Newbie Rook

Yeah, I hate to say it but playing Pantheon is almost worthless.  You typically aren't going to get a full team game (at least 2v2), which is what Demigod is all about.  Rook is going to have a real hard time in 1v1, as you've noticed, for lots of different reasons.  Most players just play Custom games, and you can even find "noob" games there.

There are a number of good Rook builds in these forums.  I actually posted one on my blog at: http://fenrisjaw.blogspot.com/2010/05/demigod-strategy-tower-slam-rook-build.html which is really nothing new, but will just show you how at least one other player deals with Rook.

Oh and BTW, welcome to the DG community!  Hope you enjoy the game enough to stick around. 

I'd definitely suggest you read some of the excellent strat guides players have posted in these forums.  I compiled a lot of them here:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/365172

I have a new-player specific guide here:  http://forums.demigodthegame.com/365224

Hope to see you in-game.

1st thing

Rook is actually not an easy Demigod to play. He is very slow, so very vulnerable to 2on1s. You need to be able to judge when you need to bail from the lane, even if you are at full health. This is an experience thing so expect to die lots, suddenly and painfully.

Second I don't think Obscen's general build idea for Rook is listed in any guides, you should probably use it. It is the most powerful build as far as I am concerned.

1) Tower I
2) Archer
3) Save
4) Tower II
5) Boulder Roll + Tower of Light
6) Slam I
7) Tower III
8) Trebuchet
9) Slam II
10) Tower IV
11) Boulder II
12) Slam III
13) Slam IV
14) Structual transfer I
15) Boulder III
16) God Strength
17) God Strength II
18) God Strength III
19) Poisoned Arrows
20) Stun Hammer 

Overview of How to play

Rule 1: Tower your lane (you must be patient)
Rule 2: Never leave your tower farm when you are in lane, expand it slowly forward 
Rule 3: Learn to boulder roll properly (even I fail at this 25% of the time, it is probably my weakest area with Rook) You really do look like a retard when someone at point blank range moves on an oblique angle so your boulder goes in the gutter off the map.
Rule 4: Learn when you can and can't push a tower (there is also nothing wrong using your treb alone when you are level 8, safety over speed) 
Rule 5: Do not miss any creep waves in your lane (this is probably my stongest area, I am usually 2 levels ahead of everyone at the end of the game, because I do my damnest to get full XP as rook) This makes a huge difference for this skill path build
Rule 6: Rook has very low armor, try not to take unnecesasary auto attacks
Rule 7: Structural transfer is a bad skill to take early (you have moreimporatant things to take), but near the end when your build is finished it can be a good way to hold a portal inbetween fights.

Some notes
Some people swear you should only take up to tower II, don't listen. Tower III and IV might take awhile to build up, but it is a real pain in the ass to take down, even if they kick you out of lane they are still going to get hurt removing it. When you are level 14ish, you can usually survive a 2on1 with all your towers in play.

Godstrength is a deceptively bad skill to take early. Rook's auto attack is very slow so 50 damage is not that big a deal. At level 8 you get cleave for free anyways, so you can clear out creep waves just as easily. However, at the higer levels, Rook's auto arttack speed starts to get a little crazy, and 150 extra adds up to insane levels of DPS so it becomes a bad skill to miss out on.

Skills 19/20 are optional choices, but I like poisoned arrow and stun hammer, because, if you fight me, one of us is not leaving alive.

Items
(start) Blood of the Fallen + Scaled helm: Maintaining 2 towers early is safer then more life. 

Then stack life/armor and mana as you can
Unbreakable
Banded
Scalemail
Vlemish
Sell Scalemail, get Nimoth
Sell Scaled and get Plenor

Now, watch every replay of your games.
Find places when you weren't patient and took damage that could have been avoided
Find places when you didn't leave a lane and should have because you were in danger of being killed (you should rarely be in a heart stopping situation as rook where yuu say "OMG I don't believe I lived". You are playing right when you don't get in these situations)
Find places when you died, learn not to do that.

Both of the above posts are dead on. I pretty much play a the same Rook build as Orion described and it works. Things that can't be stressed enough with Rook.

