Is Loki An Endgame Warframe?

[RakuyoExcelsior]

I recently got Loki and I have to say I can't figure him out. I mainly got him because I was frustrated in higher level spy missions trying to farm Ivara and burning through ciphers, and Loki is a master of doing them real fast. But anyway, what I discovered is that in groups he is kinda weak, and I'm not saying he is really weak, just that outside of endgame with all the mods and weapons, you are kinda just there. You don't have enough energy and efficiency and range to keep casting your ultimate, you don't have enough duration to consider being invisible all the time strategy and you find yourself shooting away and occasionally casting some low effect abilities.

Now I understand that endgame with derelict mods and syndicate and primes mods and good weapons he excels, but since I don't have them, what can one do with Loki outside spy?

 

Is this the reason why he was replaced as a started warframe?

[JefPlays]

Loki is not an endgame frame.

 

Loki is THE endgame frame.

[MrBlue04u]

Although I think we may have strayed a bit from the original question I would say Loki can be used in early "endgame" and for soloing some missions.

The main problem I have with him (and the reason i would definitely not award him the title "master race") is that in true endgame content squad comp is everything. To be honest I find he isn't really the best at any of his jobs.

The two main reasons I think to take him is for invis. and radial disarm. While these are nice powers they are not the best imo.

Invis. is nice however any frame can get it now with the Naramon focus tree and to be honest its better as it doesn't take energy or need to be recast as long as you are swinging with your melee weapon every 12 seconds. Additionally playing non spy missions the main use of invis is not dying (and to a lesser extent the increase in melee damage is nice but as I mention latter there are better ways to do this). I find a better solution that helps the whole squad is a 99% Blessing Trinity.

Radial disarm is again not a bad power but it doesn't stop enemy's from doing damage it just stops them from doing ranged damage. While this is nice I would much rather take a Blind Mirage as it’s much more useful, especially when you are trying to revive an ally.  But not only does it stop enemies from dealing all damage it opens them up to melee finishers. This combined with daggers using Covert Lethality means you will always kill the enemy.

This brings me to my next problem with Loki. While this may be more of a personal issue I find he doesn't put out enough damage during late game content. He has to rely solely on his weapons to do damage which is not the end of the world it’s an issue with a few frames but i feel like I notice it more when playing Loki (maybe because he is so squishy and doesn't really do anything to boost squad damage). On a definite less empirical note I would say that it is not uncommon to see the invis Loki sitting in the corner hiding although I would say this speaks more about the player than the frame.

Now I’ll give you that Loki’s other powers are not terrible or even bad but I find they are situational utilities that really don’t improve the frame enough to make it worth discussing. By this I mean nobody’s taking Loki for Decoy.

More or less this comes down to preference and what you consider endgame. If doing a sortie with randoms is endgame for you then yeah take Loki but if going for example 2+hr in a T4 Survival with a group of players you know I find Loki doesn’t make the cut in my squad comp.

One thing I will say in favor of Loki is that the Slova and Radial Disarm Loki are a powerful combo albeit I still find a Blind Mirage does the job better. 

[izzatuw]

Irradiating Disarm

/thread

He was cut out of the starter frames because he is heavily mod reliant. He's not like Atlas where you can One Punch straight outta the oven. You have to have greater mods like Narrowminded or Overextended to get at least half the experience out of him.

Try

Narrowminded

Fleeting Expertise

Streamline

Overextended

continuity

Constitution

Irradiating Disarm

Stretch

With my Narrowminded at R9 I have a good amount of duration for invisibility while having decent range for my Disarm.

You can also remove Narrowminded for bigger Disarm Range.

My advice, get more mods for Loki and he's more than end game material.

Edited February 15, 2016 by izzatuw

[Sormatte]

Irradiating Disarm

/thread

[AlphaSierraMike]

There's not much you can do with Loki besides maximizing abilities. He's a caster frame after all.

 

So yeah, no new players can make full use of Loki.

[fatalis92]

If you have the mods loki is very powefull

[GinKenshin]

nah...they just call him master race cos he's not good at end game ;) 

[TrickBox]

Loki is a very strong frame since it can do a lot of solo missions without being noticed by the ennemies (and get a lot of xp from stealth kills)

Irradiating Disarm is a very strong augment too and he's very solid as a revive frame, but he's also very fragile and Nullifiers are a plague for him.

 

And yes, it has been removed from the starter pool because he's hard to mod for a beginner, and his gameplay is not as rewarding as Exca, Mag or Volt.

[(PSN)Draconis1981]

yes but like all warframe for specific things.

[izzatuw]

nah...they just call him master race cos he's not good at end game ;)

[Airyllish]

Loki was - to my knowledge - removed from the starter pool of Warframe because he's very reliant on casting his abilities and he needs a lot of mods to make him function effectively at the higher levels. 

 

So to any new player picking him up straight out of the box, two things would happen:

1 - they would find the start of the game easy because they'd learn that with a decent melee weapon and stealth you can ezpez your way through a good number of the starting planets. As a result, they'd just lean on this tactic and they wouldn't have any ability to utilise the rest of his arsenal because they'd never learnt to.

2 - they just didn't learn him well at all and struggled.

