This is for how to counter Rook players who know what's they are doing.
Group up and hunt other demigods to get more gold, buy stuffs to outlast the Rook.
I am not kidding.
See, Rook is pretty much immobile; he won't go outside of his forest of towers. Thus he cannot help his mates at all, unless they choose to go into the forest of towers. Most maps are huges and many points availeble, that Rook alone cannot dominate all points at once.
Not to mention the enemy demigods you will encounter are always outnumbered by your group as well.
Only exceptions are exile (only two choke points) and Crucible (only ONE choke point).... You are pretty much doomed againt Rook(s) unless your side also has a Rook player.
But again it does not mean that towers are op or broken (personally I think they are fine since disadvantages mentioned above.)
Upgrade building health and damage at your base and the advancement of Rook will be slower as well.
Good advice indeed. However there are ways to actually take on the Rook in his farm.
The most important thing to realise is that going after Rook in his farm is not going to work. Too much firepower and anything other then a concentrated team effort is not going to do it. However almost every demigod has a way to deal with this tactic.
You need to take down the farm. Whether you do this by outranging the towers (regulus) or AoE'ing them/stunning them (Torch) or simply do too much damage to them (UB's spit) for rook to keep up with, you can take them down. 1 or 2 towers is not dangerous. 6-8 are. Fortunately they can be destroyed fairly easily and do not regenerate. Needless to say the best time to do this is while he is tryingt to build the farm. It takes less time to destroy a tower then it does for Rooks tower power to cooldown. Add in that mana limits your tower placements and having them destroyed will dry you up very quickly (unless its late game and the mana regen is through the roof, then your just playing on the cooldown).
You can also keep a Rook from advancing very easily. Most rooks will make a farm and then move slightly ahead to build a new farm or a single tower to use as a launch point. If you are there waiting, taking down the towers as he puts them down, he will have an impossible time advancing. More importantly if you can do this to him at a point where his tower farm will be outside of where the waves are clashing, he wont be getting experience and gold as well.
Ive seen people use these tactics against Rook and ive had them used on me when I play Rook. It is VERY frustrating for the Rook player.
One last note, if you see an unatended tower farm. Spend the time to take it down, its worthwhile. It will take Rook another minute or two of standing in one place placing towers to get it back up (or much longer if you are harassing him and the towers while he does it).
The Rook isn't save in his tower fortress at all. Ranged attacks by the QoT, Regulus or even UB's spit can bring him down eventually.
tower damage is mitigated by Armor, meaning that Rook's "Tower of the Power" ability might be the only activated ability in the game that is affected by Armor.
Rook's shoulder turret damage is also affected by armor.
if you're playing a melee type DG that has to stand in the tower forest to attack rook (Beast, Sedna, Oak) then you'll benefit greatly (against Rook anyway) from emphasizing your armor stat in equipment choices.
This doesn't work for 2 reasons.
1. Leaving rook alone allows him to creep and level faster than any of the other demigods. If you let rook get too high, he can pretty much solo your citadel.
2. Rook left to his own devices will slowly advance towards your base or portal flags. He isn't immobile at all... He can set up shop wherever he wants and whenever he wants. This means if you're not holding him back... there's no reason he won't just go set up shop on your portal flags.
Basically... leaving rook alone is not a counter to his tower build at all. In fact... its possibly the worst way to deal with it. You never leave a demigod to their own devices, it gives them just as much money and experience as letting them kill you (more over time).
The best way to counter rook's tower build is to rely on ranged attacks, regulus is great for it especially early game. He can stand just outside of the tower's reach (with one upgrade) and take them down. Dropping mines at your feet, if rook becomes impatient you take the instant advantage. If you do this early enough, it might discourage rook out of the tower build all together. If it doesn't you can at least halt his advance and gain some money and exp in the processes.
hit rook while hes setting up. Regulus mine ability is set off by towers, combine that with him outranging the towers makes regulus a pretty nasty counter to tower rook. In pantheon thats another story...
A single player can generally harass rook enough to slow his tower crawl down ALOT, or stop it earlier in the game. Once hes set up he makes for a invaluable safe haven for allied heroes, and if he sets up in your terriory getting him out is TOUGH.
Rook is a bit of a juggernaut. He is big, and slow, but given time he can become quite the force to be reckoned with. The key is to keep him from gaining momentum, or finding a way to slow him down after he starts ploughing through your base.
Don't give Rook time to setup a tower farm! If you can keep him moving then he can't set up his towers in a nice deadly bunch.
Regulus, TB, and QoT are probably the most suited for fighting a Rook.
Frost TB is probably the worst foe that a Rook can face. Rook is already slow, and if you slow him down more he will not be able to escape. Frost TB also has the ability to increase the cooldown on Rooks abilities, which means fewer towers over a period of time. If all else fails a Frost TB can freeze the towers... I think even Erebus stun effects them, but I'm not positive.
Regulus has the range and the mines to clear out tower farms and keep a Rook at bay, but this isn't helpful if you play a lot of Pantheon.
