Buildings are a type unit that are not controlled by any player. At the beginning of each match, a set of buildings spawn at set locations for both teams. Both factions have the same set of buildings, with only their appearance differing from each other. Buildings take mostly defensive roles and are the main objective of the game.
All buildings have the same base properties. They are immune to most spells (with only a few spells affecting them), have the structure armor type, deal siege damage if they can attack and are immobile. When destroyed, some buildings grant gold to the entire enemy team, while others grant gold only to whoever made the last hit. Once below 10% health, buildings (except for the Ancients) can be denied to prevent the enemy from getting their gold bounties, or to reduce the amount they get. Buildings do not grant experience. Once destroyed, a building is permanently lost, as they do not respawn.
There are a total of 29 buildings on each side.
Towers
Towers are the main line of defense for both teams, attacking any non-neutral enemy that gets within their range. Both factions have all three lanes guarded by three towers each. Additionally, each faction's Ancient have two towers as well, resulting in a total of 11 towers per faction. Towers come in 4 different tiers:
- Tier 1 towers, located at the end of each lane.
- Tier 2 towers, located halfway through each lane.
- Tier 3 towers, located on top of the 3 ramps at each base.
- Tier 4 towers, located in pairs in front of each Ancient.
Tier 1 towers are invulnerable during the preparation phase, until the battle begins. Each Tier 2 and tier 3 tower is invulnerable until the lower tier tower preceding it in its lane is destroyed. The two tier 4 towers are invulnerable until any of the tier 3 towers have been destroyed. Barracks do not have to be destroyed to make tier 4 towers vulnerable. Both of the tier 4 towers must be destroyed in order to remove the Ancient's invulnerability.
All towers have a vision range of Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). during the day. Tier 1 towers have a night vision of Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)., while higher tier towers have a night vision range of Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).. Additionally, all towers have True Sight in a Lua error in Module:Show at line 70: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). area around them, and have one defensive and one supportive ability. Towers can attack, but never attack nearby neutral creeps.
Building | Health | Deny Health | Armor | HP Regen | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tier 1 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | |
Tier 2 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | |
Tier 3 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | |
Tier 4 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Building | Damage | BAT | DPS | Attack Range | Projectile Speed |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tier 1 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).‒Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Tier 2 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).‒Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Tier 3 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).‒Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Tier 4 Tower | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).‒Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Expression error: Unexpected < operator. | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). | Lua error in Module:Show at line 24: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). |
Towers grant a gold bounty to whoever makes the last hit, but also grant a team bounty to the entire team. When denied, both team get half the team bounty.
Attack priority
Towers are using regular auto-attacking, so when multiple enemies engage the tower, it naturally targets the first enemy that gets within its attack range. It sticks with that target until it can no longer be attacked (it dies, gets out of attack range or becomes attack immune). Once that happens, it chooses the next attack target using the following priority system.
- Closest enemy unit attacking the tower itself
- Closest enemy unit attacking an ally of the tower
- Closest enemy unit
It does not matter whether the unit is a hero or a non-hero unit, they are treated equally. Units treated differently are wards and siege creeps. These units are always attacked as last. If a tower attacks one of these units, and then another unit or hero come within range, the tower immediately switches to the new unit. Siege creeps have a higher priority than wards.
There are two additional scenarios where the tower switches its attack target immediately:
- If an enemy hero attacks an allied hero while within 500 range of the tower, it immediately switches to that enemy hero. This only works against enemy heroes. Non-hero units attacking heroes do not cause the tower to switch aggro towards them. The attack does not have to finish or connect, the attack order alone is enough. However, it has to be a regular attack, instant attacks or manually casting an active attack modifier do not count. This behavior is akin to lane creeps' behavior, which do the same in this scenario.
- On the other side, if an enemy unit (hero or non-hero alike) is ordered to attack its own allies (hero or non-hero alike), the tower immediately switches aggro to another unit, using the priority system mentioned above. This as well does not require the attack to start, the order alone is enough. Enemies can de-aggro the tower only once every 2.5 seconds by using this technique. This behavior is also equal to that of lane creeps. If the tower has already started its attack on a unit, it will finish that attack, even when aggroed or de-aggroed with these techniques. This means it is impossible to cancel the tower's attacks by changing its aggro. Its attacks only cancel when its current target cannot be attacked anymore.
