Playing Loki in the solo lane

Loki is a very potent assassin. With very strong and fast damage he can easily burst down weaker targets in the solo lane. Loki really only works as a counterpick to mages and hunters in the solo lane. I wouldn’t recommend that you play Loki against tankier gods like Chaac and Vamana. Some of the top solo laners such as Gamehunter enjoy playing Loki and he can have such a strong impact on the game around the middle to late game!

Abilities

Behind You! - Passive
Loki deals 20% more damage from his basic attacks when hitting enemies from behind.

Try to use Decoy on minions to turn them away and clear them quicker similarly with camps as your passive will give a lot of good damage. 

Vanish - 1st Ability
Loki disappears in a puff of smoke. While invisible, he moves 35% faster, is immune to slows and takes 25% less damage for 4s. His next basic attack from stealth (or for 2s after) applies a bleed to his target, dealing 30/45/60/75/90 (+25% of your physical power) damage every .5s for 2s and reveals Loki.
Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana.
Cooldown: 15 seconds.

This ability is incredibly useful for safely getting away as well as sneakily opening on your opponent. I would recommend you get a level of this but don’t prioritise it. Try to save it to get you out of ganks and to let you push minions with Decoy without taking any damage.

Decoy - 2nd Ability
Loki spawns a decoy version of himself that taunts all nearby enemy minions. After 3s, the decoy explodes dealing 75/125/175/225/275 (100% of your physical power) damage to all enemies in a 20 feet radius.
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana.
Cooldown: 14 seconds.

Honestly when playing Loki solo I like to level decoy up to get good wave clear, especially against gods that will harass you when trying to clear. Decoy will give you a pretty safe way of clearing and will also help to keep minions off you as you attack other players.

Aimed Strike - 3rd Ability
Upon activation, in the next 5s Loki's next basic attack does 60/100/140/180/220 (100% of your physical power) additional damage. The enemy hit is also slowed by 25% for 3s.
Cost: 50 mana.
Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8 seconds.

Probably what you will pick first to clear out the buff minion at mana as the other two minions will die with your use of HoG. This ability will be good for harassing your opponent aswell as killing off tank minions quicker if needed.

Assassinate - Ultimate
Upon activation, Loki teleports to his ground target location. If an enemy god is within the radius, Loki will backstab that target doing 150/225/300/375/450 (+120% of your physical power) damage and stunning them for 1s.
Cost: 100 mana.
Cooldown: 90 seconds.

This is a very strong ultimate and will allow you to pick off weaker targets in your lane and will be invaluable to you in the mid game and late game when you begin to roam around. It will offer you an escape also if needed so try to be careful with it and not waste it as it can save your life.

Build
For solo Loki I like to start off with Death’s Toll, Rank 1 of HoG and some mana and health potions. You may chose to not use HoG at all and pick up Death’s Toll, Morningstar and a health potion instead and that is up to you and depends on how you wish to play. I like to play aggressively and force my opponent to go back to base so I can deny experience to them so I will take a few health potions with me to sustain longer and mana potions to continue my use of abilities to clear and poke.

Your next item to build into as soon as possible is Heartseeker so you can start stacking early. After this get Warrior Tabi and then Titans Bane you will have some pretty good penetration now and this will help you to take on tankier targets and push towers faster. Now onto Jotunn's Wrath which will grant even more penetration and will give cooldown reduction too.

You will probably have sold Death’s Toll around now. Build Hydra’s Lament this will help Loki deal some insane damage to targets and will help to kill weaker targets very quickly allowing you time to get out and avoid any rotation on to you. Finish up the build with Deathbringer. If Hydra’s Lament plus Aimed Strike don’t kill them first then this probably will.

For your actives you will often already have HoG from the start so build that into Fist of the Gods if you like but you can also get HoG 3 for the extra objective secure if you really need it. Many actives can be well utilized by Loki so decide on who you are playing against as to what you need the most. Girdle of inner power is quite a good pick up for Loki so if you like it use it. Also Purification Beads, Aegis (Both trees) and Sprint can all come in handy so if you feel one of them will help give you an edge in fights then by all means buy and use it!

Feel free to differentiate from my build and try out new things that you feel will work!

In the early game
Early on in the game Loki can be easily picked off and so you will want to just not agress too much and do your best to farm. Do your standard start depending on whichever side you are on and feel free to invade if you are on the left side. Invading can give you a good edge if successful as your opponent might run into mana problems if you can take their mana, this will force them to back and allow you to deny them whole waves of experience. Just try to use decoy on the back archers, all the enemy minions will run towards it and attack it so use your passive to clear them out quickly whilst they have their back to you. If you have a very passive opponent then go right behind the minions and clear them out but keep an eye out for them just in case.

At level 5 you can pick up Assassinate. if you are against a squishier target then let them push out of their tower and as you clear wave try to quickly turn on them with Assassinate into an Aimed Strike, if possible use Vanish to apply it’s DoT to your enemy. You will most likely force less sustainable gods back to base and more than likely have the enemy quite scared of you doing it again. Feel free to save Assassinate if you do not wish to be aggressive and use it if you get ganked or to avoid ultimates and so on. Try to force you opponent back to base a lot and then push their tower and/or deny them experience as much as you can.

In the middle game
Hopefully you will have established a pretty good lane presence by now so continue to farm and force your opponent back. Once you can push down your enemy’s tower you should be able to have a bit of free roam in your lane’s jungle. Do your best to deny experience from the enemy jungler by counter jungling him and also try to rotate for middle camps and to gank middle to ease possible pressure on mid. Hopefully you will get some nice farm from all of this and remember to rotate back to your lane to look after your tower and gank your opposing solo laner for some good exp gain and to deny the enemy team the tower’s gold.

In the late game
I’ll be honest with you, if the game is going well for you the enemy team will be an underfarmed wreck and you will pretty much control the game as by this point Mages and Hunters will be easy for you to pick off thanks to Assassinate and Aimed Strike and you will have a very fearful team. Obviously you won’t have perfect games straight away but as you develop as a player you will. Do what junglers do almost and go around being an utter nuisance and picking off weaker targets.

Tips for Loki
- Be as unpredictable as you can, good players will be able to read you like a book if you are constantly eying them up waiting to use Assassinate or Vanish to open on them. Do things like attack the wave and then suddenly turn completely on them, this gives opponents no time to react and will make them panic.
- Similar to the first point if you Vanish don’t continue on that path if you are being followed unless you know you can. Do things like turn around and walk straight past your chaser and recall up at their safe camps or somewhere you are safe.
- As with any god positioning is key. With Loki sit at the back until the time is right or get into position behind the enemy team in team fights as this is usually where your targets will be.
- In lane Decoy will help you to keep your enemy pushed into tower pretty much constantly so utilise it and force minions into the enemy tower as much as possible.
- Try to play aggressively as Loki is good at it and use Vanish to scare opponents off or possibly come out of the jungle with Vanish to open on and scare a target.

I hope you guys enjoy this guide and let me know if you want any specific guides written!
Karma out!