@Meddler: What would you consider essential on a thief Champion?

darkdill·Apr 24, 2015·16 votes·1,962 views

When I think thief, I think the Thieves' Guild of the Elder Scrolls series or Sly Cooper. Burglars who use stealth, guile, and tricks up their sleeves to acquire valuables and coin from their marks, without needing to resort to violence unless absolutely necessary.

Now, while a few Champions have been thieves in their pasts ( ), and while Trundle does steal stats, none of them really capture that sort of "quick and tricky rogue" fantasy. TF comes close, but he exudes a little too much of X-Men's Gambit. And Talon, as we all know, is an Ezio Auditore expy.

So how would you go about creating a dedicated thief Champion? Would you go with a lot of stat-stealing in the kit? Would you go with gold generation (since actual gold theft is 100% toxic)? Or would you try other angles?

37 Comments

Linna ExcelApr 24, 20155 votes

I don't think a traditional thief would work. In most PnP games, the thief is the one who is probably going to get screwed over first when things go wrong largely for reasons that wouldn't work in a moba. To be fair, a lot of thief-like ideas are in the game in champs like shaco, talon, and bard.

Here some ideas I'd like to see, but not all could be doable on the same champ.

Passive that lets me find and disable traps... like teemos. Sadly we don't have enough traps for this to be valid. Maybe we need a shop item that lets you drop traps. It could also let you find other team's wards and repurpose them for your own team. Stealing wards from the other team would be interesting.
A passive that grants me gold whenever someone on the other team nearby gets it. Not a direct steal, but an indirect one.
A back stab like shaco that also works if there are other allies are close to your target. Sort of like a support DD.
A stealth mechanic like twitch, rengar, etc.
Maybe a skill to set traps or disarm enemy towers for 10 seconds.
A team escape skill, like bard's E... or a selfish one, depending on how evil you want to go it could snare your team and give you a boost of speed and armor.
A support style champ with added damage. Thieves aren't frontliners and in other games, they are assassins at best, utility champs at worst (scouts, traps guy, locks guy, etc). That makes them hard to directly put in LOL. Also there's nothing to steal unlike DOTA2.
A skill that grants you gold whenever you damage another champ with it (but not stealing from him) or an AA.
An AoE skill that inflicts blind and silence... thieves are sometimes the party's charismatic player who handles diplomacy, this would be one option for that sort of thing in game. Maybe make it like Bard's R but lets everyone in it move. It could cost gold to activate.
Since thieves are untrustworthy, maybe a champ could get GP whenever an ally gains gold (he steals it) or an ally champ dies.

darkdillApr 24, 20152 votes

My thought for a passive is a built-in Spellthief's Edge, whereby you get bonus gold every time you damage an enemy Champion (but with a cooldown). Good gameplay, and it feels "thiefish" enough.

Essentially your #8 option.

Linna ExcelApr 24, 20151 votes

That'd probably be the easiest thing to do if all you want is the gold thieving stuff.

iamleburkApr 25, 20152 votes

for your number 1.... what if we gave him a way to spot wards? He could have a great vision control game, which makes sense because thieves plan out their heist way in advance (getting all the blueprints and shit). I would say he is a low damage, squishy mid laner with good vision control, good escapes, and a way to increase gold for his team (based on the gold he has so he doesn't become an OP support). So he would help snowball a lead or help allies hit that item based powerspike earlier, but at the cost of a good APC

TengrichanApr 25, 20151 votes

This is definitely the one i was thinking about.His passive could be that he senses wards in x range around himself.When he or any ally who is nearby destroys the ward the passive goes on cooldown then : If his trinket is on cooldown: its cooldown gets reduced by x second or x percent. If it's not on cooldown than he gets a plus charge similarly to smite and have the same 15 sec usage cooldown between the charges. So you could have 2 charges of:

scrying orb,farsight orb
sweeping lens,oracle's lens

In case of warding totem and greater stealth totem:the next ward you put down with your trinket will have increased vision range. Or the next ward you place down will have increased duration. In case of greater vision totem:the same increased vision range could be applied Or increased hp on the next pink ward.So it would take more time to clear it meaning it would be a risky move or perfect bait opportunity while the enemy clears it.

Make it have a long cooldown so it can't be abused.If he chooses to not destroy the ward but instead an ally does it the passive goes on cooldown but on a shorter one. This way when teams start to group his passive will come in handy.While early-mid game when the champion itself clears a ward his passive would go on a longer cooldown.Though if a team is ahead it could result in a really ugly vision snowballing so it may have to go on full cooldown either case.