Tower abilities
Aura
Allied Heroes
- The aura's buff lingers for 0.5 seconds.
- Multiple instances of Tower Protection do not stack.
- When teleporting from a tier 2/3/4 tower to a tier 1 tower or vice versa, the armor bonus updates after the linger time.
- Only affects allied heroes, creep-heroes and illusions. Other allied units are not affected.
- Affects invulnerable, but not hidden heroes.
Barracks
Barracks (commonly shortened to Rax or Racks) are buildings, defended by their tier 3 towers, that are responsible for keeping lane creeps as powerful as their counterparts. There are two Barracks for each lane per faction - one for melee creeps (called Melee Barracks or Melee Rax), and one for ranged creeps (called Ranged Barracks or Ranged Rax). The ranged barracks are always located to the left of the melee barracks on each lane and both factions.
Barracks are invulnerable until the tier 3 tower guarding them is destroyed. The loss of barracks does not stop lane creeps from spawning. However, destroying Barracks grants the destroying team super creeps in that lane, corresponding to which one was destroyed, which are more powerful and grant less bounties than regular creeps. Super melee creeps spawn when the melee barracks get destroyed, while super ranged creeps spawn when the ranged barracks are destroyed. When all 6 Barracks of a team are destroyed, mega creeps start spawning on every lane for the enemy, even more powerful than super creeps.
All barracks have a vision range of 900 during the day and 600 during the night. They cannot attack, have no special abilities and have no True Sight.
Building | Health | Deny Health | HP Regen | Armor | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Melee Barracks | 2200 | 220 | 5 | 15 | |
Ranged Barracks | 1300 | 130 | 0 | 9 |
Barracks grant a gold bounty to whoever makes the last hit, but also grant a team bounty to the entire team. Denying Barracks does not reduce the team bounty.
Building | Team Bounty | Deny Bounty | Last Hit Bounty | Last Hit Total | No Last Hit Total | Denied Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ranged Barracks | 90 | 90 | 90‒135 | 540‒585 | 450 | 450 |
Melee Barracks | 155 | 155 | 90‒135 | 865‒910 | 775 | 775 |
Ancients
Ancients (also commonly refered to as Thrones, or Tree for Radiant's ancient and Throne for Dire's ancient, as legacy names from DotA) are massive structures found inside each faction's base and are the main objective. In order to win, the enemy team's Ancient must be destroyed, while the own one must be kept alive. Ancients are guarded by their two tier 4 towers. The Ancients are invulnerable until both of their tier 4 towers are destroyed.
Both ancients have a vision range of 2600 during the day and 2600 during the night. Additionally, they have True Sight in a 900 area around them.
Building | Health | Deny Health | HP Regen | Armor | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ancient | 4500 | N/A | 12 | 23 |
Fountains
Fountains are buildings located in the respawn areas of both bases, and provide scaling health and mana regeneration to all allied units near it. They also heavily defend the spawn area, blasting intruding enemies with very rapid high-damaging attacks, which dispel consumables, and disable Blink Dagger, Heart of Tarrasque and other abilities that are normally disabled by player-based damage. Fountains use the same attack priorty system as towers, except that they cannot be aggroed immediately by attacking an enemy hero. Fountains are permanently invulnerable, so they can never be destroyed.
Both fountains have a vision range of 1800 during the day and 1800 during the night and can attack. Additionally, they have True Sight in a 1200 area around them.
Building | Damage | BAT | DPS | Attack Range | Projectile Speed | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fountain | 290‒310 | 0.15 | 2000 | 1200 | 1400 |
Fountain ability
Aura
Allies
- The aura's buff lingers for 3 seconds.
- Can fully regenerate a unit's health within 20 seconds and mana within 16.67 seconds.
- Due to the aura lingering for 3 seconds, Bottles keep on refilling even when already outside of its range, until the buff is gone.
- Affects invulnerable, but not hidden units.
Shrines
Shrines were small supportive buildings outside the bases on the map. The Radiant had a shrine between the 3 neutral camps in secondary jungle, behind the ramp towards Roshan's pit, while the Dire had a shrine in the main jungle, on the higher ground between the 2 neutral camps, behind the ramp towards Roshan's pit. The shrines were invulnerable until any of the team's tier 3 tower was destroyed.
