Kindred Rework Suggestion

Summary/Rant Okay so I use to be a big time Kindred main (and still kinda am on my smurf at least) back in S5 and a little bit in S6 but it was just too much in S7 and I'm afraid it will be another year of that in S8. I know some people will see this and be like "nah cuz did you play them in pre-season? They are crazy strong" to which I reply "you are obviously not a Kindred main". Pre-season does not mean anything and she wasn't actually 'that' good. It was just one of those 'resurgence' type situations where people haven't seen the champ in a while and the new runes made kindred viable again but not really op. I played and watched a lot of Kindred content and could see that those so called OP times where Kindred popped off was really just the other team not respecting the need to stop them from getting stacks. 4 of the games I played and did well, the other team had not warded anything in their jungle and all my lanes had some form of cc. In other words, I got lucky. It wasn't like in S5 where it didn't matter if they had wards because I could get in and out of their jungle before they could react and my damage was strong enough that I was never worried about who I was against in Jungle, If I outplayed them I would be fine. Now that Kindred has to build like a regular ADC it's borderline trash. Your damage is too low early which is where Kindred shined before, your late game is terrible if you can't get at least 8-10 stacks by 30 which still only makes you ok, they said her stacking is infinite and increases her range but no one gets to crazy stack numbers an why would you even change them to be a pure late game champ with a kit that is obviously designed to be a early game winner. None of my S5 games went on past 30min if I was doing at least average on Kindred. They never needed more range they needed Riot not to nerf their whole fucking kit. Lets take a closer look at that actually. ((Note I don't recall all the changes or their immediate timeline))

Overview: Nerfs: -Passive heal removed (cool so now Kindred can barley clear healthy) - Damage increase reductions across the bored mainly at stacks (That's actually fine. 5 Stack Kindred could take over the whole map on release and getting 5 stacks could take as little as 5 minutes. Something like Scuttle, Jungler, Camp, Lane, Camp/Bot adc or support. So that was a FAIR nerf. At that time you needed around 7-8 stacks to be really strong and just hard carry) - Further damage reductions across the board this time targeting their items i.e Jungle items, Blade of the Ruined King in particular. (Too much! Now Kindred needs like 10 stacks to be strong/fed and people at this time are catching on to their mechanics and her counters are way too many) - Removal of Kindred Percentage based damage in exchange for higher AD scaling (The nail in the coffin. That % based damage was all Kindred could look forward to and now it's gone.) To make up for the obvious destruction of the champ, Riot has tried to make some things better here and there. None of them good enough but hey they tried I guess? Here are some of the buffs

Buffs(or neutral changes since most of them suck): + Wolf Frenzy [W] now slows and deals more damage to Monsters. (Cool...Now i can finally solo Gromp, and my buffs. Doesn't help that much with any of the other camps since you kite them anyway.) + Increase to AD damage on [Q] Dance of Arrows (Not very helpful but made them more capable of clearing) + Minor Buff to Passive gain from marks plus how often they wind up on certain camps. (A good start. The passive gain meant you needed around 7-8 Stacks to be 'Fed' again. The change in location made it easier by adding more chances to use scuttle as a mark and more chances to use Buffs as a mark before you no longer can receive Marks at all which is around 8 where it will only go to Baron an Dragons.)

Unfixed: - Still no sustain in jungle so be ready to be countered by every champ that does

• Slower clear speed so
• Abysmal lvl 3 damage means only tank junglers with low base damage will be dual-able. But they will still out-scale you. All close range AA's will murder you. Casters will be a skill matchup that still heavily favors them > Kindred. - Despite the fact that Riot has removed the percentage based damage in favor of AD + Range (which caps out at +250) they have not changed Kindreds Q or W which are, by design, setup to scale with ATS + Marks.

Solution suggestion/Conclusion: The idea behind Kindred was fantastic. A new champ with interesting mechanics and their own playstyle that was not, and still isn't, obvious to the whole community. However, with all the nerfs and changes Kindreds kit is a mess of stats that don't make sense and don't help them and items in the shop that are too expensive or no longer work well on their reworded stats. Now Kindred must build exactly like a normal ADC but know that your team will not peel for you and you most likely won't be as strong as the other teams ADC because you can't afford the items as soon. So here are my ideals for a solustion starting with the most likely to be administrated without making Kindred OP. Let me make it clear that while I want to return to Kindred full time I do not want them to be OP.

