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Re: Kindred Marks and Consistency.

Breadgehog·10/17/2015, 9:31:54 PM·2 votes·423 views

Alright, so this might be a little early in Kindred's lifespan to be discussing balance, could probably wait a couple days, but I have to say, for a champion I was hyped for weeks about, something that hasn't happened often in the 5 years I've been playing, I'm left really underwhelmed by their early game. Marks just really aren't satisfying unless you're already going. They're like the Vayne of jungling, except Vayne doesn't have to farm specific targets to catch up. I just played through a game as Kindred with friends, and after playing and watching a couple with other people playing them, I'm seeing the same issues. I spent half an hour of my life feeling like RNGesus personally came down to kick me in the sack, because while the enemy Kindred got to target my raptors, or scuttle, I got to watch as I repeatedly was told to take their gromp or krugs, or wolves, all targets DEEP into their jungle. I'm by no means a top-tier player, but it's a matter of reverse snowballing. I lost our first fight at scuttle, and I spent the rest of the game watching marks appear that I had no earthly way of getting to. It's worse than Bard chimes - they sometimes want him to go on a vision quest to top lane, but by and large they're not somewhere stupid, and he doesn't have to fight anything just to get a part of his kit.

Kindred is definitely balanced around their passive, and as far as champions go, I like it. The mindgames you can pull off by marking a target early you have no intention of killing, only to switch right before a gank? It's amazing, and I like that design a lot. Their lore and even their normal gameplay are really enticing, something that doesn't often happen with me and League champions anymore. But their current early game is far too sink or swim, You either get a couple early marks and progress really well into mid and lategame, or you get unreasonable marks and spend the rest of the game getting kicked while you're down.

I'm honestly not sure what the best fix to this is. Having marks appear in your jungle seems like the easiest answer, but I'm concerned you'd need to rebalance the actual passive numbers to compensate for it. Maybe even if thing spawned in your jungle until you have 3 stacks - something, anything to actually get you off the ground rather than exploding on takeoff without a real way of recovering. Any thoughts?

2 Comments

Partholonian10/18/2015, 12:55:17 AM1 votes

The obvious solution would be to give them a base or per level amount (or add more power in base stats/elsewhere in the kit) and lower the passive scaling per stack, which would make their power level more consistent in both directions (not as snowbally when doing well, not as useless when behind). If they are currently excessively binary, which it may be a bit early to say one way or the other.

Of course, that would also diminish the importance of their unique mechanic, so Riot should only do that if it's really necessary.

They're squishy and have a low amount of CC, which is likely to cause team comp issues coming from a jungler, so it's not like they don't have weaknesses to play against, even when they're doing tons of damage.

Mister Mackey10/18/2015, 1:02:44 AM1 votes

Help push in/gank lane. Ask laner to help you stack. wolf stops at 6 so it's not like he's a part of the entire game having to counter jungle(should be anyway with proper vision). I been laning kindred top and support. And finishing every games with 8+ stacks. Even getting marks all the way across the map. Roam when you need to and set up a situation in which you can counter jungle