The Initial Reaction to Kindred

I will admit, with such an amazing teaser and foreshadowing I was quite disappointed with what came out (even made a post about being boring). However, this was just because I had my hopes too high. Looking closely at the champion and really analyzing how they function I see that the champion has a lot of really good high points in their design. I was expecting the perfect champion kit to represent two working together and although I still don't feel it lives up to what I was expecting they are still a good champion. Do I feel things could be better? Yes. Do I think they made an unimaginative champion? Not really.

Having time to think and really look over what they do I found I like:

W is the top thing. It's the best ability to represent that their are two of them. I love that it has a long duration of 8 seconds. At rank 1 it does 200+ damage!

Focus on Zone Control: I love the fact that Kindred is about Zone control with her W and R. It is also really neat that she can dash around a lot in that zone with Q.

A jungling ADC is a good idea. Don't get me wrong I love bot lane as I main support but I would love to see something other then ADC's in bot on occasion. Having other options for ADCs to go is really important to this. I hope they have the option for a few more ADC to go into the jungle for variation sake.

The ult is really really cool! The idea that no one (ally or enemy) can drop below 10% health for a time within a zone as it makes zone control even more important.

Choosing your passive mark. This is an amazing idea and I look forward to trying it out and seeing what kind of mind games I can play with my opponents.

Things I find I don't like now that I have had time to really look at them:

E - first off this ability is really really lame! It's not even really an ability and more just an AA steroid that you have to activate and only benefit from once. It seems like it was just tacked on to give them the ability to gank lanes. I really cannot express how much I don't like this ability. I get it's purpose but I really feel it isn't a good fit for them. I think this ability was what I really got a bad first impression from. That said, I understand that for her to function in the jungle she needs a way to reliably gank enemy lanes and CC them a bit or have a really efficient way to chase them down a lane. As she is about zone control and not chasing I get why they gave her a point and click slow instead of something else.

The ult doesn't utilize both Lamb and Wolf. R is a big part of their kit and I love the way it works but I was really disappointed that it wasn't Lamb AND Wolf working together to do something; instead it was just Lamb doing something. The ult is really powerful though so adding additional effects would probably be too powerful. I do think it would be cool if it triggered an empowered W when cast but perhaps that is just too much power. With the Q and R being some of the more visually appealing abilities I really got the feel that this was Lamb the champion with a wolf spirit more then Kindred.

All Told:

There are more aspects of Kindred I like then I don't like. Overall, I like the champion. Is it exactly what I wanted? No. Will I have fun playing an ADC jungler that can play mind games and have really powerful zoning control? Yes.