Rule 1: Patience

Rule 2: Patience

Rule 3: Patience

Seriously. Do not leave your farm unless you can clearly see that ALL of your opponents are engaged elsewhere except for the one you are trying to chase down and finish off. Remember, one of Rook's greatest strengths is his independent attacks. If you are standing safley in the 2nd row of your farm, and your opponent is standing there pounding on your first tower in range of two others and your shoulders and boulder, you're winning. You don't need to slap people to gain the advantage. Let them pound away, Roll them occasionally so that they take damage and stop damaging your towers (but not so much that you are oom-ing yourself). Most people don't like to be stunned near a tower farm and will back off even if they are not really in immediate danger. Also, ping your opponents for a teleport, and then roll as soon as your opponent sees that you have an ally on the way, and start hustling up to slap and keep him in range of your shoulders. You may not get the kill, but you will drive them off, and then you start setting your line forward.

And Orion is absolutely right about towers. Don't stop at level 2, for two reasons. One, the difference in hps and damage is significant. And not just because the towers themselves are stronger, but because there can be twice as many of them. Any good AoE character, TB, Occ, Oak, etc. can flatten 4 level 2 towers in about a second and a half once they hit level ten. But with eight towers, they can rarely hit all of them because your farm is so big, even if they can kill them quickly. This leaves you always having a safe place to retreat too, drain for hps and give your allies a chance to teleport in. And secondly, THEY COST HALF AS MUCH. Rook always has mana problems because he has low mana in general, has to stack health and armor because he is such a big target, and his roll/ slam combo cost so much. Once you hit level ten, and you have two helms and level 4 towers, the farm is basically free, and all your mana can go toward hammerrolls.

Rule 4: Don't play rook one on one.

Rule 5: Never, ever, and I mean EVER, play Pantheon. Host a custom game with "noob" in the title, or join one.

Good luck. Getting good with Rook can be a lot of fun, as he can end games very quickly after level 10. A rook with 8 towers up around their portal on cataract is GG.

Learning how to fake casts, when to sigil/pot vs tp is vital for playing a good rook.

A rook needs good teammates who will tp in to gank for you, because if all 3 of them come after you there isn't much you can do.

In a 1v1, if you want to use a Rook, get amulet of teleportation so you can teleport everywhere to capture flags, and set up a few towers to push creep waves forward.

Some will disagree here, but I found SP was a useful tool for practicing initially.  Check the modding forum for the Skirmish AI mod that increases AI difficulty.  That won't make you a champ in MP, but it will help you get better imo. 

Timing interrupts is also very, very important. When losing a fight badly, wait for your enemies to use their interrupts, then teleport away as quickly as possible. Also, know that if your teammates come to help, even if you're dying, you should boulder roll / hammer slam the enemy. If they continue to pursue you, then use the sigil. This way you pull them further into your territory and damage them. Also, don't be afraid to place towers while fighting. The animation time is so short that you'll do more damage by placing towers than you would by bitch slapping them.

Another important trick to learn is the Boulder Roll followed by a hammer slam.

I applaud your effort to learn Rook as your first Demigod. He's tough to learn but rewarding to master.

DEFINITELY found single player helpful.  I've found out a ton of stuff through single player actually (most of it probably because I'm too lazy to figure out this whole lua thing)

You don't always have to boulder roll to hammer slam. You can fake hammer slam to have everyone move back rather than attack, you can also fake a slam to make them waste stuns. You'll also find that a lot of the times, you can slam them without getting interrupted anyway.

Especially if you learn to look for the longer cast times- a Tb casting circle of fire, a Oak trying to Surge, and Reg trying to lay mines, etc. These are all things they are going to try to do right under your face, especially if they think they can hit your farm, so either you trade off with them a decent amount of damage for the massive damage of Hammerslam, or they abort and your towers stay up. Win-win for you.

Just a tip:

a Frost/Hybrid TB can screw up your work on your tower farm. When fighting one of dems look for the Deep Freeze Debuff (It'll be a hand coming from the left with icy shit coming out).

If you cast a tower while this debuff is active, your cooldown will increase by at LEAST 130%. 

Also, be weary of moving you tower line forward when fighting a TB. Thats the prime FB chance and if he is able to get you low, he will freeze your towers and the security is gone for at least 6 seconds.

:D:D:D:D:D

I played a random assassin game where my team got double rook and the enemy got double tb. It was so frustrating, towers were completely useless and rook's low armor gets screwed over pretty hard by TB's massively damaging AA