Brazen

Join Date 04/2006

Rook Tower Rush

Here is my Skill and Item build. Criticize it please.

Skill Build

Level 1	Power of the Tower I
Level 2	Archer Tower
Level 3	Save Point
Level 4	Power of the Tower II
Level 5	Tower of Light and Boulder Roll I
Level 6	God Strength I
Level 7	Power of the Tower III
Level 8	Trebuchet
Level 9	Save Point
Level 10	Power of the Tower IV and Boulder Roll II
Level 11	God Strength II
Level 12	Save Point
Level 13	Save Point
Level 14	Save Point
Level 15	Poisoned Arrows and Boulder Roll III and God Strength III
Level 16	Hammer Slam I
Level 17	Hammer Slam II
Level 18	Hammer Slam III
Level 19	Hammer Slam IV
Level 20	Dizzying Force

Item Build

Scaled Helm (Level 1)	550 Gold
Heart of Life (Around Level 7)	4250 Gold
Teleport Scrolls (If money is left)	250 Gold x 2
Capture Locks (If money is left)	250 Gold x 2
Ashkandor (Around Level 13 to 15)	18000 Gold

Favor Item

Swift Anklet (450 Favor) +15% Speed Increase

Staff of Renewal (1100 Favor) +200 HP/+175 Mana/-20% Ability Cooldown

Strategy

From Level 1 to 4, I just cast towers at flag locations and stay close behind them while defending. I do not rush into engage enemy demigods or towers unless they start attacking your towers.

At Level 4, I get Power of the Tower II and can start rushing and capturing other flags. I stack towers all right next to each other (almost overlapping) so enemy demigods cannot tell how many I have easily and bravely try to attack.

90% of the time I don't engage demigods and just let them try to destroy my towers. The rule to follow is engage them only if they are attacking towers and are alone. Two or more demigods won't give you a good chance to survive (especially with only a scaled helm) so run back to a real tower for defense and set up some towers there. Also, if you see a enemy demigod (general type) with healer idols, destroy them while the demigod focuses on your towers.

Sometimes I have to return to the regen crystal and when I do, I check if my citadel has the mint upgrade as well as stock up on a teleport scroll if I am really far from the action.

I usually only get kills by using tower stacking and tricking gods (they only see 1 or 2 towers when they are stacked 4 towers into a tight space) into attacking them. This usually happens if I am protecting a flag like +20% EXP (helps lvl faster) or -15% Cooldown (great for tower spam) flags. At level 5, with boulder roll, I can let them attack until they have lost some HP, stun them with boulder roll, and get a fast kill during the stun time.

Once I have 4250 gold or close to it, I head back to shop and get a Heart of Life, one of the best items for a tower building Rook. With the additional hp/mana regen and the full heal out of combat, I cam spam towers right next to enemy towers and heal up when low.

Before I start attacking the enemy towers, I lay some defensive towers (1 or 2) out of enemy tower range and incase of enemy demigods showing up. I also try to let one wave of friendly creeps attack their towers. Then I run into their tower range and lay a tower down and retreat again. If I run out of mana, I rush back a bit to a safe spot behind some towers I laid and regen using Heart of Life.

Occassionally, I will have bad timing and my defensive towers will break as enemy demigods show up. If this happens, I try to use a teleport scroll back to base to avoid engaging.

As I level up, with boulder roll, power of the tower, and independant turrets, I am able to level enemy towers and hold down the line.

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I've had problems beating a rook who plays like this. In fact, ever game Rook I've played with the Tower Rush/Spam always wins, even when I do it. It's impossible to kill the Rook when he just kites you around his Tower farm. The only advice I've seen so far is not letting him get too much gold or XP...isn't that true for everyone in this game?!

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A tactic to counter that involves regulus. Upgrade regs range and you can take the towers without recieving damage... combine that with wings and you pull off more damage. When rook comes out just keep harassing him, hell retreat, so then you snipe him... depending on whether he comes back or not, continue pounding his towers... if he retreats, pursue him... rook can't retreat worth shit. Laying some mines near the towers where rook is likely to camp is another way you can expound on this strategy. I've never played as QoT but I'm fairly certain some good QoT players could take rook tower camp strat down.

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I've fought against Regulus players that use their range to take out towers, but by the time they take out 1 tower, I have another one up. During the game, if they try to harass my towers too much, the exp rate for them will drop and they will usually leave if I lay down new towers all the time.

Also, trebuchet upgrade with boulder roll helps make sure Regulus doesn't attack my towers too long if I am nearby.

Queen of Thorns is similar to another hero - Torch Bearer - in that they have ranged AOE (Frost Nova to freeze towers etc.) attacks to take down tightly packed tower clusters, but usually, I will rush at a QoT or Torch Bearer if they try to AOE and with Boulder Roll, they usually don't pursue this route for long if I am focusing on them also.

