Dragon Shire

"Dragon Shire" is a three-lane colorful garden battleground set in the realm of King's Crest. The Dragon Knight lies locked in the Dragon Altar at the center of the map. Teams must capture and hold the two shrines at the top and bottom of the battleground, after which a hero may channel the Dragon Altar to free and control the Dragon Knight.

The first Shrine event will activate 90 seconds into the match, following a 30-second warning. Shrines will consistently be activated 2 minutes after a Dragon Knight has been killed.

Background

 * These lush and deceptively peaceful gardens have grown over time, covering the once molten realm known as Dragon Spire. Beneath this verdant paradise, the ancient power of the dragons was sealed away... and their descendants have neither forgotten nor forgiven the trespasses of those who wronged them.

Map layout
The "Dragon Shire" battleground has three lanes with all of the objectives located in a garden at the center of the map and above and below the center of the outer lanes.



Mercenary Camps
There are five Mercenary camps to be recruited in this battleground. Mercenaries are disabled during the Primary Objectives.

Primary Objectives
The unique objective revolves around capturing and holding the two shrines while a hero channels the Dragon Altar.

Core Ability: Boulders

 * Every 6 seconds, the Core will throw 2 boulders at a nearby enemy Hero. Heroes hit are turned to stone, damaged for 5% of their maximum Health, and Stunned for 1.75 seconds.

Control the Shrines

 * The first Shrine event will activate 90 seconds into the match, following a 30-second warning. Shrines will consistently be activated 2 minutes after a Dragon Knight has been killed.
 * There are two shrines located on the map: the Shrine of the Sun north of the center of the top lane and the Shrine of the Moon south of the center of the bottom lane.
 * To capture a shrine, team heroes must stand on the shrine circle until the progression bar moves all the way to your team's side. If an enemy hero is also standing on the shrine circle, the progression bar will not move.
 * Capturing an uncaptured shrine takes 4 seconds. If the shrine has been captured by the enemy team, capturing it will take 8 seconds.
 * When a team captures both shrines, it unlocks the Dragon Altar located at the middle of the map. Shrines can be taken back by the enemy team to lock the altar again.

Free the Dragon Knight

 * The Dragon Altar at the center of the map remains locked until one team captures both the Shrine of the Sun and the Shrine of the Moon.
 * Once captured, the altar unlocks for that team only, and a hero may channel it for 3 seconds, during which he can be interrupted by taking damage or moving.

Devastate Enemy Forts

 * If successful, the hero transforms into the Dragon Knight which lasts for (50 + 2 × each full minute of game time) seconds. So if the game time is 17:54, the dragon will last 84 seconds, or 1:24 minutes.
 * As the Dragon Knight, the player has two powerful abilities. First, it has a fire breath that hits a 10m cone in a 60° arc on a 6 second cooldown, with the majority of the damage up front with the rest in the burning area over 2 seconds. The Dragon Knight deals bonus damage to minions and structures with both its cone of fire and its basic attacks. The second ability is the “punt,” which has 7m cast range and is on an 8 second cooldown. The Dragon Knight winds up for 1.35 seconds before charging the enemy, dealing moderate damage and sending the target flying up to 16.8m away. If the target moves at least 12m away from the Dragon Knight, the punt will cancel, offering an opportunity to bait the Dragon Knight into a less defensible position.
 * Defeating the Dragon Knight will end the transformation early, so defending teams have to focus on him to prematurely end the Dragon Knight assault and attacking teams will have to defend him in order to keep up transformation for the entire duration.
 * When the Dragon Knight dies, it knocks any nearby heroes within 8m back 3.75m, stunning them for 0.1875s.

Trivia

 * Blizzard introduced during April Fools 2016 a Nexus Lane View mode of Dragon Shire (as a nod to Google Street View). It can still be used today. For Desktop or Smartphone: navigate to the official Dragon Shire Battleground page, scroll down to the map view, and place Murky on your desired viewing area. To enable NLVVR: navigate to official Dragon Shire Battleground page, scroll down to the map view, place Murky on your desired viewing area, and activate your VR device.
 * Bloodlust Brawl is a Brawl set on a modified version of Dragon Shire.
 * Among the humans watching the match in Dragon Shire; the knights have noticeably dragon-shaped helmets.
 * The Orphea update gave Dragon Shire an overhaul to reflect the events of the Fall of King's Crest, which also included a new Dragon Knight model and voicelines to reflect his fate in the comics. The Lady of Thorns updated voicelines indicate that she plans to have the Dragon Knight destroy her own realm rather than let the Raven Lord take it.
 * On April 30, 2019, Dragon Shire received a significant update to its art. Most notably, when a team captures the Dragon Knight, the entire screen is blasted red. The main focus on this art update was on the Hall of Storms, the terrain textures and painting, the polish of existing bushes and trees, rocks, and rune rocks, rework of the knight statue, rework of the dragon knight model (and dragon knight statue), re-texture of old models to make them read better and cleaner and help on light and composition.
 * There are some rune rocks that glow when the player get close to it.
 * There is a Singularity Shell lying around between bushes at the north eastern part of the map.
 * For the statues at the northern part of the map, Varian's model was simplified and resculpted.
 * If hovered over the knight statue right to the top shrine, a tooltip will be shown with text "The Little King - D1rewo1f". It is a reference to the fan of Blizzard games who died. His family reached the development team, asking for paying tribute to the player.