I got to gold with Kindred (thoughts)
Hello, so I got to gold one tricking Kindred, and ended it with about a 80 percent win rate in a over all of about 20 games. So a little about me. So for the most part this season i was tilted, playing cocky and just being an all idiot. Than when riot announced one of my favorite champions was going to be given the skin as a reward, graves. I decided to go ham with one of my stronger champions and for the most part only playing Kindred starting around silver 3/2 (can't remember when) in that time frame it took me a couple days to achieve Gold but I was also strictly noticing Kindreds Pros and cons.
First let me talk to you about my strat in how I did it. **THE CLEAR ** For Clear I always started bot side for a strong leash with my bot lane, I would start W as most kindred players do, and would kite it in a way where neither me, my adc or my support would take any damage, I didn't have to use smite, I didn't have to use any pots. While many people complain about the new Kindred W, it's actually far better for helping you Kite camps, and if you do it correctly you will take very minimal damage. After this go to your raptors or gromp, and than go to wolves, the reason you want to do this, is for you want to stall for time to see where your first mark is going to spawn so you can make it easier on yourself to grab it, once it spawns grab your mark, hopefully you are level three at this point and attempt to gank the lane nearest to you, Kindred is a pretty strong early ganker so if you plot a early level 3 gank you are most the time guarenteed a sum or a kill. Just plot accordingly.
**The Itemization, Runes and Masteries ** Runes and masteries are soon not going to matter for the entire system is going to get reworked but I mine as well share what I did.
**Masteries ** https://gyazo.com/f7fb05d4dfac278776a85399ac7391ef We will explain later with Itemization
**Runes ** X9 Flat Damage Reds X9 Flat Armor Yellows X9 Flat Attack Speed Blues X3 Flat Attack Speed browns Kinda hard to explain this, I just feel and through my testings that this is mathematically the fastest rune page for clear speed efficiency, as a jungler main I heavily value clear speed over magic resist runes. Plus more autos per second= more dps per second, Kindred is an marksman and like all marksman values it, tried AD rune focused page, didn't go as fast. The Attack speed page was about 10 seconds faster?
Itemization
First Back 
or 
+
Rush 
Now here is where my stratagy gets very odd but where I had the most success. While some players woudl like to rush warrior, and i'm not going to say I didn't either sometimes. I heavily prefered Rushing Mobility boots and rapid fire cannon. If you look over my masteries I use the keystone Warlords blood lust, and I have a very solid reason for this. Noticing the synergy between shiv/rapid with warlords, I asked myself why can't kindred do that? The answer is she can do it, and shes good at it. One thing Kindred Heavily struggles with is getting her wolf marks, so the Mobility boots give you the extra speed you need to beat the enemy jungler to it, while also making you a speedy threat that can rush across the map. For the reasoning why I heavily favor Rapid fire as a rush item, is because when you fuse it with the Warlords, you are given so much chase and range. I can't count how many times a target got away for they were out of range or to fast while I played Kindred, and rapid fire fused with warlords give me the movement speed and the range needed to take down targets. Come late game once you are full build with 10 stacks, and you can assassinate the enemy kogmaw from a mile away.
The Final Build tends to look like this 
Eventually along the way you grab yourself a static shiv and the fusion between shiv and Rapid just gives you SOOOO much burst, and if you get a empowered IE cirt, than rip whoever you are chasing.
Play Style early game Early game I'm focusing heavily on ganking and less so on farming, while Kindred is a superb farmer, she is a much better ganker, with her E giving such a crippling slow and her W/Q giving her amazing chase, fused with a laner who either has cc or lots of damage, it's almost a guarentee kill every time you gank, once you get kills go for objectives, simlpe simple. Invade when you can for marks, but don't be stupid.
About marks Don't tunnel onto them, with how games work, you are guaranteed at least 8 by late game, for you will get 3 off wolf AT LEAST, and the enemy team will probably feed you 3-5, this is in all honesty all you need to carry on kindred. But if you ever get 10-12, than you should honestly see the game as won, you can kill anyone and no one can handle you after this point. Point is , don't tunnel onto marks, you will get them eventually.
