(Patch:2.21) My Build And Thoughts On Loki (DB vs Malice)

I'm going to say both are worthless if you are building them for the crit. Crit needs AS to be effective.

Loki is one of those gods that like Thor or Hun Batz would like to go for more power and pen (only one taking a crit item of those 3 is Hun Batz because of infused strike). I would recommend going more power and pen.

like in this loki build from Greenevers

Loki needs no crit but if you must malice is better cause you ar probably only going to get one crit before you need to get out so you get the most out of malice.

With Season 3 out of the gates I'd say you go for as much crit as you want. With no shield of the underworld to stop you then you can practically 100-0 any good quickly. That is to say that you should focus more on power and pen to make sure you can deal with the much tankier gods.

You can't really afford crit items on Loki, even less more than one, unless you sacrifice other primordial stats, like CDR or penetration.

If you have only 1 crit item, you only have 20% chance to make this item worth.
The other 80% of the time, another item would have better result.
Plus, Malice and Deathbringer both costs more than the other (and better) options, so why pay more to get less ?

If you have more than 1 crit item, then you don't have enough pen to make it worth.


Finally, if you absolutely want to have a crit item, it should be Malice.
Your abilities won't crit, never. Only your basic attack can.

So, just by numbers, we can see that Malice would deal more damage than Deathbringer.
0.40 * (86 + 100pp) = 40% of physical power + 34 from Deathbringer
0.75 * 100pp = 75% of physical power from Malice
That means when you get 100 physical power and above, Malice proc deals more damage Deathbringer.

Deathbringer always proc for the whole amount, while Malice is over 3 seconds, and is refreshed (not added) upon a second crit, meaning 2 crit in a row isn't efficient with Malice.
But, in the case of Loki, with 20% crit chance, it's not going to happen often.

Also, if you crit, but not with your first basic attack, your crit % bonus from Deathbringer will be affected by your basic attack chain (1, 0.5, 0.5, 0,5, 1.5)
So, 60% of chances are that your crits will do half of the damage you expected.
Yes, a crit could also happen at your last attack, with a 1.5 ratio, but this is assuming you are able to deal a full basic attack rotation on the enemy, which isn't like to happen.

On the other hand, criting by any of your basic attack, no matter where in the chain, will trigger the Malice proc for the same amount.

On a side note, if you are going with Rage, or triple crit, for some weird reason, then Deathbringer would be a better option than Malice due to crit procs overlapping.



But trust me, ignore the critical and have faith in the pure damage and penetration, it does wonder on Loki.