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Upcoming Kindred changes, looking for feedback!

RiotRiot Wav3Break·5/16/2017, 5:42:30 AM·167 votes·104,300 views

Hi everyone!

We’re looking to make some Kindred changes in the near future and I wanted to get some feedback from you guys before we put the full list on PBE.

Overall Goals:

  • Increase satisfaction on Kindred's basic abilities
  • Increase Kindred’s ability to kite and deal damage like a marksman, particularly in the late game

Guiding/General Thoughts:

  • We originally intended Kindred to be a champion that a team could rely on to bring a marksman-like carry to their late game without having to run one in a lane. Ultimately this has not panned out exactly as intended. Thus we are moving their kit a bit more towards this direction in an attempt to better fulfill this design intent.
  • Current Kindred players are attached to their live play-style of snowballing and looking for smaller skirmishes to succeed. We don’t want to remove this pattern of play from them, but we are looking to exchange some power here to let them access longer range on their attacks and abilities.
  • As a jungler, Kindred needs to be a threat in the early game or they will always fail to provide a baseline amount of pressure for their team to have a fair shot at winning. With this in mind, we are aiming to keep their early game power relatively similar/slightly stronger in exchange for a weaker mid game but stronger late game.

_Current Change List: _

Q - Dance of Arrows

  • No longer gains base damage per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • Now grants Kindred 10/15/20/25/30% attack speed for 4 seconds on cast, increased by 5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • AD Ratio :: Changed from 0.2 Total AD ratio >>> 0.75 Bonus AD Ratio
  • Base Vault Speed :: increased from 400 >>> 500

W - Wolf’s Frenzy

  • Can now direct Wolf to a position within 500 units of Lamb before creating the hunting territory. Wolf can go over walls while travelling in this way. This range does not scale with Mark Of the Kindred stacks.
  • Wolf now deals magic damage instead of physical damage
  • Wolf now deals an additional 1.5% of the target’s current health per attack as base damage, increased by 0.5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • AD Ratio :: 0.4 Total AD ratio >>> 0.2 Bonus AD Ratio

E - Mounting Dread

  • Damage Type of Wolf’s Attack :: Changed from physical >>> magic
  • Base damage :: Reduced from 40/75/110/145/180 >>> 40/60/80/100/120
  • Missile Speed of Wolf’s attack :: Increased from 1600 >>> 2000
  • AD Ratio :: 0.2 Total AD ratio >>> 0.8 Bonus AD Ratio
  • % Health Damage :: Changed from 5% max health damage >>> 8% Missing Health damage, increased by 0.5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • Jaws of Death :: Wolf’s attack critically strikes targets below 15% health for 50% more damage. Critical Strike chance increases the % health threshold for this critical strike to occur by 0.5% per 1% crit chance.

Passive - Mark of The Kindred

  • No longer grants Lamb bonus % current health damage on her basic attacks
  • Now amplifies all of Kindred’s basic abilities in the ways mentioned above
  • Every 4 marks increases Kindred’s basic attack, Dance of Arrows and Mounting Dread’s cast range. The first 4 marks increase their ranges by 75, while every 4 marks after increase their ranges by 25.

Everything listed is subject to change from your feedback and testing so candid feedback is most appreciated!

649 Comments

PhDs Nuts5/16/2017, 6:14:55 AM109 votes

A Kindred rework? I look forward to seeing her become a support. [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

######(the changes actually seem ok, but Wolf crits look busted on paper)

Vëx5/16/2017, 7:43:22 AM70 votes

Hello, redKind here

Thank you for finally making proper changes to Kindred, I am super excited for the next PBE.

Here's my feedback:

Q - Dance of Arrows

_* No longer gains base damage per stack of Mark of the Kindred

  • Now grants Kindred 10/15/20/25/30% attack speed for 4 seconds on cast, increased by 5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • AD Ratio :: Changed from 0.2 Total AD ratio >>> 0.75 Bonus AD Ratio
  • Base Vault Speed :: increased from 400 >>> 500_

I think those are very good changes, really like the base vault speed buff and the change to AD ratio. This is the skill that everyone maxes first on Kindred so at lvl 9 we're going to get 30+5*stack% attack speed for up to like 12 seconds in a teamfight, since most Kindred players rarely get out out of the W circle for maximum efficiency. If anything will be needed to be nerfed in the new Kindred, I'd prefer it to be the AS steroid, because I don't think it's really that necessary. I really like that their Q no longer relies so heavily on the marks to do damage. This makes them a ton less feast of famine because we can start being a normal jungler and scale with gold/items instead of blindly following marks to be relevant in the later stages in the game.

