Boards›Gameplay

For the love of god please rework or buff Kindred, the champion's kit ain't made for today's jungle

Namazu Ebisu··4 votes·1,246 views

I'm sick and tired of all this mess that's been during for over a year and half since 2015's worlds. Since pre-season, a lot of champions have been buffed in the new jungle while some others struggle more than ever. I'm here just to talk about Kindred, which a lot of you probably see every 100 games or so and stats tell it that way.

There's a simple reason to that : the champion's kit is bad, outdated and anti-fun.

The damn lamb is a marksman for god sake, with absolutely no trade tool or whatsoever to survive the jungle. While Graves has burst and tankiness on his side, you have only your autos with Kindred to try and deal something, but you'll get burst by Lee, Rengar, Kha, Elise and all others while you even try to proc your E.

And see that's the problem, the whole thing about Kindred is you need your damn passive stacks to be DECENT but the passive is like a minigame in a fair where the guy actually set up the game so you're mostly the loser. Since you can't trade 90% of the junglers (slow animations, 0 damage, no sustain) you can't stack your passive most of the time! It was better back when the champion had some sustain, but every bit of good mechanic was removed to leave nothing but a creep in the jungle waiting to be killed.

I don't find it normal that in order to be DECENT you need to play like a challenger to actually try to win. The experience curve needed to accomplish something good on Kindred is completely different from most champions in the game. And even if you do good, the champion's current state makes it that you're still inferior in the jungle category.

Along with that, the theme about the duo is actually completely failed due to the fact that Wolf is useless. The W doesn't scale with your attack speed so after a 15 minutes mark no one will ever notice you actually have a W.

After all this time we should to aknowledge the issue, Kindred is :

  • Extremely Squishy
  • Has no sustain
  • No viable trading tools
  • Relies 100% on passive...
  • ...that requires tremendous efforts to stack
  • Wolf is unexistant, expect for talking
  • Entire kit is slow, the champion relies on autos on-hit but the rest ain't helping
  • Her Super Galaxy skin is a violation to all rights

So how about some changes to keep the game balanced and let players enjoy their champions rather than seeing people completely leaving it because it's unplayable?

10 Comments

AgeOfTheMage2 votes

well, i tend to do just fine as kindred jg, i have 2 builds, ones an assassin and ones a regular. assasin: your passive does physical damage, so go full lethality(i get bloodrazor) or, regular build: bloodrazor, bork, ruunans are the 3 main items, yomumu's is a nice touch and then you build whatever else(mobi's are good for getting marks) i take thunderlords since she bursts them down instantly(since she does more damage the more health they have) meaning it'll scare them into running, allowing you to pick up a kill, for champs like reng, your ult is good for stopping burst champs from killing you instantly, allowing you to have more time to fight back.

Namazu Ebisu1 votes

Warrior ain't ever an option as jungler? Thanks for the response.

AgeOfTheMage1 votes

it CAN work, but the bonus percentage damage and the attack speed helps a ton with your passive meanwhile all warrior does is ad and cdr personally, i like kindred where they are, i enjoy their kit and they're super fun to play, their scalings aren't the greatest, but their main form of damage is in percetage(their marks) their e does max health, bork and bloodrazor do current and max health, and your passive does current health.

Jaygo412 votes

Someone else said it before but i like the saying, and it applies to Kindred

GIVE THEM AN INCH AND THEY'LL TAKE A MILE. This game is purposefully balanced around high elo. Kindred, when fairly strong, is oppressive. They are a fine niche pick. Leave it

EndlessSorcerer2 votes

Sadly, one of Kindred's main issues is their core identity: they are a marksman.

The jungle role tends to favour champions with certain traits (high base stats, mobility, hard-CC, innate sustain) that marksmen traditionally lack. As another complication, marksmen are generally gold-reliant champions and the jungle traditionally provided lower income than lanes (though that isn't necessarily true for this season).

