Component hover states buggy when rotated

I have a component with standard hover states attached to text (think nav bar). It works perfectly. 

However, when I rotate the component, some of the text components with hover state cease to work. at 12 degrees almost all have stopped working. 

the design calls for rotated text links (a line of them, the whole line rotated). 

any idea why rotation is a problem and how to fix it?