This game needs a "Thief" champion!

Wukong Airlines··15 votes·1,305 views

I'm sure many of you will disagree with me, but the game is going in 1 direction only, (stun,kill,shield heal), it's getting boring and the state of balance is very complicated at the moment.

I want more diversity in the game, and by diversity I mean to include more competition, rather than just fight for more damage and more heals.

By bringing a Thief champion to the game people will open up to more creative playstyles and new concepts and challenges.

You'll probably ask, what does a Thief do in general (gamewise)?

My answer is, to become a Thief you need the following set of skills:-

  1. stealth/sneaky
  2. pickpocketing
  3. lockpicking/ illegal access to private treasures
  4. mobility and quick decision making
  5. speech and negotiation

And all of the above is used to obtain more gold and treasures.

Many online games have a Thief character in their heros/characters pool which allows you to take a completely different playstyle, losing certain powers to have better ability to get more coin and become better trader.

Of course in league you can't trade and there's no marketplace etc, still, the game doesnt punish you as well for poor decision-making when it comes to having certain amount of gold. Other games force you to drop loots/gold and even items upon death. I never played dota but I've read you lose gold upon death as well. So why not bring more competition to the game through using skill and by only 1 uniquely designed champion?

I don't have the proper champ design. I'm only suggesting it because I enjoy playing as a Thief in almost every game (offline/online).

But I'd think a Thief would be similar to the following suggestion:-

Passive: gains more MS per level ,gold/ per few seconds. Or Through Thief's power of speech, all items costs are reduced a % amount of gold (scales with level).

Q: next auto attack will deal bonus damage and apply poison ,poison reduces target's damage (if enemy is stabbed from behind he'll be silenced).

W: becomes invisible for few seconds boosting his MS , gains more MS the more he gets further away from his enemy.

E: passive: you gain more AD based on your gold in pocket

Active: shares portion of his gold with his allies.

R(heist)(can only be activated when invisible) : steal a % of your enemy's gold (scales with MS, the faster you run towards your enemy while invisible, the more gold you'll be able to steal)

This may sound broken to most of you, why? Because it's entirely a new concept that requires different playstyle with/against.

It's all matter of numbers. There's an unlimited room for creativity when designing a Thief. So, suggestions everyone?

21 Comments

NineTailedMystic3 votes

There's a reason why League doesn't have gold loss on death you know.

Wukong Airlines2 votes

and what that reason might be?

Terozu1 votes

Because comebacks, duh.

UnboundHades2 votes

this would actually fuck up the game because he would 100% be a support and even if your adc falls behind you can steal the enemy laners gold and give it to your adc and seeing how you would lower the gold price on items and support items barely cost anything would cause this champ to rule the meta

Wukong Airlines3 votes

He only deal.damage with 1 spell, he doesn't peel and provides no utility, he might support in his own way, which is providing gold. I'm sure nothing can further break the game at its current state.

Terozu1 votes

He could legitimately prevent someone from ever getting full build, that's extremely broken.

SexyBabyJesusZ2 votes

this would be really cool if league was like runescape or maplestory but it wouldnt work as far as I could tell.

also riot if ur seeing this make one of those rpg games like runescape and maplestory but its league (ill sell my house to fund the project)

Wukong Airlines1 votes

Well, champ design wise, he could work, steal buffs, gold, anything that could give advantage.

And they could apply for example, a market place in the patcher where people could trade unwanted skins + pay/receive additional RP.

reaperteaser2 votes

only way to unlock the champ would be to hack the game, make it a true thief champ

DrugsForRobots2 votes

I've been working on a thief champion concept I'd like to give to Riot. She's a yordle support / marksman. Equipped with a magic key capable of opening any lock or door from a distance, she's an honest thief. She steals from the crooks and goons of the Bilgewater for fun!

http://pre07.deviantart.net/18db/th/pre/i/2017/027/1/3/imoen_league_of_legends_yordle_thief_altcolor_by_drugsforrobots-dawyujt.png

P: Unlocked & Loaded : *Treasure Chests Spheres are spawned under enemy towers, 1 under each. Imoen can attack them to unlock it (consuming the treasure), gaining gold, EXP, and a permanent boost to her crit chance.

