You should not play Rook to his speed, its true that you will never catch an UB or REG but he ius not suposed to, so im cool with that.

True hammer slam cant hit anything that moves, but you dont have to, just go with your towers and you should be fine.

i played vs a good rook yesterday, he make perfect combo with sedna. i was UB with an other rook, and cannot do anything vs them.

boulder me when i'm close, so can't avoid hammer + sedna : dead in most case.

And with sedna heal...they just push & kill 7/24

I play Rook usally
and i must admit i dont remember a game where i lost with Rook
the first 5 lvls i hunt for creeps and with hummer slam i just kill them all with one hit
and move to the next wave, i gain lvl 5 by the time others get only lvl 3
by the time im lvl 5 or 6 i got enough gold for heart of life so now i dont have to teleport all the way back
I kill most of DGs by smashing them to 50% hp with 1 hit and then they run so it dosnt matter
i just chace them to death as i got boots of speed and this idol of speed thats enough to catch them

The only problem i had is when 1 DG is becked up by other, so when 1 is running the other hitting me
i dont have enough HP to wistand 2 DGs attaks one after another so usally i teleport

The thing is that Rook got a strong psychological factor on the battlefield
when a player loosing 50% hp with 1 hit he panics and run
some of them are trying to heal but by the time they heal i got hummer ready to bash again

Other factor is the support waves, as rook i always go in with a wave, killing enemy wave with 1 hit
and its me + my wave vs 1 DG, a DG without AOE such as UB usally outnumbred and runs away

Another problem is the archer, he drops maxed out mines and shoot me, when i go to him i step on the mines

heavy damage and then he use fury on me and when i see im too weak and run he just snipe me
and thats how i usally die...

All other factors are minor, Spit do damage but with my high HP its not bothering me
cyrcle of fire dont bothering me as well and this vampire could bearly scratches me

And there are those fighting spots when usally 2 or more DGs metting each other and fight
i usally after battle spam them with towers and just waiting (and killing creeps)
when the enemy DG returns he just go into all my towers and my hummer slam

and the support archers and laser of the Rook are very usefull, espacialy on chaising DGs
i had lots of times when a running DG was too far for melee and my laser finished him
(the lasers on the Rooks sholders)

uh

I did try speed on the rook but its just not doable. it doesnt matter how much speed buffs you put on it, someone else  is ALWAYS going to be faster (like the UB)

Hammer slam and boulder roll are not exactly a great weapon vs demigods, unless you get lucky (way too slow) but are great for creeps - both of them.

The way i see it the rook is definately not a DG killer, but it does a great job of controlling an area - if properly supported by team it will just rock.

Now a question, the light towers seem to  self-destruct after a period of time (and not just because of the maximum active towers) - i wonder if this is a bug or feature?!? having to keep raising towers is just painful on his already low mana...

start out with scaled helm(+ mana +mana regen is important) + 2x telescrolls + 15% movespeed circlet(favor) and go take a tower + wave (hammer 1 hit wave) now your level 2.

1:hammer slam

2: archers

3:tower

4:slam

5: lazer/tower/boulder (depending on game)

6: see 5 but make sure you have lazer

7: hammer slam

8: tower/catapult

9: make sure you have boulder else get more towers/up damage if pushing

10: hammer slam

11: second level of boulder

ensure getting insane amounts of mana regen either by heart or an early vledemich or whatever its called helm (15 mana regen is nothing to joke about)

not hitting boulder/hammer when their close is really shameful ... i feel bad if i miss , and hammer slam is not impossible to land just dont hit straight on them, if theyre running away from your tower intercept with a hammer , now if they want to juke they need to go back , take side damage from hammer + towers + archers/lazer and you can chase them down with archers/lazers in a lot of cases .

use your teammates stun if needed to place a hammer .

if they keep away from you and you get time of start putting up a grid , 1 hit the creep wave and start hitting the tower with

your creeps throw another hammer when next wave is underway ( make sure you hit the tower) and repeat the process . if you have heart you can push 1-2 towers per min and they will have to come to you , always maintain mapcontrol and tele out if you feel a gank coming.

rook is really powerful , being able to do alot of roles at early/mid/lategame , watch out for erebus and tower spam regulus 

quick edit: ive lost 1 game total with rook and that was because my teammate feeded 10 kills then left after 7 mins

It seems clear that in matches between organized teams Rook's ability to establish battle lines, support weak lanes, and create structrues that allies can warp to defines where fights happen.  Towers are his defining feature, no one else has anything that is similar in effect.  I'm not sure where he will evolve beyond that - I didn't play in the beta - but I have trouble imagining any 4v4 or 5v5 team that does not include Rook.

/agrreee

Do I need to screen shot the last four pantheon matches I played with rook? 21/1 in the last pantheon. Srsly.

Now I can't speak for organised team games but from my experience and from what I've read the Rook only has 1 effective build... Tower spam. He can't go toe to toe with any demigod as they can ALL kite him with ease and some (vampire lord, UB, Oak) can beat him in melee without kiting him.

So Tower spam is Rook's only effective build, but the problem with only having one effective build is that its very easy to counter. A good fire TB or Regulus can shut down tower spamming Rooks by having greater range then the towers or Huge DPS.

My argument: Tower Spamming Rook is a good build but as a whole the Rook right now is weak because he really only has 1 effective build. I could be very wrong (I haven't been able to play lately cause of a RAID 0 error on my PC) but thats what I see the Rook's problem as.

