Hi, I'm Grifynn.

This is a little guide I wanted to write mostly because I want more people to try this pick out.


Now, who are you? Well I'm literally the least important part of this guide. Just a sad plat player on EUW who likes this little riot fursona of a champion.

I'm a Plat Gwen/Neeko/Kindred player that likes to dabble in all roles and throw off-meta picks in the ring to mess around with. I've been playing league for a few years and wanted to pick up Kindred after encounterning a Kindred ADC in one of my ranked games. Now now, you're probably wondering if they did well? No. They bought serpants first item SO I wanted to try this out and see if it actually worked if it was build right since Kindred is a pretty standard kiting and scaling champion with a high skill ceiling. Once I tried, I absolutely fell in love with them and since you're reading this guide, I hope you are too!

So if you're NOT here because you're interesting in Kindred ADC, here's a bit of information for you about the pick/champion.

Pros:

-High mobility
-Heavy late damage
-Anti-burst ult in a burst meta
-Built in healing
-Very fun
-High skill cap


Cons:

-Very squishy
-Your ult can **** up teamfights and objective smites
-Failing a q over a wall gets you missing pings (from experience)
-Hard to learn when new
-Long cooldowns early

Since some of you reading this might be very new to Kindred, I should probably go through a rundown of their abilties. Lets start from passive all the way to ultimate. The games description of the abilities will be in base color, while my explanations will be dark blue

Mark of the Kindred:

"Both Lamb and Wolf mark targets to hunt. Lamb marks an enemy champion for death (this mark activates after an 8 second delay), while Wolf periodically marks monsters in the enemy jungle. All champions can see which targets are marked.

After 40 seconds of having no active jungle mark, Wolf marks an enemy jungle monster for 3 minutes.

Wolf marks jungle monsters based on Kindred's current stacks:

0 Marks: Rift Scuttler
1-3 Marks: Rift Scuttler, Crimson Raptor, Gromp
4-7 Marks: Red Brambleback, Blue Sentinel, Ancient Krug, Greater Murk Wolf
8+ Marks: Rift Herald, Baron Nashor, Elemental Drakes, Elder Dragon

If Kindred kills a marked target or assists in their death, they gain a mark. Kindred's basic attacks and Mounting Dread gain 75 range at 4 stacks, plus 25 range every 3 stacks thereafter. Stacks also amplify Kindred's basic abilities:

Q - Dance of Arrows: Bonus attack speed increased by an additional 5% per stack.
W - Wolf's Frenzy: Current health damage increased by an additional 0.5% per stack.
E - Mounting Dread: Missing health damage increased by an additional 0.5% per stack.

Targets successfully hunted cannot be targeted again for 240 seconds. Lamb can also change her target after 90 seconds if the target hasn't died in that time."

Kindred may mark enemies on a passive cooldown AND champion cooldown. These marks increase the scaling on their abilties, ie attack speed of q and damage of e. These marks are on specific areas of the map, not just champions. These marks will appear on the map until taken and a few minutes after being taken. Your first mark will always be on a scuttle crab which you can get with your jungler if it is botside and the wave is pushed. Kindred's range increases every 3 marks, but 4 marks is usually the biggest spike you have. Kindred is not required to kill the enemy for the mark and can also be dead to get the mark.

Dance of Arrows:

"Lamb dashes in the target direction, gaining 25% (+5% per Mark) bonus attack speed for 4 seconds and fires up to three homing arrows on arrival upon the three nearest targets, dealing 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+0.75 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to each of the targets she hits.

Casting Wolf's Frenzy or dashing inside of Wolf's territory will reduce the cooldown of Dance of Arrows to 4 / 3.5 / 3 / 2.5 / 2 seconds."

Kindred's q fires multiple arrows and allows a small dash in the direct that your cursor is facing. The range is limited within their W because it limits the area they can get the cooldown reduction. Over walls, the range is larger. Your passive stacks give your q more attack speed when used.

Wolf's Frenzy:

"Passive: Kindred gains stacks of Hunter's Vigor from moving and attacking. When charged, she will heal for up to 49-100 (at levels 1-18) based on her missing health %.

Wolf claims an area centered on the target location as his territory for the next 8.5 seconds, separating from Lamb. Wolf attacks enemies within the area (800 unit radius) autonomously, prioritizing Lamb's attack target, ignores unit collision and ignores terrain collision.

Wolf's basic attacks deal 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+0.2 per bonus AD) (+1.5% (+1% per Mark) of target's current health) magic damage and scale with 25% of Kindred's bonus attack speed. Wolf deals 50% bonus damage against monsters.

Wolf's Frenzy ends immediately if Lamb leaves the area."

Kindred's w shortens the cooldown on their q. Wolf can attack enemies for magic damage. The center of this ability can provide vision for Kindred, allowing them to have to face-check less than other champions. This ability is on a long cooldown and is vital to your kiting, so be sure not to waste it. Objectively, I think this is the hardest ability to get used to when you start playing Kindred.

