@Riot - Answers About Kindred; Lots of Text
Alright, so it's been quite a while since 6.13 where Kindred lost her passive sustain and 7 Base Armour. Her Win rate has land slided to 46%, the lowest she's ever had, and the win rate is still falling. Some of the best Kindred players in the game (one of them a Youtuber) have given up Kindred. There was a massive thread on Reddit recently by one of the top Kindred players trying to understand why Riot basically destroyed her... and I have to agree.
Now, I am by no means a Diamond or Master player, but I am frequently between Plat IV-Plat II, which is about the best 6% of League's community, and my main Jungler has been Kindred for a long time, so I feel I can consider myself as one of the top Kindred players.
Before we begin, let's total all of the nerfs done to kindred (some were definitely needed); Base Movement Speed reduced to the lowest in the game. Base Attack Damage lowered to one of the lowest of all ADCs. Dance of Arrows (Q) Cooldown Changed to 8/6/4/2/2 from 2 while in Wolf's Frenzy at all ranks. **Dance of Arrows (Q) **Damage reduced by 75 Points at Rank 5, but gains 5 points of damage per Bounty Stack (Requires 15 Stacks to restore lost damage.) **Lamb's Respite (R) **Radius reduced slightly (75 Points), changed to be only castable under Kindred herself. **Mounting Dread (E) **Damage lowered, slow reduced by 25% Wolf's Frenzy (W) Passive-Stack Heal removed, replaced with 50% damage and a 50% slow to only Monsters for the duration **Base Armour reduced by 7 **(from 27 to 20, one of the lowest base armours in the game.)
After all of these changes to Kindred, one thing has shown prominently; she's been "gutted". She was already heavily nerfed before the 6.13 nerfs to the point where she held a steady 51% win ratio, which was pretty average among most champions. No one was complaining about Kindred on the forums, she saw no competitive play during 6.11 and 6.12, so I'm just... lost, what was the reasoning for these nerfs in 6.13?
The core design of Kindred was to be a high-skill cap ADC-Jungler who relied on kiting and Bounty hunting to allow her to be strong. She was designed to be a dueling Jungler who could contest the Enemy jungle camps to pick up Wolf's Marks on enemy camps.
With this in mind, why was her dueling potential basically entirely stripped away? Any good Kindred won't even bother going for Wolf Marks unless they are 100% sure the enemy jungler won't appear, which they will, guaranteed, because both teams can see Kindred's marks. She can't contest enemy camps anymore, it's impossible. If she tries to contest a Camp or even invade the enemy Jungle, she feels completely useless against them. Her Q cooldown is so high early on, even when in Wolf's Frenzy, that she can't kite, her base attack speed and damage are dreadfully low, and now her armour and heal were reduced and removed which allowed her to have absolutely zero presence in game and in the enemy jungles.
I know this post is going to get downvoted to hell by the people that say; "Good riddance, Kindred was cancer." - but, keep in mind, those of you that say this - these kind of Burial Nerfs are what is bringing League of Legends to it's knees and in to a steady downfall. Instead of properly toying with a bunch of numbers if something needs to be balanced, they basically just remove abilities and replace them with significantly worse ones until the Champion is unviable.
Any @Riot team member, if you're reading this, I implore you for a reply. Something needs to be given back to Kindred. She needs ~3-4 of her base armour back, if she can't have her Heal back, at least reduce the cooldown on her Q early game. She needs a form of compensation, she is literally unplayable if you want to win, right now.
Edit: My Suggested Tune-Ups / Buffs; Revert some of the Q nerfs, reduce Dance of Arrows(Q) Cooldown to 6/4/2/2/2 when in Wolf's Frenzy and restore 40-50 of the damage, and restore 4 points of her base armour, giving her 24 (same as almost every other champion).
