I want to like you, really, I do

[Vertebrate]

I've tried a rook. I really like the concept. Except one problem: I really suck. I am a casual gamer, so that could be part of it. My problem is that my skill gains are insanely slow. Stealth is extremely difficult to level, so I have to stay in the open most of the time. About half the time I do hit from hiding without being detected I do NOT get an ! Of any color. Firearms were way too weak. Melee was great, but I don't want to RP melee. Pure casting is fun & powerful, but my skillgains are pathetic. If I go against anything challenging I get slaughtered in the open, unable to disengage. I am gaining guild ranks but not having enough skillgains to even take new abilities. Can I have some tips? Is it bad to almost always double cast cryo and nether? Is there something better to level firearms than barrage? Should I single cast? I guess I just don't know how to 'grind' for progression.

[Kiyaani]

You don't really need stealth as a rook. Use tactics to your advantage. Go in dodge while in a starting area to increase your sorcery or cryomancy. This will up the challenge rating and increase your casting skillgains while keeping you relatively safe until you're ready to move on. Defensive skills are a must for classes that don't wear a lot of armor so you definitely want to work on that. Remember that even if you don't want to do melee combat, even just having a staff or sword will at least give you a parry roll as well.

If you really want to be a sneaky rook then try hunting in forested areas so there's less of a stealth penalty.

[Lysse]

I'd personally suggest training up cryomancy and sorcery by channeling one element at a time. Also, keep in mind that the Essence Leech spell (the last I recall) gives you gains to sorcery. I always found it easier to try to focus on one magic skill at a time, in increments of 5 or 10 at a time.

[Vertebrate]

My channeling and herbalism are over 100, my sorcery half that, and cryo a quarter. My dodge is even lower. Is that high channeling causing my challenge rating to skew and slowing down progress for my low skills?

[Lysse]

It shouldn't be. But I would say, definitely work on getting your dodge on par with your sorcery. Basically, the ideal thing to do is keep your Dodge score (or shield block, or whatever Defensive skill you want to use) equal to your highest offensive skill. In your case, try to keep sorcery (or cryomancy, or both) equal to dodge, if you don't want to train in weapon usage.

[Vertebrate]

I stopped messing around and did some number crunching. I found out that your challenge rating, and thus your skill gain, is based on the specific roll. Here I thought it was more like D&D based on an overall comparison. It turns out you don't get any skill gain for say, shooting something, if it is unconscious. You get more skillgain if you try to use tactics to get your rolls lower than your opponents rolls. Sorry if this is obvious to everyone else. Thanks for all the tips!

[Rias]

If you work on your sorcery and cryo at the same time, they'll both go up half as fast as if you were just focusing one. You'll be getting two skills at once, though, so the actual amount of total skillgain is the same. If you did a cryo/cryo/sorcery cast, you'd get 66% cryo gain and 33% sorcery gain.

Also: Rooks are superduper powerful and I think they're awesome and I tell Rithiel I won't nerf them even though she wants me to.