Pure Aggro Rook’s Build
I. Intro
Most of the time, The Rook is played with his tower farm build. And when he’s outside of his farm, he seems to become a weak, slow prey. I’m sure the vast majority of players seeing a Rook alone, with no tower around him, just want to engage a fight with him. And they’re pretty sure they can make him run or, thanks to his slowness, get a kill. I want to create fear amongst my opponents with Rook.
II. Abilities
Level 1 Hammer Slam I
Level 2 Archer Tower
Level 3 /
Level 4 Hammer Slam II
Level 5 Boulder Roll I + Tower of Light
Level 6 God Strength I
Level 7 Hammer Slam III
Level 8 Trebuchet
Level 9 /
Level 10 Hammer Slam IV + Boulder Roll II
Level 11 God Strength II
Level 12 Power of the Tower I
Level 13 /
Level 14 /
Level 15 Dizzying Force + Poisoned Arrows + Boulder Roll III
Level 16 God Strength III
Level 17 to 20 are up to you. I personally take Enhanced Attributes I to IV.
Don’t forget a single level of God Strength will allow you to kill an entiere wave of small creep units in one hit. Anyway, Tower of Light should be taken first, as it increases Archer Tower's damages considerably.
One level of Power of the Tower seems efficient, to give your allies the opportunity to TP near you, when towers and flags are uncertain around.
III. Items
a ) Favor item:
Blood of the Fallen. No hesitation. It gives you such a huge health boost for early game that it is necessary. Thanks to it, you’re going to stay longer on your lane, which means more XP and more gold.
b ) Items:
At the beginning, buy Scalemail & Banded Armor. Same logic than BotF, it allows you to stay longer on battlefield. Sell Scalemail or Banded Armor if you don’t have room anymore.
What items do you really need when you can afford them?
Unbreakable Boots, one of the best item for its price.
Vlemish Faceguard, you need one mana item to perform Boulder/Slam combo several times. Try to have it by level 5 or 6.
Nimoth Chest Armor, very good armor and health.
What items should you buy if you’re rich (or if you have troubles in 1v1)?
Narmoth’s Ring, the life steal from the huge damages you’re doing may be very useful. The 20 HPS and getting life from your shoulder weapons is great also.
Groffling Warplate & Mage Slayer are very strong artifacts but cost a lot of money. You should buy them only if you really can't 1v1 opponents. Otherwise, it would be better to buy citadel upgrades.
c ) Consumables Items
Early game, try to have a Small Health Potion and a Scroll of Teleporting at all time, to escape dangerous situation. Having one Totem of Revelation early game could be useful for the passive bonus of +5 vision radius. Drop it as soon as you have no room anymore.
For mid game and late game, you must have several Capture Lock, Scroll of Teleporting & one Sigil of Vitality at all time. The sigil is an extremely good consumable for duel and fleeing. Master it and your games won't be the same.
Two good items you can choose are Wand of Speed & Orb of Defiance. The first one will help you to run after or run away from another DG. The second one will give you invincibility to buy you time, to end Boulder / Slam cooldown or to give an ally the time to come and help you. Remember it will close one of your slot and you won’t be able to carry the three essentials consumables items (Sigil of Vitality / Scroll of teleporting / Capture lock). Choose what you prefer.
When having those items, keep your money for citadel upgrades.
IV. Tricks & Tips
90% of the time, this build won’t change. But a good player must adapt his build to different situations.
One very important thing, this build WON’T work if you don’t master the Boulder Roll + Hammer Slam combo. Boulder Roll III makes the combo easier than the two first levels of course, as it stuns longer. The more levels you got, the more powerful & easy to perform the combo is.
Without Boulder Roll, Hammer Slam is really easy to interrupt. Know when to use it before level 5. Wait that Oak cast Penitence to reduce your armor and go for Slam right after.
Fighting two enemy demigods with a friendly demigod is nice, you can try to Boulder/Slam them at the same time, doubling the effect for the same price.
When a demigod is purchasing you into your towers, even if you’re going to die, it may be sometimes efficient to suddenly turn over and Boulder/Slam him. If he’s not too high in life, that could kill him, and sometimes save you.
You can pretend Hammer Slamming to make opponents run away, then quickly click somewhere else to cancel it.
If there’s no enemy demigod nearby, and you feel confident, hit 2 or 3 times the enemy tower when your waves of creep are dying under its attacks. You can do that even with first wave.
Don’t forget, you’re very slow. It’s difficult to escape a dangerous situation. You really need to anticipate. Engaging two enemy demigods is something you should never do, except if you feel that you can take them both down alone.
You can fake teleporting, then quickly click somewhere else to make ennemies DG use their stuns.
