Towers suck.
The Rook can become an unstoppable lumbering juggernaut. You can crush enemy demigods in two mighty blows, send creeps flying, and steamroll your way to the enemy fortress. But if you want to become a mobile platform of death you have to start by skipping Power of the Tower.
Yup, I've found The Rook to be a very effective demigod when I'm ignoring Power of the Tower completely. Towers certainly have their place and make for great defence. But I've found that you need to move around a lot in this game to pursue or flee enemy demigods. Towers can make an area easier to defend but they wont save you if you're ganged up on by 3 demigods. And that tower farm doesnt help when you TP across the map to save an ally, protect a flag, or gang up on an enemy demigod.
This shouldn't be such a surprise though. The Rook actually has great default stats. He's loaded with Health and deals great autoattack damage. His armor is good too. Rook also has impressive AoE and burst damage powers and a great stun. His only real limitation is that he's slow and easy to target.
The Skills:
Early Game Strategy:
Start the game by double-clicking on your god's image the second the game begins. This stops the screen from circling and allows you to click on the item shop. Buy Totem of Revelation, Banded Armor, and either Scale Mail or Gauntlets of Brutality. Then zoom out and start walking to the most important flag in a lane with creeps. On Leviathan this flag is the 'Debilitating Flag' (10% extra damage to enemies) and on Cataract it's the +15% health flag. Ignore fighting over any flag in a lane without creeps. You'll have to let your allies handle that early on because you are relatively weak until level 4.
On the way to your flag you choose your first ability (Hammer Slam I) and your favor item. Blood of the Fallen is a safe and effective choice in most cases. But another great option is Blade of the Serpent. The BoS allows you to skip buying any mana items all game long AND adds to your DPS. Its a great choice on Cataract. Less valuable on Leviathan since there's a +15 mana per sec tower in your base. Heaven's Wrath is fun and keeps you levelling up but is less of a team-friendly power.
Your next purchase should be either Scaled Helm or Unbreakable Boots if possible. Choose the piece based on the map and your mana usage and favor item choice. Don't buy it until you are forced back to the citadel due to low health and mana though. Stick it out in your lane as long as possible to stay ahead of the level curve. If you are forced back to the crystal before then buy either Scale Mail or Gauntlets of Brutality, a TP scroll, and citadel defence upgrades if possible.
'The Juggernaut' will rely on Hammer Slam to get rolling in the early game. This is your creep-clearing power right from level one. One shot will clear a whole wave of creeps if you target properly. It's also your demigod-slaying power, but that's a lot harder. Until you get Boulder Roll most demigods will be able to flee a Hammer Slam. This is fine! You can interrupt your own Hammer Slam by moving before the animation completes. You don't need to kill every demigod right away, you just need to control your lanes and flags, farm creeps, and level up. You'll find that when you aren't laying down towers that you actually have plenty of mana to go around and you can Hammer Slam frequently.
Try to keep 2 TP scrolls handy from here on out. You also always want at least 1 Combat Health Potion. This is especially handy when fighting Regulus. You need a 1 second heal to deal with incoming Snipe. Eventually you'll upgrade to Robust Health Potion for field work. You may need to trade in your Totem or Revelation at this point if you are facing a good Regulus to deal with his Snipes.
It's critical to identify when you are about to get ganged up on, and back off before that happens. You are going to be slow all game. You need to learn when to run and when to stay with The Rook. This is different than with anyone else. With Rook you have to run before you are in combat. Once you're in combat you often can't escape unless you teleport away. You need to know who is coming, whether he has a stun or not, and whether you are getting ganged up on. That's why you always carry TP scrolls and Totem of Revelation. Using them to estimate the combat is critical to this build.
You need to hang around on the front lines as long as possible, using towers for cover when needed. You shouldn't have to retreat to the crystal more than once or twice before midgame. This is important so that you level up. Farm creeps, chase demigods out of your lane, and use creeps to attack towers. Whittle away as much as possible but be fairly cautious early on.
Mid Game Strategy:
As you go from early game to mid game your want to eyeball Assassins Footguards, Bloodstone Ring, and Plenor Battlecrown. If you are doing well though you should stick it out in the front lines and save money. Skip Vlemish Faceguard with this build. Use Plenor if you're having mana issues and write me a thank-you note for saving you 250 gold. Otherwise choose the item based on whether your on offense or defence and match that with your skill point choices.
