Kindred 8.11 and beyond
I really appreciate that Riot is trying to do something about Kindred since the changes made in 8.10. However, I am highly skeptical that the changes they are putting forth in 8.11 will have the desired affect they are looking for.
Lowering the spawn time of when kindred's first mark appears to match the skuttle spawn time is something that honestly should have launched with 8.10 and I am very happy to see it being rectified so quickly. However, with the importance of skuttle crab and the number of early game champions on the rise kindred still only has a 25% chance of getting that first crab as they only have a 50% chance of it spawning on the crab they decide to go for and another 50% chance that the enemy jungler didn't decide to go for the same crab. If Kindred does not get the first crab then their only option will be to either gank a lane that they mark giving the person 8 seconds to get to safety or kindred risks killing them before the mark goes off, or to wait a full 2:30 for the next skuttle to spawn.
Which brings me to my next point. While I see the attempt to make Kindreds marks more consistent by lowering the CD timer on when wolf marks a camp I do not feel kindred is currently barred by that timer. The timer for getting marks off jungle camps is more largely tied to the camps respawn timers as the early marks are on camps people regularly clear, other than raptors, so even lowering it down to 30 seconds I doubt would have an affect on how many marks some one could get from camps in the enemy jungle due to respawn timers.
My suggestion: I have always agreed that the marks should be a premeditated thing. Being able to swap marks in the middle of a fight or instantly mark a target I would always consider wrong. I also do not disagree with the idea that the passive part of the mark system should allow for enemy counter play and thus should appear on the map. I do not believe the active portion should provide as much counter play as it currently does though. Kindred is one of the only junglers that actively gives away the fact they are ganking without getting any benefit from it. When someone like Warwick gives away they are ganking by using their W they gain a huge speed boost, or when someone uses Predator they gain a speed boost. Another example would be Rengar's Ult which doesnt appear until rengar is fairly close to the target and none of these give the person a full 8 seconds to get to their tower regardless of how low health they are.
Ultimately I suggest that we make Kindred's champion marks invisible to the enemy team. By doing this Kindred no longer gives away their intent to gank while still requiring the gank to be premeditated. A con to this is, of course, you lose the ability to play "mind games" with your opponent, but in truth those mind games are much less important to Kindred's game play than actually acquiring marks. Thematically it works because as the embodiment of Death in Runtera Kindred is not usually scene until the moment the person is about to be killed and no one gets a warning as to when that might happen. It is always going to suck to get ganked and killed and it is always going to put the person who ganked you ahead.
Right now Kindred gives to much warning to those ganks and if they do not give that warning they do not scale as well as other carry junglers without their marks. Doing this would make marks more consistent and bring more options to the way a Kindred player decides to play and makes them less reliant on any changes the jungle may receive. In the end, I think it would simply make them easier to balance around as changes come through to the jungle, items or champions.
Thank you everyone at Riot that took the time to read this and Happy Hunting.
A concerned Kindred player, Tunehunter
