[Micro] On How to Dodge Boulders and Mines

I don't want to be bad guy here but most of what you wrote for boulder dodging is just obvious. More speed and keeping your distance from a Rook is a given but you don't really offer any suggestions on how to do anything other than avoid the boulder, all you suggest is to keep moving and look for the roll animation. It doesn't solve the problem that just about every melee demigod is stuck doing nothing until the Rook finally blows his cool down. The rook can take any flag or make any advance he wants because you will always have to keep your distance and simply wait for him to make his attack. I guess you could have your ranged demigod Allies attempt to wear him down from auto attack range strafing, but that seems like a pretty weak solution to me. Alternatively, you could charge the rook and attempt to "run through him" but you subject yourself to high base auto attack damage, and most melee demigods simply won't attack while moving unless the other demigod is running away from you.

Ke5trel, what are you doing offering suggestions for gameplay?  Don't you know demigod is uber easy to master in under 10minutes of gameplay?  Anyways, nice to see that people are recognizing the strategy to this game.  There is a huge difference between playing against you and many others online.

Nice tips, some stuff I hadn't even considered. Here's my additional tip: keep clicking movement orders for your demigod. That keeps you focused on the situation and you can get off sidling out of the way of the boulders.

Not to belittle your efforts, but this is the problem right here.  I have a bad reaction time, so I just can't take action fast enough.  I know how to move, I know how long the cooldown is, and I know how to feint spells.  To be honest, at least to the extent you have described here, its just common sense.  (Don't stop moving, dodge by zig-zagging, lateral movement ftw, etc...)  It ultimately comes down to reaction time, and I just can't click away before I get hit in the face with the boulder.

I guess I might get better as time goes by and the online connectivity gets more reliable (I've only connected to two online games thus far, iirc).

Just to play the Devil's Advocate, there are a few things I'd like to mention.  For one, the Rook has those slowing arrows at level 15.  That will make dodging the boulder a bit more difficult.  Any other nearby Demigods, even if you are focused enough not to be distracted from the boulder animation, are fully capable of slowing you (looking at you, Regulus).  Both the Wand of Speed and Warping Stone (think those are the names) have cooldowns longer than the Rook Roll.  Also, you can feint the boulder just like any other spell.  Finally, the biggest problem with your advice is that most of it involves punishing the Rook for a miss.  What makes you assume he will miss?  If he simply doesn't use it unless you're very close, then he's won.  He can force you to keep your distance without actually doing anything, allowing him to capture a flag, destroy that tower, or finish doing whatever you were trying to stop him from doing in the first place.  Couple that with the fact that he can use the Wand of Speed just the same as you, and suddenly there's a giant castle charging at you that will lock you into inescapable death should he get even remotely close to you.

I like the Hammer the way it is, and without the Hammer, the boulder isn't so much of an issue.  The fact that you can follow up the boulder so effectively with an immensely powerful Hammer Slam is what the problem stems from.  It essentially turns the boulder into a projectile Hammer.  While not impossible to deal with, Demigods facing the Rook have to go to great lengths to topple the behemoth, where all the Rook has to do is keep spamming boulders every 10 seconds until he hits once and wins.

Basically, the risk-reward ratio for the Boulder Roll is off.  Some cheap Manna potions can keep you going for a very long period of time, and the base ten second cooldown coupled with your high health means that you will most likely be able to try again even if you miss once or twice.  The reward is immense, the risk is very low.

Having organized my thoughts into the above post, I would propose that the best solution would be to increase the risk.  The only way to reduce the reward is to take away the character from either the Hammer or the Boulder, which would ultimately be detrimental to gameplay.  Logically, the solution is then to increase the risk.  Giving it a longer cooldown sounds like the most obvious solution.  Hmmm...  What about drastically increasing the manna cost?  Both the Hammer and Boulder cost quite a bit to cast, but a Rook with no manna capacity upgrades can still string them together with no problems.  What if the Boulder's manna cost was increased to the extent that a large investment in manna capacity upgrade items had to be made in order to string the two spells together?  You just have to keep the stun short enough so that you cannot use a potion and still get a Hammer off.  On first thought (I might be wrong, idk), this actually sounds like it would increase gameplay depth by turning the "Boulder-Hammer Rook" into its own build, instead of a synergy conveniently present on all builds.

