@Meddler Why Change Kindred's Ult to Only Self-Cast?

Albuquerque·4/5/2016, 1:24:20 PM·3 votes·5,800 views

Pretty much what the title says. I'm just curious about the context/reasoning of this change.

Kindred's really strong now because they're one of the many champs that are abusing Sated+Guinsoo's, not because of their ultimate.

Not to mention I really enjoyed using their ult on teammates. It was one of the ways that it became extremely useful, because when you self cast it unless you're very fed most of the time you'd just die anyway.

12 Comments

RiotMeddler4/6/2016, 1:56:43 AM8 votes

We initially made Kindred's ult targetable on allies because we wanted to support a range of possible plays involving using it to save others at a distance. We're changing to self cast only for a few reasons though:

The first is just to grant clearer options when playing against Kindred. Denying kills is an extremely powerful effect, range restriction's a good way to ensure sufficient kill opportunities still exist as a result.
Secondly we've seen repeatedly that the cast on allies case isn't as intuitive as we'd hoped. We initially shipped with target ally cast believing there'd be some adjustment period as players got used to casting on others versus the natural 'push as an immediate emergency button' version similar skills tend to use. Assumption was though that cast on ally would feel pretty natural fairly quickly. That hasn't turned out to be the case, with a lot of people, high tier experienced kindred players included, still sometimes opting to Q or Flash onto allies and then self cast the ult, indicating we're not providing a sufficiently natural feeling cast type.
Our third goal is to nerf Kindred's performance for really experienced players (those best able to use the ally targeted ult on average) more than for average players (who tend to self cast almost entirely). Kindred are still performing extremely well for experienced players, but aren't out of line for players with an average number of games on them. This change is a targeted removal of power as a result.

FACE THE WlND4/5/2016, 2:37:33 PM6 votes

Umm, kindred is not abusing sated/guinsoos. The optimal jungle item on kindred is warrior. The reason for this change is that for a carry jungler, kindred offers too much utility with her/it's ultimate. The reason you die anyways is probably due to building sated/guinsoos.

Shadow Hazard4/5/2016, 8:22:34 PM3 votes

If you are using rageblade on kindred you are building wrong

Abyssphere4/5/2016, 4:09:38 PM1 votes

They wanted to make it easier to use. Kindred ult was confusing to activate for a lot of players apparently, and making it self-cast only simplifies it and makes it easier to react to quick burst.

ViashinoWizard4/5/2016, 8:23:42 PM1 votes

To both make them simpler and reduce their utility.