Bramble Shield on QoT is somewhat annoying especially at higher levels absorbing 1450 damage, but by that time, I can usually have 4 or 5 towers up spamming 150 damage attacks every few seconds with Boulder Roll and Rook's turrets taking her out fast.

I have to agree though QoT and Torch Bearer are the most annoying Demigods I fight when I have defenses up.

Another weakness I found is that I am very susecptible to damage from melee demigods like Erebus and Unclean Beast because their attacks slow (Bite, etc.) my movement speed and if I lose my towers, I am almost dead. Even trying to teleport away while Erebus does Mass Charm to stun me and the interrupt ensures my loss.

However, by the time I get an Ashkandor, I can usually get Erebus with a few crit hits and a couple towers setup.

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Sounds like a good tactic but I think the counter is just to avoid him and capture other flags instead. He is slow and is not good without his towers. Let him come to you instead of the other way around.

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i play a similar Rook, although I also focus on structural transfer. Nothing takes down towers faster than maxed structural transfer followed by a hammer slam, assisted by a maxed tower.

the only problem for my tower farms are AoE like TB's ring of fire. I tend to build them farther apart in that case

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Sounds like a good tactic but I think the counter is just to avoid him and capture other flags instead.

Well sure, that's what I try to do (I mean what else can I do), but other teammates make that hard More importantly though, if you can't confront the Rook in his slow moving tower spam/rush. He keeps pushing down his lane taking out more towers and flags. The only time when I almost "countered" it was when the Rook pushed so far I was able to flank him and attack him from behind his Tower farm. Early game that's no treally an option. And late game it's usually too late.

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Ive been playing rook tower farm for a little while. I concentrate on holding one specific spot, like a creep-flag or something closer to the enemy base in the middle game. With a mana/sec-hat I am mostly able to withstand prolonged attacks by structural transfer my own towers and build new ones.

People AOE:ing me and my towers is a pain. Sniping me from outside the tower-range can also be irritating, but usually not enough to kill me. The best bet vs. a lone rook in the beginning is probably to gang up on him whenever he gets to the battlefront and take him down fast before he can get a good defense strategy going.

If he is allowed to hole up and take a creep-flag, then he will be levelling up fast while denying you both the flag and creeps. He will also be able to fend off multiple aggressors with his towers, unless they know exactly what they are doing.

Edit: Hurt him when he does not yet have structural transfer, he must use potions to stay alive then and that is costly in the beginning.

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When I tested Rook myself I felt like I lacked mana at the first levels. Would a DG equipped with Warlords punisher be able to drain his mana?

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a solid build but i got a few thought on certain aspects of it:

1hammerslam/ashkandor: by the time you can have hammer slam your normal hit is more powerful with a mageslayer/askandor (this build dont exactly kill lot of demigods waiting for askandor game is already lost or won). so i feel the hammerslam is by the time your lvl16-20 not much needed a passive increse on your rook or structural transfer both being more useful lvl 10-18 maybe even at lvl19-20 when hammerslam is maxed also. so i would advice skipping hammerslam completly unless many idol using demigods, and get mageslayer faster not waiting until vry end for a ashkandor which you may never got enough gold for.

2structural transfer (ST): a fundamental skill for this build, the ability to use your own towers to get hp is a possible life saver or gold saver, not dying and not need to run away is were this build should excell and ST helps. maxing St gives you the mana regen boost also which can be useful while not needing to run away use HoL, but even only having 1lvl in ST is very useful; get ST either maxed or at lvl1.

3vary equipment based on enemy DG:if many passive hitter demis i would atlest get 1k armour HoL+cheapest armour.

4equipment twink/change: if you buy the cheapst 3% life leech +400hp item at 1,7k (dont rember name) each time your archers hit enemies will give you 1hp early in life can be sold once you got mageslayer or ashkandor, a powerful hp/regen while in combat, will set back time when you get HoL so not sure if wise, a taste matter, you only lose 1/4 of 1,7=400 when selling.

my opinion on possible changes to this your build. not anyting in build i can see as plain wrong just in my opinions on possible twinks.

in my experince unclean beast is a very powerful oponent to this build, if a skilled player handling a best and skill rook player doing this build i would not want to be the rook shoes. possible other enemies are better enemies to this build but UB has highest danger potential in my personal experince.

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A few people suggested Structural Transfer and I used to have that in my build instead of the late game Hammer Slam I currently get (in the areas where I save points, I would usually get that the ST set instead).

