Hello, I'm TheRoastedPotato, the current roam player for Phoenix Reign and one of the only female competitive players in VG. This is a guide for how I play Fortress successfully in both ranked and competitive matches. Fortress is a warrior hero that specializes in initiating team fights with his movement-based abilities and lack of ability to kite. Use Fortress to gain early advantages, and with heroes with high attack speed for maximum effectiveness.
I hope this guide helps!
-Potato
Fortress’s A ability, Truth of the Tooth, “marks” a target as prey, giving Fortress and allies bonus move speed only when moving TOWARDS the marked target. Since attacking the marked target also gives lifesteal, Fortress will want to mark the priority targets in team fights and communicate with his team in order to focus down the marked prey and provide life steal for his teammates. Using this ability is a great counter for heroes that rely on kiting or skillshots, as the boost of movement speed allows the team to catch up to the opponent and dodge incoming attacks. In 1.23, Truth of the Tooth was modified to deal basic attack damage on impact, and also applying on-hit effects. This gives Fortress slighly more strength throughout the game, and also makes items like Aftershock and Tension Bow more effective as they are easier to apply to enemies.
Upgrade Priority:
Taking the overdrive on Fortress’s A gives a larger speed boost, longer duration, increases total lifesteal, and lowers the cooldown. While maxing the ultimate is more beneficial in most scenarios, you can max Truth of the Tooth if you value the lifesteal more than being able to use the ult more often, or if you have an immobile comp and need the speed boost.
Law of the Claw is the backbone of Fortress’s kit. When applied, the target begins bleeding and subsequent attacks apply bleed stacks. Upon reaching max (6) stacks, the target takes damage based off a percentage of its max health. Since basic attacks proc the bleed stacks, heroes with high attack speed like Ringo or Blackfeather are great choices to pair with fortress. Similar to Truth of the Tooth, Law of the Claw requires great team communication to be utilized effectively. Typically, Fortress will initiate with his A ability, and immediately bleed the marked target as well. If properly focused, the bleeding target should die extremely quickly and lead to an easy teamfight win.
Upgrade Priority:
Take Law of the Claw as your starting ability, and upgrade it at every available point, taking the overdrive at level 8. Once the overdrive is taken, Law of the Claw gains increased damage, shorter CD, and the proc of the bleed stacks slows the target. This is extremely important, as it gives Fortress the only real CC he has in his kit.
This ability and the correct usage is extremely crucial to Fortress’s success. When activated, Fortress summons three “packmates” (one for each enemy hero) to chase down the enemy and apply bleeding. While the packmates bleed each enemy, it is still crucial to have proper focus and continue to kill a single hero first. The usage of this ability and timing of the ability often can be the deciding factor of the game. You should ONLY use Attack of the Pack once already initiated, or if you know it is impossible for the enemy to retreat and re-initiate. If used too early, it is possible for the enemy to kill the wolves before the fight begins and leave you at an immediate disadvantage.
Attack of the Pack also gives Fortress bonus defensive and offensive stats for the duration of the ability, making it a good idea to use it in order to maximize the effectiveness. Using Wartreads after activating the ability is a good combination, as it gives your teammates guaranteed move speed to initiate and does not allow the enemy a chance to escape.
Upgrade Priority:
I would upgrade Attack of the Pack at every available opportunity in most scenarios. Since it is such a powerful ability, unless you are playing with either very slow heroes or non-attack speed focused heroes, upgrading Attack of the Pack to its third rank is almost always the best choice. Each upgrade point decreases the cooldown of the ability, gives increased stats to fortress, and makes the wolves harder to kill, especially against non-attack speed based heroes.
Any hero that has a lot of attack speed or relies on their basic attacks to deal damage pairs well with Fortress. Additionally, with Truth of the Tooth, Fortress can pair well with slow heroes, giving them boosts of movement speed to help them engage. Similarly, Fortress is an initiator, so any hero that needs help with engaging team fights pairs well with Fortress. At the same time, though, heroes that rely on kiting do NOT pair well with Fortress due to Fortress’s initiating tendencies not synergizing well with kiting.
