Boards›Gameplay

Kindred is (are?) the worst champion in the game: Change My Mind

zeskgames·5/7/2019, 10:55:12 PM·4 votes·3,349 views

I have the solemn belief that Kindred: The Eternal Hunters are the worst champion in all of League of Legends. In this list I want to detail a few reasons why I think so, and what I think could be done to make them better. 1. The Passive: On paper, Kindred has an amazing passive. Get stacks by killing certain champions and/or monsters, those stacks enhance your other abilities and every 4 stacks increases Kindred's attack range. Sounds great right? Wrong. Kindred's passive is like communism, it sounds great on paper but when you read between the lines you see how horrible it is. Firstly everyone on the map and their grandma can see where Kindred's hunts are, for some reason. So, how do you play against Kindred? Simple, just check to see where their next mark is, grab a teammate or two, wait for them to show up and, ta-dah, free kill. If I had a dollar for every-time I went into to enemy jg to just to get ambushed by two or three enemies sitting in a nearby bush, I'd probably only have like 34-ish dollars, but it still happened a lot. The Solution: I have two for the passive; A. Make some of the early hunts spawn in Kindred's jungle. Why do I have to risk my neck going super deep into enemy territory to get stacks that are ESSENTIAL to my play style? That's like having Nasus only able to stack if he's in the enemy base. Why not throw Kindred players (all 7 of them) a bone and have some of the earlier hunts spawn in the player's jungle? And maybe after 3 or 4 successful hunts then they spawn in the enemy jungle? Or B. If A is to extreme for you how about this, make it so that enemies, ya know, CAN'T see the HUNTS? If jungle-camp-based hunts were not on the mini-map, it would allow Kindred to actually counter-jungle without the threat of being insta-bodied as soon as they get to the mark. The marks are essential to their kit, but people use them to set traps and rake in the free kills, so what's even the point? It feels like the game itself is trying to get you killed. Think of it like this, what if every time Evelyn went invisible, her position was marked on the mini-map for everyone to see? Seem fair to you?

2. The Ultimate: Kindred's ultimate, without sugar coating at all, is terrible. My main gripe with the ultimate is why does it make enemies invincible? Does Kayle have the option of Ulting her opponent? No, Does Kled Ult speed up enemies? No, Does Soraka heal everyone on the map? No, Can Yasuo Ult damage teammates? No. I could go on for every single champion Ult in the game but you get the point. Kindred's ultimate is in most situations actually more advantageous to their opponents than it is for their own team. The Solution: Make the invincibility and heal for teammates only, that's right I said it. I know some people would think that's broken, but I would say the following. "If you think Kindred's ult being teammate only would be busted, then how come I don't see you complaining about Soraka ultimate not healing enemies?" Other ultimates don't effect both teams the same way, so why does Kindreds?

Conclusion: Counter-play is good and essential for all champions to be balanced, but Kindred is a perfect example of a champion having to much counter-play, and enemy players can and will take advantage of it. As long as Kindred is in this state they will continue to be in the bottom of the barrel and almost never see any play outside of a few weirdos who like their play-style and general theme (like me). But, as I said in the title, I am open to discussion, so if you think you can, change my mind.

25 Comments

Chembaron Yamada5/7/2019, 11:21:40 PM6 votes

Kindreds ultimate is not the only one affecting both teams equally. Bard Taliyah

And making the invincibility just for Kindreds team is an absolute no-go. Think for a moment about the consequences here:

  • towerdiving with Kindred becomes absurdly easy, since the enemy can't jump into their ult to save themselves from death. Meaning that you get a big time window to kill the enemy under tower and then hopping away with a bag of gold and a free stack
  • after level 6, contesting objecives against Kindred would become almost impossible. It wouldn't affect dragons/baron anymore, you can't kill Kindreds team in that time, but Kindreds team can easily kill your jungler if he dares to go for a smite-fight
  • extreme teamfighting potential, we are talking about 5 man invincibility here. And unlike Tarics, which makes his team invincible, Kindreds ultimate is instant, while Taric has a long and highly telegraphed built up

They would have to gut their ultimate after this change, decreasing the duration, giving it a long windup like Tarics ultimate, etc. I don't think you would really want that.

Quepha5/7/2019, 11:08:35 PM4 votes

The ultimate is about the only part of the kit that I like because it's weird, situational, niche, and really evokes the life/death idea of the character. Everything else in their kit, however, is really dull and boring and completely fails to sell Kindred as a duo, you simply feel like you're playing Lamb.

