I mean try CWM and nothing else and see if
1) ROM still boots okay
2) You can get into CWM.
If it does boot okay, you can try the following the instructions from a guy that rooted it for me.
1) Backup your current ROM to external storage.
2) Then flashinitialization_410_tool.zip.
3) Then if key combination for recovery still not working, flash cwm recovery again. Flashing it above initialization tool should set proper key combination working.
4) When you got initialization_tool you can safely flash root.zip
If you're not scared of possible bootloops and dealing with them.
I'm still not sure if just flashing root above stock caused bootloops for that guy, or was it cwm (but it shouldn't - for me it works).
I will try to help you if anything goes wrong. But I don't guarantee I will solve any problem and I'm not responsible for any bricks.
What do you mean you nearly bricked it? Booting to a recovery and not doing anything will not cause bricks.