Carry Heroes to Pair With Fortress:
Ringo- Ringo is one of the best heroes with Fortress, as his high attack speed procs bleed stacks EXTREMELY quickly, virtually deleting any target instantly in the early-mid game.
Gwen- Very similar to Ringo, Gwen requires other heroes to initiate for her and her attack-speed based kit pairs very nicely with Fortress’s bleed. Additionally, Fortress’s early strength helps Gwen to snowball the lead she requires to be successful.
Blackfeather/Glaive- Both Blackfeather and Glaive are frontline warriors like Fortress, and both could use Fortress’s help iniating team fights so they can save their other abilities for damage or dodging. Additionally, the attack speed helps proc Fortress’s bleed
Taka/Koshka- Both Koshka and Taka are early game jungle heroes that will use Fortress’s early strength to get a lead and snowball a game so far that the enemy won’t be able to come back. If you don’t get an early lead, though, it may be hard to come back later in the game so be careful!
SAW- Fortress is like the perfect hero to pair with a WP SAW. Fortress provides the movement speed SAW needs to output his damage, and SAW provides the attack speed Fortress needs to proc the bleed stacks.
Fortress does extremely well in the early game, and is most effective with an aggressive jungle composition and with a laner that can rotate to help push out the enemy jungle. In early team fights, bleed the target that does the most damage and keep focus on that target. This may be the support in some cases, so be sure to modify your playstyle to the enemy team composition while also keeping in mind your own. Ideally, you will get at least one kill in the early fight, allowing you to either rotate to lane or to the enemy backs depending on the scenario. Once you have an advantage, make sure to keep pressure on the enemy jungle but be careful not to overstay. Some roam heroes excel by staying in the lane to get extra gold, but Fortress is more valuable in the jungle to put pressure on the enemy.
The mid-game is still a very strong stage of the game for Fortress. Once you hit level 6 and get Attack of the Pack, you should be looking for a crucial moment to use the ability and get a big team-fight win. With such a high cooldown on Attack of the Pack, you won’t get many chances to use it in the mid game so make sure to make the most of it. Try to get at least 2 kills, and push down a turret + take gold mine. This will help you to maintain and further snowball your lead. After Fountain of Renewal is completed, the second tier 3 item should be depending on the enemy team composition. Usually, it will be either Crucible or Wartreads, but you could also buy something like a Contraption, Atlas Pauldron or Shiversteel depending on the situation.
While Fortress excels in the early game, he can still be extremely effective late into the game. At this stage, proper timing of abilities and activatable items will be crucial to victory. Be careful to only fight when Attack of the Pack is available, as it will be very hard to win without it if the game is close. Refer back to the Attack of the Pack section for tips on when to use the ability. Additionally, the later the game goes, the more important positioning becomes. Fortress is not naturally tanky, so he relies on his perk to be effective and dodge incoming damage. You can’t tank all incoming damage without dying extremely quickly, so it is best to weave in and out of battle and let allies take some damage. Use the perk to apply items like Atlas Pauldron and Shiversteel (if you have them) to give your team an advantage and to fully utilize what you have available.
- Fortress’s wolves gain 20% of Fortress’s bonus defensive stats, meaning that when Fortress gets more tanky, so do the wolves. This makes building defensive items more valuable on Fortress, as their stats carry elsewhere and will often translate to more damage overall.
- The timing of Attack of the Pack is crucial. It is best used for damage and as a distraction in team fights, so using it as a scouting tool is almost never a good idea. See the Attack of the Pack section for more details!
- Fortress’s perk does not instantly decay when too far away from his allies. This allows Fortress to weave in and out of team fights very easily. You will always maintain the speed boost as long as you go back within range of an ally before the speed boost runs out. See the Packmates section for more details!
- Make sure you have vision in important areas in the early game especially. Vision in key areas will allow you to better control the jungle, making snowballs easier and much more successful.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found it useful. Send any questions you may have to
@IAmAPotato_VG on Twitter,
Team Phoenix or comment below.
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