Mid Game/Team Fight Phase
Keep your team focused around you, Kindred is AMAZING at creating picks, so be on the constant look out for stragglers, with how her damage works she can win MOST one v one scenarios, so if you see a adc or a wondering mage, lay down the law onto her/him. Kindred once she has Rapid fire, well the truth is, comps with multiple adcs are AMAZING at sieging and taking towers and that's what your focus should be. For team fights, save your ult for their engage, if you see brand cast his ultimate, or the enemy Kled charging your team, Press ult the exact second they hit you, this will nullify all of their burst, they will probabbly waste two ultimates like idiots trying to kill your team, and than after, once they wasted ultimates, your team will be able to turn with their ultimates. Kindred is AMAZING at counter engage once you learn how to abuse her ult.
Late game 10-12 stack dream Once you hit 8-12 stacks you can honestly take care of baron or elder very fast, look for these objectives, and claim them when the opponent slips and makes a mistake. At this point with your full build you can NUKE mages and adcs, do it.
The Pros of Kindred?
-Amazing Scaling -Duo Adc comps are great at getting towers and barons -her ult is the definition of anti burst and can be game changing -Strong early ganker
Cons -Very telegraphed because of wolf marks -Very telegraphed with her Lamb Marks -Horrible duelist early game, prone to getting invaded -The enemy team will conspire against you to the point they are harming themselves, can't count how many times i'm playing SOLO RANKED and I see three people waiting in a bush for me while i'm LEVEL FUCKING FOUR, like wtf? This is solo not flex, and not even plat.
Do I like the Kindred Mathematical rework?
So Kindred got a mathematical rework a couple months back, and their was a uproar of complaints mixed with some praise over how it went. What is a mathematical rework? A mathematical rework is a rework in the sense riot changes the philosophies in how a champions damage works. For example, let's say their is a champion named Bob. Bob has two damage abilities, mega punch, and mega kick, old bob use to be heavily focused on his mega punch, but than riot changes for Bobs identity to be more focused on his kick while maybe giving him some small updates in how his kit works. Mathematical updates are things you don't exactly see in visuals/abilities but make a champion FEEL very different for the focus in how that champion does damage has changed. For old kindred she was heavily focused on her autos doing percent health damage with her old passive, with her new passive she is heavily focused on her "zone of control" where she casts W, places E onto a target, and anyone in her zone of control that she is focusing will be assassinated down within seconds once she's in the state where she wants to be. So basically riot changed the focus to her abilities to do damage and not so much so her autos. (all though her autos can hurt late game, but that's true for any adc)
Do I like it? Yes and no, I hate how riot made her so focused on getting her stacks, her stacks feel very RNG and luck based, I remember one game I snow balled completely out of control for I got fortunate where all my marks were literally appearing right in front of my face. I snow balled from pure luck for riot was literally gifting me the easiest marks. Than other games I struggled for the marks were always in awkward places, and the team would body guard them. Hell even Lambs marks are sorta luck based, for let's say everyone on the enemy team is a bunch of really good players, they aren't gonna let you kill them, and specifically a marked target that easily. They will avoid you, they will protect who you are hunting. But if you are against a bad team, you can snow ball out of control once again, for they are feeding you easy marks. That itself feels very luck based.
I have no problem with how Kindreds damage works now, but what i been begging for, for AGES, was for riot to just remove the stupid RNG crap, and just make her a flat out "scales per level" type champion. Riot wants her to be a late game scaler, this is obvious, so why not just make her level like a NORMAL champion, getting bonuses/scaling for every level she gains? The Rng is honestly greatly holding this champion back and making her a balancing nightmare.
But yeah i'm a kindred main, got to gold with her this year and last year, and these are my thoughts. Hope you enjoyed.