QoT is has plenty of anti-structure abilities, much like the Rook. Uproot, Shamblers, and Siege Idols are all great ways to take down towers. Spikewave and Ground Spikes are decent vs tower farms, but if you can't hit the Rook with these abilities then it might not be worth using against the tower farm; Rook can easily replace lost towers, so unless you can hurt him or take out multiple towers you might be better off saving your mana. Ground Spikes will make the towers easier to kill due to the -armor effect of the ability.
The towers seem to be affected by armor, so having a high armor makes it easier to withstand their attacks.
The Unclean beast can use spit on the towers, but he's better off hitting the Rook to help scare him away.
Oak and Sedna aren't really suited for fighting Rook, but their minions can work as a decent distraction against Rooks that don't manually control their towers.
Erebus can mass up minions pretty easily, and those minions are very capable against the tower farm (or going straight for the Rook), and the minions are easily expendable.
Do NOT ignore rook! Ever!
Yeah, rook solo builds better than any DG out there. And heck, if he has a General with priests nearby, he can pretty much push through to your citadel without returning to base for more than maybe a better hat.
Since he can kill towers starting from pretty much level 1, he gets extra gold and exp. Couple that with the fact his towers will make sure he gets kill credit for pretty much every grunt, and he gets even MORE gold. All this adds up to him maximizing his solo lane time, as well as being able to actively persue victory.
Unclean beasts spit, regulus various toys, and TB's area of effect abilities are all very good ways to deal with a Tower farming Rook.
I was just DOMINATED in a tournament game. I got paired with an Erebus and I was QoT, we both generally knew what we were doing. Guess who we got paired up against? 2 rooks on the 2 vs 2 map. (starts with a c, has only one path to the enemy base) We both thought of the bright idea to port out straight away and cap the flags fast, by time we got back to start killing the first wave of minions we found that our opponents were rooks and they already had 4 towers up. As they placed them in such a way to limit our ability to run past them to re-cap our flags while defending the only path to their base, basically all we could do was sort of sit there and watch ourselves get slaughered.
I'm really starting to hate rook's towers.
Killing tower rook is not that hard, even if he has a couple of towers nearby.
* Wait for reinforcements. If you're a general, you already got them. Otherwise wait until the creeps come so they soak up the damage.
* Pound Rook, ignore Towers If you're too weak to fight rook even without his tower farm, then nothing short of ganking will help you.
* Interrupt Rook's self-heal. Many rooks rely on Structural Transfer. You have plenty of time to stop that from happening. Stun him or destroy the tower he is currently munching ... that stops his heal, too.
Any other tips would be DG specific, but these general tactics work for everyone.
Well, by time we got to attacking rooks we'd both die. I'm not saying we sucked but there were far too many towers and pounding rook/using reinforcements didn't really help. It was a bad matchup since Erebus and QoT have a hard time, (at least QoT does in the beginning of the game) against all those towers on a small map. If we tried letting the reinforcements soak damage to try and gank a rook we'd get chain boulder rolled and die. Oh well, it happens, and I doubt we'll be seeing two rooks on the same map in tourny again with the same matchup.
You forgot TB annhilating all of it while the towers are frozen doing nothing
Torch+ring of fire= dead rook towers
When I play Rook I'm more concerned about Rain of Ice because with Circle of Fire they have to get close enough to get several towers in the circle, making themselves vulnerable to Boulder Roll.
I will also put in that if you ignore the Rook that isn't smart. Constantly harassing him is a better idea. Never underestimate him though if hes a decent player, early game the Rook can get slapped down hard, I died 6 times in like the first 10 minutes then came back to win the game with my ally with 5 kills and still only 6 deaths, two of those kills at near the same time since my enemies thought i was still weaksauce and let me rock roll/hammer slam them.
A good Rook is mobile, even without his forest of Towers. The basis for your guide is sound, assuming that the Rook capping key flags, his team mates are retarded, and you've an organized group.
Some Demigod's can win 2v1 scenarios. Some Demigod combos can do great against 3v2. Below is a copypasta of my miniguide to stop a Tower Rook. It provides scenarios for different time frames occasions, not just one locked down attempt.
Mini Guide. How to stop the Towering Rook:
Minions. Most Generals have access to Minions. Some of those Minions are designed for Seige. Use them as they were meant to. Have them swarm the Towers while you focus on the Demigod.
Catapults. QQ.
Trebuchets. Yes, they target Rook Towers and take them down pretty quick.
Mana draining, cool down increasing abilities. The basis of a Towering Rook is mana. Remove that option.
Harassment. Early game, harasst he Rook. Don't let him creep, flag, or destroy buildings. The Rook heavily relies on creeping/flagging for XP. If you let him get powerful, you lose all right to complain.
Focus Fire. If you have multiple heroes and you target all of your attention on towers, one at a time, they will be gone before he can overwhelm you.
Torch Bearer AOE freeze effect, very good on Towers.
Regulus... That's it, just this annoying prick.