*Her magic key functions as her firearm, letting her attack from range. Attacking an enemy champion will reveal a set of tumblers rotating around them. If she attacks from the direction a tumbler is facing, she'll 'set' it. Setting all tumblers locks the opponent in stasis and grants them +5 gold.

Q: Rogue's Passage : *Linear skillshot that creates a 'corridor' that turns ALL who enter through the 'door' invisible. Allies will have their sight reduced to the dimensions of the corridor but retain allied sight, enemies will be fully nearsighted. (This is to create the feeling of being in the dark.)

W: Peek : *Near instant cast-time and channeled effect. Imoen narrows her sight to a far reaching line of sight bound with a cone. (Think how Jhin's Ulti aims, but with sight.) Any action will end the channel, leaving behind a Keyhole that Imoen can peek through.

E: Spelljack! : *Imoen dashes in the target direction, gaining MS and an invulnerability shield (the shield can absorbs all forms of damage and CC) that decays over the next 2 seconds. Dashing through an enemy, or absorbing a spell with her shield will Silence that enemy.

R: Secret Cache! : *Imoen hides a Secret Cache at the target location. It becomes invisible. Allies can attack it to gain a heal and +5 bonus gold. Enemies can see it if they remain within sight of it for 7 seconds, and can attack it to destroy it, gaining +5 bonus gold. Imoen can attack it to grant an AoE heal to allies and distribute +5 bonus gold to all those effected.


The problem I have with your kit is 1) the interactions surrounding gold, 2) how uninteractive the kit is for the opponents, 3) how generic it feels - its like you took 'thief' from a dozen standard MMOs or RPGs - he/she doesn't seem he/she fits League of Legends. Invisibility without tell-tale signs or some kind of drawback is bound to be problematic.

CobaltTheMadMage1 votes

{quoted}

I've been working on a thief champion concept I'd like to give to Riot. She's a yordle support / marksman. Equipped with a magic key capable of opening any lock or door from a distance, she's an honest thief. She steals from the crooks and goons of the Bilgewater for fun!

http://pre07.deviantart.net/18db/th/pre/i/2017/027/1/3/imoen_league_of_legends_yordle_thief_altcolor_by_drugsforrobots-dawyujt.png

P: Unlocked & Loaded : *Treasure Chests Spheres are spawned under enemy towers, 1 under each. Imoen can attack them to gain gold, EXP, and a permanent boost to her crit chance.

*Her magic key functions as her firearm, letting her attack from range. Attacking an enemy champion will reveal a set of tumblers rotating around them. If she attacks from the direction a tumbler is facing, she'll 'set' it. Setting all tumblers locks the opponent in stasis and grants them +5 gold.

Q: Rogue's Passage : *Linear skillshot that creates a 'corridor' that turns ALL who enter through the 'door' invisible. Allies will have their sight reduced to the dimensions of the corridor but retain allied sight, enemies will be fully nearsighted. (This is to create the feeling of being in the dark.)

W: Peek : *Near instant cast-time and channeled effect. Imoen narrows her sight to a far reaching line of sight bound with a cone. (Think how Jhin's Ulti aims, but with sight.) Any action will end the channel, leaving behind a Keyhole that Imoen can peek through.

E: Spelljack! : *Imoen dashes in the target direction, gaining MS and an invulnerability shield (the shield can absorbs all forms of damage and CC) that decays over the next 2 seconds. Dashing through an enemy, or absorbing a spell with her shield will silence that enemy.

R: Secret Cache! : *Imoen hides a Secret Cache at the target location. It becomes invisible. Allies can attack it to gain a heal and +5 bonus gold. Enemies can see it if they remain within sight of it for 7 seconds, and can attack it to destroy it, gaining +5 bonus gold. Imoen can attack it to grant an AoE heal to allies and distribute +5 bonus gold to all those effected.


