It's Fine That Loki Won't Get A Rework

[Duskblade777]

Hi everyone,

In today's devstream, some brave soul managed to pop the question on everyone's minds: Will Loki get a rework? The answer being there will not be a rework - at least there aren't any plans for one. I'm not disappointed by this news, Loki's kit already has good potential and there are variety of builds that many thrive with; however, I have personally never been a fan of most of them. The things that I have been dying for are some QoL changes and some buffs to certain aspects of his kit, specifically his decoy, which will finally be receiving a long awaited buff and change to how it functions - took them long enough...

Honestly, the only other aspects of his kit that I would like to see some sort of change on are his passive and his switch teleport, which I would personally would like to see some sort ability to hold the button to switch with his decoy and some interaction where it causes enemy units to fire on the enemy switched with. What other aspects have people been wanting updated with him?

Edited March 23 by Duskblade777

[CosoMalvadoNG]

Nah loki doesn't really need changes of any kind... with the most solo broken defensive ability in the game and one of the most disgusting cc abilities in the game.

[Birdframe_Prime]

So, just to be clear, Loki has some fundamental issues that stop two pieces of his kit being useful, or at least as useful as they could be.

And both of these are being addressed in the next update, and I think people are sleeping on it.

Loki's place at the top of the game will almost entirely return from this. A frame that can disable all ranged damage? Yeah. A frame that can literally interrupt enemies from attacking an objective with a now-scaling Decoy? Definitely. A frame that will be able to sprint around in melee mode with function 6 seconds of true Invulnerability while also having true Invisibility? Augh, perfect. And that's even without putting Helminth casts on him.

[sunderthefirmament]

39 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

So, just to be clear, Loki has some fundamental issues that stop two pieces of his kit being useful, or at least as useful as they could be.

And both of these are being addressed in the next update, and I think people are sleeping on it.

Loki's place at the top of the game will almost entirely return from this. A frame that can disable all ranged damage? Yeah. A frame that can literally interrupt enemies from attacking an objective with a now-scaling Decoy? Definitely. A frame that will be able to sprint around in melee mode with function 6 seconds of true Invulnerability while also having true Invisibility? Augh, perfect. And that's even without putting Helminth casts on him.

And his greatest strength remains, rework, touchup, or nothing:

Spoiler

speeding up the dreaded drone escort bounties.

 

[Duskblade777]

5 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

So, just to be clear, Loki has some fundamental issues that stop two pieces of his kit being useful, or at least as useful as they could be.

And both of these are being addressed in the next update, and I think people are sleeping on it.

Loki's place at the top of the game will almost entirely return from this. A frame that can disable all ranged damage? Yeah. A frame that can literally interrupt enemies from attacking an objective with a now-scaling Decoy? Definitely. A frame that will be able to sprint around in melee mode with function 6 seconds of true Invulnerability while also having true Invisibility? Augh, perfect. And that's even without putting Helminth casts on him.

Are they doing something with switch teleport too or his passive? I only know of changes coming to his decoy.

[Duskblade777]

9 hours ago, CosoMalvadoNG said:

Nah loki doesn't really need changes of any kind... with the most solo broken defensive ability in the game and one of the most disgusting cc abilities in the game.

His invisibility and radial disarm are certainly great; however, I've never really found them all too engaging, just fire and forget. I personally have always wanted decoy to be viable in some way as I have always tried to weave into my rotation with Loki; yet, it always lacked survivability. How do you usually play Loki?

Edited March 23 by Duskblade777

[Tiltskillet]

13 minutes ago, Duskblade777 said:

Are they doing something with switch teleport too or his passive?

Switch Tele will no longer have that brief halt to Loki's movement on cast and will provide a temporary speed boost.  Nothing's been mentioned about the passive that I know of.

[Birdframe_Prime]

27 minutes ago, Duskblade777 said:

Are they doing something with switch teleport too or his passive? I only know of changes coming to his decoy.

Not his Passive, but Switch Teleport is getting the same instant movement function that other teleports have. Basically just removing the animation from the end, so you can teleport and run. It's also getting a function that gives him a movement speed boost after casting.

Loki's going to be pretty smooth with this one.

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 39 minutos, Duskblade777 dijo:

How do you usually play Loki?

healing/range/duration.

[Duskblade777]

6 hours ago, Tiltskillet said:

Switch Tele will no longer have that brief halt to Loki's movement on cast and will provide a temporary speed boost.  Nothing's been mentioned about the passive that I know of.

Very nice, a welcome addition.

5 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Not his Passive, but Switch Teleport is getting the same instant movement function that other teleports have. Basically just removing the animation from the end, so you can teleport and run. It's also getting a function that gives him a movement speed boost after casting.

Loki's going to be pretty smooth with this one.

