A blue square fortress with four auto-turrets and four trap barrels. It doesn't chase you. It plants itself, and everything within about 560 px of it becomes expensive ground.
Server defaults. Boss damage can be raised by up to 12% at spawn when one player is far ahead of the lobby. Ranges assume nothing gets in the way.
| Health | 3,900 |
| Body radius | 32 px |
| Contact damage to you | 22.7 per tick while touching, 30 ticks a second (the hardest-hitting body of any boss) |
| Auto-turrets | 4, one on each corner, each covering 60° either side of its mount. 40.5 damage per bullet, 533 px/s, one shot every 0.61 s each |
| Turret reach | About 560 px from the centre. They start tracking you from 900 px |
| Trap barrels | 4 (front, back, both sides). 60.75 damage per trap hit, 40 HP per trap, 10 s life, thrown about 300 px |
| Movement | Stands still once it has a target. Wanders at 48 px/s when nobody is within 1,600 px |
| Signature move | Trap ring: starts when you're within 640 px |
| Ring wind-up | 0.7 s, red glow |
| Ring | 14 traps (28 while enraged), 12 damage per hit, 4 s life, can't be destroyed |
| Ring cooldown | 5 to 7 s (about 2.6 to 3.7 s while enraged) |
| Healing | 0.1% of max health per second, only after 4 s without damage |
| Kill reward | 29,000 score to the killing hit |
| How it spawns | Third in the boss rotation, after Conjurer |
Bulwark is the only boss besides Nemesis that doesn't move when it's fighting. When the nearest player comes within 1,600 px, it stops, turns to face them, and stays put. Its damage comes from two sources that work at different distances.
The turrets are the long arm. There are four, one on each corner, and each one can swing 60° either way from where it's mounted, so between them they cover every direction. They fire on their own, all the time, at the nearest target. When no tank is in range they shoot shapes instead. Each bullet hits for 40.5 and flies about 480 px before it runs out, which puts the edge of their reach at roughly 560 px from Bulwark's centre.
The trap barrels are the short arm. They fire in bursts while you're within 1,200 px, one trap forward at you, one backward and one to each side. The trap slides out about 300 px, stops, and sits there for 10 seconds. Walking into one costs you 60.75 per hit, and traps are solid: they stop your tank the way a wall would. These traps have 40 HP and you can shoot them down.
Then there's the ring. It's a close-range move. The ring appears right against Bulwark's body and drifts out only about 33 px before it stops, so it ends up roughly 85 px from the centre. It's there to punish anyone standing on top of the boss.
Before the ring, Bulwark glows red and a red ring closes in on its body over 0.7 seconds. It only starts this when the nearest player is within 640 px. When the glow finishes, 14 traps appear in an even circle around the body and push outward.
You rarely need to dodge the ring. If you're not touching the boss, it doesn't reach you. The tell matters for rammers and for anyone who got pushed in close. For everyone else the thing to watch is the forward trap barrel. Bulwark always faces the player it's targeting, so one trap in every burst comes straight down the line at you. Step sideways and it settles harmlessly where you were.
Bulwark can't come to you, and nothing it has reaches past about 560 px. So if your gun reaches 600 px, you can kill it without taking a hit. Which classes can do that is a matter of bullet speed. A class with a normal bullet speed needs at least five points of Bullet Speed to reach past 560 px. Every sniper does it more easily: Vantage needs one point, Nightfall and Horizon need none.
The heavy-shell line can't. Sledge and Cataclysm fire slow shells, and even with all seven points in Bullet Speed they fall short of 560 px. If you're on one of those, you have to walk into turret range, so pick a side, keep moving laterally so the turret bullets miss behind you, and trade.
Your bullets stop on the boss, so Bullet Damage and Reload decide how long this takes. Penetration only matters for punching through traps in the way. The ring can't be destroyed, and every ring trap your bullet passes through drains about 1.8 penetration from it, which leaves a low-penetration shot with almost nothing.
The turrets target the nearest player. Whoever stands closest eats all four. In a group that's either a problem or a plan. Have one player with a lot of Max Health stand at the edge of turret reach and strafe, while the rest shoot from past 600 px and take nothing.
Your traps are solid to bosses and they stop boss bullets, because bullets hit traps. A Snare or Megasnare can build a wall between itself and the turrets, and turret bullets that hit the wall are spent on it. Traps you slide into the boss hit it on the way in. It's slow damage, but it's damage taken from behind cover.
At 1,950 HP Bulwark enrages once: a knockback shockwave out to 360 px that deals 12 damage, a pulsing red aura, and a ring within half a second. For the next 60 seconds the ring cooldown runs 1.9 times faster, and every ring is two rings: 28 traps in a double wall, the second laid half a step round from the first.
For a ranged player the ring upgrade doesn't matter. The hazards do. Every 3 seconds, four hazard zones erupt within 130 px of the player Bulwark is targeting. Each one hits for 10, lasts 5.5 seconds and is solid. Against a rooted boss that's the real pressure: you can't stand in one spot and shoot any more, because the ground you're standing on keeps filling in. Keep moving along an arc at the same distance. That keeps you out of turret reach and ahead of the hazards.
The enrage lasts 60 seconds and then Bulwark calms down for good.
Other bosses: Warden · Conjurer · Juggernaut · Wraithspire · Nemesis · Leviathan