If you can't see me......

Hi, I'm SkullxBoy, known on smite as MikeJordan. Loki is, without a doubt, the most annoying god ever to enter the arena of Smite. Loki's abilities makes him a deadly jungle or lane god. His skills include taking out enemies, destroying towers, destroying jungle camps, and walking away from it all unscathed. In my personal opinion, Loki is best in the jungle, normally favoring the solo lane. Loki stands among the best of the best assassins, and I'm here to give you a short guide to start you on the path.

The Pros and Cons of playing Loki are as follows:

Pros

-Loki is very fast, and his abilities give him an easy entrance and escape in combat situations.
-Loki is one of, if not the, best jungle assassins in the game. His second ability, Decoy, attracts creeps to it and then explodes for damage. In this time, Loki can take a great deal of health from them, making it easy to take the remaining creeps out.
-Loki is hard to track, with Vanish making you invisible to your enemies. Be wary of wards though, they will reveal your general location.

Cons

-Loki is squishy without defensive items, and even then is still vulnerable to taking high amounts of damage.
-Loki's ult leaves a temporary stun, but it can be countered with Purification Beads, taking away a good portion of its effectiveness.
-Loki is tricky to get the hang of, expect to play poorly in your first few matches with him.
-(This is more of a problem with my build) The age of Loki's build makes it a less all encompassing.
-Loki doesn't have one ability that has a quick cooldown, you will be relying on your basic attack a lot.
-Bruiser build doesn't leave him with any one sustain ability that gives a high incentive to build him bruiser. Only use it when needed.

Behind You!:
Loki passive is called Behind You!. In simplest terms, this gives Loki a damage buff. Specifically, this takes 20% of your damage and stacks it on top of your current damage when hitting from behind.

• This passive couples well with Vanish and aimed strike, dealing extra damage to cripple the opposition.
• This passive also helps when jungling or creeping when used with decoy to quickly take out those pesky minion and jungle camps.

Vanish:
Vanish, as the name suggests, makes Loki disappear for four seconds. While invisible, Loki moves 25% faster. His next basic attack from stealth (or for two seconds after), applies a bleed for two seconds that does damage every half a second and reveals Loki. This is either the first or second ability I max out, because of the large role it plays in playing this god. The bleed helps take out low enemy gods, and the vanish can also help you escape a fight where you're either outclassed or outnumbered.

• A good trick with Loki is to couple this ability with aimed strike. Aimed strike will not bring you out of stealth; however, activation of aimed strike delivers a sound that warns enemies where you are.
• Another good ability to couple this with is decoy. This gives you the ability to slip into enemy lines, drop decoy and distract the creeps, and sneak out without losing your vanish.
• A final good ability pairing is Assassinate. Go invisible, assassinate opponent, apply both damage buffs. Pretty simple, and pretty impossible to defend against, because your enemies won't see it coming.
• For my last tip, keep an eye on this ability's cooldown. When you have it, use it sparingly. The fifteen second cooldown on this will feel like an eternity if you need a quick escape, or if your just barely being outrun by a low health god.

decoyDecoy:
Decoy, as I may have mentioned, is amazing for killing off creeps. Whether jungling or fighting in your lane, this is great for eliminating those minions. Normally the third I max, I don't give this priority because it does it job regardless of the level. I pick this up third most of the time, but refer to the skill sequence in my item builds for how I like to level this up based on the build I use.

• Decoy is an ability that you can use to escape in the jungle. Simply place this down in a tight space the enemy gods can't run around, an entrance into a lane for example, and deploy it in front of you. This will keeps gods off your tail, even for a second, giving you precious time to escape.
• Decoy is well paired with Vanish, see that section of skills rationale for full explanation
• Never use decoy in a attempt to damage enemy gods, save it for creeps and jungle camps.

aimed strikeAimed Strike:
Aimed strike is where the items you build really come into play. This is because this ability is a buff that, at its best, adds 220 physical damage plus 100% of your current physical damage to your attacks. Hit enemies are also slowed for a period of three seconds, making escape very difficult. However, the buff only lasts for five seconds, so make sure you know you can hit your target before you activate this ability. This is normally my first maxed ability, because of the crippling damage it does to your opponents.

• Coupling aimed strike with Vanish is a great combo. See the vanish section for explanation.
• Aimed strike, like most of Loki's abilities, should be used sparingly. This ability is best saved for when you have: A guaranteed kill, an unsuspecting god just begging to be destroyed, a team fight on your hands, or a tower/phoenix/titan you can solo take down.
• This abilities slowly decreases in cooldown as you level it up, with the lowest cooldown being eight seconds in between uses. Maxing this out first is a good idea.

Assassinate
This is Loki ultimate. Easy to use, easy to induce rage with. I have been on both sides of this attack, and from the guy on the receiving end of this ability, it's destructive. The only way I've seen people escape with minimal damage is with Combat Blink, and even then, damage is still crippling. This will be max out last, purely because it's your ult. Let me throw some numbers at you. at max level, this ability deals 240 damage plus 120% of your damage. Again, 120%. Do you want to be hit by that?

