New player, need help choosing a demigod.

All your assumptions thus far are pretty much correct. Bravo.

Blood of the Fallen is probably the best favor item for general usage. It just plain helps every build, i would stick with that until you are comfortable venturing into more complicated strategies. Blade of the Serpent with Torch Bearer for instance. Staff of Renewal with Regulus. BoF is really the only favor item that doesn't require more complex understanding of the game's mechanics to be useful.

Regulus is the most difficult demigod to master, and until you've MASTERED him do not play him online. You will die a lot. I realize this doesn't make any sense. If you really want to play as reg then do your research on the forums, play in a lot of noob games and be totally familiar with his skill tree and the different builds to counter different play situations.

Rook is also very difficult to play. His speed is a serious problem for new players, the best advice I can give is ALWAYS keep at least one Teleport scroll with you. Learn what the stuns and interrupts of all the demigods looks like and wait for them to be used BEFORE you attempt to teleport out. Stick with BoF until you feel comfortable moving to swift anklet or staff of renewal. 

Beast is best for new players. PERIOD. You almost can't skill him bad if you tried. He has high natural armor and damage and hp, is fun and simple to play, and the best demigod in early, middle, and late game. I might get flamed for saying that last bit. But those claims are easy to support in a noob setting. The forums are chock full of great builds for this guy. In the beginning just stick with something like this:

Favor: Blood of the Fallen.

Level 1-4: Get Spit, Ooze and Inner Beast and then Ooze 2

level 5: GET FOUL GRASP!

level 6-20: Just continue getting Ooze, Inner Beast, and Diseased Claws in whatever order you want. Get ACCLIMATION, this is the most ridiculous skill in the whole game.

You may want to get more Spit. DON'T. Spit is great early game, but starts to get useless against good players late game, AND it costs a boatload of mana. Ooze, Inner beast, and diseased claws cost nothing, and are great ALL game. Foul grasp is really where most of your mana will go.

Items: Banded Armor, then Scale Mail, then Nimoth chestplate, then Unbreakable boots, then Hauberk of Life. Sell scale mail and buy slayer's wraps.

citadel: buy tower health 1 ASAP, then buy Currency 1 the SECOND war score 3 hits. After this buy priests. 

I'm not trying to prescribe your behavior or strategies here, feel free to try experimenting with this build until you are comfortable moving on. But this is a great simple build that works wonders for your confidence.

Remember, play CONSERVATIVELY. Never 2v1, Do not follow demis into their base or past their towers UNLESS you have enough health to return. Dying to get a kill is almost always a bad choice. Buy the important Citadel upgrades if you can afford them. Don't count on your teammates to do it. COMMUNICATE with your teammates. PLAY CONSERVATIVELY. Dying is the worst thing you can do in a team game. DON'T DO IT. But mostly have fun.

While Spongemat post is not 100% true (ie regulus being the hardest to master  ) but it's accurate enough. 
I'd also advice you to just skip on inner beast till after level 8 and get spit instead.

Armor items are actually very good especially against minion heavy players or tower rooks and can really save you a lot of healing but yes in general get hp... or both(ie Nimoth chestpiece).

Some of the good items are:

-Nimoth armor

-Banded armor

-Scaled Helm

-Vlemisch

-Ubnbreabakble boots

-Hauberk

They're other usefull items but these are the easiest on UB(though not neccerarily in this order). 

A UB hybrid, which combines spit and ooze, is generally accepted to be the best UB build around. I'm glad you picked UB as your first Demigod. He's one of the strongest DGs and one of the easiest to learn. Here is probably the best UB build, IMO:

1. Spit I

2. Ooze I

3. Diseased Claws

4. Spit II

5. Foul Grasp I

6. Ooze II

7. Spit III

8. Ooze III

9. Save point

10. Ooze IV and Spit IV

Spongematt is wrong. Spit is one of UB's best endgame skills.

Favor item: Blade of the Serpent or Blood of the Fallen

As a beginner, I would stick with Blood of the Fallen. Once you get good with UB, try using Blade of the Serpent.

In the beginning, use Spit-and-run tactics.

For items, try the following (If you are using Blood of the Fallen):

1. Banded Armor and Universal Gadget

2. Scalemail

3. Vlemish Helm

4. Unbreakable Boots

5. Nimoth Chest Armor

6. Sell Scalemail, buy Hauberk of Life

7. Sell Banded Armor, buy Narmoth's Ring

Hey thanks for the response fellas

So it seems like beast is going to be my best choice to start until I get more familiar with the game.  I'm 100% cool with that because he is a very cool character.

I do have a question regarding foul grasp though.  Am I progressing this skill past the first rank?  The stun duration is always 2 seconds, and the healing (while healing is always nice) is quite modest and I feel that if it came down to it, I'd get a better return out of stats than further ranks of FG.

Also, I'm going to assume that I need to throw a skill point into spit as you guys have advised and ONLY that skill point to give me more lane control for early game, and mid-late game just focus on my speed/melee superiority for kills?

No, never go past the first rank of foul grasp. The mana costs are ridiculous and not worth the minor damage increase. And like lifekatana said, upper levels of spit are well worth the cost, especially against other assassins.

The reason to get Foul Grasp is for the stun. It's the best stun around because it doesn't trigger stun immunity, which means you can chain 3 stuns without having the "Immune" sign pop up. Anything besides the first rank is sort of a waste. It just eats up more mana and does little good. In fact, I often cast foul grasp and interrupt it by spitting on the Demigod to do more damage.