That's just part of the metagame biz-mark.  Rook's towers are strong enough that the other team needs to develop a counter.  Just because a counter exists doesn't make Rook weak.  Strategies will develop that counter Torchbearer or Regulus taking down the towers from long range.  Counters for the Counter-Strategy, and a metagame is born.

Towers are an important enough feature to be worth developing the counter-counter for.  If Rook can't do it himself, his teammates need to protect him.  That's part of organized play.

Thank you! ~8% dmg reduction is totally not Rookish!

I wasn't saying that the fact that theres a counter to tower spamming makes the Rook weak, I'm not really well versed on the metagame, if there is even is one this early, of Demigod but there should be a counter to everything. I was saying that what makes the Rook weak was that he only really has 1 effective build. And when you only have 1 build it makes it far too easy to counter. It also doesn't help that the 1 build is also not very mobile.

I mean right now Rook plays WAY more like a general then the Vampire Lord does.

Also, him gaining +100 armour is like half an attack (76ehp) at level1. :/

The Rook is the funnest character to play for me. I like playing defense. 

Enjoy playing a Fortress style game with both teams sporting a couple of these for defense.  The Power Tower + Structural Transfer + Mana Regen is a nice combination to start with allowing the Rook to stay out in the fight longer and not spend all his time wandering back and forth.  The ability to Transfer your Towers into health is a nice feature and allows one to save on the costs of purchasing health.  Laying a Tower out behind you before advancing into a hot zone allows one to pull back to a quick healing.  Not having to carry health opens up a slot allowing for the Emergency teleport scroll   extra Mana and a much needed Flag Lock. 

i just had a rook tower his way into my base. and there was nothing we could do about it really

sedna (me. man would i have killed for AOE)

TB

Oak

vs

Rook (towers)

Reg (didn't do a whole lot, really)

UB (ended up quitting, turned into an AI that we didnt bother to kill. perhaps we could have used the gold in the end?

Funny, the Pantheon stats show the rook as the most successful demigod overall.  I'll admit that surprised me but at the same time a strong player with rook is hard to take down.

You will notice that whatever Demigod is getting the most love on the forums is the one who ends up in first place on pantheon. Its because since we all use our brainpower and time figuring out effective ways to play the char, all the scrubs and copy cats out their read our posts and jump into pantheon to see if they can make it work. Rook posts started poping up last weekend. At that time UB was top (as the week before everyone was talking about UB). Im sure in a few days a new guide will be posted or new information will come out or a player like myself will release his build for his favorite character and all the peons will go try him out.

Its just the way these things work. Its also compounded by people checking whiuch demigod is top and going for that one.

Point being if you want to see your demi as top, get the community talking about him!

What about having a structure busting build that concentrates on hammer, god strength, and tower eating, along with lots of points into general stats to make him stronger? This build would be designed to specifically attack enemy structures (e.g. fortress game).

That is the same build as i did recently, its fantastic.  The thing that people forget about Rook is that he benefits the most of any character from +attack speed% items.  He has the highest base damage by a HUGE margin (530 vs UB's 291 at lvl 20 assuming god strength).  What this means is that his auto attack is the most powerful in the game, since UB hits the speed cap (2 attacks per second) without TOO much difficulty. 

I am going to test out the numbers real quick, but the last time i tried i had rook doing ~1850dps with his auto attack, and UB doing ~1200-1300 (with the absolute best items).

What i want to do is find exaclty how much it takes to reach the attack speed cap for each character, to see how much they benefit from haste (which is a % multiplier, unlike +damage items)

I know of 2-3 different builds for rook that are very effective at what they're meant for. I think you just don't know the demigod well enough.

FYI it takes 160% haste to get Rook to the cap, maxxed out my rook has 2044 DPS  It would be 2124 if i had Mards hammer as a favor item =D

He's definitely not what he used to be.

With Hammer Slam and Boulder Roll both nerfed to be more or less useless, all hes got is towers. Which are damn good, don't get me wrong, but its all hes got.

Its very hard to land a Hammer Slam early to mid game because Boulder Roll I's stun doesnt even last as long as the casting time of HS, assuming its not interrupted. Since the damage was reduced, even if you do land it, then enemy will just run away and heal up.

That said, it's still possible to be a very effective rook with those towers.  You're a walking fortress and you can suck up health from them. You just have to stay in one place then inch forward with towers.

UB needs ~60% to reach the speed cap, which does give him a pretty solid advantage, as it frees up some slots for durability increasing items.  UB is overall the better character, as his peak is higher (due to the frenzy-type ability), though his auto attack maxes out at 1666 DPS or so.

I will say the highest hit i have ever seen as well as the highest listed dps number (9245 and 3277 respectively) were both with UB.  Though that is using both the cooldown frenzy ability as well as the artifact that adds 300 to the characters attack damage.

To sum it up, UB is probably still technically the better character, but its pretty darn close.  And i know this is all subjective, but Rook "felt" more powerful when making those numbers, as he had quite good %hp drain, so his shoulder turrets would constantly feed him health regardless of what he was focusing on.  UB seemed much more reliant on draining health from his main target, and so would have a harder time with fortifications.  I would conclude that these two are by far the best if you take a stat-based rather than an ability based approach to killing your enemies.

Wrong.

If the enemy is not present on the battlefield, it means three things:

1) You are going to push more.

2) You gain more EXP.

3) You gain more gold.

So...yeah.

You play one hell of a pussy rook.