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Kindred could fit better into the whole Death theme by ditching the infinite scaling

Rito Staff·9/30/2017, 7:09:31 PM·73 votes·3,921 views

For starters, playing Kindred doesn't feel like we are playing the two-sided one-character that this champion is supposed to be. Their VO feels like so and so does Kindred lore, which leaves it pretty clear about there being two personalities, which are the one and same relentless Death. The gameplay however completely dismisses Wolf. In fact, it is probably because of the gameplay that people mistakenly call Kindred a she, because when you play Kindred you are actually playing Lamb. In game, Wolf is as much Kindred as Orianna's ball is Orianna.

So why not have our first full-time micro champion? (I'm unsure if this was the direction Riot originally wanted)

Basically, they'd be split all the time, and the ultimate could be the button to change inbetween Lamb and Wolf.

On the thematic talk, death doesn't grow stronger with every "kill". Something that grows undefinitly is actually something anti-death. Any power hungry mofo that wants infinite power ultimately just wants immortality. And I won't even touch how ironic Kindred's current ultimate is. Death has more to do with the exchange of energy, and with impermanence (*cough the constant change between the 2 death emissaries)

Also, the split gameplay (and ganking two lanes at the same time) would enforce the idea that Death is omnipresent.

Kindred uniqueness would geer towards map pressure and micro (quite new to League)

To keep it simple and thematic, on the sense that Wolf is a dumb brute, he could have very simple one liner abilities, use energy and a maximum of 2 abilities at a time, so Kindred micro wouldn't become overloaded with to-doness or information, but become more about managing two characters that complement each other, and while stronger together, can also be apart. Lamb is the brains, Wolf is the muscle.

As for the abilities, the ones I most resonated with are Lamb and Wolfs passives, which relate to the relentlessness of Death.

Lamb Passive -- Death's Touch Lamb marks the last target she has hit gaining extra attack range towards them only, up until they leave your range.

**Wolf Passive -- ** Wolf gains movement speed running towards targets marked by Lamb.

How killing Kindred would work then? I'm not sure :l (maybe they could share the same HP?)

TL;DR

  1. The infinite scaling on Kindred hasn't worked before and isn't working now, and death is not about growing stronger with each reap -- Besides, we already have a few stacking champions and they go nicely under the radar, Veigar, Nasus and Sion and Cho (did I miss anyone?) this latter not exactly but I feel like after Worlds he'll be gone as he currently is.

  2. Split Lamb and Wolfs gameplay.

95 Comments

Ichi Ni San9/30/2017, 11:37:29 PM12 votes

lore doesn't equal gameplay.

cardsbejiggy9/30/2017, 7:45:01 PM9 votes

Having two different instances of Kindred in the same game seems like it'd be too buggy to even begin to start coding, much less finding out how one part would affect the other upon dying, however the general idea is incredibly interesting and I like it a lot.

JacctheInsomniac10/1/2017, 3:30:25 AM5 votes

[deleted]

ArkVeil10/1/2017, 11:56:35 AM5 votes

This sounds reminiscent to the Lost Vikings in Heroes of the Storm, the idea of having one champion be two entities you have to control. However, as stated by Riot ZenontheStoic:

do you think league has a possibility to have a 2 in 1 champion? like the Vikings on Heroes of the Storm

Short answer is it's unlikely.

Long answer! When we made League, we looked at the obvious inspiration, Dota, and made some baseline changes to the game that Dota, being a War3 mod, couldn't make. One of them is the "stickiness" of self selection. In League, you cannot "unselect" yourself as a unit, and this has a lot of positive implications, but it also means that RTS-like controls are out of scope. This is the most intuitive control scheme for multiple units.

So if we wanted to make a champ that was two independently controllable units, we would need to do a LOT of work on the UI / input side. Additionally, many skills learned on this champion would not be transferrable to other champions and no other champions would prepare you for this dual champion. And finally, because brain cycles are a finite resource, there is only so much complexity we could put into the champion's actual kit--most of its complexity budget would be eaten up already by the mere fact that you're controlling two independent units.

TL;DR: I don't think this kind of champion would be a good fit for League, but as always I could be wrong!

Edit: Source https://ask.fm/ZenonTheStoic/answers/133305820271 https://kotaku.com/why-league-of-legends-won-t-add-two-for-one-character-1729940670

SociopathFriend10/1/2017, 4:06:57 AM4 votes

The infinite scaling on Kindred hasn't worked before and isn't working now, and death is not about growing stronger with each reap

This is pretty opinionated. There's quite a few games where 'death' related characters gain power from killing. It makes plenty of sense to me. Death as a concept is always growing- more things are always dying and going into death's domain.

Split Lamb and Wolfs gameplay.

