3v3 Cataract, how do you stop a rook?

Take out his towers with mines/range characters. If your a melee character and hes low on hp like 1/2 hp chase him OUT of his tower farm and try to kill him but make sure he doesn't have boulder 2 because than you wont be able to stop his hammer slam with a stun.

...specially with a sedna by his side.

Well, that goes for everyone, not just Rook. Healing on any level is a massive advantage.

Any suggestions on how to play against a rook?

The thing to remember most when playing against Rook is that they know they're weaknesses and are going to have developed a play style to minimise them, like everyone else. Rook is slow, which is why it's hard to get them - they're play style is designed around making sure they can see a losing situation coming far enough away that they have time to retreat. This plays into their Tower Farm placement, because they make sure if you're going to come at them, it's going to be through as many towers as possible.

The best way to get them down is by chipping away at them; Rook's are heavily dependant on their Mana due to their speed. Towers don't become cheap until the final level, and Boulder Roll/Hammer Slam combos aren't cheap, especially at the beginning if they're trying a hybrid build. Get them to use their abilities, attack their towers, try and dodge their boulder rolls, etc. Keep hitting them and running away, because their HP regen is going to suffer if they focus on Mana to keep using their abilities.

Use spit or minion builds. Send the minions in wave after wave directed at the rook, not the towers. In order to spam towers you need helms over HP items. erebus with horn of battle works well. QOT ground spikes and Reg mines work well.... or just wait for the new demigod's and pick demon assassin, use the trade places ability, now the rook is outside of his tower farm and surrounded by your team.

Since you're on cataract, and you mentioned possible sedna support. That would mean 2 people in 1 lane. Have your counter rook character hold the lane, and the other 2 guys 2v1 the other lane and push their tower. (assuming forces of light) If the rook is in the HP lane, 2v1 the mana flag lane, cuts his mana by 15% then you push the tower that leads to their gold mine - or - if rook is in the mana lane, 2v1 the HP flag and push that tower after.

Once you have one of those towers down you can sandwich the rook from the front and back. I wouldn't do this if his allies know to teleport to his towers, but in most pug games this is overlooked. Farm him.

my nickname for rook is "big ol' pile of gold"

This makes senda have to split up, in which case, have your anti rook character push him back. Horn erebus with shop minions and creepy crawlers works best.

you all make it sound so easy

I havn't played that much rook, but my last two games, when I had good teammates, no one was able to chase me out of a lane

if they came anywhere close to being able to kill me both my teammates ported in and killed them instead

in one game the other team had a reg specced to stop me, I could get my towers up slightly faster than he could get them down, I had a vlemish + unbreakable boots + some mana pots, it took like 5-10 minutes for me to run out of mana

then a quick trip to the crystal and I had the hp flag back in no time

what kind of demi with what spec would own a decent hybrid rook (towers + hammer slam)

remember not a 1v1 situation but 3v3, the team with the rook will always win imo, specially when fighting near his towers

I've tried stopping a rook as a minion ereb, it didn't work, the towers kill the minions way before they're able to do serious damage

if the other team has a brain and sends the rook a monk he won't take any damage at all

unless I suck at minion ereb ofcourse, but 4-8 towers vs a minion wave, the minions die rather fast

Don't focus too hard at fighting tower Rook 1v1.  Tower Rook sucks at ganking, since it takes him a while to setup all of his towers, and he can't run too easily.  Focus on warping and ganking him and his teammates.

the problem is he'll still pwn you in a 3v3

with his constant tower damage and huge hamer slam damage and huge range stun

no

there is no universal strategy i guess.

rook doesnt have enough mana for building towers all the time. so a dg with area damage will make rook go back to the crystal very quickly. a tb with mana items and that fire ring thing is very good.

also he is very slow. if the team doesnt help him you just have to attack him with two dgs at once and he is a free kill because he cant run away quick enough.

imo the best thing against a rook is another rook also at least one teammate should take tele favor.

rook doesn't have enough mana to build towers up to lvl 7 or something, unless he has mana potions, then he does have enough mana to constantly build towers

I know I always have enough mana when I play rook

if a tb tries to place a ring of fire on the rooks towers and the rook manages to hit a stun and a slam the tb is dead, way too dangerous, also circle of fire does not do enough damage to take down the towers, you need at least 2 rings and probably something else with that like a nova or a 3rd ring

attack him with 2 dg's, one of his teammates will warp in

since a rook has huge health and damage, specially in his towers the enemy dgs will die faster than the rook's team

fighting a rook with another rook is an option but arn't there any better options that really pwn a rook?

Horn of battle and minions in the tower farm gives you 10 completely tower free seconds to attack rook. If you don't kill him, he won't want to stay around for very long after that.

you don't even need HoB.

but to yeodan: as already someone said, there is no universal strategy. it's about who plays better. there are many ways to conter rook, as there are many ways for the rook to conter the conter. rooks main weaknis is his slowness. how do you exploiut this? focus him as he cannot retreat or he must retreat far earlier than others to be sure to survive.

how to accomplish this depends on how you, your mates and the other team plays.

exactly my problem, I know how to counter a rook and I know how the rook can counter the counter

the counter to a rook is gang up on him and abuse his inability to escape

the rook's counter to that is have a tower farm up and have his teammates port in as soon as people get in the tower farm

my problem is I do not know how to counter those moves

you can counter a sucky rook by abusing his speed, you can't counter a decent rook with a decent team by abusing his speed since he'll never have to run

you can't just ignore him either, so I'm wondering what the other options are

speccing one person to counter him and just hold him back seems like an option, but also quite a waste of one person, specially since the person, no matter what spec, won't be able to push the rook back 1v1

so he'll just be defending the tower against the rook

seems like a crappy strategy to me, but for now the only one I know that might work

then don't focus on the rook. focus on the others. if the rook ports to them he has no tower farm. the towers won't port with him

put pressure on another side, destroy towers, get to the money flag, or portal. this distracts his mates. don't give them the relaxed gameflow they need to keep an eye on their rook.

the team that puts the most pressure on the other get the advantage to make the other doing a mistake.

a general tip, nothing secret, is to prioritize armor over health against tower rook. this may help in early game. but the basic thing is allway finding a whole in the strategy and putting pressure on them. than you will get your opportunity to kill one of them.