Most of the time, remember you’re a lane keeper, not a flag catcher. I usually go for Health Flag if there’s one.
Ninja teleporting on a flag an enemy demigod is capturing then directly Boulder / Slam him is very effective, this should get you kills.
nice guide. i havent tried the build, but this was well written.
good build, i`ll try it thx.
I use almost this exact same build and it is very very effective if you learn to time it right so your slams finish the enemy from levels 1-10 when hp is lower. It is also strong late game due to the added stats.a few suggestions:
drop boulder roll III for 6th point in stats - roll III is very mana intensive, and with a 2 second stun from roll II you won't be interrupted anywayalso, some games require the use of structural transfer, some require the use of towers, a good rook player needs to adjust to the map, game type, and enemy demigods e.g. crucible take towers lvl 12->15 to block off the single lane, big maps take 1 in transfer at lvl 3 or 12.
ah yes and don't forget to pick up a wand of speed as well as boots
nice guide
Hey!
I played with this guy just hours ago, decent player, he and his team totally smoked mine. Although my teammates weren't the best. I trying an ooze UB build that everyone seems to think is godlike couldm't beat him, although this may be a team feeding problem too or my own incompetence at UB.
I play Rook myself and I would say you should take tower I and maybe tower II since their so effective at the beginning of the game while Hammer Smash without Rook Roll cant be relied on. A Sedna would smoke you for instance.
Wow, this is exactly the skill progression I have been using the past few days. Occasionally I skip the Trebuchet though to get God Strength II immediately upon reaching level 10; depending on how much I need the extra chasing power and on which seems more useful for knocking down towers at the time.
And to elaborate on level 5 -- I usually will only pick God Strength I before Tower of Light if I think I'll get a lot of chances to hit their towers. A laser on your shoulder and a bunch of early speed is great for getting a few hundred more damage on a running enemy you've just 2v1'd.
It's worth trying with Swift Anklet too, and either standard starting items or Boots of Speed immediately. Less staying power but usually not a problem if you try to stick with teammates. Also saves a bunch of money on scrolls and lets you adapt to the situation much quicker. And you can get out of range of towers as the last creep dies.
Taking a level or two of Power of the Tower is okay early on, but I've had more success just following this build because of how strong it gets at levels 10 and 15. Definitely agree that it sucks up too much mana -- plus building towers takes time from doing other things, like hitting towers/forts and slamming people. The simulatenous upgrades in Hammer and God Strength later provide more than enough damage. And just a couple points in it will mean they're weaker than a full tower build, which already loses steam later in the game -- while getting better rolls, hammers, and melee will stay useful.
And never forget that Boulder Roll does have a great range! It's useless for the Roll + Slam combo but is great in a number of other situations--
1. Catching fleeing DGs with minimal health remaining. Will finish him or let you get close enough to do more with the shoulder upgrades.
2. Helping teammates. Netted a number of asissts by rolling someone who would've otherwise gotten away from a teammate.
3. Getting in that one last creep wave when you're on your way back to the crystal/shop.
4. Bowling over lines of catapultasauri if you're losing.
Just don't do it if you need the mana or might need to slam someone within the next 15 seconds.
I bet it really hurts when you lose the game at level 14 though .
My general build doesn't bother with God strength until level 11 and 12. Mainly because I don't ever assume I'm in melee range with someone. That said, it is hard to ignore +50 damage.
God Strength also "sends smaller units flying", let's you farm a lot faster or control creeps waves.
Tried this out in a couple of games last night, it's got really nice survivability and you can scare people out of lanes just by waddling after them with tower of light blasting them in the back. But it felt really hard to get kills once the levels start rolling in, because enemies are too scared to even come near you long enough for wyrmskin to proc. I think I'll grab the boots of speed and grab the wand if I use it again, because I just went full HP items.
I think I would prefer Roll III anyway. I almost never have mana problem during late game and stunning +0.5 sec (& +100 damages ) can make no difference in some situation, but can sometimes get you a kill you wouldn't have had (or letting a team mate perform the kill).
I agree on the need to adjust sometimes, any good build shouldn't be static. But most of the time, this build don't change (btw, you're totally right for Crucible).
I almost never use Wand of speed, I really need to test it more, I think I misestimate a little the power of this item. I'll give a try!
...if you try to stick with teammates. My plan is to keep one lane alone (most of the time), so survivability is far better imo. But I try to get Boots of speed asap, I agree.
If people are scared comin' nearby you, you're definitely doing well! That often means kills will come soon!
Yeah Wand and Boots is neccessary here IMO, both for suriviability and killing potential. I recommend skipping on the Wyrmskins though, as no one is silly enough to fight a rook in melee combat for very long. Most of your damage is from boulder/roll and shoulder weapons. I'd say replace Wyrmskins with Hauberk of Life or a second helm.
