Boards›Gameplay

Kindred is a Top Laner

g07h4xf00··5 votes·2,045 views

item 3153 item 3006 item 3142 item 3035 item 3087 item 3046

Cheap build, effective stats.

  1. 500 Range means you can harass the fuck out of most melee top laners
  2. Low mana costs means she doesn't need blue buff or to recall that much
  3. Her W passive means she can heal herself A LOT during lane and sustain without lifesteal items
  4. Wolf wants to hunt a camp in the enemy jungle? Push your wave and go counter-jungle. Counter-jungling is a pro top laner strategy. Do it more.
  5. Mark the enemy bot ADC or support for hunt. summoner 12 to bot lane and help your bot lane get a kill or assist.
  6. Think you can kill your opponent top laner? Mark them and go all-in.
  7. Enemy top laner and jungler want to tower dive you because you're a squishy little marksman? Ult yourself when they do.
  8. Your wave is pushed up and your enemy top laner is under tower? Turn on Wolf zone and have Wolf harass the fuck out of them. He's like Azir soldiers, but less of a pussy under enemy towers.
  9. Your E does tons of damage to enemy top laners who will likely be stacking health anyway.
  10. You scale pretty well into late game so why not have top lane income?
  11. Mark enemy mid laner and go roam mid for a gank.
  12. High cooldown on passive doesn't justify having to roam all the time. Sit in lane and roam when it's up / appropriate.

Who the fuck says she should jungle? Why have the income of a jungler when you can have the income of a top laner? Currently item 3930 got nerfed to shit and it's especially garbage on ranged champions. item 3714 is meh on a champion that relies on attack speed and on-hit damage for a majority of their damage output. Jungling is hard when you're a champion with 49 base AD, 325 movement speed, and no scaling MR.

22 Comments

WookieJesuz3 votes

Screw you she is jungler.

g07h4xf002 votes

{quoted}

Screw you she is jungler.

Why? Give me a good argument.

WookieJesuz3 votes

Her Passive. Given how dismal her base AD, her passive damage is really the thing keeping her afloat. As a jungler, you get access to devourer (mostly built due to the fact that Kindred doesn't have very good AD ratios so on-hit/attack speed is better, not for the phantom hit) and get to clear camps very fast. I play a lot of Kayle jungle which has very fast clear speed, and Kindred has very fast clear speed with w+q as well. A more on-hit attack speed build syngergises well with devourer, as opposed to rushing bork.

I will give you, Kindred can be played top. Her passive sustain on W is quite ridiculous, and imo should proc only on monsters, but I feel the strengths played as a jungler outweigh those played as a top laner.

She might make an ok mid laner, kind of like TF who roams a lot, her passive will encourage her to roam.

g07h4xf001 votes

{quoted}

Her Passive. Given how dismal her base AD, her passive damage is really the thing keeping her afloat. As a jungler, you get access to devourer (mostly built due to the fact that Kindred doesn't have very good AD ratios so on-hit/attack speed is better, not for the phantom hit) and get to clear camps very fast. I play a lot of Kayle jungle which has very fast clear speed, and Kindred has very fast clear speed with w+q as well. A more on-hit attack speed build syngergises well with devourer, as opposed to rushing bork.

I will give you, Kindred can be played top. Her passive sustain on W is quite ridiculous, and imo should proc only on monsters, but I feel the strengths played as a jungler outweigh those played as a top laner.

She might make an ok mid laner, kind of like TF who roams a lot, her passive will encourage her to roam.

You don't think item 3931 was too nerfed on ranged champions? Procing every 4th hit and stacking slower than before it kind of lame. Also going the item 3931 path means you need to farm the jungle a lot, so going for ganks will be harder.

Here's another way to look at it: experience and jungle invading.

As a jungle, Kindred would have less experience and gold going into the enemy jungle to take a camp than if they were a top laner. As at top laner, not only can you be more confident in your jungle invades but also you have an actual jungler on your team who could help you invade. This seems safer and more reliable for using your passive, don't you think?

