Loki-Accidentally Lifegaining in the Arena

This is my Loki arena build. It's what I use every game I play with him, and I personally believe it's the best build for Loki in the arena. This isn't meant to be a guide on how to play Loki in the arena--I would recommend Branmuffin17's Loki guide for that. It's what taught me, and it's what I follow to this day. My itemization is the only thing that differs.

Loki is an ability-based god that scales fantastically with all four of his abilities. As such, we want to be building him towards power and CDR, with penetration following as a somewhat close third. It's worth noting that, because of both Hydra's Lament and Heartseeker, power is much more valuable when compared to penetration than it otherwise might be on other gods. We don't really care if their protections are blocking 50 damage when our power scales 230% off base. I'm building to cap CDR as soon as possible, because we *need* our Assassinate as often as we can get it, and then build high power items. Luckily for us, the CDR items we purchase come with high power spikes anyways.

I start off purchasing Boots 2 and the Spiked Gauntlet, for early game movement, power, and slight sustain. Note that if you're comparing this with Branmuffin's guide (which I very much suggest you do), this will deplete you of funds for blue pots. This means your starting game will be more conservative, and you won't be using your abilities to clear out the buff camps. This is essentially the one difference I suggest when using my build versus his.

Next up, you want to finish your Warrior Tabi. These are definitely the boots you want to use--remember our mantra: the more power, the better.

Next, the (as of writing this guide) brand new Soul Eater. We want to reach max CDR as soon as possible, and the 50 power that comes with this item post stacking is beautiful. It even gives us a little bit of lifegain sustain, not that we're planning to stick around very long. We buy this item right after boots to reach 100 stacks as soon as possible. As a quick note, I'm finding it very easy to reach max stacks with this item. As long as you're anywhere near combat, which you should be, you'll be getting them left and right.

After this, you want Jotunn's Wrath for the power and CDR, followed by Hydra's Lament to reach CDR cap as well as get your first proc-based item. I do believe it's critical to reach the CDR cap with Loki, as he's incredibly weak without his abilities and Assassinate is a core component of our combo which we want available to us. Both of these items together gets us a sweet 80 power and some pen.

Our fifth item is going to be Heartseeker. I seem to build this later than most people do, but since the item scales off our power, it gets better as the game goes on. I think it's more important to reach our CDR cap before we worry about doubling anything, and our CDR items give us an extra 130 power to work with, which becomes 320 after Heartseeker procs.

Our final item should be Bloodforge, and it's not close. If you've been following along, you can see how sweet power is for Loki compared to penetration, and the whopping 75 power is a godsend for us to play with. The 15% lifesteal that we get from this is gravy, and when combined with the 10% lifesteal and the ability lifesteal from Soul Eater, you get an added benefit of some respectable sustain for any late-game boxing matches that come up. This should never be your plan, but it's a nice unintended benefit to using my build.

Now, the best sixth item for Loki is Bloodforge. No doubts about it. However, there may be certain times when it's best to build another item before working towards Bloodforge. The reason for this is because of the one giant negative of the item--it's expensive, at 2800 gold. Here are the reasons I think it might be feasible to buy a different sixth item. First, the game is close to ending and you predict that it'll be over before you can buy the Bloodforge. Second, the game is neck and neck and you can't afford not to have a power increase immediately to try and edge out your opponent. Third, you're losing pretty badly and trying to catch up. And...that's it. All other times, go ahead and save for Bloodforge.

If you find yourself in one of the above three positions, then you should be going for either Brawler's Beatstick or Titan's Bane as a sixth item. If the enemy team isn't particularly tanky, then the Beatstick is the one to go for. If they are tanky, then Titan's Bane is the winner.

But what constitutes "particularly tanky"? I'm glad you asked, hypothetical voice!

If I did my math correctly, an enemy would need about 150 protections in order for Titan's Bane to be better than Brawler's Beatstick against them. At any lower number, the power scaling due to Hydra/Heartseeker overpowers the armor they have. If three or more enemies on the opposing team have 150 or better physical protections, then you want Titan's Bane. If two or less have 150 or better physical protections, then you want the Beatstick.

Regardless, you want to sell whichever one you buy and purchase Bloodforge as a seventh item the moment you can afford it. It blows both of them out of the water.

In terms of relics, I usually use three and pick which two are needed for the enemy comp I'm facing. If I'm facing down predictable burst (Scylla, Poseidon, etc), then I get an Aegis. If I'm facing a lot of CC (Ares, Fenrir, etc), I pick up Beads. If I don't have to worry much about either, I pick up Bracers for the heal and the cooldown bonus on the upgrade.

These are pretty much the only three relics I touch outside of corner case scenarios. For example, if I'm fighting Odin I'll pick up a Phantom Veil. Obvious counter options like that.