Honestly, save the slots on boots and wand, and just get a few 450 gold rejuv potions. Instead of running, stay and kill them.
I have a tweaked version of this build. I stick a tower and structural transfer in the first couple levels(depending on how annoying my lane opponent is). Tower is useful for TP point for your team and with Rook's rather large posterior, you can oftentimes hide a incoming teleport of a teammate and thats more useful than the weak level 1 hammer smash in my opinion. Also, if you get structural transfer you can munch on towers to increase your staying potential.
Favor items: Staff of renewal. -20% on cd with +200/175 hp/mana. Gives opportunity for that extra roll/smash that you coulda won a fight w/. Amulet of teleportation will save you oodles of cash, xpecially on the bigger ones.
Some other alternatives for items:
Early game: Try getting scale helm and scale mail. You've got naturally high hp and you shouldn't really die early game.If you get tower of light and structrual transfer early, you have a pretty large staying presence as well.
Narmoth Ring: Its actually pretty damn good for rook. Gives you more hp, gives you great hp/sec. AND your shoulder mounts also life steal.
In games where people are super fast, sometimes its just not worth trying to keep up with the joneses. If you see that you've got an opposing sedna/Ub/fire tb whipping out Wands of Speed early game, its probably not worth trying to try and out speed them. Instead I'd just suggest you tank up and make them come to you. A lot of your killing opportunities come from teleport ganks so make sure you leave base with at least 2 ports.
Life steal with the shoulder mounts is great. If you need some quick health you can walk around next to a creep battle and get +1 health for every arrow that hits.
6th of July, 2009 → Aggro Rook guide update.
New stuff, better presentation. Mainly thanks to your feedback.
Feel free to comment
Interestingly, I use almost the same build except I replace the hammer slam with towers. I find that with Vlemish and Planor I easily have enough mana to spam towers and rolls pretty much continuously. I can completely cover a lane with towers and let my trebuchet handle enemy towers from a safe distance. If anyone attempts to attack me, I retreat into my tower farm. If they follow, I'll boulder roll them and attack. The combination of the stun plus Wyrmskin can get some good kills. It's a totally different build from this, as it's really defensive while this is totally offensive. But the idea is still the same, skipping two main lines to concentrate on one main line and all the secondary lines.
This is a pretty good guide.A RookRoll build is extremely effective.
I'm a little concerned that you save your skill points for a very long time. IMO, most games are decided before level 15. Sticking a few points in towers gives you some serious holding potential and doesn't require you to save skill points for 4 levels.
Towers are good 1 - 4. Saving for 15 gives a huge boost at 15, and doesn't much affect gameplay till 15. If the game is going slow dumping points into stat boost is advisable instead of saving. From my personal experience though, playing as a tower rook till level 5 and then going boulder/slam is much more effective overall, however your killing potential is limited before you reach level 10.
Getting Power of the Tower late game is really useless, you will spend your mana for nearly nothing.
However, it's true that if I feel the game won't last until I am level 15 (either I'll win or lose before), I'm getting Enhanced Attributes after level 11.
If I can reach level 15, this is really enjoyable: most of the time, if an ennemy DG comes too close, he will die before he can even think of fleeing
Every Rook build needs 1 point in power of the Tower. Giving your allies a teleport target is EASILY worth 400 mana and a skill point. I generally get it at level 1, but I think getting it at, say , level 8 isn't too bad either.
29th of September, 2009 → Aggro Rook guide update.
Several major changes and I have given up the "optional" choices.
Huh, this is exactly the build that I use as Rook all the time . Damn you for making it public
This is a terrible build.
Endgame we get slaugthered, our DPS is horrible, we rely on hammer way too much.
Speed rook with towers and hammer is the best way to go.
Again, terrible build. In 3vs3 any good team will know how to counter you.
Stack HP + dps. You have a build lol
People will find any way to butcher any uniqueness of the demigods. just go pick ooze beast.
Not having a single point in towers negates rooks most overpowered abiliy, the ability to take down a tower by himself at level 1 by confusing the base tower with your tower placement.
No one can TP to you
It's just a weaker version of tower rook with boulder slam and shoulder cannons. I don't see what this achieves that the other doesn't except for more hp, but you don't need more hp when you can chill by a tower.
@ TigerL0rd, I don't need advices from a player who played 58 games and lose nearly half of them.
@ PG ... I know, you're the best player around. Thanks for the advice but... just get lost.
I'm always OK to play a game with/against pros to show the efficacity of this build.
this build is actuallly fery goood if u jave sedena parter.
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