Good advice indeed. However there are ways to actually take on the Rook in his farm.

 

The most important thing to realise is that going after Rook in his farm is not going to work.  Too much firepower and anything other then a concentrated team effort is not going to do it. However almost every demigod has a way to deal with this tactic.

You need to take down the farm. Whether you do this by outranging the towers (regulus) or AoE'ing them/stunning them (Torch) or simply do too much damage to them (UB's spit) for rook to keep up with, you can take them down. 1 or 2 towers is not dangerous. 6-8 are. Fortunately they can be destroyed fairly easily and do not regenerate. Needless to say the best time to do this is while he is tryingt to build the farm. It takes less time to destroy a tower then it does for Rooks tower power to cooldown. Add in that mana limits your tower placements and having them destroyed will dry you up very quickly (unless its late game and the mana regen is through the roof, then your just playing on the cooldown).

You can also keep a Rook from advancing very easily. Most rooks will make a farm and then move slightly ahead to build a new farm or a single tower to use as a launch point. If you are there waiting, taking down the towers as he puts them down, he will have an impossible time advancing. More importantly if you can do this to him at a point where his tower farm will be outside of where the waves are clashing, he wont be getting experience and gold as well.

Ive seen people use these tactics against Rook and ive had them used on me when I play Rook. It is VERY frustrating for the Rook player.

One last note, if you see an unatended tower farm. Spend the time to take it down, its worthwhile. It will take Rook another minute or two of standing in one place placing towers to get it back up (or much longer if you are harassing him and the towers while he does it).

The Rook isn't save in his tower fortress at all. Ranged attacks by the QoT, Regulus or even UB's spit can bring him down eventually.

tower damage is mitigated by Armor, meaning that Rook's "Tower of the Power" ability might be the only activated ability in the game that is affected by Armor. 

 

Rook's shoulder turret damage is also affected by armor. 

 

if you're playing a melee type DG that has to stand in the tower forest to attack rook (Beast, Sedna, Oak) then you'll benefit greatly (against Rook anyway) from emphasizing your armor stat in equipment choices. 

This doesn't work for 2 reasons.

1. Leaving rook alone allows him to creep and level faster than any of the other demigods. If you let rook get too high, he can pretty much solo your citadel.

2. Rook left to his own devices will slowly advance towards your base or portal flags. He isn't immobile at all... He can set up shop wherever he wants and whenever he wants. This means if you're not holding him back... there's no reason he won't just go set up shop on your portal flags.

Basically... leaving rook alone is not a counter to his tower build at all. In fact... its possibly the worst way to deal with it. You never leave a demigod to their own devices, it gives them just as much money and experience as letting them kill you (more over time).

The best way to counter rook's tower build is to rely on ranged attacks, regulus is great for it especially early game. He can stand just outside of the tower's reach (with one upgrade) and take them down. Dropping mines at your feet, if rook becomes impatient you take the instant advantage. If you do this early enough, it might discourage rook out of the tower build all together. If it doesn't you can at least halt his advance and gain some money and exp in the processes.

hit rook while hes setting up. Regulus mine ability is set off by towers, combine that with him outranging the towers makes regulus a pretty nasty counter to tower rook. In pantheon thats another story...

A single player can generally harass rook enough to slow his tower crawl down ALOT, or stop it earlier in the game. Once hes set up he makes for a invaluable safe haven for allied heroes, and if he sets up in your terriory getting him out is TOUGH.

 

 

Rook is a bit of a juggernaut. He is big, and slow, but given time he can become quite the force to be reckoned with. The key is to keep him from gaining momentum, or finding a way to slow him down after he starts ploughing through your base.

 

Don't give Rook time to setup a tower farm! If you can keep him moving then he can't set up his towers in a nice deadly bunch.

Regulus, TB, and QoT are probably the most suited for fighting a Rook.

Frost TB is probably the worst foe that a Rook can face. Rook is already slow, and if you slow him down more he will not be able to escape. Frost TB also has the ability to increase the cooldown on Rooks abilities, which means fewer towers over a period of time. If all else fails a Frost TB can freeze the towers... I think even Erebus stun effects them, but I'm not positive.

Regulus has the range and the mines to clear out tower farms and keep a Rook at bay, but this isn't helpful if you play a lot of Pantheon.