Yeah,this would work greatly imo.

iamleburkApr 27, 20151 votes

Another idea: one of his moves gives him a speed boost and reveals enemy wards in his vision. clicking on an enemy ward refunds the mana cost and places it in his inventory if theres space ( so he steals it, like a theif) Another idea would be having his abilities cost money instead of mana

Linna ExcelApr 25, 20151 votes

Yes, finding wards for a passive would be good enough for a thief type.

The PaulrusApr 24, 20153 votes

Honestly, if done correctly the gold-theft thing might not be too terrible. But it would have to apply to farm and only as an aura. Something like:

Passive: Aura: Thief - When an opponent kills a minion/monster while you are within X units of the unit that is killed, the opponent gains 3/5/10 less gold and you gain the corresponding amount of gold. This can only occur once every 6 seconds.

This would force you to stay in range to get boned, and would only make a small difference early game when farm is important, increasing late game where farm is less critical. Also giving it a CD prevents it from becoming too powerful.

darkdillApr 24, 201512 votes

The thing about gold theft is that it's never EVER fun for the victim. Stealing the gold that another player earned from their good play without them having any real counterplay to it is super toxic.

KidSpectreApr 24, 20156 votes

There's a utility mastery called Bandit that I almost always take on ranged supports. It grants me +3 gold for attacking a champion, on a 5 second cooldown. You might try something like that for a "thief" character.

darkdillApr 24, 20152 votes

Yeah, that's the direction I'm going in. A Spellthief's Edge effect built into the Champion.

Dar RaksadaApr 25, 20151 votes

what I dislike about the pickpocket is that it doesn't actually steal anything, bounty hunter/hitman or smth would be a better term.

Occams RaiserApr 24, 20151 votes

My concept has counter play. As a support character that has to be in melee range to steal I think I have balance. You have to chain his abilities together in order to not get murdered while stealing. And the amount stolen in not oppressive. Just enough to make the enemy ADC say "this guy..." Noe enough to make him say "I never get to have anything!"

Fareik- The bane of Piltover

ThryaleApr 24, 20151 votes

personally, I could see some kind of gameplay similar to zac's passive:

Cut-Purse: deal x dmg to the enemy and cause them to drop y gold over z seconds.

The gold can either leave a trail, or can be scattered about as the player moves quasi-random-like (like sudden sharp turns would sling gold in the direction they were going) any coins on the ground can then be picked by anyone 1-2 secs after they fell. This would cause some interesting gameplay during the laning phase while preventing the gold loss from 100% guaranteeing that the enemy get's set far behind in gold. Later in the game, the gold loss could be more, but at the same time, it would be less impactful due to teamfighting being more important than creep farming. Especially if Cut-Purse has a small range(200-300 units)

LegacyDAPApr 24, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The thing about gold theft is that it's never EVER fun for the victim. Stealing the gold that another player earned from their good play without them having any real counterplay to it is super toxic.

Rather than thieving gold, they might accept the idea that the passive is you get gold = to what you enemy killed in a medium size range. With a CD of 30 seconds, and lowers cooldown by 1.5 seconds everytime you earn gold from an outside source. (aka not over time gold) And then he could have an ability set that makes him earn gold, and deal damage. Basically like a Treasurer champion

It Hertz When IPApr 24, 20151 votes

How about the effect only working if you and the victim are attacking the same target, with a built in CD?

revliledpembrokeApr 24, 20151 votes

Can you imagine if that passive was on someone like Shaco? The counterjungling would never end.

Occams RaiserApr 24, 20153 votes

Fareik- The bane of Piltover (Support)

**Passive: Misdirection. **Skill shots and tethers that land cause Fareik to stealth for 2 seconds and leave behind clone that is effected as normal by the enemy ability. CD: 30 sec Static. Clone stays for 2 seconds immobile. Will not proc if stunned. Does not negate AOE damage.

Q: Dirty Deeds: Stealths for 3 seconds. Can not attack until stealth breaks. Stuns and damages nearest Champ with a club on exit. No unit collision. Mild AP scaling CD: 13/12/11 /10/9

W: Hand off: Fareik jumps to target ally and gives a percentage of pilfered gold. On arrival he cloaks them both becoming untargetable for 1 second. CD: 10/9/8/7/6 Range 625

E: Pilfer: Steals from and Slows enemy champ. Enemy is dumbfounded to what just happened. 20% Movement bonus. Loot Scales with level. CD: 30/26/22/18/14 Range 150

**R: Three-card Monte: **Fareik breaks into three clones that run away in linear directions. Anyone the clone passes through is befuddled (feared) for 1.5/2/2.5 seconds. 1000 run range. Click on any of the clones' destinations to become that clone. Anyone hit by his real destination takes AP damage. CD: 130/115/90 Mild AP scaling

I think I will flesh this out. Would you play him?