In terms of balance it seems like they're a pretty big failure too. It seems like Riot has to take the natural systems in the game and make them bend over backwards to give Kindred a decent power curve and they can go from broken to useless at every stage of the game every other patch depending on very minor changes. It seems like it must be brutal to be someone who likes playing Kindred when you might want to spend half a season avoiding ranked because you auto-lose, and then the rest of the season praying you don't get banned out because no one can stand to play against them.

cars3n5/7/2019, 11:33:54 PM3 votes

I don't think Kindred's marks are an issue, coming from a kindred player. They put a giant target on the map, yes, so instead of letting the team trap YOU, outmaneuver and outsmart the enemies while they're focused on the mark. If my mark is on red side krugs and top is looking bad, of course i'm not forced to go pick it up. Instead, while the enemy jungle beelines to the mark, I'm going to go clear their entire bot side along with dragon. Tracking the enemy jungler is even easier when the marks are there because they disappear soon after taken (makes kindred easier to track too, not really a big issue) so you can go gank without the threat of being countered and pick up a mark from a lane instead. Don't fight over marks if you can't, just trade something even better. [galio-happy]

Lambtail5/8/2019, 1:43:42 AM3 votes

While I do agree that Kindred has room for improvement when it comes to QoL, I don't think this is the best way to go about it. One thing you're not considering is the consequences, and how it may look on the enemy team. For starters, as great as it sounds to have early marks in the ally jungle sounds, you have to keep in mind how much they give, and for how long. This means that the enemy jungler has to invade to put Kindred behind in the stacks department, which not every jungler can do. As for your Nasus analogy, imagine Nasus getting to farm freely for 10 minutes without anyone to poke him out, simply because they'd have to put on an aggressive and just as equally predictable strategy to put a stop to that. It's very similar to Devourer, and all the issues it had. You also have to always consider how you play, and the elo you're in, too. If you've learned that the enemy jungler likes to wait at your mark or to prioritize them, then take advantage by doing something else. I can assure you that pushing for tower plating or even a dragon, or even the enemy jungle camps as a punishment is absolutely worth just one mark, considering how little they give. Stacks no longer being visible on the enemy map, though, is a huge no-go. Picture the same Nasus analogy, but you don't know where he's going to be. And while you're clueless, they stack up. One sided information has little to no counterplay. As for Lamb's Respite, I quite like it the way it is. It's highly skill expressive in the means of knowing when it use it, and how to use it. It's obnoxious as is to be on the opposing end a lot of the time, though, so imagine if it's a 5-man Tryndamere Ultimate. Nasty stuff. Either way, Kindred is just fine where they are. I generally think there's not much need to change anything, considering even a slight tweak could end up putting Kindred in perma-banned territory again. Speaking of tweaks, I'm still salty that complaining was enough to justify a nerf to riot towards the already weak slow on Mounting Dread lol. But if they're gonna make any changes, I think they're better off doing something along the lines of either making marks disappear the moment they're killed for equal information, similar to how Skarner's spires work. Or, just an outright passive change again. I think everyone can agree that Kindred seriously needs more to do with their passive, since that's the whole thematic. I hate having to pass up marks because they're not worth the time in most cases. but it's a lot of effort and time to figure out a balanced solution for it. Not even reverting the passive to what it was initially would save it, even though I wish it would. Or maybe even make Champion marks unique, like Rengar. Stronger buffs for Champion marks only, but in turn can't mark who you've gotten a mark from already. Hell, even adding amplified damage to marked champions or boosted movement speed towards them would be a welcomed change. Though, of course, take these with a grain of salt. They're nothing more than food for thought.

tunehunter5/8/2019, 6:49:00 AM1 votes

So I read some of the arguments in the lower posts and read the original post, but I think it would be NICE and would help low elo players that like Kindred if they added a visual tracking for their passives cool down on jungle camps. Those that play kindred a lot know that they remark a camp 45 seconds after another camp died so if there was a way for the kindred player to see that timer preemptive guessing where the mark will spawn would be much easier for the kindred player and could make playing them easier for low elo players without changing their effectiveness at high elo's. Just a thought. They currently have the cool down for marking champs available, but if they found a way to show this as well I honestly believe most of the complaints about low elo kindred being weak might disappear as people would now know when a mark was about to spawn and could thus learn how to predict WHERE that spawn was going to happen.

Wordson1x5/9/2019, 3:56:19 PM1 votes

Kindred is one of my mains and after reading most of this it would make the so Champion op. Kindred is a high skill jungle, that's why you see mostly pros play them. So in order to make them work you have to be very good with them. But if Riot was to make these changes in pro play they would be a prema ban. Mark 4 is a power spike so giving a Kindred their 4th mark in their own jungle would just be dumb. And the ult only working for 1 team wouldn't even be fair! It last for 4 sec and heals at the end. So whoever has the Kindred on their team would win most of the time.

