What have people who've played Loku been doing with him?

I'm thinking scouting report first, to get maybe one or two free crates a game.

Then study of enemies, extra health and a strain free way to place a recon token on an enemy.

Then overwatch, which basically allows you to store up an attack and then get a free surge out of it.

Lastly thinking mon cala special forces to round it out.

What do you guys think?

Also interested in hearing some experience regarding Loku builds. I'm currently doing the Twin Shadows Mini-campaign with a Loku player (so we get 3XP to start with), and the player chose to bank first mission to get Mon Cala Special Forces first for 4XP (we did not know if we were getting more than 1XP a mission). We've been having some debate on whether to save up for Study of Enemies or get Scouting Report immediately. My impression is that Scouting Report for 1XP is going to be really useful.

We're thinking either Spectrum Scanner or Study of Enemies next, depending on how much XP we get.

In my hero analysis thread I proposed the following build:

Scouting Report->Spectrum scanner->Mon Cala spec forces->Study of enemies

After that it obviously depends on how much exp you get.

I'm about halfway through a campaign and I'm pretty confident that this build is good, you could probably skip scouting report or switch the order on Mon Cala special forces and study of enemies if you preferred.

Yah.

Spectrum Scanner - Mon Cala Sp. Forces - Study of Enemies - Overwatch. Purchasing Scouting Report when desired.

The surge effect from Study of Enemies wasnt quite as useful as i originally thought, but the +2 hp is handy. Overwatch is good, even if only to get the bonus surge.

Why are you so high on spectrum scanner? I forsee mo recon tokens going on heavier troops . Groups?

Heavy stormtroopers, royal guards, trandoshans, these are the sorts of targets recon tokens usually go on, in these cases spectrum scanner doubles the strain efficiency of the ability. 2 xp is also much less than 3.

What he said. Sometimes you just want to ensure the one-shot on smaller enemies and scanner gets more use out of your 2 strain.

I dig that. But I guess my theory was, if you're using study of enemies effectively, you can save the two strain an just use that to distribute recon tokens.

Are there any other useful sights that I couldn't get because of it?

So this hasn't been brought up but I thought about this today. Because of Loku, you can now actually perform a 5 dice attack on something (later bosses and AT-STs!)

Need a 3 dice weapon, either the one from Tier 2 or any of them from Tier 3. Need a character who has ease of getting focused (Mak, Diala, Gideon). And you need a Recon token on the hostel figure attacked. Lastly, Loku needs coordinated attack. At first I didn't think coordinated attack would be that great of an ability, costing the 2 strain. But because ANYONE can use it, it opens up the potential for 5 dice attacks!! Pretty neat stuff, combine it with Study of Enemies and/or Spectrum scanner and it shouldn't be too hard to get these Recon tokens on characters to use this potential. Kinda neat!

I found it difficult to use the surge effect from Study of Enemies, i was only able to use the effect a couple times. I either couldnt spare the damage loss or there simply wasnt a target within 2 spaces. It would of course depend on your weapon. Like, you would proc it more with a pulse cannon over the valken. Since Study isnt a sure thing i wouldnt consider it as a replacement for Scanner.

As for coordinated attack, I really don't see how it is good in any way. You need to spend 2 strain to get a recon token up (except in rare cases see above) and then spend 2 more strain to add a single die to an attack. For 2 strain, Mak gets a free focused attack - that is 3-4 dice. The shear cost for only a single die makes absolutely no sense to me. It should be either be 0 cost or perhaps to add Loku's dice pool and surge abilities to the attack.

So this hasn't been brought up but I thought about this today. Because of Loku, you can now actually perform a 5 dice attack on something (later bosses and AT-STs!)

Diala could always do 5 dice (focus, force pike, dancing weapon), between Loku and Mhd you can do 7 now (the above, co-ordinated attack and adrenal vapor).

As for coordinated attack, I really don't see how it is good in any way. You need to spend 2 strain to get a recon token up (except in rare cases see above) and then spend 2 more strain to add a single die to an attack. For 2 strain, Mak gets a free focused attack - that is 3-4 dice. The shear cost for only a single die makes absolutely no sense to me. It should be either be 0 cost or perhaps to add Loku's dice pool and surge abilities to the attack.

This was my first impression as well but I think between placing tokens without strain (spectrum scanner, study of enemies) and recovery with mon cala special forces he can afford the strain. There are a lot of times when you see two abilities with similar purposes on different heroes where one is just way more efficient than the other (Compare either of bivs 4 costs with the similar one Mak has, compare trick shot to target acquired, compare deadly prescision to force adept, compare vicious strike to called shot, or create opening, or for the cause, or weapons expert, or snap kick, or veteran's prowess).

That is a lot of hoops to go through to make a 4xp skill tolerable. Also, scanner, study, Sp. Forces, and Coordinated attack is 13xp which you cant rely on to happen.

And while one character having a more efficient version of a skill is okay to a point, there is a point where a bad skill is just bad. I have the same complaints over Biv's 4xp skills. At least Loku still has one good one.

If you've got the things you want to get anyway (the things you get to enable it are at the core of his build) and have the xp then I'd rate it higher than the alternatives.