Newb the LegendApr 24, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Occams Raiser,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UcqsfEX8,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2015-04-24T06:10:26.003+0000)

Fareik- The bane of Piltover (Support)

**Passive: Misdirection. **Skill shots and tethers that land cause Fareik to stealth for 2 seconds and leave behind clone that is effected as normal by the enemy ability. CD: 30 sec Static. Clone stays for 2 seconds immobile. Will not proc if stunned. Does not negate AOE damage.

Q: Dirty Deeds: Stealths for 3 seconds. Can not attack until stealth breaks. Stuns and damages nearest Champ with a club on exit. No unit collision. Mild AP scaling CD: 13/12/11 /10/9

W: Hand off: Fareik jumps to target ally and gives a percentage of pilfered gold. On arrival he cloaks them both becoming untargetable for 1 second. CD: 10/9/8/7/6 Range 625

E: Pilfer: Steals from and Slows enemy champ. Enemy is dumbfounded to what just happened. 20% Movement bonus. Loot Scales with level. CD: 30/26/22/18/14 Range 150

**R: Three-card Monte: **Fareik breaks into three clones that run away in linear directions. Anyone the clone passes through is befuddled (feared) for 1.5/2/2.5 seconds. 1000 run range. Click on any of the clones' destinations to become that clone. Anyone hit by his real destination takes AP damage. CD: 130/115/90 Mild AP scaling

I think I will flesh this out. Would you play him?

yes

Creamy SeamanApr 24, 20153 votes

CertainlyT told me that his new thief champ is going to be able to blink across half the lane every .25 seconds with his w. He also told me his passive allows him to receive 50% less damage from everything and that it also makes his autos do 150% of ad as true damage. And he is ranged. Everytime he kills a champion he gets 500% of the gold that the champion was carrying. But he has counterplay. If you manage to snare/stun him you have .25 seconds to kill him because his passive on his e gives him 80% tenacity.

TengrichanApr 25, 20151 votes

Laughed.

HellioningApr 24, 20151 votes

I'd go with stat stealing, stealth, and general dodginess. Not much damage, but lots of survivability with mobility and stat stealing, so they take a while to kill you but it's difficult to fight back without help. So kinda an assassin, trading out burst for stickiness. You get caught out you're dead but if you're surrounded by your team they can't do much.

JedenVojakApr 24, 20151 votes

I think actual gold theft would work and make the thief a sort of anti-carry, but he would also need to have a passive that kept track of how much gold he stole, and give that gold to whoever killed him on the enemy team.

Singed wouldn't have anything on this guy.

KrigjerApr 24, 20151 votes

Twitch and Evelynn have that thief vibe (Safecracker skins go!) to me. The ability to sink into the shadows and disappear.

I also think of the thief tree in Skyrim.

Linna ExcelApr 24, 20151 votes

I think a number of champs have different aspects of the thief in them, some are more subtle that others.

MrSlowDieApr 24, 20151 votes

Gold stealing isn't always toxic. Let me put this

champion : thief strength distribution : Early (Super strong) Mid (Weak) Late (Weak) Role : Anti-carry, roamer

[A Skill] deals damage and steal X gold. If thief attacked before Y secs. The gold returned to the owner

[Other skills] put slippery but high floor skills here

EthannApr 24, 20151 votes

Keep in mind this is just something that I made up in the last like 30 minutes. Also feel free to pick it apart

Passive: Five-Finger Discount: Whenever this champion hits with an ability a copy of a consumable in that champion's inventory is dropped on the ground somewhere between the two champions (a few units closer to the enemy to provide a risk for getting the reward) that is used automatically when this champion walks over the item (think zac's blobs but items) These items can be stomped out by the champion that dropped them by walking over them. If there are no consumables in the opposing champion's inventory then a small amount of gold is dropped instead (no gold is lost from the opponent). This has a 60 second cooldown. This passive can be picked up by anyone on your team.

Q: 'Pick'pocket: Short Range skillshot / low mana cost / Medium CD: On hitting a champion with this ability this champion reduces a random non consumable item's stats by a small percentage. X/X/X/X/X percent

W: Finders Keepers: Passive: Any stats that are reduced by this champion by abilities or items are added to a pool. This pool lasts for X seconds. This champion gains 10/20/30/40/50% of these stolen stats.

