Gigantic – Gameplay Tips for Beginners

This guide covers some basic information that should be useful to new players. This includes tips for scoring, when to push a creature, effective creature placement, and a few other miscelaneous items. Many of these are either briefly touched upon in the tutorial or not at all, so this should help you to be a better and more effective teammate.

Introduction

Please note: all credit goes to JonasTM!

Greetings, I have been playing Gigantic since the recent Arc beta and have 50+ hours in game at the time of writing this guide. I am by no means a master, but I am above average on several of the heroes. There are many intricacies to the game that could very well take hundreds of hours to master, that said, there are others that can be learned quickly and will increase your effectiveness significantly if you are a new player. This guide will cover things like the intricacies of the power scoring system, when to push a power node, map awareness, creature placement, and basic gameplay tips.

Map Awareness

Being aware of your immediate surroundings, like that Tripp you just saw who ran around behind one of your points is not good enough. You need to keep an eye on the area map too! It provides a lot of useful information that is usually a good idea to be aware of.

How to Read the Map:

  • Empty Blue Rings – Points you can control, but currently have no creatures summoned on them. Enemy heroes can steal orbs that might appear on these points! 
  • Empty Red Rings – Points you cannot control, but currently have no enemy creatures summoned on them. Your team can steal orbs that might appear on these points! 
  • Empty Gray Rings – Neutral points, either team can summon a creature here and control the point. The exception to this is the center point on Reef. Only Obelisks can be summoned on that point. 
  • Filled Rings – A creature is active here, the symbol tells you the family. A white outer ring means the creature is level 2. 
  • If a point has a slowly increasing yellow ring then a power orb is charging. When the ring becomes full yellow then the orb is present. 

Other Heroes and the Map:

  • The white teardrop indicates your location. 
  • Your teammate locations will always be shown on the map along with a miniature portrait so you can tell who is who. 
  • Enemy heroes show as a solid red dot and are only present when they have been spotted by you or another teammate. 
  • An “!” on a teammate symbol means they are in combat. 
  • A pulsing red teammate symbol means they are near death. 
  • A red skull means one of your teammates recently died at this location. 
  • Large diamond symbols show the location of the Guardians. Only move during Rampage.

Learn the Maps!

  • This cannot be overstated. Reef may be simple, but Strand and Falls are considerably larger maps, with multiple pathways to objectives. 
  • Once you know the pathways you can surprise enemy defenders form behind or flank when they are engaged with your team on a point. This goes doubly so if you are playing a high mobility assassin like Tripp, Tyto, or Wu, who can quickly cover large distances. 
  • If you are playing a sniper/ranged (HK, Imani, Charnok, Voden) learn the high points where you can safely ply your trade and get out when engaged. What may seem like a good sniper nest at first may turn out to be a killbox. 
  • Even good defender creatures react slowly to threats. You can frequently skirt the outside of an enemy controlled point (even an enclosed point) and get out without taking much if any damage. Use this to your advantage to flank enemies that are engaged on nearby points.

What Creatures to Summon Where and When

There are several creature families in Gigantic, all (well, most…) have their uses. But all are situational! That means summoning the wrong creature on the wrong point or upgrading to the wrong level 2 creature can actually be a significant detriment to your team. Once you upgrade to lvl2 you are stuck with it until it dies.

So, you summoned a Bloomer on a forward point and now you have 1 Focus and that lvl1 one Bloomer could be a lvl2 Bloomer in just a few seconds. *whacks you with a newspaper* Bad! For a forward point you want something with a bit more bite and ability to defend. A Cyclops or better yet a Cerberus would be way more useful. Not only did you just waste Focus on something that can easily be killed, now your teammate with 2 Focus and Shadow Cerberus equipped can’t summon a much more useful defender creature. This section has advice on creature strengths and weaknesses as well as placement.

Bloomers

  • Auto-heals anyone within range. Can only heal 1 or 2 heroes at once. 
  • Low health. 
  • Low damage. 
  • Low survivability in general. Can often be soloed by most heroes even at lvl2. 
  • My advice for Bloomers is to put them on a mid-distance point as a fall-back for yourself and your teammates. For example the mid-distance points (behind C and D) on Sanctum Falls.

