Loki, The Trickster he should be

[Sixty5]

Before I start, let me say that being invisible 90% of the game and removing every enemy's ability to fight is the same thing as blowing 90% of the enemies up in a room with one button. It just takes longer.

With that said, Loki is NOT a trickster right now. Decoy is pitiful, Invisibility is an easymode button, Switch Teleport is laughable at best, and Radial Disarm is a team wide easymode button.

Now, you can tell me Loki is fun to play, and I'll agree. I'm part of a Loki oriented clan and let me tell you we love Loki with a passion. But he, in his current state, is pretty awful in terms of his strength. Disarm and Invis are strong to the point that there is no reason to use any other ability.

He should really thrive on manipulation, and as a player who uses Loki, I can tell you it's both difficult to utilize Decoy and Switch Teleport, and to actually get rid of the overflowing amount of energy you seemingly can never rid yourself of. With that said, here comes the sun.

 

Decoy: Decoy needs to live longer, anyone past Mercury can tell you that. I'll leave the discussion of how lively it should be up to the people in charge. But it should also be a way to get rid of energy, a totem, and very spammable. It should not be limited to one decoy per Loki, it should be limited at 10 if not 20. Loki should be able to place scratching posts for the tons of infected, or effectively wall off a doorway with an army of decoys. It's manipulation, right? 

 

Invisibility: Being able to run around invisible for an entire game is just a tad broken. The previous changes to invisibility helped to limit this, but it is still really strong, especially considering the duration of the ability. I propose giving enemies the ability to detect you whilst you are invisible to a greater degree, but offsetting this when near to a decoy. This allows invisibility to still be a strong stealth tool, making you harder to detect, and lets you run right into the middle of a zerg, but also does so in a more nuanced way.

Basically, invisibility is weaker, but being near a decoy will make you harder to detect, as enemies mistake your actions for the decoys

 

Switch Teleport: This is a highly underused skill, and it lacks in a lot of combat utility. My suggestion here is to change it so that for a few seconds after the skill has been completed, Loki is seen as the entity he teleported with and vise versa. This would not occur if swapping places with a decoy.

Basically, this change would let you have an entire enemy squad shoot themselves to bits with rapid teleports.

It has a few parallels with Nyx's chaos, but does not impinge on the same territory as Switch Teleport would be limited to one target at a time, with a short duration, and since it is mainly intended as protection in the second after completion as the animations finish. In addition it offers more teamwork opportunities as an invisible Loki can teleport a team mate into a vantage point and grant them a few seconds of invisibility in which to cause havock.

 

Radial Disarm: This ability is too damn good, but it is Loki's bread and butter, so the only tweaks for it I'd suggest is a reduction in base range, but allow each decoy placed to cast it as well. Doing this would destroy the decoy in the process.

You keep the immense strength of disarm to remove an enemy's ability to fight, and you keep the ability for a loki to do this to an entire map, but it would take much more setup on the players part. 

 

All in all these changes are aimed at making Loki a more diverse frame, as well as bringing him back to his intended role as a master trickster, instead of a filthy buttons spammer. 

[Jackviator]

I like this. Most frame reworks I see on these forums basically turns the frame into something completely different, but this remains true to what people actually like about Loki as he is now. +1

[Sixty5]

4 minutes ago, Jackviator said:

I like this. Most frame reworks I see on these forums basically turns the frame into something completely different, but this remains true to what people actually like about Loki as he is now. +1

Agreed, Loki used to be a really cool frame to play, but the issue is as time has gone on, he's become an irradiating disarm spambot. He is described as a high skill trickster, but there is none of that in his current setup. 

I'd love to see this stuff happen and make him a fun pick again

 

[Sasquatchias]

I like and enjoy all of these suggestions, and think they all go a long way into making Loki more than what he is right now - a super cheese frame with arguably THE best stealth and the ability to make a room of enemies useless through a radial ability.

 

I particularly like the Switch Teleport change as it gives the ability some really creative uses and would help make the ability just better in general - enemies turning on a dime immediately to open fire on you is never fun. 

 

Regarding Radial Disarm I think your changes are pretty good as a way to limit it, but I also sort of think that maybe there should be a Duration limitation added as well - something like maybe 7/8/9/10s Disarm Duration on enemies hit by it, with the duration refreshing upon getting hit with it again. 