WookieJesuz2 votes

Devourer for ranged champs isn't about the sated. It's about the attack speed and on-hit. You don't farm the jungle any more than normal with a sated, or else you are bad. Devourer should spend most of the time ganking and getting crabs/drag because that stacks up WAY faster than if you just afk farm the jungle.

As far as gold goes, you said it yourself: Kindred's item path is cheap and effective, Devourer/Bork/Yomu's and as a jungler, you won't be getting quite as much gold. Kindred isn't that item dependant so a cheap build with good xp (I usually outlevel laners by level 12-13 as a jungler due to xp jungle creep scalings). I didn't phrase that very well, but basically Kindred is not item dependant or level dependant, but stack dependant after playing her once. Her early stacks from jungle monsters are essential.

TLDR; Devourer is about the Attack Speed and On-Hit which synergizes REALLY WELL with Kindred TLDR2; She is more about them passive stacks than about gold and experience

IcyPepper2 votes

Well, I can try but without unneeded attitude :P Let's keep it civil.

I think they make a decent jungler team for a few reasons: they can get their first six stacks from camps, so they don't need to snowball first to get a passive or hope a nearby camp gets marked. If Kindred proves too strong for top lane that farming kills is effective for her passive, she would likely get nerfed so there's no point in relying on it.

Anyway, jungle sustain is a big one. If you kite monsters without draining their patience (basically just aa move aa move aa move without trying to dodge too many blows) you can get a lot of sustain out of their W passive. Spamming WQQQ takes a lot out of your mana early, so blue buff is a great thing to have. Since ADC's and even top laners don't usually get that buff in favor of mages midgame, it's better to have dibs on it as the jungler.

Kindred's kit is also great for securing dragon fast, making her a greater asset as a jungler than a top laner even with teleport.

While Kindred may be good for dueling, and not a terrible top laner kind of like Vayne and Quinn, her E isn't terrible for ganking and her mark puts up greater global pressure if you don't have constant sight of her in top lane (and marking your lane opponent is too obvious, and predictable).

However, as a counterpoint I think it would be cool to say that Kindred could laneswap with the ADC if said ADC can top lane effective as well, and potentially "juggle" the support if the support is one that's comfortable with roaming. Like a Vayne that gets a support early game, then swaps because she can easily shut down the juggernaut with her silver bolts.

One gripe, however, is the current duelist jungler meta. By putting Kindred top lane, you lose out on a potentially tankier role. If the jungler decides to go duelist, the only tank you're likely to have is the support, and it's not very nice to force the support to play a tank if they're more comfortable with a mage or something... It helps that Kindred is a bit of a team player, but they can't effectively tank on the frontline with the best. If cinderhulk was dominant (but not that dominant, mind you), it probably wouldn't matter then.

Ooze Monsterella1 votes

You downvoted an amazing analysis because you're a dumb fuck.

WinBoat2 votes

Exactly! Everyone is going Kindred top. It's the sustain. No matter how much you trade against Kindred, they'll be back at 100% HP cause of that heal they get. It's kinda OP really, so you will be destroying tons of melee's, especially since you got really good kite by just pressing E on target, then W, and dancing around with Q, maybe rolling back with Q if they come at you, which there isn't anything they can do in that case.

I was just commenting I seen a challenger tier match where a Kindred had 20+ kills, I think like 25 kills or so, and everyone else barely even had 10. Some didn't even have 5, and this was challenger tier.

The heal is probably going to get nerfed hard because it is a pretty big heal, and even a heal on your ult just to add to the craziness. So yeah, very good sustain, won't need to return really unless you're out of mana. You'll be getting those hunt stacks like crazy at top.

