"Trickster" Loki Rework Concept

[Violet_Xe]

   Before i say anything, I realize he's a perfectly good frame and isn't in the most pressing of needs for reworks. The only reason i'm posting my Loki idea right now is because of two reasons. One, Wisp yet again has stolen loki's decoy ability like so many other warframes which really ticks me off. Second, I had like three posts planned out and they were all typed up and my computer decided to restart. One was a corpus raid concept, an octavia rework concept, and a revamp of my commander warframe concept. I needed something quick cause I wanted to post one of my ideas and this kinda fit. So I typed this up.
   Future posts will probably be among this list. "Tempest" Zephyr // "Nemesis" Nyx // "Idol" Octavia // Warframe Challenge Concept // Warframe, Star Chart Conflict Concept // Melee 3.0 Suggestions
I really don't want to type up the corpus raid thing again but i will eventually, sooo hey this is what I've got.

   Ok so this wil be a quick look at Loki and yes i'm well aware he's an amazing warframe. However his decoy and passive serve no purpose at the present moment. Other warframes have taken his decoy mechanic and torn it to shreds. To name a few.

• Saryn, Status explosion, attracts fire, interacts with abilities, and healing augment.
• Wisp, Cloaks wisp, attracts fire, interacts with abilities.
• Atlas, Two rumblers, cc, attracts fire, interacts with abilities.
• Equinox, Copy, attracts fire, casts abilities, scales damage.
• Wukong, Copy, attracts fire, casts abilities, interacts with abilities, scales damage, CC Augment.

   Nekros, Inaros, Titanya, Mirage, Octavia, Revenant, Nyx, Khora, and Chroma. I'm aware not all of these are "decoys" but they all take that attracts fire to a minion or not you, and they all do it better and have have more uses than just distracting enemies. You have vastly more control over all of these AI and decoys than decoy which is cast and begins to fire randomly. It doesn't even do damage which I know isn't loki's thing, but he's got nothing going for decoy. of all builds, why is it decoy gets ignored? because it's useless. If an ability serves no purpose, it shouldn't be there to begin with.
   Now to explain what i'll be doing is... pretty much nothing to any other abilities except buff them. the largest changes will go to decoy and it's not even a "rework" just a touch up. I'll also be altering his passive by making the abilities work with eachother more. The way you loki players play won't be affected whatsoever if you want to ignore these changes. This is only meant to open up a new playstyle for players who want to use the parkour system and mix abilities to get the most out of his kit. Also make loki feel more thematically like a ninja. So these will be mostly passive and decoy buffs. If you like running loki for a simple yet complex style of cloak and radial disarm, that's fine and you an still do that. What these changes will do is make it so players with more parkour experience, aim, and planning can take advantage of loki's passive for increased effectiveness.

Ability Description    Ability Tips    Augment    Ability Name     {{{{{ABILITY #}}}}}    Me talking

S = Affected by Power Strength       D = Affected by Power Duration
E = Affected by Power Efficiency     R = Affected by Power Range

Loki Prime
Armor 65 65 increased to 65 70
Energy 225 262
Health 225 225
Shields 225 225
Sprint Speed 1.25 1.25 increased to 1.25 1.3

Passive: Tanuki, While latched onto a wall, all abilities will freeze in duration, Loki can grapple onto a wall for up to 45 seconds.
*Loki now always has a lock on halo to enemies, this is seperate from the firing ridicule, and represents loki's "ability target"*
*Roll changed into a front flip and provides immunity to CC, he will flip faster than other warframes*

Warframe Unique Exilus: Engineer If Loki is latched onto a wall, he will deal .5X extra critical damage

{{{{{ABILITY 1}}}}}

Decoy 25 35 seconds // 25 energy drain // 100m range
Loki deploys a holographic copy of himself, drawing enemy fire.
-Up to 3 decoys may be placed at once.
   -If more than three are placed the oldest decoy will fall over and vanish
   -If aimed at a ceiling or the sky, the decoy will appear directly below the aimed point, allowing it to be placed in higher platforms.
-Decoys will not attack unless an enemy is alerted.
-If cast while latched on a wall, Cost is halved.
-Decoys have a higher threat level than Loki.
-Decoy will regenerate over time.
-Stats of decoy are multiplied by power strength, health, and armor like Nezha's halo
-If cast on a wall, the decoy will be wall latched to it permanently.

Savior Decoy Loki will swap places with one of his decoys upon death, becoming immune to damage for 5 seconds. If a decoy is killed, Loki's health is restored.

