Post 7.12 Kindred Feedback

Riot reworked Kindred making them a burst oriented critical strike marksmen jungle instead of the sustained DPS on-hit champion they were before. However, the designers overlooked the champions under-tuned base stats. Many of Kindred’s base offensive stats were under-tuned due to their on-hit damage. Changing their damage source with little to no compensation turned Kindred from a serviceable early game threat into a farm dependent champion who avoids the enemy jungler like the plague. Their win-rate dropped from between 50 and 51% to between 42 and 44%. This all happened within a 24-hour time frame so sample size is important. Their win-rate averaged out to about <45% over the next two weeks. On June 14th, they got some buffs briefly spiking their win-rate to around 47% before dropping strangely to 42% today, June 15th, although the day is young. Even the best Kindred’s, per LoLalytics, are averaging 51.12%.

Even after 7.12, Kindred needs some more buffs.

The following are changes that should be micro-patched into the game in the next few days.

7.12 Mid-Patch Update

Base Stats

• Attack Damage Growth: 2.26 ⇒ 2.35

• Attack Delay/Attack Speed Offset: 0 ⇒ -0.05

• Movement Speed: 325 ⇒ 335

Now that Kindred no longer has a two second dash for the first 10 minutes, their movement speed can be upped some for increased map mobility and more powerful early ganks.

Twitch to me is a good example of what Kindred should be able to do when viable. A burst attack speed and critical strike based marksman that melts squishies quickly. To get Kindred on that path, I’ve upped their damage growth so it ends around 97 instead of 95.

Ashe, Quinn, twitch, Varus, and Vayne, the other bow/crossbow wielding champions all have negative attack delays. These range from -0.05 for Ashe, Varus, Vayne to -0.08 in Twitch’s case. Kindred’s is 0. Their negative delays make their basic attacks more responsive than Kindred’s. It also gives them higher level one base attack speed than Kindred. Kindred's is 0.625 while Twitch's is 0.679. In Twitch’s case, I can easily understand why he has high attack speed for his passive. But less so for Ashe, Quinn, and Varus. I can understand not giving Kindred an overabundance of attack speed when they did % health with each auto attack. But now they can afford to be made consistent with the other bow wielding champions. It’s also worth mentioning Kindred was released at a time in which devourer dealt damage and on-hits twice every fourth auto attack for ranged champions.

I really want to see these changes implemented and tested over the weekend on the PBE and live servers and then go from there when considering the following changes I want to discuss.

Test on PBE for 7.13

Passive

• Wolf Marks: Wolf Marked camps are highlighted on the minimap to both teams ⇒ Kindred and Kindred’s team see Wolf Marked camps highlighted on the minimap. Marked monsters have Kindred’s mark above them always. If the monster is in vision, the enemy team see’s the mark and it is then marked on their minimap.

• Critical Strike Mark Bonus: Every four marks give Kindred 10% critical strike chance.

Q

• Damage: 55/75/95/115/135 + (0.65 x bonus attack damage) ⇒ 10/15/20/25/30 + (0.9/0.95/1.0/1.1/ x total attack damage) + on-hit effects and can critically strike.

• Attack Speed: 10% + (5% per mark) ⇒ 20% + (2.5% per mark)

• Dash Range: 340 ⇒ 425

• Dash Speed: 500 ⇒ 700?

W

• Damage: 25/30/40/45 + (0.2 bonus attack damage) + (1.5%+ (0.5% per mark) of the target’s current health as magic damage ⇒ Every bite applies a one second damage over time dealing 1.25% (+ 0.75% for first four marks and + 0.5% per mark after) of the targets MAXIMUM health as TRUE damage. Bites refresh the DoT.

• Effect Radius: 800 ⇒ 900

• Wolf Movement Speed: 1400 ⇒ 1800

• Casting: Wolf dashes to the target location ⇒ Wolf blinks to the target location

With Kindred’s new E synergy with critical strikes, I believe good Kindred’s should be rewarded for claiming marks with some bonus critical strike chance. I expect Kindred will build 70% critical chance through items and this passive change could bump them up for some sick damage. As a balance lever, could be lowered to 5% per four marks.

The Mark changes are Kindred player skill impartial. I could however see these changes severely impacting normal queue, Gold, and lower MMRs of team’s opposing Kindred. This changes requires players to have the game wisdom and knowledge, one of Kindred to an extent, and two to know where to ward jungle entrances and their own jungles.

Q looks like a lot of scary all at once changes so let’s break it down. Right now, at level one Kindred is likely going to have 68 attack damage. With Hunter’s Machete and the bonus five damage from masteries, Kindred basic attacks premitigation deal 98 damage to monsters. In 7.12 their Q premitigation deals 100.95 damage to monsters at champion level 2 ability level 1. 7.13 Q at champion level 2 and ability level 1 would deal 103.62 premitigation damage to monsters. It’s a 1% damage dealt buff early game that now scale's better into the late game.

The Q attack speed changes give them a steroid much more consistent with almost any other attack speed steroid in the game but gives up some ratio to compensate. IF THIS CHANGE DOES NO GO THROUGH please improve their attack delay to -0.08, -0.09, or -0.1.

Dash range and speed changes, I hope, would put them in the Lucian and Graves tier of mobility. To be fair, theirs’ are on longer cooldowns so perhaps Kindred’s range could be tuned to 400 instead of 425 but 340 isn’t cutting it. These changes in conjunction with the attack speed changes, might make Kindred a viable bot laner.

W changes give Kindred a larger area to play around in, make the ability more responsive, and make Wolf harder to avoid and more consistently apply damage. The damage dealt goes up in some circumstances and down in others. But it does at level 1 give Kindred a consistent 12% of the target’s maximum health as damage regardless of health value or resistances. And it does that over 9.5 seconds.

These are the changes I feel very strongly about right now. In the future, if even needed, perhaps E’s third strike could ignore a % of the target’s armor.

P.S.

This is essentially me throwing ideas at the wall. I feel strongly about these ideas, but stronger for some than others. It's up to Riot's discretion to include certain things or not.

For me just now I could easily see ditching critical strike chance per marks, the Q dash and speed changes, and W effect radius and then go from there.