I wish kindred's clear was as healthy as Graves

PapaGreg21·Mar 3, 2017·76 votes·3,823 views

I am still confused why Graves is better at jungling but Kindred was the one designed to perform that role.

101 Comments

RalanrMar 3, 201715 votes

I wish Riot could decide when her power spike is supposed to be.

HelmightMar 3, 20173 votes

The problem is that they're supposed to be a marksman and a jungler at the same time, which is super contradictory. Junglers are strong early and tend to fall off late, while marksmen are weak early and become super good late. Obviously Kindred can't be good at both, but if they're not good at both they're good at neither.

If anything, Kindred need to lose the infinite scaling passive and just spike mid, like Corki.

SpecterVonBarenMar 3, 20172 votes

They need a better basic kit first.

HelmightMar 4, 20171 votes

I think their basic kit works as-is, though it's perhaps a tad reliant on fighting enemies in Wolf's Frenzy. What exactly do you think is the problem with Kindred's kit?

SpecterVonBarenMar 4, 20171 votes

It's too band. There's nothing in Kindred's kit that's iconic aside from their ult. Their passive may be interesting in how it works but what it does is just provide on hit damage. Their basic kit is made up of two spells that are always meant to be used together and one generic single target slow.

HeruEdhelMar 3, 20171 votes

~~Umm friend her passive maxes at 20~~ EDIT!!!! Okay i found the best mark hunting route in the practice tool and farmed it(would have a lot more marks if there were more than one bot About 40 or so more) but with the one bot and all the re-spawning the elder dragon i can do it got to 50 marks which does ~55% of current health, and 250 extra damage on q. but this number will be very very unlikely to see in a normal non-cheated game since i was gaining a mark about ~1.5 minutes and 1 other every 5 minutes

TL:DR Soooo i was wrong about the 20 cap... dont know where i got that from

HelmightMar 4, 20173 votes

Checked the wiki and there's nothing there that says their passive maxes at 20. Pretty sure Phreak mentioned in the Champ Spotlight that they can stack up forever as well, but I might be wrong on that account.

HeruEdhelMar 4, 20172 votes

Yeah it got a cap on it a few patches later

HelmightMar 4, 20171 votes

Checked the wiki again looking at patch history. Still no dice. They've had a few changes around how long marks stick around for and what monsters they can mark, but as far as I can see Kindred can still infinitely stack.

Supreme Senpai69Mar 4, 20171 votes

At 10 stacks she can no longer stack from monsters. I think that's what he means. But she still can from champions

HelmightMar 4, 20171 votes

That's more likely, though technically speaking Kindred can still stack on Barons and Elders :P

HeruEdhelMar 8, 20172 votes

I Know a way to test this now! Practice tool!!!

cause thats a thing now

HeruEdhelMar 8, 20171 votes

Okay i found the best mark hunting route in the practice tool and farmed it(would have a lot more marks if there were more than one bot About 40 or so more) but with the one bot and all the re-spawning the elder dragon i can do it got to 50 marks which does ~55% of current health, and 250 extra damage on q. but this number will be very very unlikely to see in a normal non-cheated game since i was gaining a mark about ~1.5 minutes and 1 other every 5 minutes

Soooo i was wrong about the 20 cap... dont know where i got that from

HelmightMar 8, 20171 votes

I totally forgot that practice tool was a thing. Good on ya for remembering :P

And okay, glad to know I'm not crazy. I thought Riot had left them as infinite stacker but you made me paranoid that I'd forgotten something. Thanks for testing

tunehunterMar 4, 20172 votes

look yes their passive can THEORETICALLY scale to infinity, but it is in no way realistic at all. To get to the point of "broken" infinite scaling the game has to go on for 2 hours at least, and no game lasts that long unless you are doing it on purpose to see 100% current health damage or more.... This isn't Veigar or Nasus infinite stacking where every few seconds you can hit a minion and gain a stack, this is you have to put yourself at risk in the enemy jungle steal their camps that are MARKED and VISIBLE to the ENTIRE enemy team, go to the champ you marked a few seconds IN ADVANCE and manage to kill them something that litterally every champion snowballs on. Getting a mark on kindred is how she scales and she gets marks by doing the same thing that every one else can do to get just as fed just as quickly except she actually gives the enemy advanced warning that its their rear that is going to make her scale, and it only starts having a "hyper scaling" effect where you feel the "infinite stacking" after 20 minutes into a game where kindred got fed, other champs that got "super fed" early probably just as dangerous. I mean what do you want her "infinite stacking" to stop at? 20, most dont see more then 12 before the game is over and that game probably went 30 minutes, you arent seeing 15 to after the 30 minute mark, probably not till 40 minutes into the game.

Every one needs to start thinking Realistic scale vs Hypothetical scale. Yes they can hypothecially scale to infinite but it is in no way realistic to balance them around a theoretical mark level in a 2 hour game when the game only goes 30 mins.

