Requiescat en Pace. Loki Guide.

Welcome to my second guide here on smitefire. Hope you enjoy ^^

Wish your foes eternal rest and sleep. Or manically laugh after you slaughter them. Your choice. Pretty Sure most Loki players do the latter.

I find Loki to be one of the most under-rated and quite honestly frightening gods in Smite. His mid-late game play is scary with the amount of damage he can put out in just a few seconds. This guide will hopefully aid anyone in becoming a better Loki player.

Alright now that the skills are out of the way lets address itemization.

This is one of the simplest yet most critical portions of the game. It is where you first address what gods you will be facing and most importantly what god you have to counter jungle.

How many times have you lost a game in the first 20 minutes because the other team is just simply too far ahead? If your experiences are anything like mine the answer will be more than you care to remember. Whether this is because of early ganks or simply better team play is a matter for debate; but you cannot argue it happens to everyone. Early team play and itemization defines the pace of the game and its important to turn the tide in your favor. We'll save the team play for a later section but for now, onto your instruments of chaos and destruction.

- Bumba's Mask - First Key to success in any Jungler kit. At this stage in smite jungling is still an essential role. This baby will give you passive mana regen and help you secure gold from camps when allies are around
- Warriors Tabi - Essential. End of story. Gives movement speed, power, attack speed and most importantly pen. NEVER get Ninja Tabi on Loki. Why? the crit chance really isn't worth the trade off of the pen. Why leave something to chance when you can just ensure it?
- Heartseeker - With the most recent patch (as of 7/27/13) this item is virtually indispensable any Jungler and AD carry. The extra movement speed is nice, but what really makes it shine is the passive stacking ability. Up to 75 physical power. That's more than any other item in the game at the moment. However half of your stacks are lost upon death.
- Jotuun's Wrath - Originally a laughable item, it was updated and became a monster. Flat pen, some mana and of course more power. The key here is the passive on the third tier however: Cooldown Reduction. Quicker cooldowns = More ultimates = More kills and general effectiveness. Increases everything you need.
- Hydra's Lament - You noob. Hydra's is horrible. Except on Loki. The main reason for that argument is the passive is somewhat lackluster, but highly under-rated. An extra 125% physical power every 2 seconds can lead to a good amount of extra damage quick. While late game it only applies ~150-200 extra damage on hit, it stacks with your ultimate damage and backstab. Plus 50 physical power and extra cooldown reduction is nothing to scoff at. Again, more frequent cooldown allows you to be more effective.

- Behind You- Loki's Passive. Yields an extra 20% damage to any attack coming from behind an enemy. So yes, Loki enjoys attack enemies from behind. And penetrating them. Clearly recommended to hit your targets from behind for the extra damage.
- Vanish - Loki's defining and most notable ability. He goes invisible to enemies, gaining a 35% movement speed and applying a bleed affect for 2 seconds upon hitting an enemy within the given duration.
- Decoy - Places a fake Loki that taunts all AI enemies into attacking it. Explodes after 3 seconds dealing damage. Important to Note I=the decoy counts as a physical obstacle. But we'll touch on that in the next section.
- Aimed Strike - Single scariest sound in Smite. I laugh when I'm playing Loki and activate this ability. Almost every players initial instinct is to turn and run on hearing the sound. Applies a massive damage buff to Loki's next basic attack and slows.
- Assassinate - a mid-long range blink. When properly landed it deals absurd damage and stuns a single enemy for one second.

Lets start at the beginning of the game. Immediately address what god you are going to have to out jungle/out perform i.e. Hun Batz, Fenrir, Arachne. Most Junglers admittedly have a faster early camp clear than Loki. For this reason it is more important to micromanage both his swing chain and camp respawn timers.

For the reasons above, depending on your team, your play style and ELO you may need to pick up Hand Of The Gods. ONLY do this if you absolutely need it and your duo lane support does not have it. Even then its a gamble that you can finish the game before it becomes useless. While the stun or secure on tier 3 is nice, giving up an active slot and the cost for it is not worth it. Think of HOG as a defensive or safe bet for a Jungling Loki. Otherwise just pick up Bumba's and the beginning of Tabi initially. Two Health pots and your out.