My reasoning is that I think Radial Disarm is just far too good - outside of maybe a few instances melee enemies are all pretty much jokes, and the idea that Loki can still potentially turn a room full of enemies into jokes for the rest of their lifespans (albeit with some harder set-up required to do so) doesn't sit too well with me, and I think if a Loki or his team don't pay attention to those enemies they should be appropriately punished with them becoming threats again due to negligence.

[Buzkyl]

I like how the the rework addressed that despite being the most fragile frame in the game Loki is still pretty broken invisibility and Disarm are broken skills. Making grineer and corpus jokes. 

Because decoys also cast disarm they should be limited in number, even if they are destroyed on cost, what's stopping me from getting to a safe vantage point and spaming decoys and make them disarm the whole map? If anything If Loki is near decoy it should also cast disarm, if a decoy is near aother decoy and one is casting disarm the other should imitate it as well, so there's some level of thought.

Switch teleport change is great as well and Disarm is good as well. 

Invisibility should be treated with caution, enemies attacking decoys also can get loki in the process  with a stray. invisibility as a whole should be observed across all skills and not just Loki. 

[Sixty5]

2 minutes ago, Sasquatch180 said:

I like and enjoy all of these suggestions, and think they all go a long way into making Loki more than what he is right now - a super cheese frame with arguably THE best stealth and the ability to make a room of enemies useless through a radial ability.

 

I particularly like the Switch Teleport change as it gives the ability some really creative uses and would help make the ability just better in general - enemies turning on a dime immediately to open fire on you is never fun. 

 

Regarding Radial Disarm I think your changes are pretty good as a way to limit it, but I also sort of think that maybe there should be a Duration limitation added as well - something like maybe 7/8/9/10s Disarm Duration on enemies hit by it, with the duration refreshing upon getting hit with it again. 

My reasoning is that I think Radial Disarm is just far too good - outside of maybe a few instances melee enemies are all pretty much jokes, and the idea that Loki can still potentially turn a room full of enemies into jokes for the rest of their lifespans (albeit with some harder set-up required to do so) doesn't sit too well with me, and I think if a Loki or his team don't pay attention to those enemies they should be appropriately punished with them becoming threats again due to negligence.

I'm not a huge fan on the disarm duration thing. I'd say most Loki's use irradiating disarm, so adding in a second duration on top of that feels irrelevant. I do agree that permanently disarming enemies is really strong, but given average enemy lifespan, it's not too different from most other ults in terms of power.

[Sixty5]

Just now, Buzkyl said:

I like how the the rework addressed that despite being the most fragile frame in the game Loki is still pretty broken invisibility and Disarm are broken skills. Making grineer and corpus jokes. 

Because decoys also cast disarm they should be limited in number, even if they are destroyed on cost, what's stopping me from getting to a safe vantage point and spaming decoys and make them disarm the whole map? If anything If Loki is near decoy it should also cast disarm, if a decoy is near aother decoy and one is casting disarm the other should imitate it as well, so there's some level of thought.

Switch teleport change is great as well and Disarm is good as well. 

Invisibility should be treated with caution, enemies attacking decoys also can get loki in the process  with a stray. invisibility as a whole should be observed across all skills and not just Loki. 

you are still limited by line of sight and energy pool.

I had thought of the range requirement, but I feel it isn't needed. 

Filling a room with decoys isn't something you can do instantly, and it isn't something that you can do while also dealing damage. 

A decoy cap would be fine, but I'd rather it be higher than lower.

[Buzkyl]

Just now, Sixty5 said:

you are still limited by line of sight and energy pool.

I had thought of the range requirement, but I feel it isn't needed. 

Filling a room with decoys isn't something you can do instantly, and it isn't something that you can do while also dealing damage. 

A decoy cap would be fine, but I'd rather it be higher than lower.

As far as i remember, disarm isn't LoS.

You can place decoys while shooting while invisible because Decoy is now a one handed action so that's pretty possible

[Sixty5]

Just now, Buzkyl said:

As far as i remember, disarm isn't LoS.

You can place decoys while shooting while invisible because Decoy is now a one handed action so that's pretty possible

I meant placing decoys is line of sight.

And setting up and keeping up a room full of decoys is still going to hamper your overall dps output.

Regardless, you are still spending a far greater amount of time and energy to keep a room disabled than you otherwise would, which was the point of the changes.