Again, I'm not just trying to prove you wrong or belittle your efforts in an attempt to win a forum debate.  On the contrary, I'm glad you took the time to explain everything.  Similarly, I have tried to explain my thoughts on the issue.  After all, the point of a beta (amung other things) is to balance gameplay before it ships.

Rasgriz - OK but saying "it's obvious" doesn't really work when one half of the people I see playing don't dodge squat.  Again and again I see teams relentlessly feeding themselves to boulder and mine kills by simply refusing to move out of the way, or even to try to.  Even better, I'll see players move directly over mines they just saw planted a few seconds ago.  "What are you doing?"  It's obvious to you - this post is for those of us who don't seem to get it. 

As far as map control and kills- you are not going to beat up a Rook or take his flag when he still has nukes in his arsenal.  You are trying to draw those out of him.  Hammerbaiting also works, but we'll save it for another post.  Without his hammer and his bowling ball Rook will be fairly easy to pew pew for a kill or control of a given point.  If you are playing UB you stay clear until nukes have been defused and then come in with Fury to demolish. 

And most Rooks really lack the patience to get on top of you before the toss.  They are used to DGs standing still for the mug.  When you confound their expectations 8 times out of 10 they will toss anyway because that's what they have always done.  The 9th Rook would miss even if you were standing still and the 10th, I'm told, is unstoppable so you don't have to worry about them.  Focus on the 80%.  

 

I find the best practice is go to 1 v 1 with a nightmare of the same type, Rook vs. Rook, Reg vs. Reg.  You really get a handle on what the DG is capable of.  

I've got more but it'll have to wait til tomorrow 

Peace

Mainly your right but the problem i find is with boulder roll only. I was in the midst of a big battle and only the bottome of my screen showed my demigod so i could see whats coming at me. All of the sudden wagnard comes behind me and boulder rolls me, nver saw it comuing. HE also tele's in and imediantly boulder rolls often when I'm near middle health but I'm about to kill an enemy. i have all concentration of the demigod and very little time to register Ropok and with Rook's boulder roll having a ridiculus large effect(side to side0 its hard to dodge in time. Mines i can deal with though.

Dodging is fine and all but it's basically a hard counter to the Unclean Beast. A DG that is already pretty weak early game and turns into a beast later but in games against a Rook on a team I just felt useless. Rook doesn't even need to use the boulder that much. He can just scare you into it and force you to keep your space and let him have the map control.

My point exactly. You can talk about how most players won't have the patience to wait till you're close and such, but when it comes down to two competitive players, rook is going to have control of the flow of battle against most melee based demigods until the boulder cool down is used, and even then, you probably won't kill rook before it comes back up again due to his large health.

Be aware of your surroundings on all sides?  On this note I'm still quietly amazed at how few players (read none) use observation wards.  Plant 3 in each lane - congratulations, you have total map awareness for 5 minutes or so for less than the cost of a Wand of Speed. 

Boulder has a range slightly longer than LoS, so a good Rook will sometimes toss before you would ordinarily even see him.  If you can react fast enough you can actually run away from the boulder in a straight line, it will dissolve before it reaches you if you start running as soon as you see it. 

Portganks only work when you are surprised.  It's clockwork though, if you are playing with a group of a certain level and they see their flag start to change they will all port in take it back and try to kill you.  If they see you fighting at a flag they will port in to gank you.  Adjust your playstyle to take advantage of this if you can (mine the crap out of every flag on the map and keep your twitch finger ready to move as soon as you see a port in) or avoid it if you can't. 

Anyway, I hear you guys.  You are speaking to larger balance and strategy issues, and I haven't really had alot of experience with UB since they nerfed him so hard.  Maybe someone who plays alot of UB and has a formula can make a post about How to Kill the Rook and Win the Map, or at least about how it isn't possible and melee vs. boulder needs tweaking. 

This post was more about extending the demigod lifetime of those players who don't yet have "reflexes finely-honed from years of gaming" as Drexion put it.  I seem to play with them fairly often ^^

Yep for 450 gold you pretty much get the whole map to snipe from with regulus if you use totems placed well

These observation wards last forever?

Not forever, but for something like 5 minutes. 

Well i made it so what coming cause last time he was out of my view and by the time I saw the boulder it was to late.