EDIT: Just to be clear, I think that Rook is a very strong Demigod with a lot of potential for interesting gameplay. But he's not easy mode (like he was in the betas); you have to know how to play him and play to his strengths. Many new players overestimate his power and toughness, especially early in the game. This post is a somewhat fanciful rendition of the inner dialog of a Rook controlled by one of these new players.
Arrr. I. Am. Rook. Arrr. I. Am. Big. And. Strong. And. Hard. To. Kill. Arr.
I. Shall. Attack. The. Enemy. Arrr
I. Move. Forward.
Moving.
I. Shall. Slam. My. Hammer. ARRR! *crunch*
Wow. I. Am. Really. Strong. I. Shall. Attack. Their. Tower. Now. Arrr! *whack* *whack*
Oh. A. Demigod. Ha. Ha. It. Does. Not. Know. What. It. Is. In. For. ARR! *slap* *slap*
Wait.
What. Is. This. Sensation?
I. Feel. Pain. A. Horrible. Crumbling. In. My. Outer. Bulwarks.
My. Health. Is. Decreasing.
Perhaps. I. Should. Run?
No. Well. Actually. Perhaps. Yes.
Running.
Oh. My. God. I. Am. So. Slow.
Why. Am. I. Taking. Damage? I. Am. A. Tower.
This. Cannot. Be. Happening.
Why. Am. I. So. Slow? How. Am. I. Supposed. To. Get. Away?
*die*
Oh. My. God. Rook. Sucks.
Rook shouldn't even enter the range of a tower unless he's got significant backup or he's a very high level. That's just asking for trouble. The guy's tough, but not an unstoppable engine of destruction by a longshot. I learned early on that the rook is a defender, not an attacker. Enemies that come to fight him on his own terms are in for a beating, but if he goes out of the offensive he does so at his own risk.
Yeah, that's kind of the de-snarked version of my post . Rook *can* be a totally unstoppable offensive machine -- but you have to get him to level 10 or so and load him up with armor. It seems like no-one in Skirmish or Pantheon understands this, though. I think a lot of newbies pick him because he looks hard to kill, get killed a bunch at level 1, then decide he sucks and pick something else.
LOL.
kekeke.
It is hard to resist the urge to run up and Hammer Slam, I must admit
I just got done playing a Pantheon game as Rook. Admittedly, I got my ass kicked. He just can't stand a chance against TB. Just can't. As I learned from my horrible experience as Rook in pantheon.. DO NOT venture too far away from the base. You will get creamed, especially in the early game. Rook is best for crushing creeps near the base and keeping the flow of your creeps moving forward. In a way, that's something a general would do, and it's actually effective for Rook. Once your teammates have pushed the line forward and you've cleared the way for your creeps, tacked on some armor, leveled up, acquired abilities, and so forth... charge in as rook. But focus on structures, not demigods.
Try towers my friend. No Demigod will ever venture near ya
(Well, the AIs will, but they will be promptly melted)
I do fine attacking as rook..
and I really don't understand the obsession with the rooks towers.. they crumble after a certain time which isn't even in the description, their damage is TERRIBLE... why would you even use them? they even suck against creeps
Rooks can attack fine, as long as you know what you're doing. A tower build can pop towers within range of enemy towers and take some heat off himself, and with the right equipment he can last a long time with enemy tower eating.
Crumbling doesn't matter, the cooldown is short. Damage mostly doesn't matter either. The towers are not by themselves what's good about them. It's everything they can do for your team. The towers hold ground. They allow allies to teleport right to them, when you've got plenty of them they take a while to down and provide Rook with stuff to eat for health. And they deter the enemy from wading into the middle of them. Their damage improves with ranks, and a Rook surrounded by towers is a lot more dangerous than a Rook not surrounded by towers.
The towers are great and many people underestimate them. Playing with a tank build, getting 3 towers around you along with all the arrow upgrades any demigod that gets close will find their health deteriorating quickly and can't understand why because hey the towers suck! but 3-4 of them really ups the rooks dmg when you get in close.
Towers do no damage? Oh dear, you have much to learn.
I recently played a agme with a VERY good tower Rook. He focused SOLELY on setting up tower farms and slowly advancing them. If I were ever in trouble all I had to do was head to the farm and I was safe. Mid game when he had 6 towers + 1 shoulder tower + archers, getting near his part of the playing field (and it WAS HIS part) ment death for the enemy DG.
Point being 3 towers badly placed by themselves, not so impressive. 6 or 8 stacked together makes a part of the battl;efield that enemy DG's just wont go near and for good reason. Were talking 500+ DPS easy with that many towers. Anyone chasing into that is going to get absolutely pounded.
as an example on cataract i have managed do (almost solo) hold position on 1 of the enemy portals for over 5 minutes - when i knew i was going down i flag locked, teleported, bought catas, and whent back in
So playing offensive doesnt mean go out and die, sometimes capping/defending strategic points turns the whole game - and IMHO thats the whole point on playing rook
interesting way to phrase it....
not that your wrong. Rook is just a walking castle. that what he looks like and thats how he plays. he's actually got a great standoff range between his shoulder turrets and the towers he makes. hard to get near the guy without taking a pounding.
i guess the big problem is Hammer Slam, which seems appealing because it can do massive damage and it kinda looks cool (ROOOOK SMASH!!!!!), but it leads players to badly misplay. its nearly impossible to setup a proper Boulder Roll + Hammer Slam against anyone but the most incompetent of players. i do however see alot of people who base their strategy primarily on pulling off that combo, which leads to them getting constantly frustrated as they get kited, juked, poked, interrupted, etc. and end up with 5 deaths and 0 kills after 10 minutes.