E: Cat and Mouse: Point Blank AOE / Medium mana cost / medium to large CD: This champion throws down a smoke grenade dealing small damage over time and stealthing this champion for 3 seconds. While stealthed this champion gains unit walking and 15% Movement speed. When this champion passes through an enemy champion or is hit by the smoke cloud he applies 'Pick'pocket to that champion. 'Pick'pocket can only apply to an enemy champion once every 15 seconds.

R: Fence: Medium Mana cost/ targeted ability that can only be used if there is an ally present / Large CD: This champion sells his stolen stats to a teammate and is paid in health. healed for 50/60/70 +.015 of total gold earned(because why not have a gold ratio in this game ;p) health per stolen stat. (so if he had ad, ap, movement speed, armor, MR, attack speed, cooldowns, mana, health, crit chance this champion would give all those stats to a teammate and had earned 10k gold the heal would be 850 points at Ult level 3)

GlaedonxApr 24, 20151 votes

Welp. Now I have to go play sly cooper tonight.. Thanks.

LlaniteApr 24, 20151 votes

To answer you question,

How and why a thief fits in the battlefield? Why would he/she even wants to be in summoner's rift? The thieves guild should have no interest in power (they don't want attention), loyalty nor knowledge, all they want is gold which can be anywhere but the rift.

Curling VeigarApr 24, 20151 votes

When I think of thieves, I think of the egg thieves from spyro XD

Nameless VoiceApr 24, 20151 votes

I don't think a true thief really fits in this game, because there's no real place for thievery.

Your goal is to destroy objectives and kill champions, to kill minions and farm gold. A thief's goal is to sneak into places and steal things, which isn't really useful towards those goals, unless the thief is able to weaken the enemy team by stealing their power (steal their gold, steal their items, etc.), which would be a really toxic mechanic.

There is place for a traditional RPG "Thief", though, which is in reality more of a rogue. Twitch is quite close to that type of character, though not a perfect match.

aperson1Apr 24, 20151 votes

What comes to mind with a "traditional thief" is one who steals pouches of gold from their foe and quickly darts back into the shadows, avoiding conflict because they are too fragile to handle full on combat.

With that in mind, some kind of cross between an assassin and a melee carry would be a good fit for this kind of theme. The high burst of most squishy melee characters isn't really appropriate to the theme, but there needs to be some tradeoff for letting him go unanswered on your priority targets; at the same time, pure DPS isn't central to the concept.

Here's some ideas I think might fit that:

Spellthief's-like gold generation for damaging opponents, as you've already mentioned
Offensive-stat-stealing which is cumulative, as opposed to Trundle's AD steal which is one and done; what if melee autos applied a short stacking AD steal, that refreshes and increases in duration with subsequent autos?
Some ability with stealth, where the primary intention is to get into a good flank on the enemy a la Twitch or Rengar
Most melees have gap-closers to get in; what about a gap-opener to get out once you've done your work, like a melee range Quinn vault?
Reverse of Vayne passive: moving away from nearby enemy champions grants movespeed
Vision granting or denying abilities; Imagine the ability to disable wards a la sweeper on a free-target ability, or a destructible ward that disabled nearby enemy wards in range
A me-only blind, that allows you to dodge or reduce autoattacks from the target enemy champion only (hopefully bundled with something extra so that it's not useless against ability-based champions)

SaiannaApr 24, 20151 votes

Remember: If you want stealthy thief-champion, then have in mind that Riot hates champions with stealth longer than 3s.

AbyssionKnightApr 24, 20151 votes

I think stat theft, similar to trundle's ult would be interesting.

Perhaps some sort of ability where after being hit by it, for x seconds if they use an item active it doesn't go off for them, and for y seconds you get the chance to use that item active instead. Would be pretty cool to 'steal' a zhonyas or 'steal' the ghost blade active etc. Would also have counterplay, since once you see you've been marked you know not to use that active until the duration ends.

BastionKrossApr 25, 20151 votes

Well, if we're considering thief as in a traditional PnP RPG class, then you really can't do much better than Shaco .

Backstabs? Check. Stealth? Check. Lays traps? Check. Throws poison daggers? Check. Hard to catch and pin down? Check. Can go alone into dangerous areas? Check.

About the only thing he doesn't do is actually steal gold, and gold theft has no place on League anyway. If you really want to simulate the effect, you can always grab a item 3098 on him.