I'd throw 5 points into spit. It rapes towers and is a great finishing move. I don't know why people are saying it sucks endgame. It's great endgame. I've gotten many kills by spitting on an opponent right as he runs into his base. Try getting putrid flow; it makes spit amazing. You can kill a creep wave with spit.

One more point. For the midgame/endgame, you ought to have Teleport scrolls, Capture Locks, and Sigils of vitality.

I think that's pretty fair to say.  Start with UB. 

And yeah... never more than 1 level of foul grasp.

After going over the builds, I'm getting a pretty fair idea at what I should be doing.

One last question though because I've gotten mixed responses here. 

Inner Beast and stats.  Are either of these priority skills...or are they just fillers/end game?  It seems like spit is generally more widely valued so I will give it a shot because the pure ooze/melee build put me at an enormous disadvantage with towers. 

spit>ooze>grasp>claws>?>?

The other new player choice is Lord Erebus.

He has a boat load of useful skills that teach you basic gamplay mechanics for "interacting" with friends, foes and towers.

Minions? Check
Debuff?(mist) Check
Stun?(mass charm) Check
Snare?(bite) Check
Escape/Strike?(Swarm) Check

I'd consider spit and ooze to be equals. They just have different uses, so it helps having them both. Having both makes you more versatile.

Inner beast is actually another good endgame skill due to the level 15 ability Acclimation. It's considered to be an overpowered skill, but you can't get it until level 15. Never pick stats over inner beast, IMO.

Simply beast or Lord Erebus.

inner beast is more important than claws cause it will still allow you to chase but acclimation is more than worth it

Experienced players can go back and forth forever about The Beast. Which is why he is such a great character. Inner Beast and diseased claws are like yin and yang, as are spit and ooze. You can go for both or just one of each skill depending on your play style. But they are all valid choices. I think the only poor choice on Beast is stats. Though I have never really been able to use Bestial wrath effectively.

That is why QoT is such a piece of crap. There are only 2 skills worth a damn on her. Great QoT players can still play her well, but she has problems. Every character should be as versatile as the Beast.

BTW, yes spit is a great skill. But I think IMO for the sake of learning the game and surviving, sacrificing another potential armor item slot for the mana item needed to repeatedly spit isn't worth it FOR A BRAND NEW PLAYER. Once comfortable with the build, i think the spit path of Beast is very effective but also more dangerous, because you need to balance the mana needs of spit, with your own hp and survivability. Items like Unbreakable boots are great for this. 

Spongemat no...

Inner beast is plain superior to claws, not only does it allow better strategic movement it's almost on par with chasing and allows you to flee(although there is something to be said for slows). The real thing is that acclimation is so good that Inner beast pretty much always wins.

HAHAHAH. UB is more versatile than queen? HAHAHA. Not only is your assesment that queen has only 2 usefull skills wrong(although a common made error) the idea that UB which is probably the easiest and blandest character to play is versatile is ludicrious. UB has but on build and that is Spit+Ooze, all his other builds suffer from the question: "but if I get spit cant'I also take ooze"or vice versa. In contrast queen has a lot more skills and more builds(minion/open/closed/hybrid/some other hybrid mix) though not all competetive and also has more diverse item choices.

Also bullshit, spit is very easy: click spit click player. Balancing mana would be something if UB had usefull other skills that actually needed mana(apart from grasp).

Who cares about beast.  Sedna is the best pick for noobs cause you can't spec her wrong and die.  She is the lamest hero in the game.  Not as fun killwise as UB, but you won't die unless you run and sit next to a tower and auto attack for 5 minutes.

umm yetis, pounce, and mana stack = death

The Characters In order from the Easiest to Play to the Hardest

-Erebus

---East to spam bite, which does damage, steals life, and reduces armor

---Has a long distance instant cast teleport that damages everything in its path

---Has the ability to drain life from enemies while remaining invulnerable

---High movement speed and dps

---AoE stun

-The Unclean Beast

---Good damaging abilities: spit and ooze

---High movement speed, dps, and armor

-Sedna

---Abilities that are useful for escape: heal

---High hitpoint regeneration

---Direct damage + interrupt: pounce

---Good speed

-Oak

---Abilities that are useful for escape: shield, surge of faith

---Direct damage + interrupt + debuff: penitence

-The Rook

---Abilities that are useful for escape: boulder roll (1-3 second stun)

---Powerful Direct damage: hammer slam

---High base hitpoints

-The Torchbearer

---Abilities that are useful for escape: frost nova *

---Powerful direct damage: rain of ice, fireball, fire nova

---High base dps

-Regulus

---Abilities that are useful for escape: slowing abilities only

---Powerful damaging skills: mines and snipe

---High dps with AoE using angelic fury

-Demon Assassin

---Powerful direct damage: spine attack

---High dps

---Able to switch places with enemies (difficult to master)

-The Queen of Thorns

---Powerful AoE damage

Fixed

For a noob player, the queen is incredibly hard too manage though. She can have so many mana issues. 

Thats why you tell noobs to avoid her simple as that. For a none noob and someone who isn't effing lazy; a qot can go through a pro game without getting any deaths and can even be a turning point in game.

At the highest levels of play, all the demigods become more evenly balanced. That being said, the queen is still the worst. Sure, she's playable if you're a good player, but she's still the worst deimgod.

Who said she isn't the worst? That doesn't mean you obsess over her bad and give no credit to her good.

The thread is about which dg a NEW  player should choose. Being that the QoT is the weakest AND the hardest to play, I suggest no new player give QoT even a quick glance.

Show me one post made in hear that said "New members should try Queen of thorns"?