Ways to counter loki.

Tell me your ways to counter him alone! As mage, support and assasin. So of course not tankish gods.

For me. As AO. If I were faced with him alone it would be obvious he would go stealth and kill me. Then only way is to tornado right under you just after he goes invis. And go 2 and just spin circles around the tornado. He'll get torn apart as he tries to get you and you can finish them off with a 1! :D

As Mage: Build Breastplate of Valor. It sucks but it makes his ability to 100-0 near impossible.
As Carry: Build Hide of the Nemean Lion. Same as above, but this even offers health. Win/Win
Get either Combat Blink or Aegis - both are already good, and help even more.

I suggest additionally the following early: Voidblade (bruisers), Qin's Blades (carries), Gem of Isolation (mages, as all give decent protection/health, and yet are very integral to every role.

This is all you need. As Ao, what you would do, is get Shoes of Focus, Breastplate of Valor, Gem of Isolation, Polynomicon, Rod of Tahuti, Spear of the Magus in that order. Once you get Polynomicon, it becomes impossible for loki to 1v1 you. If you seem him go invis, just tornadoes under yourself. If he chooses to attack you anyway, he'll be slowed by 25%. Auto attack and pop polynomicon. Squall, for a 50% slow + Gem of Isolation, plus a hefty damage. Auto attack. Slither away from the dead loki, or if he's MIRACULOUSLY still alive and not running, just auto attack him one last time. It sounds too idealistic, but trust me, with the health, physical protection, and slowing you have, he'll have a VERY hard time killing you, even with Hydra's Lament, Deathbringer, Executioner, etc.

But the #1 way to not die to Loki late game (since early game it's very hard for him to dive past minions/tower without dying, especially with his pitiful early ganks/damage), is to stay grouped. If a Loki were to attack an Ao Kuang right near his friendly Ymir, Thor, Sobek, and Neith, he would be DESTROYED. Fill in for any group composition - SOMEONE has CC, and when it's used on the Loki, he will die in a heartbeat. Trust me as someone who plays him a lot, no matter how easy it is to kill someone, it is VERY hard to get to them, kill them, and get out alive, so we don't do it. Vanish simply takes too long to get to you safely, and Assassinate alone doesn't do enough damage, to where doing it then vanishing away simply isn't worth the possibility of a CC-locked-death.

TL;DR: Itemize around him, stay grouped, and kite.

What Raventhor said, the Polynomicon is just BEAST for Ao Kuang. However, I do not recommend that you get the Shoes of Focus. Sure it gives you 15% faster ability usage (some less efficient than others), but it's never better than the Shoes of the Magi when it comes to Ao Kuang. This is from my Ao Kuang guide, which will hopefully change your mind or at least get another point of view of them both:


Formula: originalDamage / ((enemyProtection - myPenetration) / 100 + 1) = actualDamage

Example is done using: 800 Magical Power, 15 Magical Penetration and 30 Magical Protection.



Polynomicon with 15 Magical Penetration = 800 / ((30 - 15) / 100 + 1) = 695 * 10 = 6950.

Polynomicon with 15% Cooldown Reduction = 800 / (30 / 100 + 1) = 615 * 10 = 6150. CDR effect: no effect.


10 Squall with 15 Magical Penetration = 240 + 480 = 720 / ((30 - 15) / 100 + 1) = 626 * 10 = 6260.

10 Squall with 15% Cooldown Reduction = 240 + 480 = 720 / (30 / 100 + 1) = 553 * 10 = 5530. CDR effect: 7 * 0,15 = 1,05 * 10 = 10,5 = you get 11,5 Squall instead of 10. 1,5 * 553 + 5530 = 6359.


10 Tornadoes with 15 Magical Penetration = 50*6 + 120 = 420 / ((30 - 15) / 100 + 1) = 365 * 10 = 3650.

10 Tornadoes with 15% Cooldown Reduction = 50*6 + 120 = 420 / (30 / 100 + 1 ) = 323 * 10 = 3230. CDR effect: 11 * 0,15 = 1,65 * 10 = 16,5 = you'll get 11,5 Tornadoes instead of 10. 1,5 * 323 + 3230 = 3714.


10 Spirit's Tempest with 15 Magical Penetration 800 + 960 = 1760 / ((30 - 15) / 100 + 1) = 1530 * 10 = 15300.

10 Spirit's Tempest 15 Cooldown Reduction = 800 + 960 = 1760 / (30 / 100 + 1 ) = 1353 * 10 = 13530. CDR effect: 90 * 0,15 = 13,5 * 10 = 135 = you'll get 11,5 Spirit's Tempest instead of 10. 1,5 * 1353 + 13530 = 15559.

