Goliath

Abilities:

The **Goliath** is one of the Monsters in evolve.

## Summary

 Health

Goliath is a hulking creature in *Evolve*, an evolving muscular husk that grows more powerful with each consumption of wildlife. Living up to his name, Goliath is able to pull boulders from the ground and toss them long distances, while leaping dozens of feet in the air and sprinting long distances. Goliath is most identifiable by his posture, a simian sprinting gate and a giant, spiked tail. Before he even evolves, he's a powerhouse - 10 feet tall at his smallest, he is a force to be reckoned with. His face is a broken, ruined maw of bone, crooked teeth, and long spikes, portraying his innate strength and destructive power.

The Goliath has an equally powerful set of attacks, including leaps and charges that can be used to both effectively remove Goliath from dangerous combat situations and deal incredible damage. But make sure you are beefed up enough to kill.

## Abilities

The Goliath has four main abilities, which can be upgraded throughout the course of play. For strategy and tips, see sections below.

* Fire Breath - Spits a jet of liquid flame that does damage to Hunters for a short time.
* Leap Smash - A devastating jump attack that deals splash damage when Goliath lands.
* Rock Throw - Rips a huge boulder from the ground and launch it at an enemy.
* Charge - Rush forward at high speed causing damage and knockback.

## Strategic play style summary

Of all the strategies and tactics available to Goliath, brute physical strength is the driving force behind them all. He is thematically a fiery creature of rage and strength. With the majority of Goliath’s fighting capabilities relying on melee combat, he is very much a monster that benefits from chaining multiple attacks to pummel and disrupt individual hunter targets. Close quarters provide Goliath with the advantage to pin hunters and possibly damage multiple targets at once. Most all of your attacks have some sort of tell, so players may know what is coming and have a chance to react to you. If you can land an attack however, you should be quick to follow up with multiple combos to weaken your target. While Goliath may be large and easy to shoot, he has a lot of health and armor points to soak in the damage and wade through it. Though it doesn’t hurt to avoid taking damage whenever possible.

## Helpful gameplay tips

The Goliath can use a handful of specialty strategies to better deal with the challenges in Evolve:

* Initial Onslaught
* Karate Kick
* Labyrinth
* Basic Bait
* Left for Dead or Let Them Squirm

### Stealth is more useful than people may realize

While deploying stealth makes you move slower, it allows you to move around without making loud footsteps, hides any tracks you leave behind, and allows you to sneak past those pesky harpoon traps and birds.

### Rock Throw

Rock Throw is one of Goliath’s most powerful abilities. Part of the cost for such a powerful ability is the tell sign that briefly warns players what’s coming - Goliath takes a few seconds to reach into the ground and pull out a massive boulder that it can throw at a player. Keep in mind, while this is happening, Goliath is vulnerable to other attacks, so be mindful of when you choose to use a rock throw.

On keyboard/mouse by default you can hold down the ability button to hold it in your hand, bring up the trajectory preview, and release the button to fire. Alternatively you can change the functionality to press once to bring it up, and press again to release it. Just go into options and toggle the “Monster Ability Trigger” option under keyboard/mouse settings.

### Fire Breath

You activate it by pressing the button once and Goliath will breathe fire for several seconds in an area in front of him. Setting players on fire is Goliath’s only reliable way to reveal cloaked players. It is impossible to track cloaked players without it as they do still leave visible footprints, but it does make things a lot easier to see when you have turned them into a human torch. This will do damage over time, so consider burning multiple hunters to get the most use out of this ability.

### Leap Smash

This ability doubles as a traversal ability, which can help you gain good distance instantly, much like Goliath’s natural traversal ability to leap. To a slight extent, while you are mid air in the middle of performing a leap smash, you can control where you land the smash. So if you pulled back on the thumbstick or pressed the back direction on the keyboard you could land shorter than where you were originally planning to go.

### Charge

This ability also doubles as a traversal ability. It is the easiest ability to use in a combo because of its instantaneous use. You can also lean left or right to slightly turn the direction of your charge. You can also press backwards to stop. This is an ideal maneuver when you want to knock hunters off a ledge, but not fall off the ledge yourself.

## Goliath character unlocks

To Unlock Kraken you must complete the first rank of Goliath’s Mastery. Rank 1 across the board is about learning to use all of Goliaths abilities effectively. You just need to do damage. Damage from this rank is counted from all sources, so make sure to use your abilities while hunting wildlife as well! You need to complete all ability Masteries in order to unlock Kraken, so make sure to experiment with ability combinations.

* Fire Breath - Do X damage
	+ Try and hit multiple targets with flame breath. The more targets taking damage the faster this will unlock.
* Leap Smash - Do X damage
	+ Use Leap Smash while hunting!
	+ Try and hit multiple targets. A good idea is to look for a reaver pack and try to land on all of them.
	+ If you see a hunter trying to revive a fellow incapped ally, Leap Attack on them for double the damage credit.
* Rock Throw - Do X damage
	+ Make sure to use this when trying to Incap a hunter. Rock Throw is a big damage attack and should be used often against the hunters.
	+ Also make sure to use it as an opener when engaging large wildlife. If you’re looking for an elite Tyrant or Crowbill Sloth buff this is a good way to do big damage to the enemy while also earning mastery.
* Charge Attack - Do X damage
	+ Again this is all about maximizing damage so try and hit multiple targets.
	+ Charge can also be used for traversal so try to hit wildlife while running away from the Hunters to add the mastery credit.
	+ In combat with the hunters Charge is really good when you corner a Hunter. Make sure to use it in those situations for good damage and easy credit toward the mastery.

## Alternate skins

The Goliath has several alternate skins that can be unlocked through play:

* Elite
* Frostbite
* Magma
* Clownfish
* Poison Frog
* Taurus
* Savage
* Bog
* Wendigo
* Carnivore
* Turtle Rock Gold
* Platinum
* Voodoo
* Cosmic
* Tiger
* Digital Camo
* White Tiger
* Red Panda
* Prime