By this point you will have the awesome combo of Hammer Slam plus Boulder Roll. Using this is CRITICAL. You want to save Boulder Roll for when an enemy is in melee with you. Roll, and immediately Hammer Slam centering on the enemy demigod. Most times this will deal the full 1500 damage to your enemy at lvl 7. Be aware of enemy stun, though. Oak, Sedna, and Beast all have fast activating stuns that interrupt either of your powers. You need to autoattack them until they waste their own stuns, THEN you levy the combo. Your autoattack is better than anyone else in the game, and your health is number one. Just don't waste your powers and get stunned and you'll win any 1 on 1 combo. I can take on 'Ooze' Beast builds and win with the Juggernaut.
Once you get Boulder Roll you will also be using a lot more mana. This makes it more difficult to clear creeps with Hammer Slam and still be prepared to combat enemy demigods. This is one reason to take God Strength. Not only does it give you a phenomenal DPS upgrade, but it deals AoE damage and knocks away small creeps.
Remember that this is a team game! Your allies can stun as well, which opens you up to Hammer Slam for free, and follow up with a Boulder Roll as the enemy runs away. This is ideal. Your Boulder Roll has a huge range which also helps you save the occassional ally from getting ganked. It's really an incredible power as long as you aim it right.
Also remember that your Juggernaut doesn't need to kill everything with Hammer Slam, even though it's a lot of fun. If you weaken your enemy to 500 health and he's running away out of melee range, you can still kill him with free attacks from your Archer and Tower of Light shoulder mounts. Just don't overpursue.
Eventually you want to get Narmoth's Ring. You're going to deal a lot of autoattack damage, which Narmoth's Ring converts to free healing. You also need to buy either Platemail of the Crusader or Groffling Warplate. That's all you should need other than citadel upgrades and consumables. Other items to think about are Wand of Speed and Sigil of Vitality.
Eventually you can take Trebuchet, which is intended as an offensive weapon. Don't take it if you're stuck on defense, and don't stick yourself on defense or chasing flags if you've taken Trebuchet. At this point you need to be stumbling around on the front lines, clearing creeps, and taking down towers. With Rook this happens when your not even attacking directly. Your shoulder and head attacks will do the work for you while you swat at creeps and enemy demigods. Just don't get killed and wander around outside of tower defence range if you have to.
Late Game Strategy:
Things rarely even get to late game nowadays. But if you make it to level 15 you are in position to absolutely dominate. You will have multiple powers to slow your enemies. Few opponents can stand up to a 2000 damage Hammer Slam combo and deal with your autoattacks afterwards. By late game Rook's towers are relatively worthless , but you didn't waste skill points on them. This build maximizes your power by level 15 and really makes you into an unstoppable Juggernaut. The tactics really don't change much, you just keep dealing more damage. Since Hammer Slam and Tower Archers will slow your enemies you'll start getting easy kills from anyone crazy enough to get into melee with you.
At some point you can look into buying Mage Slayer and Girdle of the Giants. But your gold is probably better spent on Citadel upgrades by now. You shouldn't need anything more than the affordable midgame items I listed above.
You lost me at towers suck... Being able to control multiple flags simultaneously is incredibly useful. That being said yes rook roll builds are fun and highly effective as well. But saying towers suck is definitely inaccurate.