{{{{{ABILITY 2}}}}}

Invisibility 12 11 seconds // 50 energy drain
Loki cloaks himself and becomes invisible. While invisible he gains 25% parkour velocity for 5 seconds while latched onto a wall.
-Decoy cast can be used without interruption while cloaked much like vauban's grenades.
-Enemies will attack at Loki's last known location.
   -If attacked, enemies will shoot where they think they were attacked from.
   -Enemies will follow the noise level, if loki shoots a gun they will fire on that location.
-Loki will occasionally flicker like a chroma from dark sector *Visual and no effect on gameplay*
-Loki can charge his invisibility
   -Charging invisibility opens all enemies up to finishers 

Hushed Invisibility Loki will no longer make any sound while cloaked and his weapons become silenced.

{{{{{ABILITY 3}}}}}

Switch Teleport 25 energy drain // 75 60m range
Loki will cast the ability to save a charge of switch teleport, up to 10 charges, if it isn't aimed at anyone. If the halo causes someone to glow with your energy color you are targeting someone.
-There is some auto aiming to the ability now, however if you're directly hovering over someone the halo will always be on that person. the more accurate you are the easier this ability is.
-Casting it on someone
-Switching locations with a decoy will provide buffs
   -Resets duration of decoy and invisibility if it's enabled.
-Switching locations with an enemy confuses them and permanently opens them up to finishers.
-If a marker is currently on the map or an ally, you can switch teleport with that ally through walls.

Safeguard Switch Switch teleporting with an ally makes both you and the ally invulnerable for 6 seconds. Allies now do not consume a switch teleport charge.

{{{{{ABILITY 4}}}}}

Radial Disarm 100 drain // 120 hold drain // 20m range
Loki emits a wave that disarms all enemies in a wide radius, forcing them to use melee weapons
-Holding radial disarm to charge it makes all decoys cast radial disarm with loki at a 50% range.
-Holding radial disarm while your halo is on an enemy will swap locations and cause you to cast radial disarm in both locations.
   -Only works if you have 5 or more charges available.
   -Will not consume a charge of switch teleport.
-Casting Radial Disarm while wall latched grants 20% increased casting speed.
   -Custom wall latch cast animation, it's kinda weird casting it on a wall.

Irradiating Disarm Loki's radial disarm now applies a radiation effect on enemies in his range.
-Augment will not work with his decoy's disarms.

   Ok so to start, we have his passive. Many many people say that it should be removed, but to be honest just make it better. Yes this seems like a strong passive but at the same time, many warframes have some pretty powerful passives. some like Octavia can cast an ability, and get enough energy to cast the ability again before it even ends. I don't think this is too powerful. But to tone it down I nerfed it from 60 to 45 seconds. My take on passives is that they should be what your playstyle is built around or to modify how you play from a different warframe. Without a passive warframes are shells with abilities slapped on. This passive will be modifying how you play the character if you want an even more complex play style that rewards you more for knowing the game better.
   The exilus is just a cute little mod where loki can increase his damage. Another reason to latch onto walls and it will compete against other exilus mods that are usually played with. His roll is more trying to make him feel like a unique warframe and giving him an escape from tar, trip lasers, and other things. Warframes are getting unique rolls now for some reason so why not give our oldest stealth king a bit of the modern animation with a nice boost that makes sense for being a ninja. Also renaming the passive to Tanuki is a reference to Tanuki Gakure no Jutsu. Staying above enemies sight to avoid detection. His increase to armor and speed are kinda just there to make the prime feel more like he's actually a prime variation. He was released when stats were just a tiny little boost to 1 stat. Now we get armor, health, and something else with almost every frame. Just giving him a more modern feel.

   Next we have his decoy, This is where most of the dramatic changes took place for why you would want to actually have these out. To begin, I wanted to solve the unique crisis loki had for his decoy where it only distracted enemies and was stationary. This is by far one of the most useless abilities in the modern game and just doesn't match up with even the rumblers, which is sad. So I wanted to allow three decoys out at once, meaning although they're stationary they can be used to distract enemies in multiple areas. Next, if wisp stole from loki, steal from wisp. I made it so the decoys have interactions like wisps clone does. You can get buffs by using abilities directly on your clones *reservoirs* and can cast your radial disarm *breach surge* from those decoys. Just some added functionality.to make you want these copies out there. I also made it easier to place the copies down if you're using the wall latch and invisibility which i got from ash's rework.
   I altered the augment to make it so that loki gets invincibility frames. However the most irritating thing is that the decoy dies. if you want the decoy to stay alive then what do you do. Well, ok lets make it give YOU a buff if it dies so your ability isn't completely wasted. I kept him fragile but also made him a bit more unique in this sense as he follows with ash, getting a sort of refund if his ability flops.