Rook can't run away. his entire game plan has to be based on that fact. you know you can't run so you better make it so the other guy is terrified to even approach you.
I don't suck at the game, but at the moment I completely suck with Rook. That tower strategy sounds good. I guess I need to approach Rook differently and view him differently rather than as "charge in and smash". I'm a badass Reg though.
Rook is hard to play because he's so slow, so you have to be sure of what you're doing because where other demigods tend to have means of getting away, the Rook pretty much doesn't. Boulder roll is useful, and hammer slam is useful. But nobody should rely on using the combo as the primary means of combat. Other demigods have better stuns that allow you a bigger window in which to use hammer slam, but probably the most important thing about the skill is this: save it until you need it.
Your opponents can't see your skills. They don't know you have slam until you use it. They may assume you may, but if they never see you using it for anything, they might just start thinking it's a lot safer to go melee. But after you use it once, it will become hard to use it on any non-melee Demigod (and even some of those). So, just make sure you use it when it counts. Killing a level 15 Demigod with a slam matters a lot more than a killing a level 2
In other words - it's a good skill, just don't make it your main one and you'll be fine.
Speaking of hammer slam, it just has to be THE most interruptable ability in the game.
Any good player will see it coming and smite/pounce/silence/grasp/freeze/etc etc etc...
Or just run away. However, that's obviously the pay back for it having the most damage, by far, of any ability in the game.
And yeah, when you play on a team, sometimes the person you are hammering is frozen, silenced, slowed, stunned, etc. Any or all of these can be game over man!
Rook just looks like the best "tank" you'd ever want. I don't usualy play him, but a friend who's tried him seems pretty disapointed with his HP/Armor; those could really use even a small boost. I mean, even when I'm fighting "against" a Rook, I'm thinking "should'nt this thing be harder to kill"?
If your the slowest unit in the game, you just really need some more restistances to the damage that your not going to be able to outrun to compensate.
I found that UB's Venom Spit dealing 1500 DoT works much better, because one can actually land quite a few hits. also, if you're fast enough, Spit/melee/foul grasp/spit is an amazing combo that will do a HUGE amount of damage (even more if you add ooze).
So while in theory 1700dmg looks awesome, i really dont bother going past lvl2 on hammer slam - using it mostly for creeps. Same for boulder, 1 level might come handy, at most 2.
Now towers and structural transfer work great (need hp? take it off a tower thats going to self-destruct)
Well, yeah. As I said, it's the 'pay back', on the one hand, if you hit with it, it does a ridiculous amount of damage. On the other, it is hard to hit with consistently.
I'm not saying that spit/grasp/spit isn't an amazing combos, but you are comparing 3 uses of abilities, to one.
Even with spit donig a nominal 1500 (assuming no dispel on it) it is also only one target, hammer isn't.
I was using Rook one game and an enemy demigod was completely blinded by bloodlust while chasing a near-death ally of mine. So blinded that he didn't notice the hammer high above my head a few meters ahead of him as he ran directly underneath its crushing blow.
Rook is one of the few gods I really enjoy playing. His slow moving tower fortress is impenetrable to many of the other gods.. a good mage/mage or mage/reg can give him tons of grief though... The mage in particular I find is incredibly difficult to touch as a rook as range and speed have you beat. luckily by that point you should have enough armor on to weather the attacks and wait for a well placed rock roll or teamate backup. I also find that I use priests earlier as a rook than any other class and they are definitely worth it. My play style has definitely changed lately, as I'm usually DG's with a high DPS/run speed namely ub or erebus. I always try to keep a capture lock handy as well when I'm pushing so that if I become overwhelmed ( and a probe if I Have the space) near a flag deep within enemy territory I can heal up and keep an eye on enemy territory to see if I have an opportunity to rebuild.
Just out of curiousity, does anyone else use the bottom stat skills much? I usually forgo hammer slam at level 3 to put a point in to give me a just a fraction more survivability/mana/etc. and it tends to help out more than hammer slam ever has. Sure I've landed several good ones, but its really just a great empty threat most of the time. I find the structural absorb a better use of points as although it doesn't give much health, it stops the building from firing on your or your units...and its great for sucking up towers about to go once you have a bit more mana.
Poor rook. He's a walking pile of bricks yet he has one of the lowest armor out of all demigods. ROOK SMASH.
Well, I would like to revive the Rook thread and just reinforce that the Tower Rook is probably the best strategy to date. Ive won most of my games with it. And one thing I didn't see mentioned in the posts was that the Rooks towers also can CONNECT with the towers that are protecting your base. And if you have a chain of those fingering into the enemies side of things, your effectively using one of your bases tougher towers to hammer the enemies creeps, demis, and if you really get devious, to attack the enemies towers as well while munching them with the building consume ability.
Thats really the best way to use him, I never get hammer smash anymore, I work on getting the tower first for early creep farming, then the archer tower, then usually the building consume, then work on those from there. Then once those are upgraded to the near-highest point I start working on the rooks health+ bonuses. The only weakness in my strategy usually tends to be the fact I concentrate on getting the Rook more mana items then health items so I can spam towers and building consume more often and start eating the enemies base pretty fast.
Rook can easily push towers at level 4, I really don't get where you're coming from with the level 10 talk. Just set up three towers out of range, drop one in range, fall back, and set up a second on in range, and then start building all of them there. Just beware of enemy DGs, but if they fail to react you'll drop the tower quite quickly.
Very very quickly, in my expereince. Rooks of any flavor absolutely own enemy towers.
OM NOM NOM NOM +HP!
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