You get platemail, 1 teleport scroll, and a flag capture lock out of the gate. Save the rest. Your favor is Blood of the Fallen.

Choose a lane, it's your lane. Get to it and sit on the flag. Level 1 you take tower of power 1. Set your towers up on or near the flag. Push your enemy out of your lane, do not recast towers unless you need to (you have literally no mana). Follow this skill build, and stay in the lane untill you can no longer maintain towers / the lane due to over pressure. When the lane is to hot or you have gold, capture lock the flag and walk/teleport back to base. I recommend walking to base and teleporting back out, or possibly walking back out. Not using the teleport can save you 250 gold, but sometimes it's needed.

1 Tower Power 1

2 Shoulder Archers

3 Save

4 Tower Power 2

5 Shoulder Tower of Light / Boulder Roll

You should also buy the 550 gold helm from the shop ASAP, as well as keep up with teleport scrolls and capture locks. NEVER be without both of these, or your not playing rook properly. Use boulder roll only to keep players in your towers, or to save teammates. Casting it will take all your mana. The rest of the game you convert over to a smash rook to maximize your killing potential.

You have very good passives, so having lots of durability to stay in the fight is very important. The best items to make this happen are unbreakables, nimoth chest guard, and nimoths ring. Vlemish face guard is nice, but your better off using that money on teleport and capture locks, and just refueling your mana at base.

6 God Strength 1 (gives a cleaving attack, makes killing creeps much easier) You could also take trebuchet instead

7 Hammer Slam 1

8 Hammer Slam 2

9 Hammer Slam 3

10 Hammer Slam 4

Through these levels use your HP and Passives to deal damage. Try to refrain from using hammer slam till level 10, unless you are certain it will give you a kill.

11 Trebuchet (makes tower of light better, can net you a kill from 30 range away) If you took at level 6, get God Strength here

12 Boulder Roll 2

13 God Strength 2

14 Save

15 Dizzying Force And Poison arrows (You are now the best assissin in the game, believe it or not)

16 God Strength 3

17 Boulder Roll 3

18 Stats

19 Stats

20 Stats

Most games don't see level 15. The good thing about rook is he CAN be good early game and AMAZING late game. Many say go tower rook or go hammer slam. The problem is hammer slam is super bad early game, and towers are super bad late game. However towers are highly exploitable early game, and a fully upgraded hammer slam is the best AoE in the game. Rooks potential is that he can roll this type of build effectively, while many DG suffer from the need to take and concentrate on 1 build type the whole game.

When I play Rook I usually get Hammer Slam 1 first, then I don't upgrade it till later. The reason for this is that Towers and Archer damage does not count towards creep gold bonus. So I tag creeps with Hammer Slam then let the Towers and Archers finish them off.

edit: double post 

My Rook build is similar to the first reply but my order is a bit different.

-I start with Towers 1.  This is typically the only point I spend there, though in certain circumstances I could go for level 2 if need be.  Towers are crucial to holding ground in the early game.  Level 2 would make them more effective longer but in my case I have alternate uses for them as well.

-2nd level is always Archers.  I will also pick up the Tower of Light upgrade as soon as possible (level 5).  I usually don't bother with Trebuchet until much later of the game.  Level 1 and 2 of this skill path adds 218 dps, Trebuchets only add another 40 dps.

-3rd level is Structural Transfer 1.  This is the only point I invest in this skill path.  This allows me to use my 2 towers as healing potions if I have the mana and lets me stay out in the field longer (using it in combat isn't usually a good idea though, use it between fights).  It also means that I'm not spending gold on potions to boot, leaving it for other gear or upgrades.  Finally, this can be helpful in pushing towers as you can heal a bit while doing damage to the tower yet, which is often a decent trade off for the slightly lower dps than if you just bashed away.  It's also helpful for stealing flags that are guarded by towers in the same regard since Transfer can cover a good portion of the time it takes to cap the enemy's gold flag on Cataract for example.

-4th level is Hammer Slam 1.  Hammer 1 isn't that useful aside from quickly smashing creep waves if I'm in a hurry or possibly wiping out minions (particularly monks) in a pinch so I don't use it much at this point.

-5th, as previously stated is Tower of Light.

-6th is God Strength 1.  From here on out, I will pick up then next level of God Strength as soon as it becomes available.

-7th is either Hammer Slam 2 or Boulder Roll 1, depending on the game.  Boulder+Hammer isn't all that effective until you have Hammer 3 and Boulder 2.  Boulder 1 can still help you and your team get kills though and even boulder 1 + Hammer 2 can be effective against the right DG or at the right time.

-8th is whatever of the two I didn't take at 7th.

-From here on out I will always take God Strength improvements as they become available.  I will also get Hammer 3 ASAP followed by Boulder 2.  After that I continue to invest in Hammer Slam.

-In the late game, my target item (after armor, etc) is Mage Slayer.  It let's my capitalize on my God Strength investment.  If I have that then God Strenth 3 is my lvl 15 skill.  If not then Hammer Slam 5 is what I'll pick first.  After those two I may invest in Stats or pick up Trebuchets and the rest of the Archers path.  By level 20 I typically have full Hammer path, full Boulder path, full Archer path, full God Strength path and at least a couple points in Stats.

