Tower spamming rooks

I keep getting matches in pantheon, vs. two rooks. 9/10, its two tower spamming rooks... my point is, if they know what the are doing, it gets rediculously hard to keep up with the rook's ability to destroy our towers and push the front... what can you even do to the tower spammers?

3,775 views 27 replies
Reply #1 Top

If you are in a small map, count your self as dead, if not you will need to go around and use your better speed to harras, also upgrade creeps health and atack it might help you break rooks tower and destroy his blockade.

But really i havent found anyone that can destroy my tower blockade in prison. My only battle lost in  a 1v1 in prison was against a vampire lord, he mainly used his fangs to bleed me dry, since i dont have replays i cant really tell you why exactly i lost.

Reply #2 Top

i play as Ub and Erebus, both of whom have a rough time with the constant tower spamming. out of the 5 pantheons i played today, all 2v2, every single light player was rook. most of em tower spammed.

Reply #3 Top

<WAVE> :cylon:

 seeing as SO many of the darkside players are geting double UB teams, hiding behind the towers is pretty much a rooks only fighting chance in the beginning...hopefully sticking it out till you get a few levels/gold where you can get serious about tower pathing

Reply #4 Top

While he has a bit more option late game, early game Rook is all about tower spamming.  If you see a rook, you can presume this is what he's doing (I have yet to see a competent Rook who doesn't pick towers as his first skill).

That said, Rook is very map specific.  There are some maps he just rocks on, and others he just seems to fall behind on.  I find that Rook is very hard to play on the "Brothers" map, because there is only one location on the entire map that's good for tower spamming in the early game, making him extremely predictable and easily countered.  On some maps, particularly Zikurat and Prison, Rook with tower spam is just tough to deal with.

Another reason Rooks are dangerous is that he's the hardest character to play.  Some maps are really nice for tower spamming, but he's still more difficult to play competently than any other character in the game.  Chances are a successful Rook player knows what he's doing.

Reply #5 Top

Myself, being an Unclean Beast, and a Queen of Thorns handled two spamming rooks fine

on Zikurat

Reply #6 Top

Oh man; played a game a bit back where it was a 3v3, the rook and Thorns lady were never seperated. Cateract was the map name (I"m SURE I misspelled that).  You just can't get by Rook, his towers, and the healing/ranged/minions of the Thorn lady.  We sure as heck tried.  They just slooowly crept towards our citidel; Rook eating our towers as he went.

Here is what "I" did to slow them down; I'm sure if I had a team full of friends that I could have communicated with, we would have beat them.  First, I was trying to capture all the flags.  I figured, if they want to clump up 2 or 3 DGs, go ahead, we'll just get all the flags.  But my two teammates kept trying to fight the unstoppable Rook wall.  I was trying to use all the extra gold from flags/mobs to upgrade the citidel to Catapults.  I figured they could not slooowly work their way to our Cit if I had cleared a path for minions that included Cats. 

But I just could not do it alone.  My allies did their best to stop the Rook "mudslide", but could not.  I just think that if you can't beat'em, out flag/gold'em.  I just need to get a group of known players, friends, to join with me in the future.  Is there a "friends" list in MP?

 

Reply #7 Top

Haha I like how people always say 'tower spamming" rook, as if rook has some other viable strat. Thats what rook does, it should be expected. Best counter to rook is harass him early and use the gold from killing him to get some armor/hp regen so you can fight in the towers a little better, if thats not possible or he has a partner backing him up, ignore him and push the other side with the entire team. upgrade units and tower regen, and keep some scrolls handy to gank him when he over extends hmself

 

on small maps its very hard though, especially for low hp characters. Rook on prison can be brutal.

Reply #8 Top

Thats what rook does, it should be expected.
End of quote

 

You've clearly never been on the wrong side of my hammer slam builds.

Reply #9 Top

I've never seen a competent hammer slam Rook, to be honest.  I played against a slam rook as a tower rook today.  It was an utter slaughter.  We had the flags locked down from the word go (Prison) and they never had a chance.  They could do nothing but back off as soon as my towers were in place.

The thing about hammer slam is that it may do great damage, but three or four volleys from a tower farm will easily do more damage, and it's a persistant, multi-purpose benefit.

Reply #10 Top

Quoting Ron, reply 8

Thats what rook does, it should be expected.
 

You've clearly never been on the wrong side of my hammer slam builds.
End of Ron's quote

 

yep, thats true. Rook is always either completely useless or unstoppable, the latter is always accompanied by tower pushes. If there is a hammer slam build that works, I've never seen it.