Follow a path, starting with team support on mid harpies (long lane) and Red buff. From there take Blue and secondary small harpy camp. Feel free to take the small camp first if you're low on health, or need to regroup. Be aware of early Arachne invades. Her clear is beyond yours and she will be higher level than you. CAUTION.

Cut across mid and take the next small harpy camp. At this point you should be roughly ~1:40 into the game and Mid Harpies will be respawning. Head there and take them. I cannot stress how important the gold/exp bonus on these harpies are. It determines who wins the jungle and influences mid.

Depending on your health, you can gank mid but be careful. Without an early kill, your Ultimate won't be up just yet. Otherwise head back to base or take Speed. Your attack buff only lasts for 2 minutes so you shouldn't be overlapping on buffs at this point.

Hit Level 5 and immediately begin stalking your prey. Lurk around your solo lane and mid looking for an opportunity to take someone out. If nothing presents itself help out solo lane with the blue buff. And double back to mid again waiting for mid harpies and/or gank opportunities

Repeat that process. Constantly be aware of your teams positioning, ganking priority of lanes (usually one lane will struggle so prioritize sitting on that lane), camp respawn timers, and enemy jungler movement. Assume they are doing the exact same thing you are or invading. Take note of Jungler movement and ping them on the minimap, or caution for a buff left on the ground for a teammate.

Provide Kill Opportunities for Your Team
Harass Overextended Lanes constantly
Be Aware Of Enemy Jungler
Ping Movements
Call MIA's


Providing Kill Opportunities

There are several ways to do this. Most obvious and simply gank lanes. Put the fear of death into someone. Put mental stain upon them and watch how they react. Learn from it. Use it against them.

Your Ultimate, Assassinate, gives a stun. Call gank/attack on the lane and initiate with it. The stun can be used to stunlock an enemy to death. Agni, Nieth, Ra, and Posiedon all have ultimate's that work extremely well with coordinated play. I.E. Ultimate Enemy Mid(Stun), Re-stun/Burst (Kraken/World Weaver). Virtually any player can land an additional stun on a non-moving target when ready. There's a word for this. Instagib.

Harass Overextended Lanes

Again put the fear of god into your enemies. Watch, and pick your enemies weakest moment to strike. If the enemy is pushed against your tower, gank. Leave. Allow them to reset and do it again. Make your presence known and give your teammates something to work with.

Be Aware Of Enemy Jungler
Simple. Your role affords you a lot of time to stare at the minimap. Watch everything. Ping enemy movements on wards and throughout the Jungle. Make calls so no one is caught of guard. Its really not that hard to glance at the minimap every 7 seconds or so. Just be aware and help your team out.

Just some basic things to note from a Loki player.

Never go in using stealth unless you're sure you can escape without it. At best there is a ~8 second cooldown on stealth. Take it into account.

Early game know about your swing chain. The chain goes 1, .5, .5, .5, 1.5. When taking fury camps use it to your advantage by damaging the larger harpies with the beginning and end of the chain.

Decoy is under-rated. It counts as a physical object to enemy players. Therefore it can be used to BLOCK players trying to cut corners to get away similar to Anhur's Pillar. I've also used it to block Nieth Ultimate's.

One more thing on Decoy. It takes the Tower attention, as it is AI until you engage an enemy under the tower. It will absorb a few tower shots for you when diving for a kill. As for the stealth aspect, even using Vanish will not completely obscure you as an eye will appear over your head. So why not avoid the damage?

With this Build your ultimate should be off cooldown in 50 seconds. That provides you with an absurd amount of ganking opportunities coupled with your stealth ability to get out of the fight.

Obviously pick off high priority targets first. Mages and Carries. Those should be the only targets you have with your Ultimate unless it is a guaranteed secured kill.

Thank you for reading. Hope it helps you crush enemy dreams and makes them cry like little girls.

Just Remember.

One kills minions, one is a conqueror. One kills a man, one is an assassin. One kills everyone, one is a God.