March of Giants builds are not chosen before the match. You earn Merits during play, spend them at the Arsenal, and upgrade your Warshell and abilities mid-match, which means every build is a live decision rather than a loadout. Four families exist to shape that spending: Kinetic, Alchemic, Survival and Soldiers. This page covers how the system works and what players report about each direction.
How the build system works
Merits are the in-match currency. You earn them from fighting and from objectives, then spend them at the Arsenal to upgrade your Warshell, which is the shell around your Giant that decides how it scales.
Abilities are upgraded in the same economy rather than through a separate level tree. Ubisoft describes abilities as customisable and upgradeable throughout each match so you can adapt to the battle, and the official site frames Warshell spending as the way you choose "how your Giant fights."
Because spending is in-match, your build responds to the game you are actually in. If your lane is being cleared instantly, cooldown or wave-clear upgrades are worth more early than a second damage item, and you can change direction later without restarting.
The four build families
The Arsenal offers four directions. Kinetic focuses on physical damage and tempo, Alchemic focuses on elemental or corrosive effects, Survival focuses on staying power and shields, and Soldiers focuses on your army rather than your Giant.
Ubisoft's own wording is that you choose items which enhance your preferred playstyle, whether focused on Kinetic, Alchemic, Survival or Soldiers. The studio also says itemisation has been expanded since the Closed Alpha specifically to support more specialised builds and different ways to play each Giant.
Picking one direction is the standard advice. A half-finished Kinetic build loses to a completed Survival build in most matchups, because the power spikes land at different times and a split build rarely reaches either spike.
What players report about specific paths
The most detailed public feedback concerns shields, which are repeatedly described as the strongest defensive path. In Brother Light testing, an early shield purchase was called a solid spike that scales into the equivalent of a late-game item, and one tester reported reaching roughly 13,000 health with about 10,000 of it in shields.
That figure comes from a single player's Closed Alpha testing notes and is not a confirmed benchmark, so treat it as 待确认. What is consistent is the shape of the build: cheap early survivability, then scaling into a frontline role while your Soldiers supply the damage.
Blueprint variety is the most common complaint. Feedback from the same testing period argued that some blueprints only apply to certain abilities, citing Brother Light not receiving multi-projectile upgrades that other Giants get, and asked for options beyond flat damage or cooldown reduction.
Starting items and the early game
One recurring criticism is that matches begin with nothing. A tester described starting with no items as feeling flat and suggested cheap early options such as a little sustain, early defence or a small offensive spike to make the opening minutes more expressive.
Whether starting items exist in the current Pioneer Playtest build is 待确认, since that feedback comes from testing before the transition to Ubisoft. It is worth checking the live Arsenal before assuming you begin empty.
The practical early-game rule does not depend on that answer: spend your first Merits on whatever fixes your lane's immediate problem. If you are being pushed in, buy sustain or clear; if you are winning, buy the item that converts a lead into an objective.
Jungle, objectives and build tempo
Community feedback describes a jungle that exists but is not worth contesting, with early monsters hitting too hard for the reward and no meaningful buffs to fight over. The suggested fixes were to adjust monster damage or add buff camps.
That matters for builds because jungle income is usually what accelerates a scaling path. If the jungle is genuinely low value, the safest route to a completed build is lane pressure plus objective income rather than farming camps.
Another tester noted that late-game map objectives can feel useless when a team cannot close out a match, which stretches games past 40 minutes. Building to end the game, rather than to win duels, is the correct response to that problem.
Unconfirmed claims to treat carefully
A third-party fan site describes a system of up to ten upgrades, four skill augments drawn from three cost tiers, a supply currency from jungle mobs and lane nodes, and the ability to sell upgrades and rebuild on the fly. None of that is confirmed by Ubisoft, and the same source contains factual errors about the platform and map structure.
Treat those specifics as 待确认. The parts that are confirmed by official sources are narrower: Merits, the Arsenal, the Warshell, ability upgrades during a match, and the four named build families.
Where to go next
Read March of Giants gameplay for the systems around the Arsenal, the characters overview for who each path suits, and the tier list for which Giants are worth building around.
How objectives feed your build
Your item economy comes from the map as much as from last hits. Community tutorials describe merit income from creeps and structures, with an Outpost paying the player who lands the last hit more than the rest of the team, and a Bastion paying more again. Those exact figures come from creator videos rather than official documentation, so treat the numbers as 待确认.
Objectives also grant build power directly. The Colossus drops a core that community coverage describes as a permanent, stacking increase of about 20 Kinetic and 20 Alchemic damage per pickup, with the same source comparing repeated pickups to a top-tier item. The Abomination, meanwhile, drops the Sovereign Gun into your sixth slot.
Augment points are the third stream. They spawn on a timer and from captured camps, which means a build that ignores the map falls behind a build that contests it, even if both players last-hit equally well.
Sources
- Ubisoft News, Everything To Know to Play Free Now in the Pioneer Playtest: https://news.ubisoft.com/en-us/article/Kjio5Yi26PNZHlvp9tIJD/march-of-giants-everything-to-know-to-play-free-now-in-the-pioneer-playtest
- Official site, marchofgiants.com: https://marchofgiants.com/en-gb/
- Reddit r/MarchOfGiants, Feedback: Brother Light: https://www.reddit.com/r/MarchOfGiants/comments/1n8la00/feedback_brother_light/