Towers don't suck, but playing as a tower rook is boring as hell.I use a very similar build to the OP.I have played as all demigods/builds, and slam rook is the most fun build by far. Going in 1v2 and letting off a perfect slam to nail a double smite is priceless.It takes a bit of practice with a) not dying lots in the early game b ) mastering the timing to land a "finisher" slam and c) learning to fake cast like a pro to make the enemy waste interrupts, but the rewards are well worth it.@OP I tend to put lvl 12 point in either stats or transfer (depending on how many buildings are left + map) then save 13, 14, 15 for max slam, max shoulders, max god strength as soon as you hit lvl 15. Then put the rest in stats. I only use 2 points in boulder roll because a) no-one will ever interrupt the slam after it and b ) lvl 3 costs way too much mana. Final build, slam maxed, shoulders maxed, lvl 2 roll, god of strength maxed, stats maxed.Items: Blood of the Fallen, Narmoths Ring, Mageslayer, Nimroths Armor, Groffling Warplate, Vlemish Helm.Early game items: banded armor + scaled helm at start, +800g -> gauntlets + scalemail +1500g -> nimroths -> +1100g swap gauntlets for unbreakable bootsp.s. learn to fake cast town portals too
Towers are very strong early game. Most people agree that starting off with towers then changing to boulder/slam middle game is the best way to "roll".Start the game slow and steady control lanes. Don't give off the fact you have hammer slam until you have rank 3+ roll. People do not see it coming. My build = ....1. Tower 12. Shoulder 13. Hammer Slam 14. Tower 25. Shoulder 26. Hammer Slam 27. Boulder roll8. Hammer Slam 3Now is when you can bust out your teleport boulder roll slams and really take people by surprise. You have been fairly passive and been holding lanes this whole time. You have yet to use 1 slam so people are very surprised when you bust out a rank 3 roll/slam.9.God Strength 110. Hammer slam 411. Boulder roll 212. God Strength 213 SAVE14 SAVE15 Dizzying force + boulder Roll 3 + God Strength 3.Over all not a bad guide, but I would seriously suggest trying the rank 2 tower then merge into a slam build. I find it much better.
I do the same thing, though I only get tower 1. People really hate dealing with towers it's a great deterrent.
I'm well aware of what most players think. That's one reason I wrote this up today. My playstyle is unconventional and very effective and I might as well attach my name to it.
Towers really aren't that strong early game. They are an 'ok' power. But you can't get back the points you invested to get them, and over the course of the game they are going to become less and less valuable. Towers are also a massive mana sink. If you skip Towers you can still be very competative the first few levels while you get to midlevel much faster.
Since I don't waste 2 skill points on towers I'll get my 'good' powers in 2 levels earlier than you will. That's a big deal considering my build is fleshed out by level 5. On top of that I'll probably be levelling faster because I'm killing creeps directly with Hammer Slam instead of indirectly with Tower Fire. I can do that because I have tons more mana since I'm not cycling towers every 2 minutes. Clearing a creep wave in 1 shot also lets me use my own creeps to wear down enemy towers that much more often.
The bottom line is that I've played with more standard tower build and those are ok. But I find that they level up more slowly, peter out by level 12, and are unable to take advantage of a moving battlefield. It takes some getting used to but you don't have to suffer the slow death of tower farming to play a good Rook.
Unconvential lol... this is just a standard hammerrook build with bad item choices. Plenor, assasins footgard, gauntles of BRUTALITY?! A lot of what you say is agood advice but your item choices are... unconvential indeed.
If you're playing on Leviathan (the map I refer to several times in my guide) it's just ignorant to choose Vlemish Faceguard over Plenor Battlecrown. Don't believe me? Try it out for yourself. That's due to the +15 mana per second flag. On other maps it's more debateable, but on that map you're an idiot if you choose Vlemish. It's also folly to choose Vlemish if you're using Blade of the Serpent. The reasons should be obvious considering the lower cost and +50% mana capacity of Plenor Battlecrown.
Gauntlets of Brutality are a real bargain at just 400 gold. You'll be doing a lot of autoattacking with this build so they are a great value.
It's a decent guide. It'll be very powerful if you can get to level 15. Unfortunately, most games are decided before then. The teleport value of towers is enough to warrant at least 1 rank.
Gauntlets for 400g are useful early game until you can start to afford 1500g items.A good standard starting build for any demigod is banded armor + scaled helm then when you get 800g, scalemail + gauntlets of brutality, then when you get 1800g, currency I just in time for war score 3.
