Doesn't AoE take out Oak's wards too? Sadly, I have never payed close attention, but it seems that in some games as Oak it is much harder to keep an active ward up and I think it is 'cause Circle of Fire or Rain of Ice is taking them out.

Exactly - the moral of the story is DO NOT buy the firepower upgrade. 

Also, the nightcrawlers aren't the only thing that can damage wards. You just need to have nightcrawlers selected when you issue the attack order then even your dg or a siege idol can attack the ward... and it doesn't matter if the rolly pollies die so long as they were selected when the attack order was issued... it doesn't even need that much micro when you get siege idols or even monks

Yes.

Uh huh if you say so...

Really though until they can place more than 3+ wards, its enough to shut down the minion oak and it forces them to constantly waste their mana... if you use it right you should be able to do enough damage before they spirit rush the citadel...

Eldon, I don't really have much of a problem with it since I play TB but I can give you a few tips.

As a TB you can either go BotS and just guard the middle the whole time.  Get Circle of Fire so you can farm creeps without going to the lane and kill his archers.  By level 4 you can farm the creeps from the middle much easier, and combine the exponential affect of Frost Aura and Rain of Ice to keep his minions from doing hardly any damage before you kill them.  The problem with fighting Cheesey Kill Your Citadel Minion Oak is if you defend your lane of Citadel towers too much you won't level up and a BotS Hybrid Ring of Fire/Rain of Ice eliminates this problem... and its not too horrible of a build if the gayness doesn't end up happening.

If you're playing with anyone else just make yellow denying your first priority.  Minion Oak will be weaker than everyone 1v1 if he's spending all his effort on trying to tear down your towers... he'll probably be on mana side so he can be the one capping the XP flag so as long as whomever is on your team who is nuturally fast and badass (UB, LE, Fire TB) keeps him from doing much capping and owning the XP flag and thus the war rank you should be fine.  It just gets really nasty if he reaches his benchmarks of level 7 and 10 and starts spamming endless spirits too soon.  If you keep him relatively contained until you reach war rank 8 then its curtains for him and his team.  

Anyone who actually knows about playing something besides TB agree with this?

Attacking wards is not viable, because he can put one behind the tower and still get the spirits. Though if i play the build, which i do when i have a noob on my team that feeds, i do it like this:

1.  Shield

2. The healing thingy when you kill someone

3&4. Wards (only 3 spirits does not help at first imo)

Favor is the hp regenerating, because it gives you 20hps, and you can regen the minions, which makes them harder to AOE kill (better than the damage)

It's funny that Oak has two of the lamest "skills," and I use the term loosely, in all of Demigod - Shield cap locking and the spirit citadel rush.  I love playing Oak and have never used Shield locking because it is so lame, now I'll also add minion build to the list.  Let's have a little integrity, people.  After all, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should...

"most" good players don't use minion oak for that reason. Though shield-porting or shield-locking isn't really a cheese strategy :/ a lot of people can do that stuff with other abilities.

If this situation is unbalanced enough that people consider it an exploit, how would you suggest the Devs fix the problem?

Odds are you are right re: a change to oak's spirits.  I think your solution is pretty reasonable, though.  I haven't really encountered anyone that does the spirit oak base pwn very well though.  Its usually weak minion players that figure they want to try it out.  I'm trying to think of who actually did spirit oak well... omicron?  maybe janook.... other than that, no one really comes to mind. 

My idea was just to stick a Tower or two on the citadel.  It'd be enough to stop rogue spirit attacks.  I played with an awful spirit Oak last night who basically ignored everything but playing with his spirits.  That made it a 2v3 from my point of view.  We got slaughtered and couldn't hold any flags.

And YET! we nearly won the game because his spirits had their citadel down to about 25% when ours fell.  I felt dirty just being in the game.