I usually go armor/health stacked, with at least 3 items from the armor tab of the shop.  Nimroth is a must, Groffling as well if possible but I'll get Mage Slayer before it usually if I have that kind of spare gold.  I always buy the two cheap armors as they're useful until I need the slot for something else.  I'll often start with a Scaled Helm until I can get a Vlemish.  I will sell the Scaled Helm once I need the slot afterwards.  I will always buy Unbreakable Boots over the Hauberk of Life if I'm looking for a 1500ish item to add yet.  Beyond that, God Plate is good as is the Bulwark of the Ages if you are that loaded.

For consumables I usual carry sigils, teleports and flag locks... although I don't often have them all on hand until the mid game at least.  My favor item is Blood of the Fallen, but the Poison Dagger, Blade of the Serpent (this would free you of the need for mana items for the most part) or Swift Anklet can also be good choices if you wanted to be "not so tank-y".

Being slow, you generally have to be cautious in how you advance since opposing teams love to gank a Rook.  He seems to be the #1 target choice in pretty much any game he's in so play accordingly.

-dolynick

[quote who="[ShakeNBake]" reply="8" id="2314368"]I play without towers at all. Seriously.

But thats just me. Everyone else swears by towers. I personally find them boring as hell cos no-one comes near you, and you need them to get cocky so you can unleash slam up close and personal. Its truely priceless to go into 1v2 and come walking away with a 'double-smite' or more.[/quote]

QFT.

I quite frequently play an utterly towerless rook, though I've picked them up on occasion at level 1 for the teleport.

Rarely does a game progress past level 15. The winner is determined by level 10, and the next 5 levels just 'happen' as the game is sealing up. This is unless your team does not get creeps and the opponents don't defend properly. If you screw up the game can be forced to level 20.

I don't have actual statistics but we can agree that 50% of games are determined before level 10, won at 15. Of the remaining 50%, 35% are won really really early (pro vs noob games) and 15% of games are actually stretched to level 20 upwards. These numbers aren't perfect, but I believe they show a distribution accurate enough to explain why rook needs towers early on.

The 1st 5 levels rook does not have the ability to exit combat. He must stay in a lane, and in order to do so he needs to keep the opponents away from him, and keep his HP toped off. This is done through scaled armor and blood of the fallen, but it also makes a difference to have Towers early. Towers at 1 and 4, shoulders at 2 and 5, and boulder roll at 5 gives you enough lane staying capacity that you can ramp into late game without sacrificing 'late game' potential which will more than likely not be reached anyway.

level 5 - 10 you can still max hammer slam and other abilities, so you still peak late game. You just wont have the mana problems and the inability to stay in a lane against competent players early game.

-all graphs are depicted by an arbitrary number showing there power level in comparison to the quality of OTHER DG at the same level. Meaning a 5 is VERY good in comparison to any other DG an an equated level, and a 1 is extremely bad almost useless.

-----------------------------------------

5----------------------------------------

4-0-------0---0-----0--------------------

3---0-0-0---0---0-0---0-0----------------

2-------------------------0-0-0----------

1-------------------------------0-0-0-0-0

--1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-91011121314151617181920

A graph showing the power level at each level of a pure tower rook

-----------------------------------------

5-----------------------------0-0-0-0-0-0

4-------------------0-0-0----------------

3---------0-0-0-0---------0-0------------

2---0---0---------0----------------------

1-0---0----------------------------------

--1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-91011121314151617181920

A graph showing the power level at each level of a pure hammer slam rook

-----------------------------------------

5---------------------------------0-0-0-0

4-0-------0---------0-0-0-0---0-0--------

3---0-0-0---0-0-0-----------0------------

2-----------------0----------------------

1----------------------------------------

--1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-91011121314151617181920

A graph showing the power level at each level of a hybrid build

Using these rough graphs you can see that a hybrid build is in your best interest for 100% of all games you will play. It has great power in the early game and comes into power just as good as a pure hammer slam rook for late game. You CANNOT go wrong with a hybrid build on rook. Your rolling the 50/50 dice going pure towers, and your REALLY rolling the dice going pure hammer slam/roll build from level 1. I'm not saying that any build is not viable (unless you only take structural transfer) but I am saying pure builds are bad from a statistical perspective.

double post

Yes yes hybrid Rook. Seems nice, isn't that nice.

The problem indeed is that towers SUCK. They are very nice against noobs or average players and yes I played with them myself to great succes, BUT. Minions will screw you over, big time. And experience players will have this before your hammer rank is high enough to make a dent in the big hp pools. For most games, towers or hybrid is fine and can be quite good, but on a few good players who know how to coordinate... they will wait for a creep wave to walk to your tower farm, then send their minions with them. Your towers overwhelmed by little angry mobs will try to shoot them all, but to no avail since the enemy demigods will now use their speed to kill snipe Rook. Towers do work in a group however, and a Rook plus a regulus can be very iritating.

In retrospect, try the towers first, like all Rook builds there hard, but after a few games you'll notice little things like using orb of defiance to give your towers an extra 5 secs to shoot, or scroll to escape those pesky ganks.

Then try a hybrid build, and see how this works out. If you manage you can try the epithome of Rook; the full hammer build=D. Good luck!

P.S. Double hammer Rook... I cry OP. srsly check it.