As you can see, it's slightly ahead on every ability, but it also requires you to hit 1,5 more abilities in order to do so. In my opinion, you want higher damage instead of more frequently use of abilities for Ao Kuang, as that's what he specializes in (or pretty much any glass cannon gods). Turning the tide in team fights. + Polynomicon gets no benefits from Cooldown Reduction, making it even less efficient.

what are you talking about? sure, it means you're not building damage, but cooldown reduction is pretty awesome, too.

I will mimic what i said on the other thread.

Hebo absolutely demolishes Loki. Tyr or Fenrir is a much greater threat to Hebo because of tyr's ability to knock Hebo out of Flood waters and Fenrir's ability to follow through flood waters or Crushing Wave with Brutalize.

If Loki engages with Vanish/Aimed Strike, immediately after first being hit use flood waters, go forward a bit and start whittling his health down with Water cannon. The only way loki can ever reach you if you are standing in flood waters is if he uses his ulti. If he ultis immediately beads and use spout to knock him up, then move through our flood waters a bit. At this point loki should be slowed because he is standing in the middle of your water and he is basically easy pickings. Again, he will never reach you by walking if you are kiting through your flood waters.

An alternate strategy if Loki engages from behind and his team is towards the front: Use crushing wave to get behind him, immediately turn around and use water spout, approach him while he is knocked up and use water cannon. With this 3-hit combo if he is not dead he should have a sliver of health remaining. At this point if he engaged with assassinate he will try to vanish and run away or if he engaged with vanish he will try to blink away with assassinate. Since all of our skills are on cooldown you have to just let him run or let your teammates kill him.

In a teamfight Loki HAS to engage you because Hebo has an incredible amount of peel with waterspout and flood waters. Basically, Hebo totally shuts down loki.

If you play anhur it is a little more difficult to counter Loki, but you always have the option to bail out with leap. If Loki engages with assassinate and you don't have beads then use Desert Fury. If he engages with vanish, or if you can beads out of assassinate then use impale followed by shifting sands to slow him. If you are really confident with your aiming you can use shifting sands before impale and try to stun him on the pillar, but casting shifting sands should let loki get an extra attack in.

Like Hebo, Anhur also has an incredible amount of peel potential with impale and shifting sands.

Heh, I know it's awesome! I meant it sucks that you are forced to build an item with no damage.
Most people who have trouble with Loki and don't know how to counter him, are new. And new players fall into the habit of building the most damage-heavy build possible, so this item seems wasted to them.

@Piederman, note that there is a 50 cap on penetration, if I remember correctly, and while CDR doesn't affect polynomicon, it does affect the spells needed to trigger polynomicon. More abilities = more poly stacks, and anything lasting longer than 6ish seconds will make the multiple quick uses of spells more effective. Plus, that means more squall slow, more slither escapes, and more tornado placements, should you miss one.

Your Pene over CDR build is only effective if everything dies in one CD rotation, and you hit every ability. I find the magic pen to be redundant considering the lack of magical protection on most carries, bruisers, assassins, and mages save voidstone, which your Spear can eat through anyway.

No one has mentioned the best counter...turn your volume up.

I can usually hear a Loki vanish occur. From there you just think like loki and, at least in public play, they are always so predictable.

I am sure ive been accused of cheating by the other team multiple times because using ymirs freeze or anubis's wrap I can hear a hidden loki, guess where he's coming from (based on ambush paths, AoE's in affect, etc) and blast the invisible loki with the stun.

or even easyer just have you back right up to a wall when they decoy they usually wont attack if they cant get a backstab

Actually, you're wrong there. The damage is not a constant flow in MOBA games, which makes Cooldown Reduction less efficient than higher damage, at least when it comes down to 5,95s instead of 7s. It also affects his ultimate performance slightly better, as you'll hardly be able to use it twice in a team fight. Plus, if you're buying Breastplate of valor, it already bring his 1 and 2 down to 5,25s - 4s reset, making it into a 1,25s chance to hit 2 basic attacks (+ eventual time given to aim your basic attack), which is impossible as Ao Kuang's attack speed is at 1,03 at level 20. In other words, he does not need his cooldowns to be lower than 7s, which his 1 and 2 already are. You don't need more than 2 abilities for polynomicon to work at its best either, making the effect on Tornadoes less efficient as well. And I agree with what you said in the previous post as well, "should you miss one", which goes for basic attacks and not only abilities.