The best 'The Rook' strategy I have come up against yet

Don't bother with hammer slam (in general), and get your towers up -before- the ememy can get to you so you already have a nice little forest of them when they -do- show up.

guide to rook:

set up towers

?

profit!

You need to have as many towers around you as you can. Often the best way to do this is with the cover of fog of war. If your towers are getting destroyed before you can set up, begin further back then either advance with your towers or risk building forward with those towers behind to fall back to. Also the cooldown flags are your best friend.

So far putting this strat into effect has netted me 100% positive results as I haven't died ONCE as The Rook since not picking The Rook, and you can too!

OrexxerO plays a wicked rook without towers. Of course, there's a reason he's rank 2.

Rook doesn't need towers to kick ass. You just gotta know how to play without them.

First off, towers are a Rook's best friend. Your towers, you team's towers, an allied rook's towers... work with the whole net.

Second, rook is not an attacker. Rook is a defender. Don't go anywhere unless you plan on spending about 30 seconds unmollested setting up your towers.

Third, in the early game, buy some mp items. Tower spam costs tons of mana and structral transfer (which is not only amazing against towers but will save your @#$% before you can buy HoL) also costs quite a lot. If you're going to it on your own tower, use it on an older tower in the back that's near the end of it's lifetime anyway.

Fourth, Rook is about lasting, not about killing. Get offence items last (after mp and hp), and if you know you're going to be overwhelmed, warp the heck out of there!

Fifth, the farther into your tower forest the enemy is, the better for you. Set it up ahead of where you intend to be, and run back behind it when your enemy comes in to attack. Not only will the enemy be taking the full damage from your towers, but they will also have to run the guantlet if they decide to leave.

my rook build has only lvl 1 tower and i seem to rape with it

the lvl 1 tower is to allow my allies to tp to me and for creep control

i'm the best not-rook player of all of you! i challenge anyone to not play the rook better than i don't. 

I do this too. I've found it very effective, if you just get a couple +speed items.

Hypothetical situation,

You're playing TB, your team is up five kills with zero deaths and the war rating is about tied.  What do you do?

A. Not use your massive damage AOEs to net giant amounts of exp and gold

B. Die a couple of times

C. Buy priests instead of currency 1, allowing the other team to catch up

D. All of the above

Oh wait, this just happened and the answer is D.  We farkin' lost.  UNNNNNNGH

"OrexxerO plays a wicked rook without towers. Of course, there's a reason he's rank 2."

I played OrexxO in a game and couldnt distuinguish him from any other random, his team lost hardcore, Oak, Regulus, Qot(ME) vs Rook, UB, Sedna, Conquest on Prison. He missed 3 or 4 boulder rolls, and didnt get a single hammer smash in from what I saw.

but if people are praising him I'll try and get a rematch

Btw, noticed a user name "Kei-Chan", hope the forums don't get flooded with weaboos from 4chan, he or she? had a valid post though, while im completely off topic. My bad:)

-Foreshadowed

I have my bad games. I honestly can't remember that one though.

And yeah if I missed 4 boulder Rolls I deserved to lose that one.

A friend of mine plays a combat rook and does great. The hammer is absolutely devastating mid game. We haven't played any incredibly competative matches yet so maybe i'm speaking from ignorance, but it seems as though rook just needs some decent back up. Often times if i'm playing torch or erebus I'll learn charm/nova first. Typically he'll boulder, i'll stun, he'll hammer, and we'll have a dead hero.

If you can get the Boulder Roll and Hammer Slam technique down perfectly they won't have time to react after the boulder roll before the hammer comes down anyways. Ive killed several TB because I am able to order a hammer slam the moment bolder roll happens, but thats really hard to do.

easy to hit it if they're standing right next to you. not sure how you managed to get a TB in a situation like that, but when i play as Oak or Beast it comes up alot. meleeing a Hammer Rook can be pretty risky and kinda terrifying. 

Lol to get a TB I sometimes will teleport near a building they are shooting or something similar. And while tele is going on I will already have bolder roll ready to aim, I teleport on top and instant bolder roll followed by the hammer. Buh bye TB.


That only happens if they are close enough though. Can work with flags too. And they usually aren't excepting such a instant agressive attack.

And yet you have two memes that thrived on 4chan and are often associated with it in your avatar, and one of them even originated there.

Tower build Rook's are great for lvling games but there are many ways to play Demigod.....

  If your playing a starting lvl 20 game Towers mean absolutely nothing and the Queen of Thorns with all her minion outs will destroy a tower rook with all 8 towers.  Why? The towers will blast the minions before they attack the enemy demigod....  Generals with minions become basically immune to Tower Rooks leaving on Assassin Demigods to fear towers..... but when you have 8k life and 50-71% damage reduction with sizable health regen towers mean nothing....

  Rook is a great linebreaker but a horrible speartip character.  In other words he is great for breaking up engaged fights but not good at initiating a fight.  Rook plays midfield and should always be escorted by another demigod player.  Play him like you would any tank in an RPG.....  stay with a group.

Ehh, Rook can initiate if he's careful. If you're in a 2v2 with a TB on your side, you have little choice but to become the target. But not to worry, a clever rook, who saves his roll and slam for when the enemy realizes just how much damage TB just gave em? Easy kills. Easy kills.

Also one thing few people have addressed. If your opponent has wasted his stun, and you boulder roll him but he'll be able to move before slam comes in, aim a bit ahead of him. Chances are, he'll run STRAIGHT into it, and look like an idiot.

i stopped reading the rest of your post right there....

Towers are not the only way to play a Rook.

The fact that you don't know this and yet are telling other people to not play the Rook if they don't know how to play him, is pretty amusing.

Lol! I did the same.

One reason I like playing a boulder/slam rook. Both skills require you to aim them. I'd like to see more such "aimed" skills in future demigods. Boulder is so much fun, because it's like bowling with a moving target!

Hmm.... You may be on to something! I think this strategy can be applied to all demigods! Use abilities? That sounds like a great idea! So basically... If you suck at playing Demigod, don't play!!! Then you will never lose! Awesome strat man, I mean I thought that using abilities was for noobs, but apparantly not.

BTW, towers don't scale well late-game, and they are boring to play with.

This.

When I play Rook, I rarely bother battleing other demigods (of course you fight them when you need to).  I generally work on clearing as many buildings/towers as I can, so my teammates can work less fettered.  Of course my Rook is miserable in a slaughter battle.

That's probably because it takes 80~64 seconds to set up a lategame tower farm and anything other than eight towers with a boulder roll stun in the middle of them is not going to scare off anybody by that level.

My strategy, though I don't play Rook much, is "towers to level 7, then go with Boulder Roll + Hammer Slam for the lategame." It isn't the best build (I lose out a bit on having a pure hammer slam build), but it allows me to get the best out of him early game and still do well in the late-game.