W - Wolf’s Frenzy

_* Can now send Wolf to a position within 500 units of Lamb before creating the hunting territory. Wolf can go over walls.

  • Wolf now deals magic damage instead of physical damage
  • Wolf now deals an additional 1.5% of the target’s current health per attack as base damage, increased by 0.5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • AD Ratio :: 0.4 Total AD ratio >>> 0.2 Bonus AD Ratio_

Amazing change, makes Kindred more tactical and W will be more useful for scouting, for example at baron and dragon fights (it's possible to send wolf over walls now as well but it's really hard to do and risky if enemy is on the other side). The magic damage change will make it so Kindred will be really hard to itemize against when ahead and I guess that also makes their clear a little bit better? Will have to check. The %current health damage also makes them a pretty good toplaner, especially with other changes that decrease the value of marks (like the total AD -> bonus AD) I really like those changes and they should definitely stay (numbers can be adjusted)

E - Mounting Dread

_* Damage Type of Wolf’s Attack :: Changed from physical >>> magic

  • Base damage :: Reduced from 40/75/110/145/180 >>> 40/60/80/100/120
  • Missile Speed of Wolf’s attack :: Increased from 1600 >>> 2000
  • AD Ratio :: 0.2 Total AD ratio >>> 0.8 Bonus AD Ratio
  • % Health Damage :: Changed from 5% max health damage >>> 8% Missing Health damage, increased by 0.5% per stack of Mark of the Kindred
  • Jaws of Death :: Wolf’s attack critically strikes targets below 15% health for 50% more damage. Critical Strike chance increases the % health threshold for this critical strike to occur by 0.5% per 1% crit chance._

Really love the fact that it's finally changed to a finisher move since Kindred were so good at starting fights but had nothing to finish them. Again the change from physical to magic makes Kindred harder to itemize against. This will have amazing synergy with Kindred's ultimate because it means that Wolf will always crit even after the heal, which is a guaranteed kill. Good change but might be too strong combined with everything else

Passive - Mark of The Kindred

_* No longer grants Lamb bonus % current health damage on her basic attacks

  • Now amplifies all of Kindred’s basic abilities per stack as outlined above
  • Every 4 marks increases Kindred’s basic attack, Dance of Arrows and Mounting Dread’s cast range. The first 4 marks increase their ranges by 75, while every 4 marks after increase their ranges by 25._

Love this change. Please keep. The only thing I would do differently is to rather increase their range more often, for example 25 range per 2 marks, so we get bonus 100 range at 8 marks. 75 range for 4 marks is just too much, this will be ridiculous in late because Kindred can get even up to 16 marks in competetive games. It would be impossible to kill an ADC with a saving ultimate that also has 800 AA range and a dash on a 2 second cooldown.

Overall feedback:

I really like the changes, even though it's basically a small rework at this point. I can already see they will be overtuned at first but after adjusting the numbers this will work really well. If anything, I would do something to make marks from champion kills more valuable than marks from monster kills or just make marks even less important because this makes Kindred really hard to balance.

Those changes solve all the Kindred problems in the current season and I am really looking forward to testing them out live. Great work with this rework, I knew I could count on you guys. Thanks again!

Kasey Chambers5/16/2017, 7:04:55 AM22 votes

High elo Kindred main here.

These changes look incredible, and really play towards the powerful late game fantasy that I have always wanted for Kindred and that I believe Riot has envisioned too. While overall I like the changes, I have a few questions and concerns to raise.

