Marvel Rivals Loki Guide – Tips for the God of Mischief

Loki is a bit of an odd strategist who can be really powerful in the right hands, and there are a lot of things that you need to keep in mind while playing as him. I won’t lie to you, even as a player who mainly uses strategists while hovering in the diamond ranks, he’s the only one I’m not 100% comfortable using.

Having said that, I’ve played with and against a lot of relatively high ranked Lokis, and I’ve had my fair share of quick matches as the mischievous god as well. So, here are some tips on how to get started with him!

Loki’s Playstyle in a Nutshell

Loki relies a lot on his illusions to be effective in battle. Without them, both his healing and damage output become hilariously low. Because of this, you essentially need to have good positioning for not only yourself, but each of your clones too.

It’s generally a good idea to spread out his illusions so that they don’t get knocked down too quickly. At the same time, each clone needs to have a clear line of sight or just straight up on top of the action to actually be useful. Their placement is a case by case basis, so you’ll have to adjust on the go.

He’s incredibly slippery as he has a lot of tools to either escape or gain a conditional invulnerability of sorts. A good Loki can be really annoying to dive, even more so than a Rocket Raccoon with fast reflexes.

Finally, his ultimate can be potentially game-changing, but your mileage will vary depending on how well you know the other characters and how to maximize their kits for a limited amount of time. You can even force the other team to trade ults with you, like in the animated example below (they messed up and wasted two).

With all of that in mind, let’s take a closer look at his abilities…

Loki’s Abilities & Team-Ups

Just like all of my other guides, this section is gonna be in list format so I can insert tips for each ability:

• Mystical Missile (Primary attack) – Loki fires a projectile that explodes on impact, dealing damage to enemies and healing allies.
  • The projectile itself doesn’t hurt, but the resulting explosion will deal splash damage or healing in a small radius.
  • On its own, the explosion is like a tickle on both the damage and healing fronts. With illusions in play, they do so much more, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
  • You can aim this at people’s feet if you struggle to land direct hits! Remember, the explosions are the important part, not the projectiles themselves.
  • You can’t heal yourself or your clones with this.
• Deception (Secondary attack) – Upon activation, Loki becomes invisible and leaves an illusion in his place.
  • The invisibility has no time limit, but most actions will cancel you out of it. Taking damage makes you visible again too.
  • Loki will regenerate health while invisible, just like Invisible Woman.
  • Whenever you feel safe doing so, you can actually use this as an alternative way of creating illusions rather than saving it for escapes or flanks.
• Regeneration Domain (Shift) – Loki drops down a rune that creates a field of healing.
  • The field doesn’t just heal you over time, but it also converts incoming damage into additional healing.
  • The runes are destructible! When destroyed, the healing field disappears with it.
    • Certain ultimates can counter this by destroying the rune first then damaging those under it. In this regard, watch out for characters like Moon Knight, Thor (very fitting), and Storm.
  • Outside of clutch moments, you can also use this aggressively to encourage your team to push up. Just be mindful of its long cooldown.
    • It’s also worth noting that there’s around a split second delay before the rune actually shows up after casting.
• Doppelganger (E) – This is your bread and butter ability, as it lets you create an illusion at the target location. You can only have up to two active at any time, and adding a new one while at this limit will cause it to replace the oldest illusion.
  • These clones will copy your primary attacks and cast Regeneration Domain whenever you do.
    • Illusions will shoot at wherever your crosshair is pointed at, so place them in a way that they’re as unobstructed as possible!
  • Clones have 250 health, and you can see their current HP at the left side of your screen. Use this feature to see whether or not you need to summon another one.
  • I like putting them on high ground sometimes, but placing them at ground level makes it easier to land impactful Regeneration Domains and lets them act as meat shields.
    • Watch out for Moon Knight players, as their attacks will also bounce from clones.
    • Winter Soldier can also refresh his ultimate by landing it on your illusions.
  • You can hold up to two charges, with each having a fairly lengthy cooldown.]
  • Illusions do seem to expire eventually, but they last long enough that it isn’t worth keeping track of their shelf life.
• Devious Exchange (F) – With this ability, you can teleport to the target illusion, if you any.
  • This has a relatively long range, and you can cast it as long as there is a clone that’s close enough.
  • Aside from escapes, this is also good as a general mobility tool. Lots of people use it to get out of spawn at the start of the match, myself included.
• God of Mischief (Ultimate) – With your ultimate, you can shapeshift into the target character.
  • You can use this on both allies and enemies. As long as you can target them, you should see a “Shapeshift” prompt on them.
    • You can do this from a relatively long distance, as long as you have line of sight.
  • Whenever you copy somebody, you also get to use their ultimate immediately.
    • Certain characters who “transform” or have a sort of “mode”, like Punisher, Luna Snow, and even Jeff, will extend your shapeshift’s duration if you activate their ultimate. This is an intended mechanic, so you can maximize your time as them by holding onto their ultimate until the last second.
  • Turn on ultimate confirmation if you keep accidentally using it on the wrong people!
    • To do this, go to Settings -> Keyboard -> Combat -> Select Loki as your hero -> Scroll down to “Hero” -> Check “Double Confirmation for God of Mischief”
    • With this setting on, you can choose to confirm or cancel a shapeshift rather than instantly transforming to the target hero, whose icon will be shown on the screen.
  • Amusingly, you can’t copy an enemy Loki. However, you can use it on a Loki who’s currently transformed into another hero, in which case you’d copy who they’re copying. Copyception.
• Backstab (Passive) – Landing melee attacks on an enemy’s back will deal slightly more damage than normal. I’m just adding this here as a formality, lol.

