if you're gonna melee him you have to be ready to do something about the Hammer Slam coming down or else you're gonna get hurt. there are various responses to it, some of which are better than others. 

you can stun or interrupt him while he's winding up, thats a very good counter. Sedna has Pounce, Beast has Grasp, etc. 

you can try to tank it with a defensive move. Oak can pop a Shield during the wind up and take no damage when the hammer comes down. 

you can try to run behind him when he raises the hammer. kinda risky, but if it works he'll whiff completely. 

all of this requires pretty good reflexes though. its exceptionally dangerous to just stand there toe to toe and melee him, you're gonna get stomped that way for sure. watch the Boulder Roll +Hammer Slam combo as well, if you're standing in a bad spot and he nails you with that its probably lights out. 

As an UB I've never had trouble taking Rooks on 1v1. Even in early levels.

Rook to me just seems like an inefficient asassin.  Like Dracil said, take out towers and purge forward is the Rooks greatest asset.  He is slow, his attacks can usually be avioded if you catch it in time.   If I was the rook I would have that teleporation favor item to use, and just tank the damage so your teammates can do stuff.  That is what I think is role is in this game.  As an assisin, even generals can solo him.  I know Erubus can solo him with ease (just aviod the hammer slam).

If your going to try to play asassin with the Rook, its not going to happen until later in the game when you get his throw boulder skill to stun for 3 seconds or whatever it is.  Then hammer slam, and that is the deadly combo.  Until then, smash the towers and tank.

Good rooks stack speed upgrades and trick players with hammer. It's all too easy to start hammer then stop right away and laugh as another demigod wastes their stun. Stun boulder + hammer makes it far easier to land as well.

Kiting is the best bet to kill him, but watch out. Most skilled rook players can get his movement speed up fairly fast, nothing like a regulus laughing at at rook thinking to kite him only to have rook catch up and destroy him. Some rooks even use items to slow others down. It's a toss up. Goodness knows all he needs is hp and movement speed. I had a rook popping the +25% movement item whenever he chased someone down. Fed off a kiting regulus like no tomorrow and completly dominated the game. That reg was whining about how Rook should never allowed to be so fast. He's really good at killing demigods, and a good rook can kill TB, UB, or Erebus 1 vs 1 without much trouble normally if he's played just right.

Against a good rook, ganking is the easiest way. Most demigod just can't stand toe to toe with rook and need to play gorilla tactics. He's a wall, need to break it down bit by bit.

Rook is mostly played by newer players now, a lot of the beta players or forum followers here how popular he was or how "easy" he is to play and tend to stay away from him. The truth is he's only decent unless in the hand of a skilled player.

I'm starting to like him as an assassin, I'm thinking of playing him alongside QoT. I'll probably toss a handbook up for him later this week that should help a lot of peeps.

The problem is he does a lot of damage and has lasting power. A TB that isn't stacking health items can get bouldered + hammered and be a sliver from death. That's almost true for a lot of other heroes as well. His passive towers are great too. I play QoT and even with bramble shield it's hard for me to 1 vs 1 him as he will eventually get the kill. (I do play a defensive QoT so I don't really go for kills, but noted). Tower Rooks can kite melee demigod around the towers as well, making him difficult to kill.

I have to disagree that he's the easiest to counter, he has a lot of what other demigods have and only having movement speed as a real weakness, I don't see how he can be possibly worse off. Logic doesn't allow it. He's not god, but he's damn good.

While he's easily kitable, if you can move faster than the other team and aren't out-farmed like most of the situations these guys would suggest, then he's a living monster. He can kill you without a single swing, using his trebuchet, line of towers and poisoned arrows and follow you as far as past lines of towers just to have you die a slow, frustrating death. He then sucks a chunk of life back from a nearby tower to make it out alive without suiciding for a kill.

I can't quite say theres any imbalance, just yet. Regulus can train him if he does it right. In any other situation though without superior movement speed (which is something the rook should maximize on mid-end game), the rook is a rampaging behemoth on tread-tracks.

Like many others have said, he's not particuarly hard. You just need to know when to time your interrupt/stun. If he does a boulder + hammer you have to be prepared though. That combo is really hard to bust.

Disclaimer: In my post, no player-example is a noob. Consider every situation performed by a decently skilled player. 1vs1 is not in the equation, therefore an ambush is always considered. The rook in every scenario is a tower+hammer rook with 10%+ speed boost right off the start.

The way I see it, the hammer + tower rook are pretty rediculous. 1 rook can force an entire team to scratch their head until their hairs goes out. No other demigod can make other team this worried aside rook himself, then it became a contest of who got better rook player on their side.

My advise is to check your demigod match up before you start the game. If they got a rook(not a noob), and you have 0 ranged demigod, you are doomed to peril (very hard to win, but not impossible).