Kindred lacks any real recovery or fallback options if she falls behind in the jungle due to the nature of her kit:

  • She lacks hard-CC (can't initiate, peel or lock-down targets)
  • She has low innate damage (so building her defensively is inefficient)
  • She has low durability (so she can't be a damage-soak)

Exacerbating this issue is the difficulties Kindred dealing with many of the meta junglers (i.e. Vi, Lee Sin, Hecarim, Zac, Shyvana). These champions have:

  • significantly better base stats (clearing and dueling)
  • sufficient innate damage to threaten opponents even when build for durability
  • stronger ganks due to their mobility, CC and burst damage

If this wasn't enough, these champions excel at diving the enemy backline and killing squishy targets (which is exactly what Kindred is). Not only are they stronger early-game, they are designed specifically to kill/disrupt champions like Kindred during teamfights.

However, Kindred is also being held back by external factors. The main issue is their role in team compositions (and what is required to enable them).

Kindred is a squishy, low-utility marksman incapable of initiating teamfights. If they want to survive and excel, they need allies on the front-line to initiate, soak damage and peel. While is less of an issue at the moment due to the popularity of CoC tanks in top-lane (i.e. Nautilus, Poppy, Maokai), this isn't always the case and your team won't always pick them.

If the other lanes (specifically, top and bottom) happen to pick champions with poor initiation/peel/durability (i.e. Riven, Yasuo, Brand, Fiora, Irelia, Soraka, Lux), your team composition is outright screwed. The team will lack the ability to dictate fights (initiation, disengage) and nobody will be able to protect/enable the carries on the team.

Sadly, these issues aren't particularly easy to solve since they are rooted in the meta-game and player's attitudes.

Kindred can be and is powerful when used properly and in the correct situation. Kindred is great at melting the enemy front-line due to her high sustained and percentage-health damage and her ultimate can completely turn teamfights when used properly.

Sadly, situations in which Kindred is a poor option are far more common.

Personally, I would probably recommend trying the following build. It works fairly well with Kindred's main purpose (melting the enemy front-line) and provides decent durability/utility. item 1001 item 1419 item 3085 item 3022 item 3071 item 3026

3BallWarsaw1 votes

Build her for burst, like you would Graves. It's alot better now than building attack speed.

Namazu Ebisu1 votes

What? You mean, warrior/cleaver/death'sdance/youmuu etc...?

I could give it a try, just did a really cool game with the atk speed build (finally)

http://puu.sh/tc0WK/cc514c569e.jpg

But as said...it just takes too much effort :|

Thanks for the heads up!

3BallWarsaw1 votes

Warrior, Cleaver, Maw, Rapid Fire, defense. When you have burst over attack speed you are much stronger when you gank. The W,Q, and 3 shots with E will pack enough for your laner to help finish most champs. You fall off more late game not going the attack speed route, but I feel the burst build makes ganking so much more reliable it worth it to close games early.

Rakdos Cackler1 votes

I just got seven on her, and I've had a lot of luck with Brazor->Cleaver->Maw->GA->Randuins. as silly as randuins sounds, It really works well on her to be able to out trade crit based marksmen. I dont build it unless the other adc is a big issue, otherwise i get PD or blood thirster

JRobin311 votes

IMO, RIOT never really understood the marksman jungler and then they released the Kindred minigame... which I agree is terrible.

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 Namazu Ebisu

I made some changes to the Alpha Client pick phase after watching the Worlds's layout!
Story, Art, & Sound73 comments
257
votes
Why aren't Zyra's auto whip strikes ?
Gameplay107 comments
218
votes
R.I.P VORPAL BLADE
Gameplay239 comments
187
votes
What would make Shen truely AWESOME : Q collison damage
Gameplay35 comments
58
votes
Chromas are targeting the wrong audience and are going to sink again, please hear me out.
Story, Art, & Sound51 comments
50
votes
Is PBE lacking to do it's job or Riot is ?
Gameplay30 comments
46
votes