Shrines had no vision and no True Sight. This means the shrines did not serve as free wards. However, since they were regular buildings, they could be teleported to with Town Portal Scrolls and Boots of Travel, although with a lower teleport radius.
Building | Health | Deny Health | HP Regen | Armor | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Shrine | 1750 | 175 | 5 | 17 |
Shrines granted no gold to whoever makes the last hit, but did grant a team bounty to the entire team. Denying Shrines did not reduce the team bounty.
Building | Team Bounty | Deny Bounty | Team Total | Denied Total |
---|---|---|---|---|
Shrine | 125 | 125 | 625 | 625 |
Shrine ability
- Whenever this ability is off cooldown, the shrine emits particle effects and a looping sound. Its minimap icon also starts glowing.
- While ready, pressing the ALT key highlights the aura's radius with a blue circle. This circle disappears when on cooldown after the aura expired.
- A shrine can be activated by ordering the hero to follow it. A follow order is given by right-clicking, or by pressing the move hotkey and selecting the shrine as a target.
- Once the hero is within the activation range, the shrine gets activated, if the follow command is still active.
- Can only be activated by allied heroes and clones. No other unit can activate it.
- Since a hero executing a move order is required to activate it, it cannot be activated while stunned, taunted, slept, cycloned and hidden.
- Once activated, the shrine emits an aura which applies the restoring effects. The aura's buff lingers for 0.5 seconds.
- The aura affects all allied units which are not wards or buildings. However, it does not affect invulnerable or hidden allies.
- Can regenerate up to 495 + 11% of a unit's max health and up to 275 + 11% of a unit's max mana over its full duration.
- All shrines are on cooldown until the 7 minute mark of the game.
Effigy buildings
In addition to the above buildings, there are other buildings that act as buffers within a base, called Effigy Buildings, or Filler Buildings (although they are just named Building in-game). These buildings exist only to occupy enemy creeps before reaching the tier 4 towers or the Ancient, and therefore give the defending players more time to act. There are 7 such buildings in each base, spread evenly around the Ancient.
Five of the seven Effigy buildings (the 5 forming a half-circle around the Ancient) are customizable with Effigy Blocks, giving them a different look and making them display a text notification when destroyed. This has purely cosmetical values and does not alter them in other ways. Each player can customize one of the five Effigy Buildings in their base.
All effigy buildings have a vision range of 900 during the day and 600 during the night. They cannot attack, have no special abilities and have no True Sight.
Radiant's buildings have two different models, while the Dire have one model for all.
Building | Health | Deny Health | HP Regen | Armor | Last Hit Bounty | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Effigy Building | 1000 | 100 | 0 | 10 | 68 |
Outposts
Outposts are two buildings located in larger jungles of both Radiant and Dire fractions, close to the small neutral camps on the highground - West from the camp in the Radiant jungle and East from the camp in the Dire jungle. Outposts start out belonging to the team on their side, and can be captured at any time.
Outposts have a ground vision range of 500 during the day and 500 during the night. Additionally, they provide unobstructed True Sight in a 300 area around them. The vision and True Sight are only granted to the controlling team. The outposts are always visible through the fog of war, no matter whom they belong to, so capturing them can be easily noticed by the other team, as its animations are visible, and the sound is audible. When under control, outposts can be teleported to with Town Portal Scrolls and Boots of Travel, although with a lower teleport radius. Town Portal Scrolls also take 250 seconds longer to teleport to outposts than to any other building.
Building | Health | Deny Health | HP Regen | Armor | Backdoor Protection |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Outpost | 450 | - | 0 | 0 |
Although attackable by non-hero units, and targetable by spells that affect buildings, outposts cannot be damaged at all, so they are undestroyable.
Outpost ability
Passive
Allies
- Outposts belong to their respective teams at the beginning of the game. They can be captured at any time by the opposing team.
- An outpost can be captured by ordering the hero to attack it. An attack order is given by right-clicking, or by pressing the attack hotkey and selecting the outpost as a target.
- Once the hero is within the capture range, the channeling for the capture begins.
- Meepo clones, Tempest Doubles and an upgraded Vengeance illusion are also able to capture the outpost.