Cerberus

  • High damage. 
  • Good health. 
  • AoE damage. 
  • Shadow variety can do more damage and grant invisibility at the cost of more Focus to upgrade. 
  • This is your go to defender for forward points. They are aggressive and reasonably effective at targeting enemies. Force the opposing team to fight it out on top of the point and it will often swing the fight in your favor. 

Cyclops

  • Good damage 
  • High Health 
  • AoE Knockback 
  • Creates barriers near the point they are summoned on. 
  • Useful for defending a point, but work better when in a partially enclosed space or where the barrier forces a bottleneck on the enemy team making them easier to defend. Good on the mid-distance points on Siren’s Strand and B on Reef.

Obelisk

  • Low health 
  • Low damage 
  • Do not collect power orbs. 
  • No useful abilities 95% of the time – only become reasonable useful when an orb is present. 
  • Can be summoned on any point. Making them useful as a delaying tactic summoned on enemy points you have cleared. 
  • Can be summoned on neutral points like the central point on Reef. 
  • These guys are highly situational. That said, I usually carry them with me since they are good for delaying and holding enemy/neutral points when a power orb is present. They can really turn the tables in this situation and allow you to steal an orb. 

Drakes

  • Meh… 
  • They may recieve a buff in the future, but at present they pale in comparison to Cerberus and Cyclops for defending a point. 
  • Their AI is really dumb, they do low damage, and their AoE targetting leaves a lot to be desired. 
  • I don’t recommend buying these unless you have a whole bunch of gold and nothing to spend it on. 
  • Upgarding them to lvl2 is a massive waste of Focus.

Intricacies of Scoring

Scoring power to cause your Guardian to rampage and attack the other team’s Guardian is the heart of the game. Unfortunately, some of the intricacies of how power is scored can be a little confusing to new players. Why did the other team’s Guardian rampage when you had more power before orbs were collect? What happens when you get killed during an enemy team rampage? This section should help to explain those ideas and others.

Point Values:

  • Enemy Hero Kill = 10 points
  • Level 1 Creature Kill = 10 points
  • Level 2 Creature Kill = 20 points
  • Power Orb Collected = 20 points

Creatures And Power:

  • Power orbs are automatically collected on any point that you have a creature active. 
  • Level 2 creatures collect orbs faster than level 1 creatures. 
  • When orbs are spawned on two points at once, if one side has a lvl1 creature and the other has a lvl2 creature, then the lvl2 creature will score their orb first. If this brings the total to 100, it will trigger a rampage even if the other team had a higher score! 

Scoring Priority:

  • If 2 orbs are collected at the same time, priority will be given to the team that scored power most recently. 
  • The above is very important when both teams are within 20 power of reaching 100. 
  • For example – Team A has 80 points, Team B has 90 points. Scoring orbs simultaneously would put them both at 100 triggering a rampage. If Team A was the last to score power prior to orbs being collected then Team A will get the rampage!

Dieing / Kills During Rampage

  • If your team is attacking during a rampage then any kills you get during the rampage extends the vulnerable period. 
  • If your team is defending during a rampage then any kills you get during the rampage increases the shield protecting your guardian. 

When to Push a Point and When Not to

This section could also be title – “When to push your luck and when not to”. Because that is what it boils down to. A cost benefit analysis should be running in your head whether you are tying to get a kill, trying to kill a creature or trying to steal an orb. This section offers tips on when you should push your luck and when it might even be to your advantage to die so long as you can score power.