Oak imho is the best anti rook, with his ranged interrupt and sending minions non-stop to harass the rook across the towers. While the debuff on the already slow enough and make him take more damage is just perfectly suited against rook. With his shield at high level, he can recover to full health with heart of life in invincible mode.

Sedna got no business with rook aside watch and heal, and spam the minions who won't be very effective due to rook just getting more armor. (pounce is way too dangerous to use, due to tower and potential ambush with stuns) Your best bet is to conquer every where else to force rook to chase after you, which he can't do well at all.

QoT got a decent chance to harass rook due to range and sieging towers, but I haven't try QoT against rook enough to really say. Looks good on paper with all these range options + bramble shield.

Erebus shouldn have no trouble getting in and getting out. But you are way more open to stun ambush than oak is. Hence, your risk is much greater than that of the rook. In an attempt to assault rook with towers, erebus is probably your best friend next to oak.

TB can give alot of pain in the ass to rook, for pretty obvious reasons. Ice slow rook down too much for rook to do much, and if rook messed up, he is as good as dead. While fire TB can threaten him with fireball pretty easily, even if he is next to his towers.

Regulus is decent until rook stock up on high level armor, which will make regulus's arrow feel like tickles. Best idea is to coordinate with your team so that rook will never get his shinny new armor. Having mines setup in area rook is traveling to can ruin his game plan as well, because he would (hopefully) step on the mines before he setup the tower which force him to retreat or heal up.

UB has to play his game to the top level to have a chance at all. Your effectiveness against rook will continue to lower as the game progress. Biggest reasons are those towers. If you can catch a rook without his towers, you got a shot, but chance of you scoring a skill without a slow down is quite impossible; because the time you catch him without his towers are times that he is near his base. UB's poison is helpful in continue to deal damage to rook in retreat.

Although some demigod can take rook, the time you used on him is greatly wasted as he is difficult to take down. It is a much better idea to leave him alone and prey on his ally to keep them all lower level. If they all stay in a group, that rook speed is going to cut in eventually to allow you map domination.

Area that rook had setup towers are area that your team have to stay clear of, and if he assault your towers, be ready to all tele-ambush him (but know your priority before you tele-ambush). DO NOT GIVE HIM EASY KILLS, that is the true key against rook. Give him money and he will bang you all day.

Another method I wish to test is punisher's ward, as it reduce target demigod's mana. This can stop rook from setting up too many towers and spam hammer while at it. Best performed when there are 2 or more people doing it. Losing 800+ mana in a few sec is no joke.

I found I disliked Rook because even if I could outrun enemy demigods, the attack swing's animation was too slow and I couldn't deal damage at all. It might also have been because the stupid custom game host set starting gold to 10k, thereby defeating the purpose and utility of early-game hammer ganking to take the lead.

After a little digging...

.1 casting time = all

tower of light 1 (max 2) 400 mana 10 cool down

hp: 1950

damage: 130

fire rate: 0.5

range (radius): 15

tower of light 2 (max 4) 400 mana 10 cool down

hp: 1500

damage: 100

fire rate: 0.5

range: 15

tower of light 3 (max 6) 400 mana 10 cool down

hp: 2400

damage: 160

fire rate: 0.5

range: 15

tower of light 4  (max 8) 200 mana 10 cool down

hp: 2850

damage: 190

fire rate: 0.5

range: 15

190x8 = 1520 damage every 2 second. 760 damage per second... that is just a bit shy of the damage output of lv4 idol minotaur + siege + priest except it got 15 radius and doesnt miss. While 2850x8= 22800 hp trading for immobility.

General players might find rook quite general-like in that sense.

Pretty much every melee DG is terrible vs a good rook except early on (assuming you can dodge hammer). Rook hates ranged people, mainly Regulus and TB. You'll never catch a good TB and he'll just wear you down. Regulus can outrange your towers, and you'll never catch him, so he can do the same. 

The reason melee DGs are terrible vs him is because... Well my strat is abuse towers. I don't fight melee DGs unless I have the drop on them (e.g. roll + hammer, they low on HP, lower level etc etc) or I'm near 3+ towers. 

And Oak is terrible against a Rook camping with towers. I was playing a 3v3, and there was this Oak. He'd have no problem vs me 1v1, except I had 4 towers supporting me. Now, sure, he COULD avoid me... Except I was camping one of the enemy teams spawns on Cataract. What happened is he tried rushing me + 4 towers. He never died, but he had to run back to crystal FOUR TIMES. I have to retreat eventually when I ran out of mana and a TB came to help.

Still, being able to fend of a melee DG like Oak FOUR TIMES without any potions or anything... Yeh, melee DGs are terrible vs a tower camping rook. 

playing lord erebus I've never had a problem beating rook(as long as he isnt standing near towers). I usualy send minions in first so he uses his hammer slam on them. Even when I do get hit with the hammer, it only does about as much damaga as a bite hieals for, so its not that bad.