soldiers later — the real problem is the first ten minutes.

The Blacksmith Lady: Hammer Combos and Damage Reduction

The Blacksmith Lady is the opposite kind of hero from Goliath, and she is far more interesting than she first looks. Her kit is built around setting up a mark and then cashing it in with a hammer swing, which makes her a genuine combo character rather than a stat-checker.

Her passive is quietly one of the best farming tools in the game. Every hit on a hero or structure turns into supply, which means she can convert poking into bunkers and defensive structures. Community reports noted that after an early item spike, she started generating well over 200 resources just from trading and chip damage.

The downside is matchups. Several players described melee-versus-ranged lanes as “cancer,” and the Blacksmith feels it. Her stun setup also gets punished hard if you waste the fireball, since the entire rotation is E-into-Q or W-into-Q-into-E with nothing left afterward. She wants cooldown reduction badly, and the community is split on whether she is genuinely strong or just “fine” outside of coordinated voice comms.

March of Giants Heroes Tier List: Community Playtest Edition

This ranking is compiled from player experience and streamer commentary in the October 2026 playtest — not from official developer data. Treat it as a directional snapshot, because hotfixes can flip it quickly.

Early Game vs. Late Game Power Spikes

One of the most useful mental models for March of Giants heroes is the power-curve split: Goliath is the reverse of Baroness. He dominates the opening minutes and flattens out later, while she struggles early and becomes a monster after several items.

Practical Tips for Climbing With March of Giants Heroes

Itemization matters more than raw mechanics in this game, because most of your damage taken comes from soldiers rather than heroes. Community testing produced a fairly clear shopping list.

A few broader habits separate winning players from losing ones:

• Treat soldiers as your primary resource. Whoever fields more units controls the lane, regardless of hero skill.
• Rotate for outposts and siege dozers. Structures and giants decide games while lanes cancel each other out.
• Do not ignore the boss timer. Players reported the current boss dies very early and feels undertuned, so it is a free objective when your team is grouped.
• Play around your hero’s spike. Forcing a Goliath fight at 25 minutes or a Baroness fight at 5 minutes is how you lose.
• Use comms if you play synergy heroes. The Blacksmith and similar utility picks reportedly lose most of their value in solo queue.

For a wider view, our March of Giants tier list, Goliath-style builds hub, units explained round out the picture from different angles.