I would disagree this makes them more omnipresent and in fact hurts the angle. Because Death would not be everywhere- it would be two places instead of one. Furthermore this doesn't make sense- Lamb and Wolf exist because Death wants someone by its side- them going around together matches this theme.

Could Wolf have more impact? Yes, but I don't think splitting them in half and running around separately is the way to go about it.

ZapMyHeart9/30/2017, 8:02:03 PM3 votes

I feel like Kindred should have an execute or something just for the sole reason of her Death theme.

LeafyGreen10/2/2017, 12:07:36 AM3 votes

The whole point of Kindred is that Lamb and Wolf are two parts of a whole, so separating them totally would make them even worse.

Quepha10/1/2017, 7:12:45 PM3 votes

Misleading title. You aren't talking about a small update to replace infinite scaling, you're talking about a complete kit rework that completely changes how Kindred plays for the people who have been playing her.

Ben Sharpio9/30/2017, 7:45:13 PM3 votes

Sion, Nasus and kindred's stacking are examples of "sounds good on paper". Until you actually play them and realize they're chores, they suck dick and....... are horrible to play with.

You can play any other champion in their class and not have to work as hard, scale better, and have more fun lol

Ariel the Cruel9/30/2017, 9:29:52 PM3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ariel the Cruel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3JIXY0K0,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-09-15T07:40:45.314+0000)

The problem with Kindred is that her kit forces an unhealthy power curve to be viable. They either have to accept the "Early game hyper-scaling ADC" dilemma, or throw her into the "not allowed to be viable" bin. Her power budget is a train-wreck; and her passive is 80% of it.

[Shameless plug.]

SpecterVonBaren9/30/2017, 10:46:42 PM3 votes

Their entire kit needs to be remade honestly.

flibitydoo10/1/2017, 4:29:42 AM2 votes

the way her passive works with target selection feels like it makes way more sense on a proper assassin than on kindred

heck they could station a game mode around it where everyone get's to make bounties to hunt.

also wolf being a floating head just seems wrong, personally I'd rather wolf be like an animal companion that tanks and cc's for lamb while lamb directs him with arrows

but then again, most of kindred's kit is abstract, her their E ability doesn't really have a good explanation as to why it's there beyond being a tool to round out their kit.

heroikc9/30/2017, 8:40:41 PM2 votes

1.) The infinite scaling works in team play and has been a major goal of riot for designing purposes and encourages Kindred to be played as a roaming gank/control jungler. Removing it will likely just encourage everyone to play them as an ADC bot laner (which I find stupid, to begin with) and remove a big part of their late game scaling. 2.) I don't think that kind of rework can be done for LoL because it's more likely to permanently cripple this new Kindred concept you created; more bodies that can be controlled simultaneously means that aspects have to be nerfed, namely their health/sustain/damage. There's also the issue of how to itemize Kindred; I doubt Riot would just double their item set and both Lamb and Wolf would demand different item sets to be truly effective. Lastly, I can't imagine Riot even thinking of changing Kindred at all, just yet, given they are relatively new and there are many more champions in greater need of a rework (like Amumu, Singed, Mundo, Nunu, etc)

General Esdeath 10/1/2017, 8:27:45 AM2 votes

To be fair, death would grow in power over time.

PokladnicaZla10/1/2017, 7:52:56 PM2 votes

Honestly,always wondered why Rengar and Kindred don't switch their passives? I mean,Death claims only once.It would be more fitting it Kindred had to kill all champions once and Rengo could collected trophies of jng camp and champs.

Disulfiram10/2/2017, 9:21:29 AM2 votes

For the passive, what if

  1. You couldn't change your marked champion until he/she/it dies
  2. Damaging the marked champion gave Lamb a stacking (permanent until the target's death) %damage increase vs the marked champion
  3. While being in battle with the marked champion, chasing him/her/it as Wolf gave Wolf a stacking % movement speed increase (permanent until the target's death) when moving towards the marked champion?

This way Death as personified by Lamb would be truly inevitable, while Death as personified by Wolf would be truly unescapable.

(I also like the idea of their ultimate simply switching which one is the "prevalent" personality, but imho it is better if it is treated as a "morph" like Elise's ultimate)

FlameHalbrdOkido10/3/2017, 3:10:58 PM1 votes

I like the increasing range, tho I don't kno if it's healthy enough to stay. I think Es range should be equal to AA range tho

Linna Excel10/1/2017, 4:35:09 AM1 votes

In fact, it is probably because of the gameplay that people call Kindred a she, because when you play Kindred you are actually playing Lamb.

Well, Lamb does all the auto attacking, so yeah, it's a she for now. I wonder what they would have been like if it were elise or nidalee style where lamb form = ranged champ and wolf form = melee champ.