Ahri Baka5/7/2019, 10:58:11 PM1 votes

Kindred is a jungler by the way.

Shahamut5/10/2019, 3:24:17 AM1 votes

Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner Skarner

Mavëríck5/7/2019, 11:51:01 PM1 votes

You don't like people knowing where Kindred's hunts are? Yet nobody ever mentions how Rengar, the invisible hunter/stalker, alerts his prey whenever he's near... what kind of sense does that make?!

Tormentula5/8/2019, 2:12:20 AM1 votes

Kindred is fine rn.

The fact that the current meta consist of these;

JarvanIV Elise LeeSin Rammus Kayn RekSai Hecarim Nunu Evelynn

and a marksmen jungler somehow manages to have a balanced statistic with them in Korean Diamond according to lolalytics, being 51.42% WR, 7.98% pickrate, and averaging an 8% banrate over the past week... should speak for itself. Even IWD climbed to grandmaster playing kindred (not exclusively but he's a meta slave user typically)

  1. High elo kindreds actually abuse this too well, if you're inexperienced with kindred then it'll feel like shit considering efficiency of getting marks is part of their skill ceiling. Doesn't matter if everybody sees it on the map, what matters is if the kindred can predict where the next mark will be via the number of marks they currently have and what jungle camps are spawning in addition to having jungler tracking experience to track which camps come up first, something good kindreds can abuse. Kindred's terrain scaling and just being at that camp when it spawns is what nets them stacks. Of course inting for ones you obviously can't go for without priority isn't a viable option, but its way easier getting marks then you make it out to be. Of course enemies can also predict these marks, its this concept called counterplay. (and lets be real, unless you have the wiki open and are constantly clicking to check kindred's marks whenever they show in vision, its unlikely the enemy can predict these as easily for this to consistently be countered)

A. this solution makes things worse because it essentially invites the enemy into your jungle. If marks are in their jungle, there's only two locations they can be, making prediction easier (or play making, say they do go to your marked gromp on their side of the jungle, and you trade for rift herald or top. If they instead go in your jungle to invade that mark, you're cornered with fewer options as the goon squad goes into YOUR jungle instead of camping into THEIRS.)

B. This removes part of the counterplay. The thing is that mark gives information as to where potential pathing options maybe, if only kindred is given that information, that's a huge disadvantage to the opponent who has absolutely no interaction to be able to deny that mark. This is why skarner's changes were fine because neither team had more information, and you could still identify the spires by scrolling around looking at them, and tracking via taking them and knowing when they're been switched on or off. The only balanced options would be both teams or neither team could see the mark, and i think that would be even more frustrating for the player actually trying to find them (kindred).

  1. Let this sink in; a 6 item marksmen that can reach 600 or more range, with invincibility. Yea thats actually dumb, if anything that ult needs removed entirely if thats the design. Fucking hell you're basically giving kindred the entire gold funneling strat with taric+yi (ranged yi mind you, i fucking played against this 3 times TODAY and the mere thought of another one tilts me even more) in a single kit, even kayle doesn't auto during her invincibility considering she can just 1v9 if she did, fuck she does that currently. Old kayle perhaps, but her kit limited her to AP itemization so she wasn't actually stacking as much damage as a crit or on-hit marksmen, and she didnt benefit well from defensive items like QSS, maw, Phantom dancer, Death's Dance, etc.

It affects everybody because it doesn't auto win the game for kindred, and there are still scenarios where its actually beneficial to ult enemies (you can ult baron to deny them smiting it, in a tower dive you can save the enemy longer to juggle the aggro to somebody else before commiting to fully killing them, etc). Typically, if you have to ult, its when you're about to die so its a lose-lose either way, except it gives the chance to bring them low enough before you die either for a) your team or b) to kite them out of it and finish them with a properly timed E execute.

"If you think Kindred's ult being teammate only would be busted, then how come I don't see you complaining about Soraka ultimate not healing enemies?"

Because that wouldn't make sense??? lol?? Kindred is a hyper carry that needs counterplay so it doesn't 1v9 at the press of a button. Imagine ranged tryndamere with runaans, thats what you're asking for. Raka essentially gives up a teamslot just to heal allies, it doesn't need to heal opponents because her kit dedicated to doing basically one thing is already the drawback.

I wouldn't say kindred has too much counterplay. If anything I'd say there isn't enough lmfao. Even some pros wish kindred didn't have such bullshit terrain scaling and the ability to do whatever the fuck they want because high elo kindreds actually track junglers and position smart.

######also kindred isn't trundle atm.

LegacyDAP5/8/2019, 5:26:58 AM1 votes

Kindred is actually insane right now in high elo solo queue.