HelmightMar 4, 20171 votes

My apologies, didn't mean to make it sound like the biggest problem with Kindred was their passive. In a hypothetical world where Kindred are balanced around a midgame spike a la Corki and then fall off towards late, they shouldn't have an infinitely scaling passive - that would just defeat the point of the lategame fall-off. That was my original point, not that Kindred's passive is somehow inherently broken. My mistake.

tunehunterMar 4, 20171 votes

Actually I think we can have that with "infinite scaling" in the respect that they are "ok early" get a spike mid game (the stacks early being easier to get) and then start to fall off late (even with "infinite stacking") simply by having either or both the stacks give less % and the marks being inherently much harder to get late game which we kind of already have once you hit a certain number of stacks champions (which can only be marked on a CD) and baron/dragon (which also spawn on a long timer and are big time objectives for both teams) are the only way to possiby get more. The way I see kindred is a mid game spike champion that falls off late, but comes back in super late game who is super good at grabbing neutral objectives at all points in the game while being weaker at grabbing turrets then the traditional adc, thanks to their precent health damage on both their auto's and their w.

AninLegions777Mar 4, 20172 votes

Kindred CAN be good in both. You seem to forget that Twitch, Quinn and Graves were all designed to be marksmen but look at them. And also Kindred has shitty AA range so they aren't "good" at being marksmen. Their passive was never a problem. You never see any Kindred hitting 20 stacks except the enemy is incredibly stupid or careless.

Serika ZeroMar 4, 20172 votes

tell that to Ivern................... Or Kha

MelledoneusMar 3, 201710 votes

Or when Graves' is.

He's virtually strong all game.

JoxcabMar 4, 20174 votes

The spike starts at 00:00 and ends at whenever the game does. There.

LankPantsMar 4, 20179 votes

I wish Grave's clear was as unhealthy as Kindred's. There's really no reason he should have such a healthy clear. I think it's time for Riot to remove his knockback and resists VS creeps so the jungle mauls his cowboy arse.

Arsenic SulfurMar 3, 20175 votes

Because Kindred has the advantage of never being able to miss. This particular strength engulfs about 40% of the power budget.

PuttybloMar 3, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arsenic Sulfur,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yFuHrpXe,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-03-03T15:33:46.433+0000)

Because Kindred has the advantage of never being able to miss. This particular strength engulfs about 40% of the power budget.

Then you realize Graves ult can hit you from a full screen away through minions and then spreads even further into an aoe cone of death.

Arsenic SulfurMar 3, 20174 votes

But it can miss. That's the big thing here. Graves can fuck up, Kindred can't.

PuttybloMar 4, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arsenic Sulfur,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yFuHrpXe,comment-id=000100000000,timestamp=2017-03-03T22:49:45.376+0000)

But it can miss. That's the big thing here. Graves can fuck up, Kindred can't.

You actuallly can.

Walking into FoW/Bush cancels your abilities, and if Quinn/Graves blind you your abilities don't work. So, you have to manually walk out of Graves grenade for your Q to function/Wolf to do anything.

Chembaron YamadaMar 4, 20172 votes

Sorry but that statement makes no sense. Kindred has the highest reliability possible in this game, you say it yourself, there is just 1 requirement for all of Kindred's tools to function: vision.

You don't have to land a skillshot, you don't have interruptable channels, nothing like that. Meanwhile Graves has 3 skills in his kit which are skillshots and so dodgable: Q, W and R.

The requirement of having vision doesn't mean you can fuck up....

AninLegions777Mar 4, 20174 votes

Shhhhhh. You have no idea what you are saying. Yes graves has Skillshots but what does he build? AD. His AAs hit like a freight train and he doesn't need his abilities that much meanwhile Kindred relies on attack speed AND marks to be able to do any SIGNIFICANT damage. So comparing the two based on skillshots is not correct. Just enlightening you.

Arsenic SulfurMar 4, 20171 votes

But he won't burst you with just his autos. He WILL need to land his skillshots to kill someone fast unless he is super ahead. And his autos are pretty slow because he doesn't scale with AS.

AninLegions777Mar 5, 20172 votes

His AA's deal a shit-ton and not to mention his Q's fast detonation on wall and his almost unmissable R.

Chembaron YamadaMar 5, 20171 votes

Graves is too strong at the moment (thanks again lethality), no one is denying that. There is still the point that Graves can miss skillshots, 3 in total (Q, W and R) and on top of that he is the only champion in the game whose auto attacks can be body blocked.

Kindred is too weak at the moment, again, no one is denying that fact. But her kit simply can not miss by any means. Q is auto targeted, W is auto targeted and E is point&click. You simply can not miss these skills.

This is not about the current power level of the champions in question, it is just about basic gameplay and the fact that one of these champions is able to miss his damage spells and the other one isn't.