  1. Are you concerned about Kindred having an unpredictable amount of attack speed? It seems weird not knowing what levels of attack speed you will be working with later in the game, and late game you might even have to sell attack speed items just to avoid overcapping. It might not be a huge issue outside of rare games with really high mark counts (I have reached 25 in a real game before), but late game I can range from 8-15+ marks depending on how the game is going, excluding outlier games with really low or high counts.
  2. The W wording is a little strange, do you "place" the zone, similar to how Akali's old shroud worked?
  3. E execute is amazing and a change I have wanted for a long time, but the 15% threshold seems a little arbitrary and binary. Would it be possible to ramp the damage up from 25%-10% or something thereabout, similar to how Veigars ult damage scaling works? Obviously this range would change as your crit chance increases too.
  4. Having your range increase at breakpoints seems a little weird, but I suppose it never felt bad with Tristana, even with her old passive with higher numbers, so it might not be an issue.
  5. As your range increases, your W becomes increasingly awkward to position. It needs to be placed in such a way that Wolf can reach the enemy target, and you can remain in it while keeping maximum distance from the target. If that maximum distance becomes bigger, the actually area you have to move around in seems like it would be fairly small. This might not be an issue if you have more control over the placement now, but if it does become an issue could increasing the W radius as your range increases be a consideration?
meowwow75/16/2017, 7:22:38 AM20 votes

welp when this change comes expect vandiril to make a global auto attack video with an ungodly amount of stacks then

Raxistaicho5/16/2017, 11:46:24 AM16 votes

Are you guys going to un-destroy her base stats?

Command Protec5/16/2017, 8:10:01 PM13 votes

I love the changes to everything except for the E. In the lore you are given a choice between lamb's arrow and wolf's fang but in game it just feels like kindred is only about the arrows. I say that the E shouldn't have the speed increased and in fact I think it should be decreased initially and have it speed up over time to give the feeling of wolf chasing you. Have the damage of that scale with distance traveled and stacks of marks so that they can choose to run and take more damage from wolf or stay and take more damage from lamb.

at least the W allows you to "chase" a bit more now but the E just feels very generic to me.

Frightning5/16/2017, 6:10:12 AM12 votes

Getting rid of the shred passive is absolutely necessary if you want her to actually scale like a marksman. That said, if you want her to be strong both early and late, yet weaker mid game...good luck....that's going to be very difficult to make happen because power curves are typically a function strength of base stats and kit, plus scaling with itemization. So a champion that is balanced is either going to be strong early and, by necessity, not scale too well, or strong late, and by necessity weak early, or they will be between those extremes and will have average early game, and late game (these are the so-called mid-game champs). There's no natural mechanism to make a champion bad at mid-game and good at both early and late game.

Junglers by nature have to have at least decent early game or they are too easily invaded and shutdown by actual early game junglers (ex: the ever popular LeeSin, also, Udyr is great at this too). I think her kiting potential is already pretty good w/ Q+W interaction, but maybe outside of that her Q is on too long of a CD? I personally miss her old passive heal because it made her viable as an actual bot laner (and a counterpick to poke lanes), but I can see where that may have been TOO good.

Something that may be good for her is some kind of mechanic that helps her deal with being dove by single enemy champions, an ability that debuffs their dmg output significantly for a short time (long CD basic ability) may be great for both her jungle security as well as skirmishing play pattern, and would make her less of a teamfight oriented marksman (which would make her preferable to pick in splitpush/pick/dueling-type team compositions). That said, having a marksman that is inherently hard to assassinate could be problematic, though she would still be vulnerable as any other marksman to getting gangbanged...well, maybe not with her current ult...which might actually be something that has to go if she is to truly have good late game scaling, because it's an obscenely good tool for protecting your backline from divers.

The proposed changes....hard to judge, would need to actually play her with those changes a bit to get a feel for them before I can comment on whether it feels right or not. I could see her really feeling bad early game if her numbers are undertuned, or worse, being fine early but perhaps scaling too well, especially with how much range it appears she can gain from her marks: 8 marks is +100, so if she's still a 550 marksman, that's 650 range basics, same as Caitlyn. 8 marks is doable by late game, but very hard to get before 25mins in an actual game. At 4 marks you'd have 625 range, which is 25 more than Ashe, but 25 less than Caitlyn, which is already pretty nice and that's achievable by midgame fairly reliably.

Slimegoon5/16/2017, 9:36:47 AM11 votes

Taking away her passive mark % HP damage literally destroys Kindred. She used to be a great anti-tank marksman with clear downfalls, now you've made her a generalist like so many others. Big deal, you added some damage to her kit. I'm not sure I need to point out how useless attack speed is for a kiting champion who will be moving too much to fully use it. And this idea of mixed damage has worked so well in the past, hasn't it? I guess that's why the removed it from 90% of the champions.

