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Kindred feels terrible, flatout unplayable right now

Envoy of Melody·7/30/2017, 12:07:16 PM·11 votes·859 views

Stop buffing Cho'gath every 2 weeks and take a look at this champion instead please Kindred

I think I've never seen a more fragile and pointless Jungler than Kindred currently is and I think it's time that you give Kindred some of their initial strengths back. Kindred is ridiculously weak currently and ANYTHING can tilt a Kindred to lose the whole game.

Not taking their great ultimate into account that can potentially screw up your entire team or with some luck win a team fight, Kindred almost deals less damage than Gromp in early game and getting stacks with them is an unnecessarily diffcult task. Your ganks are mediocre if not bad, the only reliable skill you have that helps with ganks requires you to AA your target 3 times before a slow is applied, which by then is pointless because the enemy laner is already behind their turret.

Kindred's great strengths, their scaling and stacking mechanic is a complete desaster because she is a late-game ADC trying to fish for stacks in the enemy jungle. It's a terrible mechanic because rather than increase the difficulty of playing Kindred, it flatout makes it impossible to reliably climb or have fun using this character. Almost any Jungler is your pimpdaddy and you're the little bitch and any mid, top or bot laner can easily mess around with you while you're trying to earn yourself stacks.

It doesn't speak well for Kindred that her main purpose is "Pray that you have a good team that helps you get stacks, else you're gonna get bullied and end with 2 stacks at minute 15". And here is the most frustrating part: If you HAVE that good team and end up with something unrealistic like 10-15 stacks, you're STILL a potential hazard to your team and barely fulfill any use compared to this guy Zac or this guy Twitch. Even Twitch Jungler is a better ADC and he's not even supposed to be a Jungler.

I can barely explain to you how stressful and tear-jerking playing Kindred feels like, it's as if you willingly sign a contract that allows Riot Games to stab you with razorblades. You start weak, you pray for good luck that the enemy laners make a mistake and let you get stacked up, and then you're still struggling to find usefulness outside of your easily messed up ultimate that can lose/win you a teamfight, and the ultimate doesn't even become stronger or better with each stack.

So basically, why even bother to stack? The ultimate is good/bad regardless of what you build or how much work you do, so basically you might as well play Kindred Support because your itemization doesn't affect how well your ultimate works and your stacking mechanic is just a bullet in your foot in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I understand what made Riot think it's okay to let Kindred go to the other side of the map to get her stacks, but I don't know what they were thinking when they made her such a terrible early game Jungler. How is any half-way decent Kindred supposed to win a game if they're unable to contest against the enemy Jungler regardless of what they pick? You're forced to pray for luck that the enemy team doesn't know how to prevent you from getting stacks which isn't hard since they can see on the minimap where you're gonna want to go next, so they might as well just wait there to get both the camp AND your ass.

Please buff Kindred in any reasonable way, or at least give them the ability back to solo kill Baron in 5-10 seconds in lategame because that would at least compensate for how terrible they are in the early game.

TL;DR Kindred's difficulty doesn't reward them for performing well and they're a potential hazard to their own team, it's like you put a mask on Bard and shoved him into the Jungle. I think at this point, Locket Redemption Ultimate Kindred is a better Support than 20 Stack Kindred is a Jungler.

19 Comments

gottrjr7/30/2017, 2:25:02 PM1 votes

Dodge all Kindred games. They need to fix the stacking mechanic. Kindred is easily countered by smart teams. Just take her stacks.

SanKakU7/30/2017, 2:59:57 PM1 votes

Well, for one thing IIRC, Kindred gets knowledge of where the marks are before the opponents do. So if you're quick enough, you can take care of the mark and get out before the opponents even knew there was a mark in their jungle. Use that to your advantage. Maybe levels in your ultimate should increase the timer for between Kindred getting mark display and opponents getting mark display. In any case, Kindred probably does need some big changes. I'm curious how the new healing power items would work on him. Won't they let him potentially heal the opponents for more than usual?

OyddAWqJ5r7/30/2017, 3:06:48 PM1 votes

I've got a buddy that mains her and just made D5. Dunno whatcha mean fam

Hexs Fortune7/30/2017, 3:45:51 PM1 votes

The jungle doesn't give the amount of gold they need for a true carry build.

AwesomeGuyDj7/30/2017, 4:38:43 PM1 votes

Kindred is either strong and contest her marks by herself. (allowing her to more easily snowball) Or she is weak and cannot contest them.

The Leo Cat7/30/2017, 6:14:40 PM1 votes

I agree that Kindred does need buffs, and it is stupid that she needs to fish for stacks early in the enemy Jungle. But my main gripe with the stacks in the enemy jungle, is that for some fucking reason it is broadcasted to the enemy team. Meanwhile Bard, who becomes a freaking nightmare to deal with by mid game doesn't have any of his chimes marked for the enemy team and he has the tools necessary to grab them safely early.

If kindred actually kept her early game mobility before her rework, then maybe this current rework wouldn't be so bad. Because it'd be manageable to deal with all the other Junglers. But it still doesn't excuse how little power you gain from your marks right now. Or her itemization path.

kjm997/30/2017, 7:24:10 PM1 votes

The problem with kindred is that on hit was consistent damage. The second they removed her stacking on hit damage it got rid of that, without that she's forced into a crit build that's instantly worse in the jungle. With the on hit passive even if you didn't stack instantly the second you did your items worked with it, now she has worthless scaling on her abilities and gets killed just as fast. There's a reason twitch jungle isn't meta, crit champions are inconsistent and have less gold income. with on hit damage kindred was actually able to fight/carry without being incredibly fed.