I totally think Kindred should be buffed because they are really weak at the moment. Riot is actually figuring out a way to do so by introducing a new interaction with the stat crit for Kindred. But please don't deny the fact that Graves is able to miss his stuff while Kindred isn't.

Chembaron YamadaMar 5, 20171 votes

Just to be correct: Graves' AS and reloading time actually scale with AS. Jhin is the one without AS scaling (he gets raw AD for it instead).

Crokinole AceMar 3, 20175 votes

I think that Kindred's ultbeing available for both teams makes it acceptable that it is an extremely strong part of their kit. On top of the fact that the mark's are shown on the minimap for EVERYONE to see, they are a predictable jungler unit that have ignorable base damages.

For the most part, I find Kindred to need to get their team ahead so they can collect marks, but their damage, hard time clearing early and ganks are so poor that this one thing (their win condition) she can't do. Since they removed the sustain on jungle camps Kindred has been really bad.

PapaGreg21Mar 3, 20173 votes

The funny thing about kindred ult is that if she uses it against graves in a 1 on 1 fight, Graves just stands there and waits for it to end and can use his own ultimate against them to win the burst fight. Kindred is not only a worse jungler than Graves, but also loses duels to Graves.

KnoyleMar 3, 20173 votes

To be fair I don't think she wins duels against many Junglers to begin with.

AbrahamBaconhamMar 4, 20171 votes

Correct. Even with a few kills lead a Kindred player of equivalent skill to her opponent will still flat our lose duels with almost every other jungler.

DessemMar 4, 20172 votes

Used to be different when she had heal on W and Q CD didn't scale with rank. Now she just has no hard CC and no burst, yeah, which makes her a weak duelist despite invades being important to her.

PermabannedGarenMar 4, 20174 votes

{quoted}

I am still confused why Graves is better at jungling but Kindred was the one designed to perform that role.

Because when Kindred was good they were the gods of the jungle and had to be nerfed into obscurity to change that. Graves was fine for a while before lethality buffs made him OP again.

Kindred's design is faulty. She's a champion whose late game is reliant on how her early game went. If her early is good enough that she can reliably get stacks she snowballs hard and is overpowered. If her early is bad enough that she can't reliably get stacks, she's bad.

AninLegions777Mar 4, 20173 votes

Where does this "gods of the jungle" come from? Kindred were still having early game issues of having a highly telegraphed clear pattern. You couldn't contest your marks because there's a red spiral on the enemy minimap saying "Come here to fck Kindred up!". They were still squishy as fck (though not as bad as the 20 base starting armor they have atm).

GayFluffyUnicornMar 4, 20173 votes

It comes from the fact that kindred was so broken it got played top, jungle, mid and bot. Whenever possible picked and played. Fighting her early was a death sentence. 100-0 everyone at level 3, that's a fucking fact. Have you ever played kindred at that time?

greekvandaLMar 3, 20173 votes

because graves doesnt have an aoe fkn trynda ult to overload the living hell out of his kit. if they remove her ult from the game she can be a graves 2.0 for all i care.

LauchmelderMar 3, 201713 votes

You do know that you'll get unkillable as well even if it's the enemy Kindreds ult, right?

MunchCrunchLunchMar 3, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=MadKnife IV,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yFuHrpXe,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-03-03T18:25:05.876+0000)

You do know that you'll get unkillable as well even if it's the enemy Kindreds ult, right?

yeah but you do realize as the kindred you get to pick and choose when and where you ult. as staying in the ult sometimes mean certain death after for enemy or saving her or other allies.

LauchmelderMar 3, 20176 votes

They're the Bard of jungle. A good ult will win you the game, a bad ult will screw you over.

KetiMar 4, 20176 votes

and unlike bard ult everyone still has control of their champions, so it's also up to everyone else in the game to determine if it was a good/bad kindred ult.

Sexy Jack RabbitMar 4, 20172 votes

I wish Kindred could actually be relevant.

General Esdeath Mar 4, 20171 votes

Kindred has lifesteal and Graves has pushback.

BârdMar 4, 20176 votes

Nope. Kindred lost her healing because it made her too annoying in lanes.

It was replaced by Wolf slowing monsters, which helps a bit but not enough.

ProzzakMar 4, 20171 votes

Riot should just give her back her healing passive from w. Boom, she can now handle the jungle again and be about where she should be at.

Chembaron YamadaMar 4, 20172 votes

The healing made Kindred too good at being a duelist, something Kindred was never intended to be. They replaced it with another mechanic to lower the damage taken in the jungle: as slow for jungle creeps on W.

They are going to buff Kindred some time in the future, I remember them saying that they want to give Kindred a special interaction with the stat crit. Just like the passive CD from Quinn scales with crit, MF ult is able to mini crit or Caitlyn passive dealing more damage based on crit.

If these changes are coming, maybe Kindred will be in a better spot.