Reply #11 Top

On exile or crucible, you basically lose, since they can block off the 1/2 choke points.

 

On something like leviathan, tower spam doesn't really do much.

Reply #12 Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 9
I've never seen a competent hammer slam Rook, to be honest.  I played against a slam rook as a tower rook today.  It was an utter slaughter.  We had the flags locked down from the word go (Prison) and they never had a chance.  They could do nothing but back off as soon as my towers were in place.

The thing about hammer slam is that it may do great damage, but three or four volleys from a tower farm will easily do more damage, and it's a persistant, multi-purpose benefit.
End of Darvin3's quote

 

You don't know what you're talking about.

Reply #13 Top

I've never seen a competent hammer slam Rook, to be honest.
End of quote

 

Too bad; I love it!

The thing about hammer slam is that it may do great damage, but three or four volleys from a tower farm will easily do more damage, and it's a persistant, multi-purpose benefit.
End of quote

 

But tower farms aren't mobile, slams are.

Reply #14 Top

You don't need to be mobile when you're on top of the EXP/Artifact flag.

And tower farms ARE mobile, just slow.

Reply #15 Top

There's really no choice. You get owned if you don't use the towers as an "invisible" wall early game if you're playing against a team with heavy damage dealers.

Reply #16 Top

Ya know, it's amazing: all you guys keep saying slam builds can't work, tower builds are the only way... but I haven't had much (if any) difficulty with my slam builds online.  (Edit:  Frost TB's being the exception)

Reply #17 Top

Slam has a long and very obvious casting animation. Are you playing against people that just aren't paying attention to the giant hammer being lofted above the Rook's head, or how do you get the DG's to stay still long enough to get hit/to run into your casting range at precisely the time the hammer hits the ground?

You can use Boulder, but even still that requires you to not have Boulder miss while being close enough so that you have time to cast slam before the stun wears off and he can run out of the way.

Reply #18 Top

You can use Boulder, but even still that requires you to not have Boulder miss while being close enough so that you have time to cast slam before the stun wears off and he can run out of the way.
End of quote

Bingo.  (Very) Occasionally an enemy will be stupid enough to let you slam without evading, but generally it's the combination of boulder + slam that does the job.  Since rook has massive ammounts of HP and armor, he can survive a very long time waiting for exactly the right moment to uncork the boulder slam combo.  (And moreover, if you can force the enemy to back up, that's half the game won right there)

Reply #19 Top

A good hammer Rook will destroy a good tower Rook.  Though a hammer Rook is fairly dependant upon Swift Anklet, and if favor items are disabled or his favor was randomly wiped that game he will probably resort to tower spam.

When a hammer Rook hits level 15....it is a scary time to be on the other team.  They will probably nerf the anklet though, since it seems to be the items that 80% of the players pick...so hammer Rook may not be great for all too much longer.

The slam isn't just for killing enemy Demigods...though it will work for that if you catch one who isn't paying attention or in a nice boulder roll.  Until level 15 it's mostly for clearing creeps, and scaring enemy demigods who are a threat into backing away.

Reply #20 Top

Rook builds castles, its not spamming its his job! :D

Some maps its nasty, but most he just locks down an area.

 

Reply #22 Top

The anklet IS the best favour item.  It's going to get nerfed into the ground one way or another.

 

Also I never said a hammer rook cannot work, I just said I've never seen a competent one.  Every time I see a hammer rook they're no good.

Reply #23 Top

Ok first off Any build is easy to counter, Granted I usually play 1v1 (Teamates usually equate to free gold for other team). But honestly Sedna running and taking all other flags destroys this build she is just to fast, and late game can get healing so high she can ignore damage of towers.

 

 

Reply #24 Top

I'll need to remember this and set Queenie up with the building busting stuff early on those maps especially the AoE everything at the end of the roots line.. :p 

Reply #25 Top

Also I never said a hammer rook cannot work, I just said I've never seen a competent one. Every time I see a hammer rook they're no good.
End of quote
Ah, well then maybe I should show you how it works sometimes :D

 

As someone else pointed out, a lot of it boils down to being scary -- you can use the hammer to drive people off, or combine it with boulder to kill anyone stupid enough to stick around.  (For people with enough HP, you can boulder slam them early on to get the game 'started', then whittle them down to what I call the 'death threshhold' while waiting on the cooldown...  generally the cooldown is short enough that you can repeat in plenty of time.