QoT is has plenty of anti-structure abilities, much like the Rook. Uproot, Shamblers, and Siege Idols are all great ways to take down towers. Spikewave and Ground Spikes are decent vs tower farms, but if you can't hit the Rook with these abilities then it might not be worth using against the tower farm; Rook can easily replace lost towers, so unless you can hurt him or take out multiple towers you might be better off saving your mana. Ground Spikes will make the towers easier to kill due to the -armor effect of the ability.

The towers seem to be affected by armor, so having a high armor makes it easier to withstand their attacks.

 

The Unclean beast can use spit on the towers, but he's better off hitting the Rook to help scare him away.

Oak and Sedna aren't really suited for fighting Rook, but their minions can work as a decent distraction against Rooks that don't manually control their towers.

Erebus can mass up minions pretty easily, and those minions are very capable against the tower farm (or going straight for the Rook), and the minions are easily expendable.

Do NOT ignore rook! Ever!

Yeah, rook solo builds better than any DG out there.  And heck, if he has a General with priests nearby, he can pretty much push through to your citadel without returning to base for more than maybe a better hat.

Since he can kill towers starting from pretty much level 1, he gets extra gold and exp.  Couple that with the fact his towers will make sure he gets kill credit for pretty much every grunt, and he gets even MORE gold.  All this adds up to him maximizing his solo lane time, as well as being able to actively persue victory.

Unclean beasts spit, regulus various toys, and TB's area of effect abilities are all very good ways to deal with a Tower farming Rook.

I was just DOMINATED in a tournament game.  I got paired with an Erebus and I was QoT, we both generally knew what we were doing.  Guess who we got paired up against?  2 rooks on the 2 vs 2 map. (starts with a c, has only one path to the enemy base)  We both thought of the bright idea to port out straight away and cap the flags fast, by time we got back to start killing the first wave of minions we found that our opponents were rooks and they already had 4 towers up.  As they placed them in such a way to limit our ability to run past them to re-cap our flags while defending the only path to their base, basically all we could do was sort of sit there and watch ourselves get slaughered. 

I'm really starting to hate rook's towers.   

Killing tower rook is not that hard, even if he has a couple of towers nearby.

* Wait for reinforcements. If you're a general, you already got them. Otherwise wait until the creeps come so they soak up the damage.

* Pound Rook, ignore Towers If you're too weak to fight rook even without his tower farm, then nothing short of ganking will help you.

* Interrupt Rook's self-heal. Many rooks rely on Structural Transfer. You have plenty of time to stop that from happening. Stun him or destroy the tower he is currently munching ... that stops his heal, too.

 

Any other tips would be DG specific, but these general tactics work for everyone.

Well, by time we got to attacking rooks we'd both die.  I'm not saying we sucked but there were far too many towers and pounding rook/using reinforcements didn't really help.  It was a bad matchup since Erebus and QoT have a hard time, (at least QoT does in the beginning of the game) against all those towers on a small map.  If we tried letting the reinforcements soak damage to try and gank a rook we'd get chain boulder rolled and die.    Oh well, it happens, and I doubt we'll be seeing two rooks on the same map in tourny again with the same matchup. 

This works suprisingly well.  Unlike a general, Rook has no way to command his passive damage - towers and shoulder upgrades - to target a specific target.  His damage can therefore be spread out, especially if the minions are sent in first.
Not entirely true.  If you have an effective way of dealing with his towers, use it.  Regulus can out-range them, forcing Rook to come to him.  TB can AoE down the whole group, and/or use Fireball to effectively out-range them.  At low levels, Rook will not have the mana to replace them more than once or twice.
I cackle with glee every time I see Oak use his stun.  Yes, it gives him a big boost to damage done, but it also gives me seven seconds to regenerate off the nearest tower.  Stuns are a resource.  Conserve them until necessary - Structural Transfer has a whopping 20 second cooldown, and if it is interupted, Rook can be forced to retreat.  This gives you a chance to wipe out his farm and set him back to square one.

 

You forgot TB annhilating all of it while the towers are frozen doing nothing

Torch+ring of fire= dead rook towers

When I play Rook I'm more concerned about Rain of Ice because with Circle of Fire they have to get close enough to get several towers in the circle, making themselves vulnerable to Boulder Roll.