CaptnJakSparrow2 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Best EV3R NA,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7X1iIm3X,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-10-15T03:30:47.200+0000)

Exactly! Everyone is going Kindred top. It's the sustain. No matter how much you trade against Kindred, they'll be back at 100% HP cause of that heal they get. It's kinda OP really, so you will be destroying tons of melee's, especially since you got really good kite by just pressing E on target, then W, and dancing around with Q, maybe rolling back with Q if they come at you, which there isn't anything they can do in that case.

I was just commenting I seen a challenger tier match where a Kindred had 20+ kills, I think like 25 kills or so, and everyone else barely even had 10. Some didn't even have 5, and this was challenger tier.

The heal is probably going to get nerfed hard because it is a pretty big heal, and even a heal on your ult just to add to the craziness. So yeah, very good sustain, won't need to return really unless you're out of mana. You'll be getting those hunt stacks like crazy at top.

If she didn't have that level of sustain she'd never be able to do anything. Also, her sustain really isn't all that amazing to be honest.

Tahm has good sustain if he builds how he wants.

Vlad has stupid sustain

Swain has stupid sustain

Renekton has stupid sustain

Darius is LOL sustain. A two man gank can net him half his life back every 4 seconds.

Fiora gets Sustain just for Qing you, and it's pretty high tbh.

Hecarim gets 1/2 his life back just by sitting in lane up top.

Cho'gath just clears a wave and is back to full

Same with Irelia.

Master Yi can just meditate around the same amount of time.

Maokai just spams spells and gets infinite sustain. Play him against Katarina mid lane and watch as you never go below half health.

Singed and Mundo are well known for being bricks

Once Ryze gets tear + 6 he can never be shoved out of lane again.

Trundle is just lel. He gets full life just by hanging out.

Garen gets full health 10 seconds out of combat.

Cass has a spammable flat health attached to her E she can use for last hitting to dot her way back to full.

Gangplank has a spammable W that heals for missing health

Zac can casually regen himself back to full health just by spamming an ability and picking himself up

Tryndamere can burst heal as ap and still do loads of damage.

But Kindred is just too much sustain? XD Ok. Kindred is already blegh, she'd be absolute garbage if she got a nerf on the heal too boot.

WinBoat1 votes

Um...20+ Kills in challenger with Kindred while everyone else had shit KDA? Yeah that's garbage alright.

Kindred would still be good without that big of a heal. It's understandable for Darius cause he has to go in and swing to get a heal, Kindred can just go attack minions and get massive heals while staying safe. Kindred has a E skill, when it procs on the third hit, it shreds people, so with that alone, Kindred is still awesome. The heals? A little too much. It's a ranged Aastrox. Aastrox makes up for his crazy amount of sustain cause he's melee against other melee's and is super squishy. Kindred can just stay at range.

CaptnJakSparrow1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Best EV3R NA,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7X1iIm3X,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2015-10-15T04:15:31.420+0000)

Um...20+ Kills in challenger with Kindred while everyone else had shit KDA? Yeah that's garbage alright.

Kindred would still be good without that big of a heal. It's understandable for Darius cause he has to go in and swing to get a heal, Kindred can just go attack minions and get massive heals while staying safe. Kindred has a E skill, when it procs on the third hit, it shreds people, so with that alone, Kindred is still awesome. The heals? A little too much. It's a ranged Aastrox. Aastrox makes up for his crazy amount of sustain cause he's melee against other melee's and is super squishy. Kindred can just stay at range.

Challenger with people probably playing against her the first time and have yet to even come up with strategies against her. If you're going to use the "20+ kills in chawwenger" debate, does that make every single mid laner + adc in the history of the game blatantly broken?

I mean, by your logic, Cassiopea can just delicately last hit with E and be back to full health in no time while harassing people from fog of aware getting stacks to get 1000 damage Es by 33 minutes.

I've also spectated a challenger game where Nunu had 18 kills. Is he op too?

WinBoat1 votes

Nuna has been played a long time, people know how to play him. For someone to pick up Kindred, and go into challenger and destroy the competition, that's impressive. Point was is without the heal, Kindred is still good just from proccing their E alone, but you seem to have misread that part.

