Sorry wasent clear enough, I meant that you should walk further back in your castle so the attacker gets more damaged.
I agree that ranged demigods can be very iritating, but mostly they are flies. Really, the super Regulus that kill towers in 3 secs are either getting superfed, or are like level 18-20. Usually they will stall my progress, but the fact remains that I can slowly push their towers while holding flags, which means the battle is won for me. Harrasment wont work anymore when I get heart of life. Ranged demigods especially mine laying Reg, which I am incindentally playing right now remain the biggest nuissance to Rook.
The second problem with the interrupts is that you wait after the other player has used them. Take for example Sedna, she can use her Pounce to interrupt you, but if you just dont hammerslam that means she lost her primary source of dmg, on the other hand if she uses it all the time, you can hammer slam just after the pounce. There so many things that Rook can use to draw interrupts, hammerslam most often than not is effective if you are a good Rook, even if you dint hit the player, they must have evaded you which means they dint attack you, which means you did damage them via shoulder upgrades and towers. This is a very good scare tactic and pretty much the reason why I chose Hammerslam as first skill. (haha lolhammer, shut up)
Mana is a non argument, vlemisch is good enough for the most part, while mana potions and hol fill the gaps. You can take only hp items for the rest and come out on 6-7k atleast. A tank is never gonna kill a good Rook is his castle, thats just stupid. The dps a Rook does in his castle is IIRC around 200-300 plus Rooks normal attack which does 200 dps too.
Some UB's that ganked some noobs in pubs think they can beat a Rook in his castle, they are stupid. Also, the Rook will most often than not have the hp flag capped which means that that 7k UB's on level 10 suddenly seem a whole lot more unrealistic. Also high hp also means less dmg and less spike. An OOZE Ub will do around 300 dps maybe? But it will also 50 hp a second to ooze(hp regen is counted in this). I played UB believe me.
Last is the team factor, a towercastle is extremely usefull for the team, as evidenced by the current number one who uses Rook on prison to construct a team fortress(haha, see what I did there) and almost always win the game, by giving his team a safe haven.
P.S. Minions are a very important part of a general, losing them is not a small thing.