I do like the sound of that. Switch teleport has always felt clunky given that end animation; so this will definitely smooth things out.

[MarakViri]

Loki's kit is fairly well rounded (even though I enjoy hypothetical rework conversations) for the most part. He only has two genuine flaws in his current iteration; his Passive serves functionally no purpose (even though it can be kind of fun to stick to a wall for practically an entire mission at times), and that his Decoy gets evaporated merely by being seen by range-capable enemies (which was made harder to counter due to Eximus Overguard).

Minor issues with his kit included the mobility penalty from Switch Teleport, and a lack of actual damage viability, as he has no means of increasing his outgoing damage or increasing incoming damage (such as armor removal or damage vulnerability).

The changes that are being implemented remove one of his major flaws (or give the potential for it), and fix the first of the minor issues (and actually reverse it by providing him aa mobility boost). Ultimately, DE admitted that they "don't really have any great ideas" regarding a full Loki rework, which means the odds of changing his passive are rather low. Which I see as a shame, as they could easily provide him a passive that does something akin to increasing his damage potential; "Loki gains x% Critical Chance and Damage against enemies targeting his Decoy, and gains x% Status Chance against disarmed enemies." or something. Or, keeping with his current Wall Latch passive, simply expand upon that to provide him some kind of buff while latched (and thus tying the passive into his general gameplay loop). Especially since they went through the effort to make sure that all of his abilities can be cast while latched (excluding when you activate the Ability Menu with a controller at least, which is kind of annoying sometimes). On that same issue, it would also be nice if the "on Wall Latch" triggers (such as on [Arcane Avenger] and [Proton Snap]) would have their timer paused (or extended) while wall latched, but that's even more unlikely.

Some additional synergies would be appreciated as well. Decoy receiving some kind of buff when targeted by Switch Teleport or (as discussed in another post) casting Radial Disarm alongside Loki himself would be interesting implementations, but his kit is rounded enough that he doesn't need overly complicated ability synergies. With the new update, I'm already having problems deciding which ability to overwrite via the Helminth as is, as all of them can be equally viable (and running without a Helminth is even more viable now than before). Not to mention he will actually benefit from the +300% Strength boost in Arbitrations and Archon Hunts now, to some degree.

Then there's his upcoming augment, [Damage Decoy], which implies that the ability will either have innate damage reflection, or will have said feature added by the augment itself (though the wording infers the prior), while the augment itself acts as a fairly good, randomised primer (and let's him easily trigger [Manifold Bond], which means he will work very well with altered Companion Nuke builds (which may be a viable substitute in most content to make up for his own lack of DPS viability)).

On the visual front, a change I would like to see is Decoy being more customisable in appearance. It technically copies the fashion frame of the caster, but the image it takes is heavily altered. If it would become harder to distinguish from the caster (or if it looked more like the caster if the caster was under the effects of Invisibility or it was subject to Switch Teleport even), and potentially was equipped with the user's Secondary (instead of the Lato/Lex Prime). The upcoming changes to invisibility customisation are great, of course, but being able to customise the Decoy in a similar fashion would be something I would greatly enjoy. I'd also really like a symmetrical skin, but that seems very unlikely.

Edited March 24 by MarakViri
Grammatical Correction

[Nebu4]

12 hours ago, CosoMalvadoNG said:

healing/range/duration.

with healing do you mean vitality? or do you subsume a healing ability?

[Fred_Avant_2019]

Definitely a frame I'd need to put some casting speed shards on, but I think other than that, he's fine. He's only as good as his guns are, which isn't great or overwhelmingly terrible.

[Nebu4]

On 2024-03-24 at 12:04 PM, CosoMalvadoNG said:

Molt Reconstruct

Lmao 💀

[Vermillion-Code]

Wait, people unironically think Loki is any good? I'm really confused by this. We are talking about 2024 warframe, right? The year of the game where the latest frame can generate 80k overguard, AoE nuke/shred targets (through walls), debuff enemies with status vulnerability and buff allies with an auti-firing book? Or I could speak on Citrine, Kullervo, Dagath, Voruna...

Loki is absolutely horrible. His kit has absolutely no place in 2024 warframe. I'm genuinely shocked people are here defending his kit which has, and has had, no place in Warframe for a decade.

What's next, Limbo is fine?

[CosoMalvadoNG]

hace 2 horas, Vermillion-Code dijo:

Wait, people unironically think Loki is any good? I'm really confused by this. We are talking about 2024 warframe, right? The year of the game where the latest frame can generate 80k overguard, AoE nuke/shred targets (through walls), debuff enemies with status vulnerability and buff allies with an auti-firing book? Or I could speak on Citrine, Kullervo, Dagath, Voruna...