Location. A smart Rook chooses a location on the map to buckle down. Play smart, force the Rook to move from that spot into another area. Don't let Rook setup a trap for you. Don't let the Rook push you. When you play into your enemies game, they will always have an advantage. It's one of the key foundations of Sun Tsu' Art of War, and it applies aptly to STRATEGY based games.
The Rook is not over powered nor underpowered. He is the ONLY SUPPORT ASSASSIN Demigod. His Towers exist, even after death as they are meant for a support role for yourself and your fellow Demigods. In terms of 1v1 with other Demigod classes, the Rook is one of the worst Demigod killer, even when compared to some of the Generals. His strengths, much like his origin, lay within' defense. Taking an area and holding it, slowly but surely pushing forward.
Most games against a rook I usually harass them and force them out if possible. The other tactic when playing sedna or some others is to get low on health maybe half or less then bait the rook out of the farm some then heal up and wail on them till dead.
Regulus with range upgrade can attack the towers down.
Fire TB absolutely obliterates towers. When the wave of creeps moves in, go in with them and drop a ring of fire in the middle of the towers. You will fry bunch at a time. Then back up and wand the little bit of health they have left. If you keep killing his creep waves with ring of fire he can't really push your tower to structural transfer either. So he is stuck playing back and being attritioned out by your fireballs.
Regulus -> Obvious. Range + mines.
QoT -> I don't play her but I'm sure someone can make an uproot/shield build to counter Rook completely.
TB -> Already said and obvious.
Rook -> Hammer, Transfer build should work great. Wait for creeps to get tower attention, hammer, and transfer off a tower whenver he does. This causes the towers to crumble faster and takes away his main damage source while healing you. This build is less mana intensive than Tower Rook so you will regen HP faster and be able to maintain the pace longer. This build WILL crush a Towering Rook with, you've guessed it, no more towers left and at least allow you to hold your ground.
Sedna -> If you have the massive regen/tanky Sedna build it's pretty much fight till you're low, regen, come back. I don't really know how Sedna could overcome Tower Rook assuming both players know what they're doing.
Oak -> No damn clue. Perhaps hit and run Rook with Pentinence but he'll simply Transfer. Anyone got something for this guy?
Erebus -> Not quite sure about this one either. Minions could soak up a little damage but in the end I don't see Erebus coming out on top of this one either.
UB -> You can spit on them...or him. Either way he'll make is move forwards one big ass step at a time. Another tough matchup where you'd do better off in another lane.
Just my experience, feel free to chime in with what's ACTUALLY worked for you against ACTUAL NON-AI opponents. Oh yeah, no stories of how you stomped some scrubs yard either, thanks.
Best tactic against tower rook is to kill Rook himself.
I occasionally play a decent trook as well and to keep fueled for towers, transfer and one attack skill, we tend to stack up on helmets. We need a good mana supply to keep rebuilding towers.
That means we have less armor and health than an assassin rook would have.
If you spec for high health, damage and armor, then you should be able to kill rook even inside his farm. I'm not saying it's easy, but even trooks have more than just one disadvantage.
After taking care of rook, take care of the farm.
I've found the best scenario, for me as UB so far, is to go for trebuchets. It severly limits the distance he can close on your base. If he tries to truck through and charge your base you can easily kill him as any towers he summons will go down quick.
Towering is really only good in the early game. It takes 16 seconds to throw up 2 towers at lvl 1, and that will be sufficient to deter any lvl 1 demigod. At lvl 10, it takes anywhere between 64-80 seconds to throw up 8 towers. The Rook has to throw up more towers at later levels to sufficiently deter enemy DGs, and this take more time.
Plus, DGs keep getting stronger, but Rook towers don't get more powerful after level 10. Catapultasaurii can outrange towers, which means that the Rook will have to run outside of his protective fortress to kill them. As mentioned before, trebuchets can easily take towers out.
At level 20, towers pose very little threat to enemy DGs. A Rook will have spent four points in a skill that is useless in the endgame. Rooks have to switch strategies at the endgame in order to still be a viable threat to the other team. The Rook's only advantage when using towers is fast farming that allows him to level up faster, and block lanes in the early game.
Personally, what I like to do is press the Rook into a lane where there aren't creeps. You can do this by either stealing flags (with a gank group) in the middle, or just getting your gank group to attack the Rook. While this won't work on smart rooks, frequently I can get ones that just HAVE to set up towers to cap the middle of cataract, and the 20% exp flag means nothing when rook isn't getting any EXP (unless he was smarter and put his towers in creep range, in which case he is farming ALL the creeps. But then you have a nice buffer to push him back.)
Basically... just bully him into a bad choke to hold, and make him hold it!
As an UB, I go try to keep spitting on Rook as much as possible, getting mana hats to keep up the spam. He'll use transfer to try to counter, but it has a horrible cooldown and eats up his defense, in which case, you come out winning as he retreats and you can wail on the forest and force him back. Putrid Flow is like the absolute comeback skill against tower rooks, sadly, it's lv15 and by that time, he's pushing the portals.
When I play Rook I just counter this by lining my towers as a wall so when UB gets close to spit he gets jolted by at least 4 towers at a time.
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