Today I played a few games, trying to give the Rook some love. My biggest issue with him, that when faced up against another player, he has no real useful abilities. Certainly he can take down the AI no problem, and with large amount of armor items and various other things he can be a mean guy. But when you take away the damage modify weapons from the equation, and have him face up against Demigods like Tourch Bearer - he simply can not compete. A Tourch Bearer player can use Frozen Aura to keep him at bay, and even without that he is easy to run away from with a few speed increase items. A Tourch Bearer's range can not be countered, even with Warpstone to try and gain some ground on the nimble little spell caster.
Once upon a time this Demigod was a real meany because of his bowling ball stun. Now this is completely useless, even against the Trouch Bearer. I've found that when the Rook is under the TB's slowing aura, hitting the Tourch Bearer with the bowling rock stun does nothing. You can not advance upon the Touch Bearer fast enough, nor can you run away. The Trouch Bearer can run ciricles around the Rook, even if the Rook has various speed increases, armor, and regeneration. All of Rook's abilities are easily dodges, the Hammer attack can easily be seen coming and a Warpstone allows any Demigod in the radious to get clear. So against smart, real, active players - the Rook really sucks right now. He's most unpopular Demigod in this phase because his abilities are lacking, his unthreatening, and frankly the Unclean Beast and Tourch Bearer just have far more effective abilities.
Rook really needs some loving. I've tried several items and lots of tactics to try and see how he can be improved, but at the moment he's very frustrating to play to because he's so slow and weak. Even his Defensive towers aren't a threat, nor do they last long enough on the field, and also they vanish on their own due to their 'limit'. I fail to understand why he can drop Towers if they aren't very strong, nor do they last against enemy Demigods. He really needs something stronger, something that makes him a threat again because right now he feels a little too weak in contrast to prior beta phases. With all these new items, many Demigods can easily defeat him now without much of a problem.