** Make Wolf's Frenzy a timed ability that follows Kindred! **This is currently my favorite idea since it would (to my knowledge) overcome Kindreds many pitfalls. Since people know to try and stop Kindred from getting Marks, give her more mobility so they can't do it for free. Right now if I invade Krugs, saying our team is bot side of the map or blue side, to avoid a Tri-brush ward from the top laner I must use my Q to jump Baron/Herald wall, and if the blast cone is down either W + Q to get over Krugs wall or walk all the way around. Since most champs now shit on Kindred I'm going to have to opt into the safer route and walk all the way around for fear of jumping over right into them or them showing up once I start. From base to camp this takes about 35-38secs + around 4-6secs to clear the camp (keep in mind these estimates factor in as much as I can especially scenarios where I do or do not have smite) so ~42-44secs in all. That is a long time to get to a camp that might not be there, could be warded by top laner who is collapsing, jungler could be collapsing, just for a camp that really only gives a little damage onto your Q and W and some range depending on how many you have since it's not actually a per stack increase and lets not forget that if I were to take the whole camp that's EVEN LONGER to do cause Kindred is terrible at clearing multi-monster camps especially Krugs. Now let's look at Nidalee who has far more damage than Kindred and a [W] Pounce that does not require another ability cast to and is mana-less to cast. It would take her around 30secs to reach the camp and maybe 3-4secs to clear it putting her at about 34secs! That's a 10 sec difference AND if she kills any of the small minons with her W it will rest so if someone come to collapse she can transform and run away easily whereas Kindred must prey for their CD's to link up just right otherwise they will be stuck without Q for 9sec. And Krugs was prolly not warded because Nidalee steals camps more out of want whereas Kindred technically needs them just to be viable. Let the W follow Kindred and maybe have like a phantom ring around Kindred so you know the radius of it kind of like Eve when she is invisible.

Change Kindred W to give a defensive boon/safeguard. This is a far lesser idea but would be at least some help. Right now Kindred really only casts W to clear camps or to help with running away....RUNNING AWAY!!!! The hunter typically just runs lol. I mean you activate it when fighting and most people just run out of it and maybe get hit one time, other times it's cast and it does some damage but I've never been in a case where my W did anymore than scare kids who have never played against Kindred. It is almost usless for anything other than resetting your Q's cooldown but most Kindreds spend more time activating it and leaving it which makes no sense. Why can't i stand my ground in it? Poppy W stops all gap closer or jumps and passively givers her armor and magic resist as she loses hp. Can Kindred get some of that? If you won't use my first idea in some way (I mean in case you don't think it makes sense to give a champ who's lore is literally based on "Chasing" people down an upgrade that actually lets them chase) at least give them a better chance to stand their ground. I'm tired of having to run from damn near every encounter that doesn't go perfectly!

** Change Lamb's Respite [R] to not Heal enemies or give them less of a heal.** Kindreds Ult has always been a bit of a give an take deal breaker. It's probably one of the things that keep a lot of people from playing them because they end up hurting their team rather than helping. Nothings worse than seeing a greedy Kindred Ult to save themselves and save 3 other people from the other team along with it.... I think it's fine if everyone in it is saved from dying maybe but giving them a heal too has always seems wrong. Why are hunters healing the prey? Maybe the amount of the heal to your teams champs get could be a lot lower or maybe it could scale with Kindreds Marks? That would be good and would give your team more incentive to help you get them since helping you do more damage doesn't make them nearly as happy as knowing they will get more healing.

**Bring back percentage based scaling with marks. **This is, imo, the least likely to happen and is honestly the laziest way to fix a mistake but hey, I'll take it if it means I can play more Kindred again.

TL;DR: Kindred was a great niche pick and now they are not. If you won't change their damage scale factor, give them more mobility. Possibly give some defensive stats for dueling. Maybe change ult to heal less but not heal enemies. Please do something for this champ. If you have an idea please leave a comment and if I agree I would gladly ad it to the main post. Stay free noobs