As for team-ups, his only one right now is called Laufeyson Reborn, which is activated whenever Hela is in the field. Whenever Hela gets a final hit on an enemy, she grants Loki a bit of bonus health. If Loki is currently dead, he gets revived on the spot if she scores a final hit.

It’s great if you have a Hela who is popping off, but it’s more of a nice bonus rather than a team-up that you have to get out of your way to activate. Ideally, you shouldn’t need the revive anyway.

Manage Your Cooldowns!

While he isn’t the only strategist that relies on resource management (Mantis comes to mind), Loki makes it even more difficult by having long cooldowns on pretty much everything. Seriously, all of his abilities have a two-digit cooldown, so you shouldn’t just spam things randomly.

Try not to panic and dump all of your skills at the start of a fight. At the very least, make sure that you can always have an illusion out on the field to boost your healing output, because not having any will put your team at a disadvantage.

Illusion Placement is Important Too

On that note, make sure that your clones are in placed in a way that they can bring value to the team. I know I’ve already mentioned this above (probably more than once), but it should be emphasized that they can’t really do much if they don’t have a clear line of sight to the action.

Put them right beside you if you have to, and save a charge for when you need to make a Regeneration Domain over your teammates from a distance. As long as all (or at least two Lokis worth) of your projectiles can land on vital targets, then you’ll be fine.

If your enemies are running a very dive-heavy composition, try to place one clone in the backline at all times. This should help ease the pressure whenever somebody flanks your team, and some players will focus on your illusion first, giving you even more time to react and ping the diver.

If you can safely stay on high ground, which you can reach via Devious Exchange, you’ll have a better view of everybody. This lets you comfortably plop down clones near your team below, as you can easily aim at them from up there.

Know Your Enemies (and Allies)

Loki’s ultimate is incredibly unique in that it can easily turn the tides of a fight if you use it on the right person at the right time. This is all dependent on your own game sense and how quickly you react to whatever’s happening at the moment.

For example, if your team is struggling to push into an objective and there’s a Cloak & Dagger or Luna Snow in the match, you can take their ultimate and lead the charge yourself. On the flip side, if the other team activates a support ult to push in, you can follow that up by copying the exact same thing a second later.

Those are just a couple of examples, and there’s so much variety in what you can do with God of Mischief that I’m not gonna sit here and type out a long list of hypothetical scenarios.

At the very least, try out some characters across all roles in the practice range so you can build up a mental list of who is and isn’t worth copying. This is gonna depend on your general skill with other characters too. For example, I’d personally consider copying a Moon Knight just because I know I can get some value as him.

If you’re having a hard time choosing, at least try to get a healing ultimate to secure a few seconds of almost invulnerability for everybody and continue healing. Remember, turning into anything but a strategist means that your team will have one less healer.

Closing Tip

That’s pretty much all I’ve got for Loki, and it should be more enough to get you started. There’s some cheeky flank plays you can pull off as him, but I wouldn’t really encourage it at lower levels because those are really risky and easy to mess up. Just stick to the basics for now and start evolving your playstyle later on.

Wanna learn more? I’ve got a whole blog post on which strategist should you pick that will (hopefully) help you choose the right supports to add to your hero pool.