Midlane Loki: Decoy Fun

Hi, My name is Caithyl. This guide is about midlane Loki. Here's pretty much the core of why this works.

Decoy. Decoy is this build. That's why we max this first.

Pros:

-One of the fastest farmers in the game, abusing decoy.
-One of the better lategame heroes, so the farm isn't going to waste.
-Clearing waves so fast mids leaves you open to take buffs/gank lanes with ult.
-People don't usually expect mid Loki.

Cons:

-As with all types of Loki, he's squishy.
-Sort of comp dependent. Loki doesn't really have a big playmaking Poseidon ult or anything, might need to have that picked up elsewhere if you want one.
-Ungankable, but if their midlane is good and decides to abuse you early, it can really set you behind.

Passive: Behind You!

A decent passive. 20% bonus damage from behind is never a bad thing, and since you'll always get a few attacks off from behind due to Assassinate, it's OK.

The other half of it, is your auto attack sequence. Your first swing does full damage, your second, third, and fourth do half damage, and your fifth does 1.5x damage. Two, three, and four also have shortened animations and bonus attack speed. Keep this in mind when last hitting, since it can kinda mess you up.

1: Vanish

Skill that makes Loki, Loki. I max this last, since ranking it up doesn't reduce the cooldown at all, and Aimed Strike simply offers you more. Get it at level 2, in case you find yourself in an early gank.

2: Decoy

The skill that makes this build work. I'll illustrate what happens.

It deals 100% of your physical power, + a high base damage. At rank 5, it will one shot everything but thug creeps. This means you can effectively hit the thug once or twice, lay down your decoy, and leave the lane. You will get every creep kill.

We rush Heartseeker because of this. You can stack it to 50 in no time, and Loki is a pretty safe hero in the early/midgame, so you're not at any risk of losing stacks.

3: Aimed Strike

A steroid-esque skill. Use it when you pop out of Vanish, or right after your ult hits, since it applies a maim. I max it second, since I think it scales better with levels than Vanish.

4: Assassinate

The other half of what makes Loki, Loki. Does a disgusting amount of single target damage, stuns, and gapcloses. It's really nice. After you hit level 5, you should be pushing mid wave with a decoy and looking to use this ability on cooldown, to snowball your lanes and get yourself ahead.

When in doubt, 4 > 2 > 3 > 1, grabbing 2 in decoy and 1 in aimed/vanish before level 5.

Heartseeker is best item. No, not even kidding. 75 physical power and 10% movement speed is amazing. Since you're Loki, you don't even really have to worry about losing stacks, as "The Trickster God" is also "The Escapist God". Start out with r2 Heartseeker, 2 health pots, and a mana pot (if your team isn't going to give you blue, which they probably won't.) The goal here is to get to r3 Heartseeker as fast as possible to get your stacks up fast, which Loki already does amazingly fast.

After that, we get Warrior Tabi. Physical Penetration, Power, Attack Speed, and movement? Yes please. Second item.

Jotunn's Wrath. I consider this core. Physical penetration, some extra mana, a good amount of power, and 25% CDR for more ultimates. Great for the midgame when you're already using ult on cooldown.

Focused Voidblade. I consider this to be pretty core. Extra power, physical penetration, and some physical defense. Makes you slightly less squish squish, and makes your enemies a lot more squish squish. Fourth item.

Deathbringer. One of the highest damage upgrades in the game. We don't have any crit yet though, so it's not super duper great. Still good, though. I get this as fifth item, so the pieces of your next item are more valuable as you go on.

Rage, Hammer, and Beatstick are what it comes down to for me. Rage is a huge damage boost, Hammer makes you tankier and gives you a nice little slow (though I personally think it's wasted, since things die in like three-four swings anyways, less if you assassinate,) and some lifesteal, crit, health, and heal reduction from beatstick. It's personal choice. There's also a myriad of other defensive items you could go here, I'm just listing offensive options because pub build.