What CelMare said.  Oftentimes Rook, especially a tower build, is easily ignored.  Even if he's holding the fort flag, your team can easily win the game by holding mana and the experience flag on Cat.  This is especially true if they have Rook and Sedna comitted to the same lane.  Another problem with Rook's lack of mobility is that he doesn't have much advancing power.  Even if he takes down the tower on the side lanes, if he pushes towards the middle or down to the portals he's going to become significantly more vulnerable.  He's also going to need to space his towers out more.  And most of all, it's going to take him much longer to push ahead then other DGs.  That gives you time to put 3v1 on the opposite side, tear into their towers and get possible ganks on their loner.

Unless you're fighting a tele-slam build Rook, you can count on him NOT coming out of his lane to cap the mid flag.  Use that advantage to keep the mid capped at all times.  Rook's slow speed also puts him at a disadvantage when he fights in range of your own towers.  He'll get hit more and he has a low base armor.  While you might not ever be able to get to the flag he's defending, you have a good chance of holding your own towers and still farming the creeps on his lane.  As a bonus, since his towers kill off your creeps so well, you're likely not to lose exp by having an enemy creep die out of range fighting a creep battle.

Rook has the most advancing power of anything short of a full minion EB build. He can push the flag towers from the corner once he gets trebuchet, after level 8 you have to pay constant attention to him to protect your lane.

That's correct.  I should have made clear that this was early game.  Once he gets his trebuchet, he can tear down towers from a safe distance.  But a pure tower rook needs to stay close to his towers to remain safe, and for him to physically move up he will need to move his towers up as well.  If he is concentrating on defending a flag with his towers he is more-or-less anchored to that flag.  He does not (usually) have the flexibility to switch sides or move to center at a moment's notice.  And even if he did, a tower rook is relatively weak until he rebuilds his tower farm in his new location.

a tower rook is only weak early and mid game without his towers

late game and end game he'll pwn pretty much anything even without his towers, and he can always put one up to have his teammates teleport in

obscenitor said it quite nicely

you can't ignore a rook or he'll tear all your defenses apart and permanently steal one of your portals

you can't spent too much time on him either because you'll lose war rank

If you are asking how to "counter the counter" of everyone porting into the opponent's rook towers, consider trying this...

Walk into or near a tower farm, makingthe other team port in.  You just made them waste a scroll or the amulet is on cooldown.  You, of course, run away, because you're smart enough to not get killed 3v1.  Meanwhile, your team is free to port or run to the other side of the map while they stand there alone inside a tower farm doing nothing.  Its all about teamwork and communication.  Do that kind of coordinated attack once or twice and the other team will be a lot less likely to port into the rook if they think defenses on the other side are about to get cleared out.

Or, if they're smart, they'll just fake port unless you actually go into the farm.

UB Spit is usually a real pain when I play the rook.  You can buy the item to nulify it, but he can spit every 5 seconds or so if he has the mana.  That's a ton of money you have to waste just fending off spit.  The favor item that also nullifies does not have a cooldown timer that can keep up either.  I typically have 1 level of structural transfer and will feed off of one my towers to minimize spit damage, but that's only effective while UB's spit isn't doing 100+ damage a second and he's spitting on you ever 5-10 seconds.  A full on tower Rook might not have as much trouble with this since he could stay well behind his towers and force UB to take a little damage as well (moreso with a boulder thrown in), but that's only the case if you are a full tower build and have a bunch up.

Basically, I think a smart spitting UB is an effective counter to a Rook (except possibly an all out tower build).  He never endgages Rook head on until the poison is already ruining Rook's day and it tends to force the Rook back (which can keeps him from creeping and leveling up).  If nothing else, it forces the Rook (and/or Sedna with him) to constantly be expending mana and/or gold to heal spit damage.  If Rook is having to spend gold to heal/nullify and you are able to avoid taking equivalent damage getting the spit in, your UB should out gear the Rook as the game progresses.

UB is the demigod I think I most dislike fighting as the Rook.  Reg and TB can also be a pain though due to range.

-dolynick

Rook is good but u can kill him in 1 vs 1 depend of ur style and demigod u take.....u can chase him, low his HP to force him to run, etc. When u are on a 3 vs 3 battle...u and ur ally need to focus on him 1st. Use ur interupt skill on him, etc. If u want to do some trouble to rook, wait for a waves of creeps and attack him...his tower will focus on creep instead of you.

Kill him

"UB is the demigod I think I most dislike fighting as the Rook.  Reg and TB can also be a pain though due to range.

-dolynick" /chrome=broken reply button

Reg is stuck targeting your towers most of the time, and his mines are easily avoided, whereas TB has several AOE attacks which are difficult to avoid while tagging loads of creeps and earning him a fair amount of gold and exp.

He didnt ask for advice on what to do if they fake port.  He asked what to do if they all jump in and support the Rook.