Possible Kindred Changes
So I think we all can agree Kindred is not in the best of places at the moment. Over the past few weeks I have seen a few comments about Kindred and if they will be getting buffs. I was thinking and I want to put an idea out there for a possible change to them. Before I begin to discuss my thoughts I do want to state that I am a Kindred main and have many hours played with this champion.
New W
My whole idea is a changed W. The W is not going to change their passive but rather Wolf itself. While playing Kindred for the large amount of games I have had on them I have seen that wolf is very loosely tied to their image and is only seen when W is used or when you walk around and Wolf is floating by lambs side. Moreover Lamb seems to be the spot light and even when you think of the name Kindred in league the first image to pop up may be of Lamb than you would think of Wolf. Since this is a Champion that is technically two I feel like the W should be changed to make Wolf more prevalent while playing Kindred
** New W Effects:**
The new W would be an ability that when activated would allow wolf to attack on his own like the current w however is not restricted to a zone and is treated as a pet. Wolf now will have a health bar which can either be two things:
- Hit based: Which is a health bar such as Zyras plants and Malzahars voidlings where it will take a certain amount of hits to kill wolf and make him return to following lamb
- Based off of a flat amount: This would be as Kindred levels up and the spell levels up Wolf will gain an increased amount of health when w is activated similar to Daisys and Tibbers health bar where you have to deal that amount of damage to kill it. However Wolf will not regen health.
The W will also have a higher ad scaling, a small attack speed scaling, wolf can heal himself with life steal, and to combat all the new additions wolf will only be able to apply 25% of the damage of Kindred's passive hunt damage or depending on how powerful the changes may be not be able to apply the passive at all. Wolf will attack targets that kindred is focusing and will not automatically seek out targets to attack. This will allow for Lamb to have Wolf at her side in the jungle and not constantly agro every single creep or expose Kindred's position. There is also another big change which is that if a champion is below 33%, is in a certain range of Kindred and is visible to Kindred, Wolf will gain increased movement speed toward that champion and automatically start to attack that champion. There will be an indicator to both the Kindred player and to the champion chased by Wolf that Wolf is going after then. This idea mainly came about off of their lore which is that Lamb is a quick death and Wolf is a drawn out and longer death so if someone does not want a swift death then it means they want a long, drawn out one and Wolf is ready for this chase. In their lore and quotes wolf like to chase those who want a long drawn out death so this change allows him to do so. With his chase, similar to other pets, once the champion is out of vision Wolf will go to the spot the champion was last spotted at before returning to Lamb. Wolf will also have a range that he can chase champions at, which will increase slightly with level of the ability, and will return to Lamb upon reaching the end of this range.
The W will also have a much longer cool down which will be around a 60-45 second cool down mainly due to the fact the ability will not go on cool down until wolf is killed and wolf will stay out until he is killed or Kindred is killed. To make it clear he will not have a set period of time before he disappears he stays out until he is killed. So wolf will be present with Lamb and can be a threat with her until he is pushed out of combat and killed. This will allow kindred to clear the jungle at a rate which others can and survive against all the other junglers and champions (which can easily kill them at early levels since Kindred is an adc in the jungle) while they collect their marks while counter jungling. This will also give them more of an unique feel when they are on the opposite team giving a thought to enemy champions of "Should I try to kill Kindred in their Jungle? They may have Wolf following them" rather than the current thought of "ADC in the Jungle. I have a few of my items I can kill them easily".
So this is my idea which I think can solve Kindred's problems and improve their identity as a Dual Spirit of Death giving Wolf a more prevalent role in their kit. This is just my idea and I hope that Riot will consider it for Kindred.