I'll just sit here waiting for Kindred mains to call for a reverted rework. Malzahar and Maokai will be glad to have some more company.

Hellioning5/16/2017, 5:51:44 AM9 votes

Ah, yes, characters that are good in the early game and late game but weak in this mythical 'mid game' that occasionally shows up. Good idea.

Why make Wolf magic damage? To prevent her from building lethality?

And what do you mean by 'Now amplifies all of Kindred’s basic abilities per stack as outlined above'? Outlined above where?

TouchFluffyTaìl5/16/2017, 6:06:20 AM9 votes

waiting for PBE access since season 4 https://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/222252/feels.png

Anomander5/16/2017, 6:29:31 AM7 votes

Every 4 marks increases Kindred’s basic attack, Dance of Arrows and Mounting Dread’s cast range. The first 4 marks increase their ranges by 75, while every 4 marks after increase their ranges by 25.

So if I read this right her range now scale infinitely?

Fisherman Fizz5/16/2017, 6:16:17 AM6 votes

These changes look pretty neat. Should we expect these or similar changes to be on PBE this week?

One thing that I'm largely concerned with is that in Kindred's current Live iteration, Wolf feels like a really minor part of the kit compared to Lamb. It's hard to tell from only reading the changes here, but it looks like the passive on-hit's power is being taken away and moved into the abilities that more directly involve Wolf, which I think would help out some. I also think it's interesting that Wolf seems to be doing entirely magic damage while Lamb's is entirely physical.

The W changes look really interesting. Currently when I play Kindred, having to cast the W as a PBAoE feels a bit awkward, and I hate the fact that whenever I'm about to leave the circle my Q is always still on CD so I can't get one last jump outside the circle and get the CD reduction.

These changes also look like they'll significantly change Kindred's item build. What are you expecting that Kindred players will build with these changes? How is changing a lot of the damage dealt to magic damage going to affect her power curve from early to late game?

ACatIsFineToo5/16/2017, 7:00:41 AM6 votes

Kindred was one of the coolest characters theme wise you guys (RIOT) ever came up with, the way it all flowed together in a very harmonic, poetic way was amazing. I like what your doing with many of their abilities, but I will very much miss lamb's % current hp damage on her auto attacks. It was never really super noticeable unless you were super fed, and attempting to build for it as your damage source never really ended up well, but it was the theme of it that made it awesome. So i'm a little sad to see it go, or to be moved to wolf's temporary territory.

I wish there was a way to keep the current %hp damage on lamb's auto attacks, while giving wolf % missing health damage, so Lamb starts the fights while wolf finishes them. Never one without the other right? :)

PS : Bring her heal on her W back, it was awesome

Zelorxon5/16/2017, 9:57:18 AM6 votes

item 3006 item 1419 item 3085 item 3153 item 3071 item 3031

Right now i think that kindred despite not being top tier with the new warlords and bork changes is actually playable, but i'll write down what i think about these new changes:

  • Q changes are nice, the attack speed boost will help to cap the attack speed so you can afford to build actual ad items and you can manage to damage without hoping to have a fight stalled out for 2 minutes so the full attack speed on hit build kicks in (BORK changes are also a great improvement to that), also the AD ratios were so bad that the spell was used as a mobility spell mainly.

  • W, converting the physical damage to magic damage can be helpful as it creates the problem of "how do i itemize against kindred?" for the enemy team, but completely shuts down any armor pen item you're gonna build, so i'm not a big fan of that because this creates the problem "will i be able to shred trough tanks if our comp leans towards magic damage so they're stacking it? does this means i have to go void staff kindred?". I can understand split damage on champs such as sejuani which will have eventually time to dish it out constantly or corki that has a shredding spell build in his kit, but kindred relies on cleaver and last whisper to damage tanks reliably so this is kinda weird.

I don't understand though how the damage will work, does the new % damage adds up as base damage? will it replace the current damage? because if it's an addition then it's fine, if it replaces it i feel like the general DPS will be lowered. I need more explanations on how the W's damage will be.