(Now you're gonna say "Well, he probably PBE'd Kindred before"). Still for a group of challengers to get stomped like nothing um yeah.

Anyhow, Kindred don't need such a large sustain like that, tho the idea is for Kindred to be jungle, Kindred is gonna be played in every lane.

CaptnJakSparrow1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Best EV3R NA,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7X1iIm3X,comment-id=00010000000000000000,timestamp=2015-10-15T05:11:56.942+0000)

Nuna has been played a long time, people know how to play him. For someone to pick up Kindred, and go into challenger and destroy the competition, that's impressive. Point was is without the heal, Kindred is still good just from proccing their E alone, but you seem to have misread that part.

(Now you're gonna say "Well, he probably PBE'd Kindred before"). Still for a group of challengers to get stomped like nothing um yeah.

Anyhow, Kindred don't need such a large sustain like that, tho the idea is for Kindred to be jungle, Kindred is gonna be played in every lane.

Velkoz was goin 20+ kills in diamond 1+ on release. Is he op?

Please, humor me.

I personally myself played a lot of Kindred and against A LOT of Kindred in all lanes. Top, jungle, mid, support, adc. Seen it all. I honestly was not impressed with much of anything from her sustain/damage wise.

Ekko was blatantly overpowered, everyone on the pbe was pretty much saying he was fucking stupid.

The average response regarding Kindred was: Kill her at level 2. And 90% of the time she just fed. Her jungle is countered by early game aggression. Mid is countered by wave clear + cc. Top is countered by someone who can counter zone her. Yorick, Renekton, Urgot, Cho'gath, Swain, Sion, Nautilus, Lissandra, Hecarim, Gangplank, Jayce, Rengar, Trundle, Vlad, Darius, Garen, Riven all did well against Kindred in the top lane on PBE.

I mean, you keep specifically bringing up this top lane as hard as humanly possible for some shitty excuse for a nerf because some guy went Kindred top and got 20+ kills.

I mean, we can begin to pick this story apart: What was the match up? What was Kindred's team? What was the enemy team? Did they use strats to shut down a champion/player? Or did they just let top island be an island? Was the top a top main? Was he on his off champion? Did Kindred run ignite, or tele? Did Kindred get jungle help? Was the top laner enemy Hashinshin? Who had what runes? What masteries? I mean, when you bring up "challenger" You're talking about a group of 200 people. Out of that 200, only a small hand full are top laners. So then you have to dig down to their own personal strengths.

For example: Mid lane: Faker is notoriously sought after. So, his challenger buddies always stick by his lane for the inevitable 4 man gang bangs heading his way. If his jungler didn't constantly sit in his lane, Fakers score would be fucking garbage from the sheer amount of ganks that head his away.

Dyrus Top lane: While having exceedingly high scores in solo queue as most of his line up. Once he reached LCS and Worlds he was constantly camped and utterly destroyed. 1: Because all of the players KNOW he's actually a pretty good top laner that is really good at getting ahead if left alone, and 2. Because most of his team just ignores him. So, naturally, Dyrus, despite having pretty good kda in solo queue, always has terrible k.d in ranked team play simply because everyone knows to camp him. whereas in soloqueue most people don't even bother with that and are off doing other shit.

Doublelift: Usually level 3 ganked pretty damn regularly to get an early game lead. Is pretty well known for being cocky and going yolo for kills, and thus is susceptible to early cheese.

This here is why Challenger is a terrible bracket to use regarding if a champ is strong or not. Especially on the first day.

Ryze does the same thing to top laners, so does Swain, and Vayne, and Quinn, and Cass, and Lulu, and Nidalee, and Vlad they all do dumb shit and get pretty high kds in the top lane if left unchecked.

Kindred, by design, is going to shit on a melee champion if he doesn't get assistance. Your direct response is "Wah, sustain, nerf her so I can go Renekton and E auto w tiamat auto q E and drop Kindred to 1/16th life while nothing happens to me, and if she pokes me I can just spam q and be back to full. Wah. I deserve it cause I'm a melee champ. Wah.