Full out hammer slam build simply isnt as effective at low level. Sedna/oak interrupts can make you completely useless. Against good players you will only catch them with a full power hammer if they are stunned. At lev 3-5 fighting nubs sure they might stand there and watch your giant hammer of death lift waaaay up slowly and come crashing down on there heads without moving or interrupting you ... but play competent players and that just wont happen. Mid and late game you have the right idea, I am only suggesting the early game is much better suited to control and rank 2 towers. Gives you time to level and helps your team with flag control/war rank.Gear : When playing total nubs sure get narmoths ring , get groffling warplate, Hell Bulwark of the ages why not !.... get all that. It wont matter because you have multiple kills and are playing total nubs. For a REAL game...BoTf Favor - Banded armor + scaled helm for initial buy. Return at 1500 for unbreakable boots. Return with 1750 for vlemish. Next is 1500 nimoth chest. Your almost totally geared out and for... Gold Spent: 5850. After this returning for tele's you can upgrade scaled helm for Battle crown and Banded for Hauberk of life. Wand of speed is a non essential extra if you have spare cash.When playing good players that simply wont feed you 10+ kills a game... This is a much more realistic gear build that you should shoot for imo. Extra cash would be Cit ups (Getting cats a few seconds after hitting rank 8 can be very helpfull).Anyway, you posted your guide so obviously wanted to see what people have to say about it, so there is my Opinion.
a 3100hp rook at level one who knows how to fake cast slam can be very effective even vs people with interrupts. you wont be able to stay in melee range, and the rook can just stand on the flag, pushing you under your tower and off the flag. insta lvl 2 + archer towers and you defo wont be able to go in melee range without outnumbering the rook.and if the rook doesn't die early game, it won't matter what you or your team do because he will have 8k hp mid game + the biggest nuke in the game and nothing can stand up to that.the only challenge to playing rook is to not die in the first 5 minutes, and its not that hard as soon as you learn to run whenever you see a demigod / gank team approaching, whilst still staying within the creep exp range.
The best part about playing rook is that most people won't go doubles. A bad rook is the worst DG in the game, even worse than a regulus that won't buy HP gear, so you can spare yourself a ton of frustration if you get good with rook yourself.
Onto your specific rook build I wouldn't recommend it without extended healer support. Even Erebus could be enough if you play your cards right and he uses bite, monks, and mass charm correctly. Without constant dbabysitting from monks or sedna/QoT I would think you'd be stuck behind your own towers against most competent teams.
Towers most certainly do not suck, to rationalize taking stats or God's Strength on the premise that they do is absurd.
Rank 1 - ~100 damage per shot
Rank 2 - ~130 damage per shot
Rank 3 - ~160 damage per shot
Rank 4 - ~190 damage per shot
Ignore the fact that armor reduces tower damage because it reduces God's Strength by the same amount. You're suggesting players should take an autoattack enhancer for the slowest DG in the game when it clearly does far less damage than towers. The advantages God's Strength has over towers is that it's enhanced by crit and haste (neither of which you seem to value btw), you can pick the target reliably, and it costs zero mana.
Towers have their own obvious advantages but I'm not here to suggest people go towers (unless they have no healer), so I won't go into them.
Rook throwing enemies into the air is not because of God's Strength. He gets this ability passively as he levels up.
Then you didn't say this, but I'll consolidate my responses to everyone in one post. It was said that towers cost too much mana to level up... I find this thinking completely backwards. Power of the Tower rank IV drops the mana cost down to 200 mana, towers in the late game seem to be balanced around that.
Also let's not forget that a good tower build will have independent weapons, max rank hammer slam, and boulder II by level 11 no matter what, so the idea that any of the abilities here besides stats are unobtainable by a tower build is incorrect, although you do get them later, but personally I think that works out fine, as you get God Strength about the time when artifacts with crit/haste come into play and when rook's snares kick in, should the game reach that point.
Lemme clarify that I don't think this build is bad you just framed it in a way which makes it not just a hammer build but also an attack on tower builds.
I just think that it would require significant team support, which is fine if you're doing premades but suicide (in my opinion) if you're pugging frequently.
Also I agree that at least one rank of towers would go a long way on this build. Rook is the only one who can allow allies to warp in and assist, and he's also the slowest. I think it's clear it's an integral part of the character.
Having just played the OP, I will say that this build has its weaknesses. Specifically, facing DGs with an interrupt does not go well for this build. I was playing an Oak, and the ability to prevent any hammer slamming with my interrupt made the Rook easy prey.
The build certainly has its advantages, but I would think that you have to be careful with your matchups. If you are going against DGs that have spammable interrupts you have to either have some way of not being around them much or you have to go to the more classic tower/slam hybrid type build.
Hahahaha, nice. This is the greatest piece of pugging advice I've ever seen.