Loki is absolutely horrible. His kit has absolutely no place in 2024 warframe. I'm genuinely shocked people are here defending his kit which has, and has had, no place in Warframe for a decade.

What's next, Limbo is fine?

U dont need of 80k overguard u just need indivisibility and kill enemies. You don't like that? that  is another story, I don't like gara or khora and that doesn't make them bad warframes.

Loki can play any content without a problem and that its the important thing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

15 hours ago, Vermillion-Code said:

Wait, people unironically think Loki is any good?

You'd be surprised, at least so it seems.

Loki is, despite all of the strange amounts of hate he's getting, surprisingly good. The reason he gets so much hate is mostly because of the things that DE basically fixed. The first was that his Decoy, which is literally the best aggro draw in the game (to the point of actually pulling enemies away from things like Defense points), just straight up and died past level 15 unless you put it somewhere the enemies couldn't shoot. And... well... they fixed that. And even Augmented it so you can apply it to an enemy instead.

What this does is creates a CC that can affect even Overguard enemies, because the Overguard doesn't make them immune to Aggro.

Invisibility is... well... combined with Shield Gating to prevent accidental death... literally the best self survivability tool in the game outside of being functionally invincible.

And the second thing DE fixed was Switch Teleport being just a meme that was only used to be 'hilarious' to your allies, but now that it's not just a functional teleport as long as you have a target, it also grants a speed boost. As if to compensate entirely for the time it spent rooting you to the ground with the animation all these years.

Then there's his 4th which turns off all enemy ranged damage. All guns, apart from those on Eximus units, just gone... No bombard rockets, no lancers pinging you at long range, no heavy gunners revving up? No, all of them just bum-rushing to your Decoy in melee mode only. It's... kind of beautiful to watch now if you get him in somewhere like The Circuit. A bunch of idiots waving their melee weapons and charging something other than the defense point.

Does this make Loki absolutely amazing?

No. Far from it.

He's still niche as a frame in Warframe. And nuke frames exist, it's true.

Is he a bad frame, though?

Definitely not.

[--Leyenda-yight6]

hace 9 horas, Birdframe_Prime dijo:

You'd be surprised, at least so it seems.

Loki is, despite all of the strange amounts of hate he's getting, surprisingly good. The reason he gets so much hate is mostly because of the things that DE basically fixed. The first was that his Decoy, which is literally the best aggro draw in the game (to the point of actually pulling enemies away from things like Defense points), just straight up and died past level 15 unless you put it somewhere the enemies couldn't shoot. And... well... they fixed that. And even Augmented it so you can apply it to an enemy instead.

What this does is creates a CC that can affect even Overguard enemies, because the Overguard doesn't make them immune to Aggro.

Invisibility is... well... combined with Shield Gating to prevent accidental death... literally the best self survivability tool in the game outside of being functionally invincible.

And the second thing DE fixed was Switch Teleport being just a meme that was only used to be 'hilarious' to your allies, but now that it's not just a functional teleport as long as you have a target, it also grants a speed boost. As if to compensate entirely for the time it spent rooting you to the ground with the animation all these years.

Then there's his 4th which turns off all enemy ranged damage. All guns, apart from those on Eximus units, just gone... No bombard rockets, no lancers pinging you at long range, no heavy gunners revving up? No, all of them just bum-rushing to your Decoy in melee mode only. It's... kind of beautiful to watch now if you get him in somewhere like The Circuit. A bunch of idiots waving their melee weapons and charging something other than the defense point.

Does this make Loki absolutely amazing?

No. Far from it.

He's still niche as a frame in Warframe. And nuke frames exist, it's true.

Is he a bad frame, though?

Definitely not.

The only thing I wish is that he had some other upgrade to switch teleport, it feels too weak compared to other mobility abilities.

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, --Leyenda-yight6 said:

The only thing I wish is that he had some other upgrade to switch teleport, it feels too weak compared to other mobility abilities.

Yeah, not wrong. However. Augmented it becomes an invincibility tool and it's incredibly good at helping him survive literally anything.

With it you can, as I found out to my bewildered glee, Helminth off his Invisibility for a defense strip like Terrify, and turn Loki into the weirdest melee tank. He Decoys enemies, Disarms them, then strips off Armour while they're all grouped up and wails on them with melee, and if there's even a sniff of enemies looking in your direction you can Switch with them to get 6-7 seconds of full invincibility.

A Loki that doesn't go invisible is... strange and exciting new territory ^^

Still.

Switch Teleport should definitely be able to do something like... turn off the enemy friend-or-foe targeting on that one enemy. Maybe temporarily Irradiate them so that as you escape from a location the enemies that were attacking you keep attacking that enemy. Maybe it could even give that enemy a damage vulnerability too.