  • E, DOES THIS MEANS I WILL BE ABLE TO FINALLY LAND E BEFORE THE AUTOATTACK HAS LANDED FIRST SO IT DOESN'T PROC THE FIRST STACK? The missile speed changes are nice, kindred is a swift champion and shouldn't feel clunky as the tristana's jump when i'm trying to pull off plays, so as long as i'm not stunlocked in my own E animation it's fine. Speaking of damage, the execute damage is surely fine since i will finally be able to secure a kill without seeing the enemy laner run away with 1 hp or other fiestish situations that might happen, also it's a good way to give kindred early pressure and letting it scale "riot's standard" troughout the game.

Jaws of Death :: Wolf’s attack critically strikes targets below 15% health for 50% more damage. Critical Strike chance increases the % health threshold for this critical strike to occur by 0.5% per 1% crit chance.

This is really interesting, but it takes in account the crit stat that it's very hard and slow to fit in a jungler's build, i feel like it will be somehow unreliable damage since it supposes the teamfight is already won since i'm noticing all the tankyness of tanks is shifted towards the beginning of a fight so if you manage to pierce trough it it means you have basically already won and you don't need to overkill to secure the victory unless it's an extremely even fight, this change MIGHT be nice but it should also take in account the passive which follows

  • P, The % damage should stay, it feels so weird to have your damage tied to your spells as an adc and also creates windows of "i'm a god/i'm a caster minion", i think you guys should find a way to keep the % damage without making it overstack with the spells as you need it as a reliable source of damage and also it would feel wrong with the build path and the spells availability

I'm telling you, competitive will hate this as they play junglers on low economy and this supposes that kindred will be able to afk farm/score a lot of successful ganks to afford the late game build, also they sneak in cheap items such as hexdrinker which don't fit at all with this kit as it forces kindred to build like i showed up there, also i feel like kindred should go warlords for the early game sustain and ganking mobility in order to be a hard to reach target with the laner that can play interesting tricks "hit me, oooh you don't hit me!" with the skirmish going on, and the kit as it is right now (in the changes) pretty much forces you to go fervor if you want to deal actual visible damage.

So far i'm linking what i read, the only thing that i don't like is the passive % damage removal, despite feeling inconsistent as fuck depending on how many marks you manage to collect is the only reliable way you have to do damage and farm properly during the early/mid game. Oh, last but not least, it screws over the runaan/blade/cleaver stacks/lifesteal interaction which is the nicest thing about kindred if you ask me

EPIKON5/16/2017, 7:14:38 AM5 votes

Never had problem playing Kindred in Gold/Plat tier.

AD ratio was already fine to begin with to be honest the way I build her.

I would hate to see her get nerfed only after you guys fix her kit like that, if that's what's gonna happen then lower the AD ratio to start with then gradually buff her ratio.

IMO, the problem people have trouble playing her is because everyone goes after items like item 1419 item 3153 item 3085 to maximize her passive with attack speed and percent damage so she lack burst damage early to mid game.

Instead I go after items like item 1412 item 3031 first then either attack speed item 3153 item 3085 or bruiser item 3022 item 3071 depending on the situation and enemy comp.

The way I build Kindred would make her OP with pending changes and believe me she's already OP the way I play her.

My ideal Kindred build is:

summoner 4 summoner 11 item 1412 item 3006 item 3031 item 3153 item 3085 item 3022 item 2138 item 3364

Hextech and Tea5/16/2017, 6:57:09 PM4 votes

I play a lot of kindred.

I've Mained them since release. I've been through the rough nerfs and then back to a "stable" stage. This season kindred doesn't feel useless and yes they may be carry or feed but so is katarina. These changes make me feel like the kindred nerf cycle will start again. With Kin being pick or ban and then nerfed into none existence again.

I feel as if kindred just needed a passive buff to make it more reliant without being op. I'm not a huge fan of these changes and I hope Riot knows what they're doing. kindred is a champion very dear to me and I would hate to have the nerf cycle start anew.

thunderingice5/16/2017, 11:21:02 AM1 votes

I automatically have to ask what increased crit damage does when I see that you are using alternative crit mechanics for crit chance. Is it still more damage on crits?

Wild Geese5/16/2017, 7:05:15 AM1 votes

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