The problem I have with your kit is 1) the interactions surrounding gold, 2) how uninteractive the kit is for the opponents, 3) how generic it feels - its like you took 'thief' from a dozen standard MMOs or RPGs - he/she doesn't seem he/she fits League of Legends. Invisibility without tell-tale signs or some kind of drawback is bound to be problematic.

Now that's a thief I could get behind.

Volibear Boss2 votes

We got trundle already, stealing your AD/HP/ARMOR/MR

CobaltTheMadMage1 votes

This is basically Teemo except more evil because you can get a gold lead with relatively little effort and have the unprecedented ability to deny your opponent progress in itemization by actively stealing gold from them. If this champ existed he (or at least his ability to steal gold) would be removed from the game because his ban rate would be too high.

Wukong Airlines2 votes

Kass had the highest ban ratio few seasons ago, he was never deleted.

It's all about numbers. You could allow the Thief to steal % of gold that was gained in the last 3 minutes only.

Everything could be balanced with proper effort.

CobaltTheMadMage3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Shaykh al Jabal,realm=EUNE,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=rEMuF3t0,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2017-05-12T22:16:51.478+0000)

Kass had the highest ban ratio few seasons ago, he was never deleted.

It's all about numbers. You could allow the Thief to steal % of gold that was gained in the last 3 minutes only.

Everything could be balanced with proper effort.

The problem is that the mechanic itself is toxic; denying one's ability to make kills, assists, or CS through skill, counterplay, and intimidation is one thing, rendering the benefits of one's successes moot anyway is a whole other matter. The gold steal would either be strong enough to significantly impact the enemy's itemization that it could set them back unfairly or be weak enough to be little more than a nuisance and not be worth having as more than a petty middle finger to the enemy. To say nothing about the potential boost to the champ's income; a free percentile discount at shops would potentially be a bigger income boost than any income item or TF's passive (I don't include Draven's since his relies directly on his player's interactions and skill).

IF you want to have a "thief" concept and have it involve gold income, I would suggest starting by taking a look at existing methods of boosting income for a champion and/or try to find a way to put a skill floor on it and just leave out the "making the other person actively lose gold" bit entirely. As if healers weren't already annoying enough as far as rendering your efforts useless went...

Voidzilla1 votes

What about a Champion that can temporarily steal one of the opponent's items?

Like, as an ultimate, Thief channels, selecting a number between 1 and 6, correlating to the slot of the item they want to steal. They then "do a thing" that steals the item for a time - the enemy will not benefit from the item while Thief does. If it's an activatable item (like item 3143), then its active will replace Thief's ultimate for the time it's stolen. Thief won't be able to steal items like wards, potions, or special item's like Viktor's Hex Core.

A wonky ability, I know, but with Riot's recent willingness to implement features that "break" the rules (Bard's Temepered Fate, Jhin's Whisper, or even Yasuo's BS Windwall) something like this might be able to be implemented in some form. And what's more thieving than actually stealing a target's possession?

Wukong Airlines1 votes

I've already thought about stealing items/item powers or stats/spells for a brief period of time, but i skipped it and never posted it to avoid being flamed on the boards lol.

MysterQ1 votes

E passive is super neat. Infinite scales are cool, no sarcasm. R is fine.

Invis champa are cancer.

Ramen2261 votes

You know i don't normally upvote non-gameplay or PB&M posts because I think those are much more important to get attention. But the concept of a thief champion sounds pretty cool.

Plus you stole my upvote.

mkyner1 votes

What about stealing one of the enemy's abilities? Each champ would have one ability you could take (Ashe's W, MF's E, Graves's Q, etc). If you kill that champ, you have access to that ability as your R for like 10 seconds or something.

Terozu1 votes

Why not a champ who can(ultimate ability) disable any one item in someone's inventory for a few seconds?

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