Rook's Shoulder upgrades useful?

I usually skip poison arrows myself, but the other shoulder weapons are quite useful.

The archer upgrade is useful for crowd control, since they fire crazy fast.  Creeps drop like flies with this.

The tower of light is more powerful, and nice for that little extra damage when enemy DGs show up, or you're pushing up a lane.

The Trebuchet has increadible range, and is useful for pounding the enemy while you move back into the fray.

Archers and Tower of Light shouler options are a must in my book. They give you that added firepower and they help deter enemies from chasing you.

The trebuchet is a bit questionable. It's got a nice range, and I'm not sure about the damage, but it tends to give your position away due to its long range... However, the poisoned arrows seem like they could be pretty effective.

I completely agree with Daikaze. Archers and Tower of Light are very important in the beginning. But I do find the Trebuchet a bit useless. Especially since it misses most of the time, when your rook is moving.

Archers and Tower of Light are a must as must people have said, trebuchet and poisoned arrows are situational, trebuchets are good to kill towers and if you are killing faster demigods, poisoned arrows also good to hunt demigods and to slow them while you run, so trebuchets i get them if im pushing constantly or if i spec for demigod killing and poisoned arrows if im speced for demigod killing.

archers = 120-150 damage when maxed tower of light =150-170 trebuchet =180-220. If you add them you get a nice extra attack for free so yeah, they worth it I killed many DG just by chasing them with arrows

Trebuchet is important to get because it upgrades damage from the rest....

Ohh, I had no idea the shoulder upgrades gained damage for the upgrades after them, does poison arrows increase it too?

No poisoned arrows dont upgrade damage but the rest does.

Trebuchet also targets structures and slowly wittles them away without you having to get in their range.

Yeah Trebuchet is essential for taking down nearby towers without taking damage. If you don't have tower munch it is a must.

The trebuchet is a must-have.  Poison arrows is something you can get if you want, but it's not necessary.  However, I've had several games where the turning point is a level 8 rook that gets his trebuchet.  The tower of light is an invaluable extra attack.  Curiously, I've had countless kills where an enemy with 50 or so hit points is running away, and the final blow is dealt by my arrow towers.  They're very useful for dealing that last pinch of damage to a retreating foe.

The tower of Light can also be chained with the towers you raise. Not that it matters much when you're already protected by 8 towers...

What do you mean chaining?

And trebuchets are a superb counter against the dreaded Heart of Life.

Chaining is when Towers that are close to each other share energy to power up one Tower, increasing the damage it causes.

Chaining is a graphical effect only, and does not effect damage.

This has been proven thus far by Rook veteran players to be false, using in-game dmg statistics.

The chaining is nothing more than a visual effect : it neither increases range (confirmed by same damage output regardless of amount of towers chained) nor power (again, multiple towers chaining did not increase damage at all).

This may change in the future, if Stardock decides to modify the Rook's towers.

It is indeed misleading though.  Maybe during development, tower chains were powered up, but this wasn't the case in the beta, and neither it is as of this date of the official retail launch.

Well everyone one beat me to ti, but yes i asked because i know they dont do that.

Ah, my bad then. I have read in several different places that towers can increase each other's damage, and I assumed it was true since the graphic effect seemed pointless without it. Thank you for correcting me.

No problem is a common mistake.

also worth noting, treb has a small aoe

Regardless of build for rook, the shoulder upgrades are incredibly useful. Getting the arrows ASAP helps farm creeps faster, which in turn helps you level up faster. The extra bit of damage is also a great deterrent early game to keep other DGs away. Depending on the build and your goals, tower of light can be delayed a bit, but it is definitely a must have at some point in the build. Trebuchet is great for a few things, though damaging enemy DGs seems to be the weakest part of it. In a number of games i've taken down towers almost entirely from the treb and creep damage while I was busy holding a flag/lane. It is absolutely essential in fortress destruction games.