Tap 'dat ass

Welcome to my Loki guide featuring, well, nobody. This guide is aimed towards middle to high skilled players, and for the most part is intended for assassin-style play. Understand that there are situations in which you should veer from the build I've provided, but it takes practice and game knowledge to understand not only when, but why.

Before I begin with how to play each lane, I'd like to explain how I prefer to play Loki.

As an assassin-carry style God, I prefer to play in a passive-aggressive manner. I take risks when there's a high chance of reward, but generally I win through superior positioning, burst, and solid gold/experience advantage. Due to this, I tend to max my first ability last; the reason being that the invisibility and movespeed boost attached are simply too useful in their utility to use for damage alone. Initiating and escaping require this ability when any slows are involved, and it allows for excellent positioning. That said, most of my damage is going to come from my 2+3>4 burst and autoattacks combined with decoy.

Loki is also exceptional at turnarounds. That is, dancing around either in the jungle or inside of your own minions (preferential) while slowing, kiting, and when his ultimate is available, stunning the enemy to harass them down while taking little to no damage with the understanding that you are generally under 200 health. Loki is one of the best Gods available to bait with, and once a player has learned his or her limits with the God, potentially one of the better Gods available.

But seriously, you're an assassin with 0-1 survivability items. Charging at the enemy is stupid and that should go without say. Until you're level 16 against level 12s. Then you can 1v3 all day.

The object of middle lane is to take your opponent out of the match. While ganks are good and necessary, early game advantage is going to come from consistently harassing enemies inside of their own minions with decoy and pushing them under their tower. When a tower has hit a minion, the gold reward for that minion is reduced substantially - plus with the ability to harass and not worry about minion aggro, you're likely to gain a level advantage so long as you position yourself properly.

Take the defense buff at level one with your HoG and a decoy - make sure to hit your attacks from behind on the large harpie. You will need to pop a health potion as of the latest patch with the damage nerf to HoG.

Proceed to middle lane. Win it with aforementioned general tactics.

There isn't much to be side in this section that hasn't already been said, other than the obvious: in a sidelane there are two people to take damage from. That's twice the potential damage output, twice the crowd control, twice the health. Early risks are going to be even less ideal, and farming should take priority. HOWEVER, you are going to max your 3 before your 2 in a sidelane because with the aid of a partner (who should have a stun) you will be able to net more kills early on and snowball harder. With the recent nerf to jungle experience, taking HoG is not required although it is still perfectly viable, but leaving for more than one buff at a time becomes less efficient with each passing moment until you're able to clear several buffs without the aid of HoG and remain at a high enough amount of HP to continue laning.

Oh, and Arachne is the biggest counter in the world to Loki.