Gatorman Fortress Achievement (Just Showing Off)

Describes how to defeat the Ziggurat Goliath which dwells within the Gatorman Fortress.

Only covers a cheese wizard build.

Foreword

This achievement is granted after defeating the Ziggurat Goliath in the Gatorman Fortress in "The Big Moist" which becomes available in Chapter 3.

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you want to try defeating him on your own turn back now.

Strategy

Goliath is a heavy hitter who seems to either focus on the main player or attack the entire party. Therefore, having a large party doesn't seem to benefit this fight. Wrote this with Cheese Wizard in mind but substitute for your class specific equivalents.

Requirements:

• Each class has an ability to do damage to the target equal to their stat. For Cheese Wizard, that would be "Mind Melt" doing target's Mysticism damage. You should have this ability.
  
• High combat item usage. Ziggurat Power Perk which grants extra 3 combat item usages. Achieved by repairing Ziggurat statue in Gatorman Fortress. Monster Sash which grants 1 extra combat item use. Achieved by completing Monster Shack quests
  
• About 5 combat items to prevent Goliath damage (Scrap Metal for Shield (aka invulnerability) or Shadow Rope (Alphonse provides sometimes gives these out) to confuse)
  
• Lots of combat items, preferably able to do 10-15 damage per lob (Nasty Pastry, Cola Wars Grenade)
  
• 3 Maximum Action Points or greater (Bleu Brilliance, Limburger Limberness, Arthropod Affinity Skills | Basic Humanity Perk)
  
• 3 AP regeneration or greater (Driver's Cap or Proto-type electro helmet, "old, cold coffee" effect)
  
• AP recovery items (Battery (+1 AP) or Vigor item (+3 AP, +1 AP Regen))

Having high stats shouldn't be required since basic attacks aren't really useful. In fact, Goliath is capable of reducing your stats by 20+ while boosting his own by 3 each attack. Goliath is also "irradiated" so attacks will bolster his own stats by 1 per attack. He also has a little over a thousand health to whittle down.

How can we win then? By judo slamming the boss with his own stats. Your stat combat skill can deal damage equal to the appropriate opponent stat. Whenever the boss would attack, shield yourself, then lob damage items at him till you've exhausted your combat item uses. This will slowly get his stats up. Follow this up with your stat combat attacks to further damage him and boost his stats before finishing with a basic attack. Hold out a round or two before using the AP recovery items (use AP regen early) so you're dealing higher damage per attack.

Once you're attacking 3 times with your stat combat skill at around 40 damage a piece, plus the combat items you've been using, you'll be burning through that health like cheese.

Repeat until he is sufficiently dead.

[aart]

crack knuckles is really good because you dont need too many combat items just a bunch of vigor inhalers if you use it with bottel cap ring

[HalvedDead]

beat this fight with bottlecap ring (reduces all physical damage taken to 5), tricky timpani (deals sleaze damage to enemy based on their stats) and knife in the dark (deals 35% of their max health in damage) as a jazz agent. i dont remember specifically where i got those items but there's an online wiki that will probably have them as articles and where to get them.

[FudfyLordOfDarkness]

If you use the calculator sidearm to debuff the gator's stats at the start, then spam an ability that also drops his stats (like Noogie), you can keep his stats so low that he can barely harm you, even with minimal AP regen (I did it with just 1 AP regen).

[Rednax910]

There is also some other methods
- I beat the Goliath as a Jazz Agent, and since Drumroll maxed out also increases your Moxie, you can get up to dealing 100+ damage per shot
- The "Knife in the Dark" skill is probably THE best skill available because it deals percentage of HP ignoring armour, so at the start of the fight, you can instantly erase around 380 HP from the goliath. And for one AP!
- It also seems possible to beat the boss with fewer items, if you have the mob capo ring or have Simone and Clarence, then it can help save on scrapmetal uses since the boss will waste its massive damage punch on those guys. I also got lucky and had a friendly hobo join the fight, but he never died somehow.

[Knight9910]

I did this as a Pig Skinner without using Stop Hitting Yourself. Good sword + high melee bonus + Wind Up meant I was doing at least 40 damage per turn guaranteed with my basic attack even dropped to only 1 muscle.

Definitely would have been even easier using Stop Hitting Yourself, but it's not really necessary.

[Null720]

Yeah I just find it to be the cheapest solution instead of farming armor plates or doing the above mentioned strategy Also man the item you get for beating him is garbage

[Jack B Nymble]

@Null720, good point. There is a separate guide for this Achievement that uses that strategy. It's geared towards Jazz Agents but as you point out, a Moxie based weapon would be enough so that guide could be more generic.

[Null720]

6 bloodwine that doubles moxie its compounding doesnt matter the class as long as you have a moxie based weapons you can two shot the gator

[akrim.elf]

i beat him as Pig Skinner with Mobius Ring, so i spam Nogie two time in turns, lots of combat items and lots of item with degrading stat effect

[Jack B Nymble]

@Flareongamer134, good to know! I'll amend the title to be more generic then. Fraid I don't know the names of the other skills though.