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I get that kindred is weak and some people are upset but...

SquashCannon·7/20/2017, 11:04:33 PM·54 votes·5,341 views

I look no further than scarra's warnings when it comes to this champion.

She's either strong enough to contest marks and dominates the jungle, or she's not and needs outside help to basically 2 v 1 marks and she sucks ass.

Before the rework, when she was strong she would just stack hard for free and deal 2 borks worth of your HP on each auto late game while having her signature cockblock ultimate when you finally do catch her.

After the rework, if she becomes strong, she'll stack for free and attack 95% of league's champions from without their range, with her hop allowing her to kite them forever.

You think gnar is fucking bad for melees? Imagine this bitch if she's ever allowed to be strong, she'll make most ranged champions feel like how we juggernaut mains feel, and as for how she would make us feel? LUL.

Kindred will most likely need a full scale rework. Putting an infinite scale ADC in the jungle was one of riot's bigger 2016 (2015?) fuck ups.

58 Comments

Clementine7/21/2017, 1:05:27 AM23 votes

I love Kindred with all my heart character wise, she's just so cool. Her lore and personality will be forever better than her gameplay

Shadow Hazard7/21/2017, 12:30:24 AM10 votes

Ya I would like to here from meddler on this. Kindred's fundamental design is literally the effect of what happens when they screw up an infinite scaling idea for the ones playing the champ. It may be possible to have the infinite scaling while having the champ be able to reliably get their stacks like viegar, nasus, bard, thresh. The infinite scalers can all build up reliably and kindred is literally the only one who can theoretically end the game with zero stacks.

BeatinWarDrumz7/21/2017, 3:06:46 AM9 votes

Kindred's gameplay also doesn't really fit their fantasy either. Thei'r supposed to be this duo that relentlessly hunts one person down... instead it's a kiting pet character?

nice table7/21/2017, 10:13:11 AM6 votes

kindreds kit is the most horrible abomination this games ever faced, and that says a lot with shit like azir being in the game.

Hexs Fortune7/21/2017, 7:44:24 AM4 votes

Kindred is properly referred to in the plural, not the singular. Never one, without the other.

KoKoboto7/21/2017, 5:35:10 AM3 votes

I have no idea why lambs thighs are the way they are. Wtf?

Tormentula7/22/2017, 7:54:46 AM2 votes

I wouldn't mind kindred getting a rework to become a duel form champion exactly (and I mean exactly not kayn, shy, or gnar's bullshit) like Nidalee Elise to give both lamb and wolf even spotlights and purposes.

Lamb should be the immobile one that out ranges and tries to shoot her opponents, like varus. Wolf should be a chaser or something similar to the diet version of current warwick, hell replace him with nocturne. Besides, wolf is the only one who even needs a new model.. he's just a floating head, lamb at least has..thighs and body proportions to work with and simply re-animate rather then visually update.

Personally I like kindred's gameplay as is, but without a doubt riot has no idea where to balance this champion considering you have to remedy the strengths and weaknesses of a marksmen and a jungler at the same time, and those usually contradict themselves. I feel every change riot makes to kindred they're targeting the wrong place to change, when honestly their old kit would've been a much difference story if you changed that bullshit ultimate which shouldn't exist on anything but a support. They do need a rek'sai update except in terms of new abilities rather than just numbers like they got.

In all honestly, I don't know why people hate new kindred over old one. Last I checked new kindred has a balanced success rate compared to old kindred which had a lower playrate and winrate. Is everyone still adjusting to the changes and just hate how the update started off? Or is this the shaco scenario where the update was undeniability better but it just feels shit.

TheMoralSupport7/21/2017, 8:29:43 AM2 votes

They... it's actually they

triggering intensifies

Rainfall7/21/2017, 8:52:07 AM2 votes

now time to go to all kindred posts and comment"dont be upsetti eat some spaghetti"

Blakiepug7/21/2017, 1:59:43 PM2 votes

I mean this is true, but Scarra also thought Jhin was in this same position and was actually saying he should be nerfed if anything and then Riot buffed him. Even though Scarra is probably right, it's undeniable that Kindred is struggling. If Riot finds appropriate buffs, then I wouldn't be opposed since she clearly needs the help and I don't think she dominates the meta as much as you tend to make it sound when she is strong.

TricolorStar7/21/2017, 2:11:30 PM2 votes

My biggest problem isn't that they nerfed Kindred into the ground (although as a Kindred main I'm a little salty). It's the fucking hypocrisy behind it all.

So you make a champion that requires actual forethought, planning, and strategy in order to get going (securing marks takes a lot of pre-planning and even then you'll sometimes get rolled), but because they were a 'ranged jungle carry' they were not allowed to thrive in the current meta.

