On the Kindred Rework

PhantomGG·Jun 7, 2018·2 votes·3,077 views

I personally feel it was rushing her first mini rework that has put the champion in this really awkward balancing spot. I personally feel the large majorities of mini reworks that riot does have been very bad and created more harm than good.

I would much prefer riot to take their time, and even wait as long as 4 months before going through with any major changes. I want a long term solution that will fix this champion, and not a band aid that may possibly cause an infection like the first one did.

Problems that need to be adressed

1-The horrible mark passive 2-The fact they have to build crit

5 Comments

ReshiKillimJun 7, 20182 votes

I personally think her mark passive would be fine as long as the "You can only have one champion marked at a time" mechanic was removed.

TormentulaJun 7, 20181 votes

Kindred has too many gimmicks that they need to work around, they need to settle on one.

Bounty hunter design
Duo champ design
Marksmen in the jungle design
a life or death AoE ultimate that takes big risk but can be big reward

Riot has to pick one and build a kit around it, not pick 4 or more and weave something functional inbetween. Otherwise it'll still be an unbalanced mess or kindred players won't be satisfied with specific parts of the champ (in this case, we're sitting on a failed duo champ gimmick with wolf's lack of importance that also has to be balanced around the idea that its a marksmen in the jungle [ha] with a very shakey ultimate ability that can go so wrong or so right 50% of the time... also because early development was jhin as a bounty hunter, they're preserving the idea of a bounty system for hunting down and assassinating targets, or in this case, death getting stat bonuses for killing specific targets.)

BeedleSep 5, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Kindred has too many gimmicks that they need to work around, they need to settle on one.

Bounty hunter design

Duo champ design

Marksmen in the jungle design

a life or death AoE ultimate that takes big risk but can be big reward

Riot has to pick one and build a kit around it, not pick 4 or more and weave something functional inbetween. Otherwise it'll still be an unbalanced mess or kindred players won't be satisfied with specific parts of the champ (in this case, we're sitting on a failed duo champ gimmick with wolf's lack of importance that also has to be balanced around the idea that its a marksmen in the jungle [ha] with a very shakey ultimate ability that can go so wrong or so right 50% of the time... also because early development was jhin as a bounty hunter, they're preserving the idea of a bounty system for hunting down and assassinating targets, or in this case, death getting stat bonuses for killing specific targets.)

Disagree. "Bounty hunter design and Duo champ design" are stictly part of their character. Those are not gameplay gimmicks. How these traits are expressed currently might be a problem, but the fact that they are a duo champ doesn't really reflect at all on their issues.

"Marksmen in the jungle design" This is the whole point of their existence. It's not a gimmick, it's a niche, and a niche that they can improve on by buffing it, not settling onto a different theme. It's not really possible to do that with Kindred, and no reason why you should want to

Kindred has issues that can be addressed but I don't think you understand the issues if you think it's because of failed gimmicks that need to be removed or isolated. Kindred can essentially keep most tof her kit intact. What she needs is tuning to make her playstyle more rewarding and less punishing.

TormentulaSep 6, 20181 votes

You just necro'd a 3 month old post lmao.

anyway,

"Bounty hunter design and Duo champ design" are stictly part of their character. Those are not gameplay gimmicks.

Its still a gimmick. The gimmick of the champ is the bounty hunter design. A 'gimmick' is something builtspecifically for the sake of that design, the gimmick was a bounty champ, and the result was high noon jhin.. then another gimmick was added for the duo design, then high noon jhin became a skin and kindred was the result. A Niche is the purpose of the character, ex. Vayne is a niche pick against tanks atm, while trist's niche is being a safe lane pick, those are the reasons to pick them over other champs.

Kindred's niche is well... just being a DPS ranged jungler to shred late game, its really hard to pinpoint what exactly their niche is when theres so many things going on that don't flesh well.. is the niche the safety net of potentially turning games with R? Who knows.

Their gimmick of being this unique bounty/duo doesn't serve any significant beneficial gameplay. Wolf+lamb doesn't really fit too well in the kit, and the things wolf does you could have any pet/robot/etc, and the third E proc is just an auto skinned and animated to use wolf... the bounty system gimmick doesn't help them at all, its a double edged sword thats harder to balance, then you have actual bounty systems like the hunter runes and rengar that actually work well.. then there's the gimmicky mark system bounty that doesn't work quite as well.. its there strictly for the thematic, not to enchance gameplay.)

Yes, its their character, but they could be way more fitting for what their character is.

"Marksmen in the jungle design" This is the whole point of their existence. It's not a gimmick, it's a niche

Nah thats still a gimmick, they designed them for the sole purpose of having a marksmen in the jungle. Making them marksmen doesn't flesh out their thematic much since lamb does all the auto attacking again. Its not a niche when Graves Twitch jungle were around. It'd be a niche if you're picking kindred to have an additional marksmen, or the fill in for lack of ADC, but as a design its still a gimmick they designed their playstyle around.

They EASILY could've went with anything other then marksmen in the jungle, like even a lamb/wolf Elise Nidalee transformation that fleshes out their thematic, or just a general assassin character for the bounty system, but even they knew rengar contested that too well.

Nidalee has an assassin/fast clear AP jungler niche Elise has a pick/early game tower dive pressure niche Kindred maybe could've been like a late game teamfighter transformation champ for a niche? Something like kayn (assassin/slayer) where one is a slayer and one is a marksmen? just throwing ideas.

As for changing them now, well yea its too late unless they VGU them. You can't really improve it by buffing them, because the overall idea of marksmen jungle was a massive failure in design, as evident by how toxic it is on Graves . We were just in a kindred meta and nobody could stand it, they're in a fair spot now but its still toxic. You could argue just range in general is an issue due to ranged autos and red buff, but kindred had several other approaches and they chose potentially the worst.

Kindred has issues that can be addressed but I don't think you understand the issues if you think it's because of failed gimmicks that need to >be removed or isolated. Kindred can essentially keep most tof her kit intact. What she needs is tuning to make her playstyle more rewarding >and less punishing.

You can't make something more rewarding/less punishing if the problem is when its rewarding, its harder to punish and part of kindred's issue is that they're either easily punishable, or completely batshit broken that they can make the plays for those rewards. Kindred's ult can be punished if kindred is useless, but when kindred is good (strength/fed wise) that ult is a nightmare with very little counterplay outside niche counter picks, as they just shred your team to atleast 50% so hers can completely clean up if not kindred themselves.

You can't make their mobility and ult more punishable without reworking those abilities/gutting them, and you can't make the mark system more rewarding without reducing punishment for going for those rewards. This is an endless cycle of balance mess that if lucky, you can achieve an even ground with for 1 patch.

Riot does need to focus on main issues. Thematic wise with wolf, from a gameplay standpoint who cares tbh, but their bounty, marksmen jg, and 50/50 teamfight ult thematic need a lot more focus and work.

EDIT: actually their niche at release was their %health mechanic. The fact marks gave % health in a meta where juggernauts and tanks were more common gave players a reason to pick kindred. While graves was more bursty, twitch was more early cheese + late game DPS shredding teams, kindred used to be a jungle bully that with %health and attack speed items, just shred through any unit. Nowadays idk