I PERSONALLY think it's all about Aegis Amulet and Purification Beads.

Beads is core on almost any carry in my opinion, it just offers so much. To put it in perspective, I usually pick up rank 1 beads after my boots and upgrade it as I have extra gold. The 3s CC immunity is amazing lategame.

Aegis Amulet provides 2s immune, and then a 20% damage reduction for 4s. This can be incredibly clutch for dodging high damage ultimates, and since Loki is pretty squishy, I think it's one of the best. I usually pick rank 1 up around the same time as my beads, but I could see picking it up earlier if you're against something with a scary ultimate.

Of course, there's others. Hand of the Gods is OK if you're the one that needs to carry taht for your team. Same for Girdle of Might, though in both cases, it's probably better to put that on someone else, as you're a midlane carry. Shard and Meditation are pretty useless, as per usual. You don't need creeping curse, you have Assassinate, Vanish, and plenty of extra movespeed, but you can if you want it. Sprint is pretty meh. Blink would actually be pretty good, if it wasn't such a long cooldown. Shell is meh. Shielded Recall, what the **** are you thinking?

Early game with Loki is pretty methodical, in my opinion. You decoy the wave, you clear out any creeps that are still alive, which is none after rank 4 ish, except for thug creeps. You go do something else. Farm gold camps, take a buff. I like to grab a blue actually, after first round of respawns. Lets you stay out for a long time, gank repeatedly, and not have to worry about mana. If someone else on your team needs it more, it'd be wise to let them have it though.

There's a specific way you have to decoy the creeps.

You wait for them to meet up in the middle with your creeps, or wherever it is they're meeting, and watch for the range cluster. Then, put the decoy on the edge of the ranged creeps so they're inside the area.

If you decoy on the melee, the ranged creeps will attack it, but not move into it and not take damage. Even if the melee creeps aren't in the circle, they will run to it. Do this for 10 minutes or so.

Other than that, it's basically just decoy wave, finish off thug creep, go use your ultimate or farm neutrals. And PLEASE don't kill random buff camps and leave the buffs on the ground.

Midgame is pretty much the same, except you should probably not be walking through the map unwarded and alone as much. However, if you manage to catch a squishy God out on their own, feel free to assassinate and kill them. That's what it's for. A fully stacked Heartseeker is a disgusting amount of damage for how early you get it, and with your farm rate and gank potential you could, in theory, be a full item or more up on other lanes.

Don't get an invincibility complex and dive 1v3 though. You will die, you're Loki. Methodical is the name of the game.

Lategame really kicks in when you hit 6 items. Anyone caught out alone will die.

Playing teamfights can get pretty fun. A lot of people think Loki has a terrible teamfight because he's squishy and has a lot of trouble with CC if you don't go bead. However, we do go bead. Every Loki should go bead, more or less.

Abuse the fact that you can get through a teamfight easily with Assassinate. No carry staying at the back is safe, since you can global pretty much anyone, even tanks. Don't forget to toss down decoy either, it's like 500+ damage to anyone in the circle. Not bad!

Other than that, pretty much yeah. You team fight, you push down their phoenixs, kill King Thug the Man Cow, and win the game. If it's not that simple, Loki isn't too bad if you're playing from a deficit. Even lategame his wave clear is absolutely godly with Decoy.

I'll upload clips later maybe, when I bother to record them. If.

I don't think I ever went over a proper assassinate combo, so I'll put that here.

Vanish (to get in range) - Assassinate - Aimed Strike (for the maim and damage) finish with melee swings. You can always pop another Aimed Strike off since it's like a 6 second cooldown at full build. It's not wise to chase heroes through their jungle, since you're Loki and squishy. You can also toss a decoy down right before you assassinate for extra damage, if you want some style points.

Glhf and enjoy Loki.

Notice: If there's any typos or anythign, please let me know. I proofraed the guide a bit, butI might have missed somethign.