The reason why I stopped trying to get ST now is simply because of Heart of Life. Although I feel that it is a usefull tool to take out towers faster, I don't want to spend 4 to 5 skill points for it, because most of the time, I get interrupted by stuns and focus fire from enemy demigods doesn't allow me to get a large amount of hp back and the cooldown is just too long if it is interrupted while damaging my own towers (summoned and permanent) doesn't really appeal to me.

In a few games, it has been a life saver, but I think if I am in a position with low hp and am going to die, it would mostly be from my own towers failing to kill a enemy in which case, almost always the focus fire and stuns ensure I die regardless of Structural Transfer.

Another suggestion is that Hammer Slam late game doesn't really help much. I agree with this for the most part, I usually don't use Hammer Slam for enemy Demigods once my normal attack with Ashkandor does 1.5K damage criticals. The reason I chose to get it anyway is for spamming near the enemy citadel when large groups of mobs come in. I start with a boulder roll to stun them, followed by a hammer slam to take out large chunks of enemy mobs while towers hold the line. This usually happens when I clog their travel path near their citadel's portals and cause large crowds.

I suppose I could focus on getting morale points instead, but Hammer Slam as a surprise stun followed by some Ashkandor crits or Boulder Roll typically scare most close range Demigods and take out towers a bit faster.

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Quoting fraggelsmurf,

reply 8

When I tested Rook myself I felt like I lacked mana at the first levels. Would a DG equipped with Warlords punisher be able to drain his mana?

I usually don't spam towers too much until Level 4 and sometimes do not even use towers unless I see enemy demigods nearby. I do feel that towers at early levels are a drain on mana, but the scaled helm helps a bit.

When capturing a flag at the start, I don't know if enemy DG will be there, so I just lay one tower and wait for cooldown, and unless I see more DG, I usually leave just that tower out until it expires and then save mana until I see more DG. The key early game is to play Rook as a mana conserver. Remember, don't bother trying to spam towers until you lose all your mana. The key is to spam towers to defend a flag from enemy DG while helping yourself with getting kills on creeps/mobs until level 4 then heading out and getting other flags or enemy towers.

Keep track of your mana, flags and ally positions, and your current flag's value to you (ie a 20% EXP or a -15% cooldown are worth a lot to a Rook) currently and if it feels like the other areas are too heavily occupied by ally and enemy demigods, just stick where you are and spend that mana. Otherwise, if you see a different flag, just decide whether the time it takes to go there is worth the loss in exp to conserve your mana.

Quoting nilsy007,

reply 9

a solid build but i got a few thought on certain aspects of it:

1hammerslam/ashkandor: by the time you can have hammer slam your normal hit is more powerful with a mageslayer/askandor (this build dont exactly kill lot of demigods waiting for askandor game is already lost or won). so i feel the hammerslam is by the time your lvl16-20 not much needed a passive increse on your rook or structural transfer both being more useful lvl 10-18 maybe even at lvl19-20 when hammerslam is maxed also. so i would advice skipping hammerslam completly unless many idol using demigods, and get mageslayer faster not waiting until vry end for a ashkandor which you may never got enough gold for.

I kind of explain this in my previous post... Hammer Slam late game is for clearing large sets of mobs from Citadel areas where they clog up near towers and scaring / stunning close range enemy DG.

Structural Transfer is replaced by Heart of Life and I find it to be very situational when I try to save my life with it (enemy stuns and long cooldowns). However, I used to use it as a faster way to take out enemy towers.

Quoting nilsy007,

reply 9

3vary equipment based on enemy DG:if many passive hitter demis i would atlest get 1k armour HoL+cheapest armour.

4equipment twink/change: if you buy the cheapst 3% life leech +400hp item at 1,7k (dont rember name) each time your archers hit enemies will give you 1hp early in life can be sold once you got mageslayer or ashkandor, a powerful hp/regen while in combat, will set back time when you get HoL so not sure if wise, a taste matter, you only lose 1/4 of 1,7=400 when selling.

I have used the Banded Armor early game for some HP regen in the past if I see large amounts of enemy demigods, but I usually stick with just Scaled Helm to save money for Heart of Life.

I haven't tried getting the 3% LL ring yet, but I guess if I have HoL at around Level 7, then this ring would probably be best used around Level 5 when I get Tower of Light (doubles Archer Tower's salvo).

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Amazing, this is almost *exactly* how I play my rook. It never occured to me to save points tho, great idea! I just upgrade Gods Hammer whenever I have extra points but I hardly get to use it until later anyway since I don't have the mana. Skipping structural transfer and stats seems obvious, and HoL is the best item for Rook and the only one he really needs. After HoL I spend everything on citadel upgrades for sudden domination.

For favor item I love amulet of teleportation, especially on large maps. On smaller maps Ankle is cool.

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