Fort

Arthas and Illidan attempt to assault an enemy fort

Forts are fortified positions placed along the lanes in the battlegrounds. Each team has one or more fort in each lane, with one being their main base, home to the team's core. Each fort contains their own towers, castles, sippy cups, and strong gates that prevent enemies from marching through them.

Forts represent the main form of progression within a match, with the destruction of enemy forts and structures serving to remove enemy defences, allowing for unrestricted movement across the battlefield, and ultimately opening up access to the enemy core, allowing the team to win the match.

Heavily fortified bases, teams will need to group up and make coordinated pushes in order to take down enemy forts. Mercenaries such as siege giants and special units such as the Dragon Knight can be very useful for swiftly demolishing forts.

The components of forts, such as towers and gates, are known as structures. Certain characters, abilities and talents offer additional effects when used against structures.

Towers

Every fort is fortified with multiple towers - two at each gate and one defending the castle. Towers attack enemy units and heroes that approach them, dealing damage with each attack. For this reason, towers are usually the priority targets when attacking forts, and should usually be destroyed first.

Towers have a range to their attacks, displayed visually when the player draws near. Towers will attempt to attack any enemy within range, but will always attack enemy minions before any other targets.

Towers deal substantial damage and can quickly destroy careless heroes. When a tower targets the player they will be alerted by a special sound, and it is generally a good idea to move out of range as quickly as possible. Players are therefore generally advised to stay out of range of towers unless they have some minions present to soak up the towers' attacks. As soon as the last enemy minion within range is destroyed, the tower will begin attacking enemy heroes, and the player may want to begin retreating before this happens. Once reinforcements arrive, players can resume attacking the enemy towers without fear of being targeted.

Each tower has a limited amount of ammo, displayed beneath its remaining health, with each attack consuming one charge. Once a tower's stores have been exhausted it will be unable to attack, with a special icon displayed above it to indicate that it is out of ammo. However, towers do slowly replenish their ammo over time, at which point they will immediately resume attacking any enemies within range.

While towers cannot withstand too much damage, the amount of damage they deal to attackers generally makes it unwise to attack them without minions to soak up damage. However, if necessary they can be rushed down by a group of heroes. In default circumstances, players can slowly wear down towers by attacking them for as long as their friendly minions are able to withstand them.

Gates

Gates are simple structures that obstruct progression through enemy forts. Gates cannot be seen or passed though by enemies, but can be freely passed through by allies. Characters can attack enemy gates to destroy them. Gates do not have any abilities or attacks, but are usually placed directly between two towers.

While their most crucial feature is to block enemy movement, gates also serve to largely prevent line of sight on enemy targets behind gates. This only affects enemies on the outside of the gate - enemies on the inside of the gate, and allies on either side, are able to see through gates without obstruction. This makes gates very useful for defending players to pop in and out of, and an excellent option for retreating from enemy fire.

While enemy players cannot pass through gates, special abilities such as Overpower can allow them to slip over or past them. In most cases this is to the player's disadvantage, as they will now be vulnerable to attack by advancing minions as well as heroes and towers on the other side of the gate. Crucially, they will be unable to pass back through the gate (unless another such ability is used), trapping them within the enemy fort.

Healing Fountains

Every fort has a Healing Fountain that can be used to regain a substantial amount of health and mana over a short period. Healing Fountains can only be used by players on the controlling team. Enemy Healing Fountains can be destroyed to prevent the opposition from making use of them.

Using a Healing Fountain will give the player a 100 second debuff, preventing them from using another Healing Fountain until the debuff expires. The time remaining until the player can use a Healing Fountain is also displayed above each Healing Fountain, and Healing Fountains will light up brightly to indicate when the player is able to use them. Each player has their own drinking cooldown, which does not affect other players. However, all Healing Fountains share a single cooldown for each player. The player is free to reuse the same Healing Fountain once the cooldown has expired, or to use any other Healing Fountain belonging to their team.

Healing Fountains are extremely useful, but because of their placement - being found only in friendly forts, equal to roughly the defensive third of each battleground - they are hard to utilize except when defending the team's forts. However, their power often makes them worth riding back to make use of, especially between minion waves. When defending they should be used to maximum effect.

Keeps

Red team's castle is under attack

Keeps are large structures at the center of forts that spawn minions that advance towards enemy forts and can be killed by enemy heroes for experience. Destroying Keeps disables the enemy fort and is a massive objective. Keeps are often defended by an additional tower. Destroying the last Keep in a lane will cause that lane to spawn catapults for the attacking side.

Cores

At the centre of its main base, each team has a core. The destruction of the enemy core is the ultimate objective of each game, immediately winning the match.

Cores have large amounts of health, and are able to defend themselves much like towers, although they do not run out of ammo. In addition to their health, each core also has a 'shield', an additional measure of hit points which will slowly regenerate. While cores cannot regenerate health, this shield allows them to regain some survivability if the attackers fail to destroy them outright. The health and shields for each team's core are displayed at the top of the screen throughout the match.

Set amid the castles and towers of the base, cores are well-defended against attack. However, once vulnerable, players may wish to focus exclusively on attacking them. Controlling players should usually do everything possible to protect their core, unless they are about to destroy the enemy's.

See also

• Mercenary camp
• Battleground