Loki - Ice Titan (Updated 12/20/13) dps leveling loki pve pvp
Guide by grayvisions Last update at Apr 1st 2014, 02:31

Points Available: 0
Frost Giant Form 1
1  60

(Outdated, new one inc)

4 points missing from calculator, add them to either Frost Armor to bring it to 15 for additional defense/regen, or Enemy of my Enemy for additional damage for you and your team.


12/20/13: Build updated for DPS patch


The recent patch has changed the game drastically, making 15 point builds that much more efficient now that your damage is evened out by a flat % modifier from your Damage Rating, the points in the skill, and your level. An extra 5 points in a skill (for an even 20) will seldom make up for the loss of utility you'd get by putting them into another skill, especially since, now, many skills work beautifully with just a few points in them.


Build Combo:
Permafrost Spikes, Arcane Binding (at this point most trash is dead), Cold Snap (regens, nukes, blues likely dead), Winter's Breath for clean-up. For bosses, utilize Illusionary Projection with the normal combo to keep aggro off yourself, and add in your basic for freezing/slow utility. Make sure to explode your projections with Arcane Ruin before they die/disappear, for some added dps bonus.

Keys:
1 - Misdirection
2 - Permafrost Spikes
3 - Arcane Binding
4 - Cold Snap
5 - Illusionary Projection
6 - Arcane Ruin
F1 - Winter's Breath
F2 - Frost Armor
F3 - Unyielding Power
F4 - Arcane Levitation
F5 - Frost Giant Form

Skills:

Glacial Shard - Your basic, ignore it at your peril. Generally, this build will be swimming in Spirit and you won't have to pay much attention to it. For longer battles however (i.e., against boss Loki), you'll find yourself in need of a constant stream of damage while staying mobile, so your spirit can regen while you contain to like...live. This is where your basic comes in. Combine this with Illusionary Projection and Misdirection and you can avoid damage easy, whittling away at boss HP until your spirit is back to full.

Jotun Blood - Awesome, awesome passive. Bonus to health and defense is always nice, but the best part is in the tenacity (a little goes a long way), and the bonus % to slows. If an enemy is slowed to a crawl, it takes them that much longer to actually attack you, let alone get in range. A huge part of Loki's survival.

Winter's Breath - Channeled cone, great damage and awesome for clean-up. Can actually completely melt bosses and people in PvP if used against a chilled opponent.

Frost Armor - Frost Armor is often overlooked for Arcane Shield, because the latter comes with a bonus to damage rating. However, with the recent patch, everyone is already doing more damage than necessary. TTK is less important now than TTL (time to live) is, and a well-leveled Frost Armor not only provides a ton of Defense, it also gives back health with EVERY POWER (including basic spam). Combine with the fact that even bosses will often end up frozen while hitting you, allowing you to do extra damage with Cold Snap and Winter's Breath, and this skill is a no-brainer for frost Loki builds.

Permafrost Spikes - Still kind of amazed at how spammable this skill is considering how hard it hits. Nice AoE range, extremely effective slow and chance for freeze as well. Get it, love it, use it a lot.

Enemy of My Enemy - The damage rating bonus to this skill is nice, but not great. However, it's still an essential skill, as this boosts DR for EVERYONE around you, not just yourself. Combine this with your signature on bosses in a group, or in MM, and lol as Bosses are decimated when you and everyone else gain over 600 damage rating against them.

Unyielding Power - Loki's Signature Ability. A good skill, but useful more for its utility, hence a one-point wonder. Use it during boss battles to increase the damage you do against them and simultaneously wipe out their minions as they're spawning.

Cold Snap - Currently, this skill is a little underpowered compared to what it used to be. It doesn't hit as hard as Permafrost Spikes on average, and has a cooldown. However, it's still a great skill to have. It will do double damage against frozen enemies and, in red terminals, depending on your gear, may keep you alive in the middle of swarms of enemies, regenerating HUGE amounts of health for every enemy hit (and its AoE range is ginormous).

Master Sorcerer - Spirit boost and cost reduction on powers, no brainer, get it.

Arcane Levitation - For mobility. 1 point is enough.

Arcane Binding - An AWESOME DoT skill, hits for huge amounts of damage and immobilizes enemies. DoTs are the main source of raising one's TTK (time to kill) in this game. They can be put on an enemy to tick away at their health constantly while you attack with other skills. On any character, whenever you see a DoT skill, it should at least be considered. In this build, the DoT stacks well with Permafrost Spikes, allowing you to hit with the DoT even harder as the Spikes will chill enemies first.

Misdirection - 1 point in this is all you need, which is nice since 1 point is what you start with and you can't spec out of it. Your teleport and main source of mobility during battle.

Lord of Deception - Dodge and Projectile evasion, plus everytime you dodge you will have a chance to activate Repulsor for an automatic AoE. Delicious.

Illusionary Projection - This skill was changed recently with the DPS patch. I don't like this version as much, but I still needed a way to get a lot of Illusions out quickly on those rare occasions when Loki is taking too much damage, or is out of spirit. Arcane Illusion doesn't shake aggro, Misdirection's illusion is on cooldown, and Meteoric has a cooldown. That means this is the only real option. 1 point is enough.

Arcane Ruin - 1 point wonder. Not necessarily a heavy part of this build, but it seems a waste to let the projections go to waste when you can explode them for a bit of damage. Further, there will be times when it puts you at a strategic advantage to remove your projectiles and 'set the board' as it will. With projections out, enemies are often busying themselves with attacking them, sometimes spreading out across the stage a little too thin. If you explode them, they'll bunch up near you, allowing for better AoE.


Gear:

Pluvian Super Conductor - adds dps to area powers, and pretty much all of this build's powers are area powers so....yeah

Advanced Reactive Repulsor - as this build comes with a lot of dodge, a proc for said dodge is beneficial. Reactive comes with a bonus to dodge, not much but every bit helps, and a high % chance to AoE for a decent amount of damage whenever you dodge (which will be most of the time).

Xerogen Crystal - attack speed and damage rating, duh.

Power Prism Shard - Radius, crit rating and cost reduction for area powers. Great artifact.

Relic of Attilan - obvious choice for an area-heavy build.

Suggested Legendary: Casket of Ancient Winters - increases area damage, has a nice proc and chance to slow, and thematically is the best fit.

Suggested Blessings - Mark of Odin across all artifacts.


Costume:

Affixes - Damage rating all the way.


Suggested Synergies:

Emma Frost - Damage Rating to area skills and psi-blast
Captain America - Projectile Deflection
Human Torch - Area damage
Jean Grey - +Mental damage (Loki's attacks are Mental damage)
Iron Man - Ranged Damage
Loki - bonus to Slowed enemies and spirit reduction
Punisher - Health/spirit on kill
Spider-man - Dodge
Squirrel Girl - bonus damage against bosses
Thing - Bonus damage to targets attacking you (they will all be attacking you, trust me)