   Up next we have invisibility. The most major change which takes a pretty big effect on stealth gameplay is that while he is invisible, loki can finisher anyone with the halo on them. The reason for this is because his filter for invis is exactly like Hayden's from Dark Sector, where Hayden could stealth kill enemies while cloaked. This seems really powerful yes, until you realize that this puts you in a long finisher animation, kills only one enemy, and MAYBE activates arcanes. The meta of the game revolves around killing or effecting many enemies, that or farming. Loki is the only cloak without this effect tied to it making it worse than smoke screen and prowl. At least make it so loki can be the single target assassin his damage style is meant to be. Ash and Ivara already have crowd killing under control, ash even can pop high level enemies with his own finisher. Also atterax will kinda mop the floor with enemies anyways. This is just a way for loki to deal with enemies and for the stealth lovers to use a warframe that can use finishers with ease other than ash.
   Hushed invisibility is really just the same thing. Not any changes to it, just a strong buff to loki if he ever wants to go completely undetected.

   Third, switch teleport. an ability that makes him the kind of rescue... sort of. Limbo can just banish but lets ignore that eh lol. Ok so it's not the best. But it requires line of sight which I don't like and the long range would be incredible if it weren't for the fact that most tiles are what, 40m? It's also really hard to switch teleport anywhere above 60m at the flip of a dime like we see in the "warframe trailer". To fix this I'd add in an auto aim system where it locks onto enemies with a halo, which I mention repetitively. I also wanted this to use a charge system so i could tie it to other abilities such as radial disarm. If you manage to keep switch teleport above a certain amount of charges, then you get an added buff. Also the marker system is really cool because it means you can switch places with say an enemy your ally marks for you. You can be somewhere else completely and giving loki a place to teleport to would boost the usefulness of the ability. Of course it does require some help on the teams part as well, but it's a co op game. Or loki can place a decoy somewhere, mark it, and leave then come back whenever he wishes.
   An important thing to note is by switching with decoys you gain buffs. This means you should want decoys out and in your vision for you to gain these buffs whenever you want. In particular, resetting the cloak ability. Unlike other frames and cloaking methods that can be recast or last forever, loki's cloak is a set duration. I want to give a way for players to reset it, but they need some energy out there already to do that.

   Last but not least we have radial disarm, everyone's favorite thing to do with loki. I left this pretty much untouched except for a few things. To incentive the usage of decoy I made it so decoys can cast the ability as well if you put more energy and time into the cast. risk for reward. It also means decoys would need to be strategically placed and you would need to recognize distance. Next I made it so switch teleport and disarm an mix if you have resource management in mind. Working off of charges allows the ability to be molded into something cool. I also wanted disarm to be castable from walls because you'll be spending most of your time on walls regardless if you're trying to get the most of him. But he needs a bit of work on the wall animations if he'll be a wall latching warframe.
   Oh yeah that augment, sorry it won't work with his decoys. That would be chaos... literally, get it? larger range? radiation? ok... But that would feel a tiny bit overpowered. Speaking of which I'm going to be trying to go over Nyx next. Much like the Vauban one it'll be more aimed at a complete rework yet still trying to keep nyx as the mind control psychic warframe that is based around cc.

   Again I want to state that Loki is in a good spot. But in re guards to him feeling special? no he really doesn't anymore. the only special thing about him is that he can disarm people at a long radius. He lacks identity and unique mechanics and while before this was alright due to fewer warframes, we now have frames such as Mesa. She uses her 2, 3, and 4 constantly are are widely known for that. She feels like she's got a theme down and her abilities are somewhat special. Loki, he's got none of that. Baruuk now has the ability to disarm enemies with his own armor which is ALWAYS going to be active for baruuk players. It's time loki gets some love and yes there are other warframes that need the love, I just wanted to shine some light that loki is starting to be taken apart and put into other frames. I do expect some criticism going along the lines of "Loki doesn't need a rework, zephyr and nyx do!" and yeah they do, but while they don't play well in the game, we also need to respect that warframes need a rework if their identity isn't there anymore. Without a personality, Loki might as well just be a stat stick in warframe form.

I accidentally made the topic a bit soon so I'm adding this. In re guards to his cloak which is his second most used ability, is that really all that special? Octavia can cloak people for nearly as long as Loki can be cloaked simply by humping the ground. Ash can also cloak, or Ivara can provide her team with invisibility forever if she's good enough. Hell even Arcane trickery can turn Banshee, Excalibur, and others into invisible assassins. Cloaking isn't as special as it once was. look no further than wisp who cloaks in midair and has a cloaking decoy movement and synergizing ability.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Violet_Xe

[(PSN)Hikuro-93]

I must say, great way to flesh out Loki's abilities and make it so they're up to nowadays standarts. Without any major changes at that, just some nice tweaks. So I do like this rework proposal a lot, unlike most I've seen up until now, as a Loki main and starter.

I agree, there's nothing wrong with him and there's a reason as to why he's mostly unchanged and untouched compared to most other frames. His kit is great as is, it just needs some tweaks in the right direction in order to make it more viable. It may seem a lot to ask at first glance, but most other frames have this level of of tactical advantages and versatility already as you made sure to show in your comparisons.

Please do make it happen eventually! 

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by (PS4)Hikuro-93

[imagemturbo]

Great ideas!