When you should push your luck getting a kill:

  • It is rarely a good idea to chase a low health player onto a point that they control or certainly into a group of their teammates. Now that being said, there are times when you should. 
  • If you have 90 points and are certain that you can secure a kill on a low health enemy hero or a lvl 1 creature even if it you die in the process, then secure the kill. The 10 power will trigger your Guardian to rampage and even if you die the amount of shield you will give them still nets out in your favor. 
  • Alternatively, if you have 80 points and can guarantee a kill on a low health lvl2 creature -or- can guarantee you will steal an orb from an undefended point before dieing. Even if you die it will still trigger a rampage and your death will only add to the enemy team’s shield. 
  • The enemy Guardian is near Wounded and you can blow all your skill cooldowns and finish it off even if the other team swarms you. Unless, that is you are the last surviving person on your team, because if you die it’s a team wipe and a long wait to respawn while the other team takes out one or more of your undefended creatures. 

When you should not push your luck:

  • You have triggered a rampage and the enemy Guardian has a flashing heart symbol on it’s health bar. This is an Auto-Wound regardless if you attack. You should never engage the enemy Guardian in this case. It will result in unnecessary risk to yourself and your teammates. 
  • The enemy team has triggered a rampage and your Guardian has a flashing heart symbol on it’s health bar. Again, Auto-Wound except in the very rare circumstance that a kill would increase your Guardian’s shield enough to prevent it. Even then it would take very little for the enemy team to finish it off. In this case it is best to regroup and protect your points. 
  • Enemy hero is fleeing to their Guardian. Unless you are playing a ranged hero or have an escape ability you will likely get squished. The Guardian has a high damage AoE field in their vicinity at all times except during a rampage.

These are of course recommendations; it is up to you and your best judgment when to push your luck in other situation. That is part of learning the game over time.

Additional Tips and Useful Information

I’ll wrap up this guide with kind of a grab-bag of useful tips that I wish I would have known when I started playing. They are not really in any specific order or groupings, but should be useful when you are just getting started. This section will likely be added to in the future as more topics come to mind.

  • Don’t charge at the other team’s Guardian as soon as you see “RAMPAGE”. There is a significant delay before the vulnerable period where you can actually damage it. If you go in early you become easy pickings for the defenders. Start heading in around 2-3 seconds before the vulnerable period begins. 
  • Similar to above, regroup with your team before trying to engage a vulnerable enemy Guardian. If you file in 1 or 2 at a time you are an easy kills for the defenders. There are times when it may be in your best interest not to engage at all, like if you are down 3/5 you stand a good chance of getting wiped. 
  • If you think you are going to lose a point despite your best effort there is no shame in a strategic withdrawl to a nearby point. It sure as hell beats getting wiped and still losing the point anyway. 
  • If you are banging your head against a wall trying to take a point and getting nowhere, move to another point or regroup. All it takes in some cases is one person to target another point and draw some defenders away. Tripp, Tyto, Knossos, all high damage high mobility character that can get in do a lot of damage to a creature and get out before the defenders arive. 
  • Don’t get greedy. It may sometimes seem like a good idea to push an inner point right after you take a mid. This is not always a good idea and you can end up getting into an engagement without a clear exit strategy once the enemy team respawns. 
  • It is often usefull during a rampage to take out an enemy creature when they fall back to defend. They will frequently be left undefended and you can burn them down even if it eats up a few seconds of the vulnerable period. That is additional resources the enemy team will have to spend to secure that point after the rampage is over. 
  • Prioritize squishy, low health, high mobility heroes over tanks. It will be easier to clean up the slow moving high HP characters without the high DPS squishies poking at you from all directions. 
  • Effects that lower armor are extremely useful in team battles. Many characters have ability upgrades that Crack/Break/Shatter armor, significantly increasing the damage taken by the enemy. These are almost always a safe bet to upgrade into, especially if they are AoE. 
  • Similar to above, Poison effects (25/50/75% reduced healing) are a good idea to upgrade if the enemy team has a good healer (Sven or Vadasi) or high amounts of self-healing. 
  • When in doubt, Area Denial is an effective weapon when defending or attacking a point. Force the enemy to play on your terms and load them up with debuffs – burning, poison, freeeze, cracked armor, etc… Make it costly for them to defend or continue pushing a point. Certain characters that might not seem so exciting excel at this like Xenobia, Sven, Griselma, and Pakko.
Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 15051 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices.

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