Why do you think the pro top scene for so long was Gnar Vs Maokai.

Gnar is ranged and bullies people out of lane + also gets health every time he goes into mega gnar, chunks most tanks for their health, and also has sustain. Then you have Maokai who gets sustain because Gnar spams Q, which balances out against all of Gnars strengths. That, in a nut shell, is why that top lane match up is seen so frequently.

But, I mean, if you want to nerf her further to the point she'll never be played again by all means. After you get her sustain nerfed, please, queue into a match so that when I'm Shaco I can have you go 0/10 in 13 minutes like I did the majority of Kindreds on PBE.

Envy Sin1 votes

You forgot someone

DrMundo

IllllllIIIIlllll1 votes

red side top. enemy krugs get marked

wheee time for a magical journey across narnia

g07h4xf001 votes

{quoted}

red side top. enemy krugs get marked

wheee time for a magical journey across narnia

The mark goes away if the enemy jungler clears the camp. If not, maybe take it next time you're down there after a summoner 12 gank.

Rennagade1 votes

Top will most likely be her second worst lane after ADC. She could hold her ground early on, but without early kills and the ability to roam the passive that she sacrifices her ratios for will prove useless and she will fall behind late. I'd rather see her support due to it usually being the most active lane kill wise, meaning her passive should get a decent ratio on it. Mid should be a lot better due to roaming and farming potential. Anything that isn't Jungle is going to need some sort of mana item early though.

With that said, if you are not in a position to roam there's probably a better champion for the job.

g07h4xf001 votes

{quoted}

Top will most likely be her second worst lane after ADC. She could hold her ground early on, but without early kills and the ability to roam the passive that she sacrifices her ratios for will prove useless and she will fall behind late. I'd rather see her support due to it usually being the most active lane kill wise, meaning her passive should get a decent ratio on it. Mid should be a lot better due to roaming and farming potential. Anything that isn't Jungle is going to need some sort of mana item early though.

With that said, if you are not in a position to roam there's probably a better champion for the job.

Support is an interesting idea, especially since supports roam a lot now and Kindred still gets stacks on assists.

BeatzBoyFTW1 votes

Here we have another player who is sissy enough to bring a range champion to top lane instead of ADC/Jungle. By sissy, also includes people bringing Vayne Quinn top.

pE4CbxDPQO1 votes

You know when you state a champs strengths anyone sounds good. I was just thinking through a lot of the current meta top laners and i'm pretty sure They are going to have a rough time vs Garen, Riven, Darius, Fiora, Jax, Lee Sin and plenty more. Sure their may be some that They can withstand, but overall it sounds like a scenario where They can do it, but lots of other champs can do it better.

Ooze Monsterella1 votes

This is a great idea. People who say she jungles with Devourer are utter bronze plebs. She has no attk spd steriod or dmg buff. Her ganks are pathetic pre-100 cs, and her jungle build is a fucking joke.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Should be zerk, botrk, hurricane, maw, gage, (situational)

In this case the situational can be youmuu/another AS item due to kindred having total AD scalings she makes maw+gage work pretty amazingly(As most marksmen abuse cases are currently)

FYI what i listed isn't the right build order.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by g07h4xf00

5.16 looks like literally one the dumbest patches in the history of the game (item change analysis).
Gameplay268 comments
358
votes
Why are Turrets so worthless?
Gameplay188 comments
195
votes
How To Make Any Champion Broken (Rito Game Balance New Employee Training)
Gameplay117 comments
148
votes
RIP Tanks (5.5-5.16)
Gameplay257 comments
127
votes
Tank Mains and AP/Mage Mains Need to Unite Against AD Oppressors
Gameplay82 comments
94
votes
Someone at Rito got PAID to Design this...
Gameplay20 comments
36
votes