 

That's just to my knowledge, anyway. Loki just doesn't perform well at all without certain mods that you just won't have at the start of the game. And if you're like a couple of new players who dropped a even a damaged continuity or whatever and just went "Oh well stealth and melee is op" you'd get really frustrated later on when your stealth+melee combo seemed to stop working and Loki fell over dead if somebody looked at him funny. /shrug

 

That said, I'm greatly enjoying my Loki. I'll enjoy him more once I get all the mods I need for him and max them as necessary.

[Rorgal_Sina]

Loki was removed because you need to damage enemies with your ability in the tutorial. You can't damage enemies with Loki's abilities.

 

And yes, Loki requires lots of modding to achieve godhood. New players don't have access to corrupted mods.

 

However, find the right build, find the balance between Radial Disarm and Invisibility, and you're done.

[CaptainOfTheSkies]

BATONIFY *woosh* GO MY MINIONS, GANK MY TEAMATES!

[CrazyCatLad]

He is endgame.

 

I mean, all frames can be end game with good enough weapons, tactics and skill.  

[Airyllish]

BATONIFY *woosh* GO MY MINIONS, GANK MY TEAMATES!

 

Made more effective, surely, if you have a Zephyr that can drop a few tornadoes and send the baton-wielding minions at your cell mates at very high speed?

Edited February 15, 2016 by Airyllish

[(PSN)robotwars7]

he is endgame, but he's heavily reliant on a duration or range build to be effective. also I hate ID Lokis during Sorties. they result in the team getting lynched with sticks. YOU'RE NOT HELPING BY GIVING LEVEL 100 ENEMIES A BATON, YOU'RE MAKING THEM MORE ANNOYING!

[TheGrimCorsair]

nah...they just call him master race cos he's not good at end game ;) 

I thought it was because of the popularity of Neo Nazi rhetoric and strong undercurrent of racism among gamers.

[izzatuw]

he is endgame, but he's heavily reliant on a duration or range build to be effective. also I hate ID Lokis during Sorties. they result in the team getting lynched with sticks. YOU'RE NOT HELPING BY GIVING LEVEL 100 ENEMIES A BATON, YOU'RE MAKING THEM MORE ANNOYING!

Edited February 15, 2016 by izzatuw

[(PSN)Asdeft]

I would actually say he is the endgame frame. If you were to only play warframe with a single frame for a year, Loki would be solid for whatever content you need. 

 

I made the mistake of gifting my friend Loki early on because he was cheap and he loves stealth mechanics in games, but I quickly realized how weak Loki really was without high level mods so he ended up having to play Ash/Rhino for a while. 

 

 

 YOU'RE NOT HELPING BY GIVING LEVEL 100 ENEMIES A BATON, YOU'RE MAKING THEM MORE ANNOYING!

 

 

Please tell me you're joking, I think I lost brain cells from that. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by (PS4)Asdeft

[leocww]

He was cut out of the starter frames because he is heavily mod reliant. 

 

......and he needs a lot of mods to make him function effectively at the higher levels.

 

Completely agree with this.

 

This is the reason why newbies found Loki not intriguing on killing enemies, despite everybody out there claim he's sort of the endgame frame, and advise them to use him.

[Egg_Chen]

Yes, very much so.

Grab another frame, play the game, come back to Loki when you have the Mods.

25 energy to Disarm half the map and make them fight each other for 10 or more seconds is possibly the best CC in the game.

[Misgenesis]

Max range, max efficiency and plenty of duration with no downsides whatsoever. No question about him being an endgame frame.

 

Also needs some balance.

[(PSN)SupeBoss]

If you don't have the derelict mods, he isn't really worth it at all in end game

Actually, most frames arent that viable in endgame without derelict/primed mods.

 

I would highly suggest getting those mods as soon as you can. Whether you buy plat and get them in trade, or farm them in vault runs.

 

All Loki needs is either fleeting expertise + overextended or just narrowminded to be viable.

[Tulzscha]

Please be advised, we have a specific subforum for advice/tips/asking for help:

 

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/318374-please-read-before-posting-threads-what-is-and-isnt-general-discussion/

 

Moved to the proper section.

[VexMain]

Loki is no good engame, you can go Nyx instead and spam her Chaos instead which makes them fight anyone among themselves and since they got an insane armor and insane damage, that's extremely beneficial for your team, which is way more useful to a team. Her 4 makes her immune and absorbs damage, great for reviving, while Loki can stealth revive anyone, but if a single bullet flies by him he will be down in the second. Nyx 1 with her augment gives them like 300% or 500% damage to anyone who she is controlling.

 

Pair her with a Hubras Kubrow (Animal Instinct mod too), and she will never be targeted. You don't need to shot anyone, your 1 will do the trick. And chaos will make defense, survival, interception, a fun mod, even in sorties.

 

Loki is a solo frame, but in eng game Loki is not really helpful. People are picking Nyx over Loki for LoR instead now due her chaos, immune and crazy damage while Loki can only offer a disarm, but if they get close to you, as in, you were not looking the enemies were coming to you from your blind spot and hit you one time late game you will fall down. With Nyx, they will fighting each other most of the time and you can just finish them off from afar.