A Generic Trickster Warframe

So many games with multiple characters have one. A generic trickster character. Sometimes a good guy, most often an enemy. And most of the time they’re named Loki. Warframe is no exception to this unwritten rule of trickster characters. He doesn’t look like a trickster, and he’s not even the only trickster character around, but he’s definitely a slippery little monster.

Loki was originally one of the choices in character you could have when you start Warframe, and funnily enough, he was replaced by Volt of all frames. Probably because Volt is much simpler as a character. Loki’s gameplay is more strategic and mischievous, while Volt basically electrocutes things, has cheaper abilities and has a lot more crowd control, making him a bit more valuable in the early parts of Warframe where you have no clue what’s going on and just want to focus on killing things.

That actually brings us nicely to Loki’s first ability, Decoy. Unlike most of the other warframes I’ve covered, Loki’s first ability isn’t some elemental thrown ability like Shock, Fireball or Freeze. Instead, Loki spawns a decoy of himself, which fires a gun at enemies, drawing attention to it. The decoy’s weapon does no damage, but can proc either Impact, Puncture or Slash, causing a stagger, a damage reduction on the target or a tiny weeny bit of damage so small you might as well not bother. But Decoy is genuinely useful because enemies will actually go and attack it. The decoy has its own health and shields (and its shields do regenerate over time), and it’s particularly good on defense-based missions. The only downsides are that you can only place one decoy at a time, and Infested enemies will ignore it if they can’t reach the decoy to attack it.

Loki’s second ability is Invisibility. Once cast, you get a cool underwater-like effect and everything sounds muffled. You’re invisible to enemies and can do actions while invisible. Enemies who haven’t been alerted will ignore you as long as you don’t run into them or shoot them (and will take bonus stealth damage), but enemies who are aggroed will try and listen for you and shoot in your direction. Without mods, Invisibility only lasts 12 seconds, so you’ll need a Continuity mod or something to spend more time invisible. Another downside is that you can’t cast Invisibility again until the ability ends, so if you’re playing stealthily, you’ll need to time your recasts just right or find somewhere safe to recast your ability.

Switch Teleport is Loki’s third ability and by far his most strategic one. When cast on most characters, from Loki’s decoy to enemies to allied players, Loki will switch places with them. When cast on an enemy, they will stand all dazed and confused for a moment. This teleport actually works on a surprising number of things, including most bosses and downed team mates, but outside of PvP, you can’t use Switch Teleport to teleport people off edges and stuff. You also need line of sight to your teleport target/victim, but that’s a small price to pay for a super troll-y ability. Combined with Invisibility, Switch Teleport can make Spy missions a breeze.

Loki’s last ability is Radial Disarm, which, as the name suggests, disarms (almost) all nearby enemies. To the point that it removes the arms of basic infested enemies so they have to run into you to damage you. It’s a uniquely powerful ability and because it works on the majority of enemies, it’s super useful to spam if you’re in trouble. Of course it doesn’t work on enemies who already rely on melee, but it’s still cool.

So yes, Loki’s kit is useful 99% of the time. The downside is that Loki is a glass cannon, but that’s not really a problem when you have so many escape options at hand, not to mention Loki’s faster default movement speed than most other frames. Everything sounds super strong, but you can see why it might be a bit complicated for a new player.

But what is most interesting about Loki is that you don’t build him for as much power strength as you can get. You actually want to give Loki lots of range and ability duration, so he can make the most out of his abilities. Increasing the duration of his decoy and invisibility are great, and the larger the range of Radial Disarm, the better. That’s nice, because then you’ve got room for extra things, such as more movement speed or perhaps a health mod.

Loki isn’t even that hard to get. You can get his parts by fighting the Hyena Pack on Neptune, and really the hardest part of it is getting to Neptune in the first place. If you’ve got a spare slot, you should get him.