• This ability couples well with all of Loki's other abilities. For example, to stack the power of aimed strike and Assassinate combined can and will break every squishy enemies, and can take down even the tankiest (That's a word now) of tanks.
• Another great ability coupling is with Vanish. Striking from the shadows is a great way to make your enemy angry, and an angry opponent is one who makes mistakes.
• Finally, don't be afraid to use this to escape. In general, if you enter with an ability, you best be sure you have an escape strategy. If you enter with assassinate, have your actives like Greater Purification or Greater Sprint or Combat Blink off cooldown. If you enter with one of theses actives, have your vanish or assassinate off cooldown for a potential escape.

Loki's strongest skill is going to be his speed. These items repeatedly show up in my builds. "But Skull Boy, you didn't talk about your key bruiser items!" "But Skull Boy, where is Qin's Sais?" "But Skull Boy, I'm insecure about myself!" ....... Easy there internet. let me explain. Firstly, no, i will not be talking about my bruiser build in THIS section. That comes later. Second, Qin's Sais got seriously nerfed in the season two patch. I like my Loki with more attack speed. Granted, Qin's Sais are good when facing a tank, but it's more of a situation item. And lastly, I can't help you with that. That's gotta come from you. But i'm sure your a nice guy/girl/other. All jokes aside, here are my must have items for builds 1,2 and 4.

Warrior Tabi is the big movement speed item in Smite. Along with Ninja Tabi, these are the premier movement speed items. I pick this item up first, mainly because having the early speed keeps you in the game.

Frostbound Hammer makes Loki stronger. As stated in my Pros/Cons, Loki is a little squishy without a good defensive item. Frostbound hammer provides a much needed +300 health, as well as adding a small +25 buff to physical power. On top of all that, it's passive, which makes your basic attack slow their movement speed by 30% and attack speed by 15% for two seconds, helps slow retreating gods and limit their ability to quickly attack in response.

Deathbringer is, as the name suggests, a highly effective tool for eliminating your opponents. I like this item for it's quick killing capacity, adding 20% to your crit chance, +50 to physical power, and a passive that increases your critical strike damage by 50%. Despite my liking for this item, it can be substituted for different critical items, like Rage and Golden Bow.

Hastened Fatalis makes your already quick Loki even quicker, as well as even deadlier. This adds 30% to your attack speed, making it one of the highest attack speed increases in the game. Also, it provides and extra 10% to your movement speed. I talk a lot about how making a fast Loki is making a successful Loki, so this item is an obvious choice for me. On top of all that, the passive makes it so that when your basic attack hits a target, the attacking movement speed debuff is removed from you for one second. Now your Loki all of a sudden seems to be moving at an incredibly fast rate.

Titan's Bane provides the attack power for Loki. Like Deathbringer this item can be subbed out. However,for this item, I'd switch it out for things like Jotunn's Wrath or Brawler's Beat Stick, but Titan's Bane is the one that provides the larger, no frills buff for raw power. It adds a +30 to Physical Power, and +33% physical penetration to your physical attacks. This keeps you dangerous against other low health opponents, and allows for an added edge when facing tanks.

Jungling is one aspect where Loki is on his own pedestal, so to speak. Decoy gives you the ever so useful power to stop creeps from attacking you, and start attacking a dummy. When the decoy's 3 seconds run out, it explodes, dealing damaging to enemy creeps and gods in it's radius. This ability is unlike any other in Smite, and gives Loki an edge over pretty much any god in the jungle. couple that with the active Wrath of the Gods, and you're set to dominate in the jungle. In lane, the same basic idea applies when farming creeps. drop decoy, hit them some, decoy explodes, finish off the others. A very simple, yet effective, strategy when Creeping and Jungling.

Loki, as a primarily solo lane or jungle god, is often going to be moving quite a lot to help his allies. As a jungler, I find it is best to stay in between your solo and mid lanes, farming on xp camps and taking camps for your lane gods. Show them you appreciate them by grabbing that mana (blue) for your solo lane and damage (red) for you mid lane. Keep speed (yellow) for yourself, as it is important to have movement speed for entry in lane to bust a retreating god. It's also useful when battling in the jungle, being able to keep pace and escape the enemy god. Don't ignore the needs of duo lane, however. They will occasionally need some help, and you rotating over can help minimize or avoid deaths. Your job is to keep those buffs flowing, and a good Loki does just that.

Look, I'm going to level with you, this is more of a build to use in the solo lane than jungle. This is also probably the least useful build out of the four. This is useful only when you are solo lane Loki facing a warrior. There is no reason to use it if you're against an assassin or mage, and should UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, AND I DO MEAN NEVER, used as a jungler. That being said, this build should also have some damage in it. Throw a damage item or two in as well, you'll be glad you did. This is not meant to be the build you take away as the go to, it's meant to be there to give you an idea of what a bruiser build would look like.

So, what are my final few sentences on Loki going to entail? Well, if you read the entire guide, you could be on your way to a good, quality Loki. However, you're not going to instantly know everything there is to know and have all the tools to play ranked against a diamond Thanatos. That kind of knowledge come from experience, because, at the end of the day, I can't tell you what the best way to play a god is. If you're better as a more speed lass damage god, got to it. If speed is a second thought for you, that's fine as well. Getting back to the point of Loki though, he is a jungler without equal in his prime. Good luck, and walk with the shadows as Loki.