Meanwhile, Graves was forced out of the ADC role and into the jungle role, where he was and still is crushing it to this day. Even those tiny nerfs to True Grit did nothing to stop him. As well as this, Twitch and Kog'Maw, while niche jungle picks, still steamroll and dominate when they get even one kill ahead.

But no, they were too powerful and thus were literally nothing but nerfed until they had to have a mini-rework and still they are in a bad spot. If you're going to do that to a brand-new champion before they even had time to find their place or for people to learn how to counterplay, you should definitely do it to Graves as well.

The Leo Cat7/21/2017, 2:55:39 PM2 votes

If she's allowed to be strong. Her early game is so god damn weak for absolutely no god damn reason now. I prefered the old Kindred because she could actually deal with shit early, and was oppressive

BØLT7/21/2017, 3:12:07 PM2 votes

Honestly I like Kindred's theme, like the overall story and such is 10/10. BUT in actual gameplay her kit doesnt seem to make much sense at all. When there was an official Jungler role tag they all had some clear jungle traits, just look at Nunu/Nocturne/Fiddle/Diana/etc. Kindred strikes me as something that was forced into jungling by Riot for the sake of trying to disrupt the "meta", which they were dead-set on doing for a long time. Her super low threat range just made it so she would get dumpstered bot lane by virtually any combo until she somehow got enough stacks to do some real damage. Imagine if vayne had 500 range lol, Annie/Sona/Leona/Karma etc would completely dumpster vayne for the first 10 minutes or more.

Right now I think her kit design is 100% confused, shes got a skirmish kit **NOT ** an ADC kit, but they gave her slightly better ad ratios and has the attack speed increase per mark but no on-hit effects at all. Her AOE threat is virtually zero and is nothing like MF/Sivir/Twitch/Etc but her single target attacks do not necessarily scale to match other single target ADCs in damage (Jhin/Kalista/Vayne/Draven/Etc). base stats make her super squishy and the actual max range is 750. BUT needs 13 stacks to match Cait/Trist in range, and an absurd number of 22 stacks to match Jinx/Kog in range (that doesnt mean she matches their overall spell/threat range) With the way her kit works right now that means she could really really abuse some melee champs when super fed, but as an ADC still wont ever be as good as the others just because of her abilities being focused on skirmishing/diving.

What will happen if they rework her though??? They could easily just make her a legit ADC and change the entire kit, make her scale to a set point of balance like the old Cass did with the passive stacking, and make the wolf like actually do something. BUT I think that Riot will say "NO SHE MUST BREAK THE META!" and say its her core design idea to be a ranged AD jungler and make her a ridiculously op jungler again and then nerf it down into trash tier a few months or so after the rework terrorizes LCS and they are done with it and act like they dont know what to do to balance Kindred just like Eve. And just like Eve she will receive the most massive nerfs ever seen in history, again.

loli nukes7/22/2017, 12:08:47 AM2 votes

Issue with the changes is they made her into a jungle adc, but she lacks the dueling abilty/ damage of the other early traders while not having that good of a late game. Kindred should have early game tools to help, and her current kit lacks that completely.

Scopé7/21/2017, 12:07:16 PM1 votes

IMO marks should feel more like a "cherry on top" instead of a crucial part of their kit. This way, power from marks could be shifted into other abilities since marks would no longer give lots of free stats. Also, making them less meaningful could enable Riot to give Kindred more reliable way to stack (maybe not RNG based).

The bad news though, is that the entire system of marks was supposed to make Kindred more gold independent than most marksmen, giving them power when they succeed and allowing to catch up when their ganks were poor... It didn't quite turned out this way making the champion very feast or famine.

Also, I don't believe that Riot would do a full scale VGU to them in the future. Yes, their fantasy and lore is pretty far away from their kit, but on the other hand Kindred are supposed to be a jungling marksman, and that's the concept that Riot sticks to. But maybe they will eventually find something suitable... Who knows.

(This comes from almost 0.5 million mastery points OTP)

Salson7/21/2017, 12:19:06 PM1 votes

Their base kit is fine and fun to play.

Infinite scaling however is a bad and unbalanced mechanic.

Koolista7/22/2017, 4:02:29 AM1 votes

with this information... have you even bothered to look at her winrate or playrate? Because what it really sounds like is that 3 or 4 kindreds kicked your ass and you're just salty about it. Let the good kindreds be Good and the Shit kindreds struggle, a champion is suppose to shine when people have the skill it takes to play them properly, thats the point.

zlumpy7/21/2017, 5:54:29 AM1 votes

They should work on kalista and kindred at the same time. Sounds like they share basic kit design problems that cause them to be a pain for balance.

Linna Excel7/22/2017, 3:16:54 AM1 votes

Kindred will most likely need a full scale rework.

???

Her graphics are fine. It's her passive which seems to be the biggest point of contention. That's something which could be fixed or changed in a mid-sized rework I believe.