- Since a hero executing an attack order is required to capture it, it cannot be captured while disarmed. However, getting disarmed while already channeling it does not cancel it.
- The capture time gets lower the more heroes channel it, equaling the given channel time, divided by the amount of heroes who channel.
- This results in a channel time of 6/3/2/1.5/1.2 seconds for 1/2/3/4/5 channeling heroes.
- Once captured, the outpost provides its ground vision and True Sight to the team that captured it.
- While having an outpost captured, experience is granted to your team whenever the game time reaches a 10 minute mark.
- Only one outpost may grant experience. When owning both outposts, the experience does not get doubled.
- Grants 150 / 350 / 550 / 750 / 950 / 1150 / 1350 / 1550 / 1750 / 1950 / 2150 / 2350 experience on the 10th, 20th, 30th, ... 120th minute mark.
- The True Sight is provided within the whole area, regardless of the buildings actual vision. It is fully unobstructed.
- The True Sight is provided by an aura which affects enemies. Its debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds.
- Cannot detect units under the effect of Shadow Dance, Smoke of Deceit, and Techies' traps and mines within the aura of Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Minefield Sign.
Backdoor Protection
Backdoor Protection is a passive ability almost all buildings have. Tier 1 towers, Outposts and Fountains are the only buildings without this ability. While active, Backdoor Protection grants high damage resistance to the building, and causes it to heal back any damage it takes from enemy units, making them difficult to destroy. This protection deactivates when an enemy lane creep moves within range of the building (if it is a tower outside the base), or gets close to the team's base (if it is a building within the base). The creep must not be dominated by a player, only AI-controlled lane creeps can deactivate the protection. Once deactivated, it takes some time for the protection to activate again.
There are 4 separate disable areas of Backdoor protection. Each tier 2 tower has its own circular area centered on them, providing protection to themselves, and the ancient has a gigantic circular area centered on it, providing protection to all buildings inside the base (except the fountain). This means each of the tier 2 towers have independent protections, meaning when one is disabled, the others are not disabled. They are also independent from the base protection. Meanwhile, all buildings inside the base share one protection and lose it simultaneously when disabled. The radius of the Ancient's disable area is so huge that it goes beyond the elevated base area. On the Dire side, it reaches up until halfway between the top tier 2 tower and the top base ramp, up to the mid tier 2 tower and up until just shy of the ward spot next to the bottom tier 2 tower. On the Radiant side, it reaches behind the top tier 2 tower, beyond the mid tier 2 tier and halfway between the bottom tier 2 tower and the bottom base ramp.
Backdoor protection is not responsible for the invulnerability buildings have, so the buildings still stay invulnerable if their corresponding towers are not destroyed first.
- All buildings, except for tier 1 towers and shrines have this ability (although tier 1 towers have the 60% damage reduction against illusions).
- Tier 2 towers have a search radius of 900 centered on them, each of them independent from each other.
- The base buildings depend on the Ancient's search radius of 4000 centered on it. This means they all lose the protection together.
- The unit detection is aura-based. If an enemy lane creep gets within the search radius of the tower/ancient the protection is lost.
- The aura's effect lingers for 0.5 seconds, so the total reactivation delay is effectively 15.5 seconds.
- While protected, the building takes 40% less damage from any source, and 75% less damage from illusions.
- This includes spell damage, not only attacks, including spells cast by illusions.
- While unprotected, the building only takes 60% less damage from illusion attacks (excluding their spells).
- If a backdoor-protected building is damaged by an enemy, it immediately starts healing back.
- Heals 9 health in 0.1 second intervals, which translates to 90 health per second.
- This means, it is possible to destroy protected buildings by dealing more than 90 damage per second (after reductions).
- Only heals back damage dealt by enemy units. Damaged dealt by allies is not healed back.
True Sight
Towers, Ancients and fountains, all have True Sight, the ability to detect nearby invisible enemy units. The radii are different for between them.
Aura
Enemies
- The True Sight is provided within the whole area, regardless of the buildings actual vision. It is fully unobstructed.
- The True Sight is provided by an aura which affects enemies. Its debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds.
- Cannot detect units under the effect of Shadow Dance, Smoke of Deceit, and Techies' traps and mines within the aura of Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Minefield Sign.