That was very frustrating. You saved your teammates from at least 3 kills from me alone between Shield and Penitance. That and a few early deaths got me outlevelled. Once that happens youre going to get killed a lot more, especially as Rook. I definitely didn't play well but it didnt help that our Oak seemed to spend the first 2 or 3 minutes AFK. He was still level 1 when everyone else hit level 3.
Based on that close game we played a couple of nights ago, I tend to agree with you that late game towers (plus orb) can be effective. That said, you were spamming late game tower farms more quickly than most tower Rooks I've faced. Were you using staff of renewal to mitigate the long cool-down? I don't think many tower rooks use that item in their build.
Yeah, no doubt that your Oak was going to lose it for you eventually since he was bad. But even when it was basically 2v2 on each side, you and your premade teammate were still getting pushed all over by us. Now granted we were Oak + UB which is a much stronger combo than your DG combo, but I think that you could have held the lane if you had gone towers.
The point is that I think that the game could have been closer if you had realized the bad matchup you had and gone to a hybrid build instead of sticking with your Juggernaut build. There are situations where that just might happen and you have to be flexible with your Rook build since I'm not convinced that this build is going to work in all situations (although I think its solid and will work in many situations just fine).
Again ... starting out with rank 2 towers then switching to full boulder/hammer .....
"Having just played the OP, I will say that this build has its weaknesses. Specifically, facing DGs with an interrupt does not go well for this build. I was playing an Oak, and the ability to prevent any hammer slamming with my interrupt made the Rook easy prey."
"the only challenge to playing rook is to not die in the first 5 minutes, and its not that hard as soon as you learn to run whenever you see a demigod / gank team approaching, whilst still staying within the creep exp range."
Both of these problems are solved
Edit : I have decided that when playing prison, your very first point should be tower 1 , then roll into a boulder/hammer build after that. Prison is fast paced and you cant aford to be too much of a late bloomer. As for Cata ... My build still holds as superior.
To: Krazikarl (quoted the wrong guy and had to edit)
Very true, I was having a bad game myself, trying an all ice TB(new to me, I usually play hybrid) plus I was fooling round with favors because I have like 5k points. I had the Staff of Renewal rolling on that one, with an all Ice TB isn't really nesscary but was thinking when I bought it. I'm not making excuses here BTW, you were(are) really good and you could tell it was going to end well right from the jump. Just didn't have my "A" game rolling.
As for facegaurd/Crown Issue. On Leveiathan you always take the Crown first. You will have more mana per second with it(not to mention adds more mana capacity as well) than the facegaurd due to the +15 mana per sec flag in your base. We had a kid say that we should put in room title that the game wasn't default settings because the regen was off the charts, told him it was just the map. I guess peope don't play it as much.
Thats actually a good point about Plenor vs Vlemish on Leviathan. I have always thoughtlessly bought Vlemish first but you guys are right that that is not a good idea on that map.
Also it reduces the cooldown on the orb of defiance, boulder roll, and hammer slam, not to mention potions and teleport scrolls. I burn through teleport scrolls non-stop as rook. On Cataract towers just get ridiculous when you combine the CD flag with the staff of renewal.
If it weren't for the fact that you'd have to load up on mana gear, which would make your early game HP take a nosedive, I'd recommend it for hammer rooks as well, but it might just not work in a matchup against equally skilled players.
I tried to scan through my games to find which one we played, I don't remember the fight at all. I was relieved to see it wasn't a fight on Zikurat though, as there was one in particular where I nearly lost the game singlehandedly for us late in the match (quite a feat in a 5v5).
if you dont have staff of renewal, its not a tower build ^^if you dont have staff of renewal of level 4 power of the tower, don't bother with using towers at all, they use up WAY too much mana.learn how to not die (without the use of towers) in the first 5 mins of the game and you'll do fine with a pure slam build.Obscenitors rook build is basically the most powerful rook build possible for any condition imo.I can't imagine how he loses Maybe if his team-mate feeds at the start then the enemy team comes and ganks him
I've only played like 1/2 dozen games in the demo and a dozen in full version (as Rook), but I don't think hammer slam is worth it. You do plenty good auto attack damage (especially with God Strength), and towers are much more of a pain for opponents than the Hammer.
The main diffrence I see in these builds when facing them.The tower rook lets me backup and lick my wounds.The slam rook when it gets a solid hit makes me head for the crystal.I do think 1 point in towers is worth it mainly for the allie teleports for ganks and assists.
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