Glyph of Fortification
The Glyph of Fortification (or Glyph in short) is an ability usable by any player that causes all friendly buildings and lane creeps to become impervious to damage for a short duration, while also granting tier 2 and higher towers a multishot attack, allowing them to attack multiple enemies at the same time. The effect has a rather low duration and very high cooldown, making the timing of usage very important. The Glyph is used strategically to stop enemy pushes or slow them down long enough to organize a defense. It may also be used offensively to secure a push by granting the creep waves damage immunity at the right time, or even for finishing enemies off by using the multishot attacks.
The Glyph of Fortification can be activated by any player with a button at the right of the minimap or the shortcut they defined in the settings. The Glyph's cooldown is shared by the entire team, meaning if one player uses it, it goes on cooldown for all players of the team. However, whenever a tier 1 tower falls, the Glyph's cooldown gets refreshed 1 second later.
No Target
Allies
- Grants all allied buildings and lane creeps 100% incoming damage reduction, so they take absolutely no damage from anything.
- Does not grant invulnerability, as this would prevent targeting spells or attacks on them, which is not the case.
- This means that instantly killing effects can still kill glyphed units.
- Tier 2 and higher towers gain a multishot attack from the Glyph, allowing them to attack multiple targets at once.
- Causes the towers to perform instant attacks on the closest 0/5/5/5 enemies within attack range whenever they launch an attack projectile.
- This means all projectiles are released at the same time together with the main attack.
- Therefore, it does not matter whether the primary attack misses or not, the extra projectiles are still released.
- Does not target wards, buildings, invisible units, attack immune units, or units inside the Fog of War, but does target couriers.
- However, attacking wards or buildings still causes secondary projectiles to hit valid targets within the radius.
- Glyph's multishot works independent from that of Repair Kit, so when both are active, both target the closest enemies.
- The cooldown gets refreshed one second after a tier 1 tower falls.
- The Glyph goes on cooldown upon match begin, so that it is ready 3 minutes after the first creeps spawn.
Glyph Trivia
- In DotA, Glyph grants friendly buildings spell immunity and +9999 armor, instead of 100% damage resistance like in Dota 2.
- This means physical attacks still did 1 damage to them, since 100% physical damage resistance cannot be achieved with just armor, and the game rounds damage numbers to full numbers.
- This also means that fortified buildings cannot be targeted by some spells which otherwise could target them.
- In earlier versions of DotA, Glyph did not grant spell immunity, and skills such as Pugna's Nether Blast could deal damage through it.
Abilities affecting buildings
The following abilities can target or damage buildings.
Most hero abilities that deal physical damage are considered hero damage and are reduced by 50% against structure armor as well as standard armor value reductions.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Fully affects allied buildings.
- Negative and positive effects fully affect buildings.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Boots of Travel - [[Boots of Travel#|]]Can teleport to building. Prioritizes building when targeting within a certain range of them.
- Affects enemy buildings. Allied buildings are not affected. Damage is reduced by armor value only.
- Clinkz - [[Clinkz#|]]Damage is reduced by armor value and type.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Damage is reduced by armor value and type.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Corrosive Breath deals full damage to buildings.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Causes Earth's attacks to deal 90/170/250 more damage to buildings.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Damage is reduced by armor value only.
- Can be cast on allied buildings, fully affecting them. Cannot slow enemy buildings.
- Fully affects buildings. Uses different damage values as against other units.
- Fully affects enemy buildings. Does not affect allied buildings.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Fully affects allied buildings when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Deals 0.65 damage to buildings.
- Can strike buildings when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter.Does not reduce armor of struck buildings. Damage is reduced by armor value only.
- Restores the targeted building's health based on their max health over a duration, and grants them armor while restoring.This is an old ability.
- Slows buildings attack speed.
- Causes Spirit Bear's attacks to deal 10%/20%/30%/40% more damage to buildings.
- Deals 1 damage to buildings.
- Causes Tiny's attacks to deal 40%/55%/70%/85% more damage to buildings while wielding a tree.
- Deals 1.4 damage against buildings within the damage radius. Cannot toss or directly target buildings.
- Can teleport to building only.
- Fully affects buildings.
- Able to target buildings.
See also