Mounting Dread:

"Lamb cripples the target unit, slowing them by 50% for 1 second and applying Dread for 4 seconds. Lamb's next two attacks mounts the Dread and refreshes the duration.

On the third attack, Lamb signals Wolf to pounce on the target, dealing 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160 (+0.8 per bonus AD) (+ 8% (+0.5% per Mark) of target's missing health) bonus physical damage. Percentage damage is capped at 300 vs. monsters.

Jaws of Death: Wolf's' pounce critically strikes targets below 15% health for 50% (+0.5% × bonus critical damage) bonus damage. Threshold increased by 0.5% health per 1% critical strike chance (up to 65% health at 100% crit chance)."

Attaching Kindred's e to an enemy slows them for around a second, after this slow ends the ability stays on them for a few seconds and then disappears if not proced. After 3 auto attacks, the e procs and deals a ton of damage. Passive stacks allow the HP threshold for this to be increased for it to deal the crit.

Lamb's Respite:

"Lamb blesses the ground under herself for 4 seconds, creating an area in which no living things, ally or enemy, can die. Upon reaching 10% of their maximum health, units become immune to further damage or healing. When the blessing ends, all living things inside the area heal for 250 / 325 / 400."

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, DAMAGE CAN REGISTER OUTSIDE OF YOUR ULTIMATE IF YOU ARE HIT OUT OF IT, EVEN IF YOU FLASH BACK INTO IT BEFORE IT ENDS.That aside, Kindred creates a zone that cannot be touched at all. No healing or damage. This ultimate is objectively the most unique thing about Kindred. You can still be cced inside of this ult, allowing it to be a huge playmaking ability if comboed with other abilties after the duration. This ability is very key for making dives as well. It's best used in high elo imo.

Now that we're done doing a basic rundown of Kindred's abiltiies, we're (hopefully) ready to move onto early game and laning.

MAJOR WIP PAGE

What runes are best into the team comp or laning? How do I pick?

Runes are mostly a laning pick unless you're using glacial or tempo. You can always pick off preference, but some benefit laning A LOT.

Tempo

This runepage is SO strong in the current preseason. It really benefits Kindred's need for long trades without having to take PTA (which I think is very slow and lack luster early).

Yeah yeah, we're getting started now.

As you should hopefully know (and if you don't), Kindred's early game is not the strongest.

STARTS

First start:+
Long sword + refillable pots are my go-to start ATM. I mostly duo with a Thresh, so it makes laning easier. With supports that don't have the early pressure that Thresh does, a secondary start could be better.

This start allows you to deal with poke and do aggresive trades with little to no reprocussion.

Secondary start+
This start is the before mentioned, more benefitial imo for weaker starts. Though double pots allows sustain in poke lanes, doran's blade start can be better for actual fighting or short trading. The life steal helps with wave sustane as well.

This start plays more passive and doesn't take long extended trades.

After your starting items, usually a boots rush is better than focusing on damage to build into your Kraken. I don't suggest going a crit cloak early, either. Attack speed on Kindred is vital even though it's provided by your q in a small amount. Boots also help avoid cc and get back to lane faster. If you think you're strong enough early to go for damage and be able to live through cc/dodge it with q, you can always opt for damage.

MARKS

In early game, your main marks will be on early champion kills. These can come from an invade or cheesing usually. Mark the enemy ADC (or jungler in specific invade conditions)

During lane, getting marks as Kindred can be super easy or super hard.

Laning can sometimes heavily depend on your support. You can do well in general with any support, but as a lane pick Kindred is not that good on their own.

While building into youror, you'll be able to move up in lane more. Pay close attention to the enemies item advantages as they'll be extremely vital. You're weak and a long sword difference can mean a much bigger gold gap later.

MARKS

In laning, it's probably going to be difficult at first to get your marks. You're going to want to play around the waves and have them PUSHED before moving to a mark. Make sure you know where the enemy mid and jungler are, and if not have yours with you/able to rotate. They'll still probably need to be taken by enemy champion takedowns. Mark the enemy support while the ADC is on cd and rotate to crab or gromp/crugs if your mark is there (ally side)

Aside from early game, this is probably the 2nd most important for you.

If you're ahead, you can snowball super hard. If you're behind you can go mid and farm with more opportunity to get your marks (especially if the t1 mid tower is down and you're just farming).

MARKS

Try to have your support or jungler hover you constantly when moving to marks in the enemy jungle. You're still squishy, especially without your infinity edge. This point of the game is mostly where you'll start trying to get that second major spike.

In lower elo, a lot of times objectives are not prioritized. That aside, I have a lot of junglers who spam ping and then don't come bot if you can't help with drake. If you can, you'll probably want your jungler to help push the wave before drake or kill the enemy bot. Rushing these objectives early can really screw up your laning as Kindred since being even or ahead is VERY important. Sometimes when you get behind because of a drake can easily lose the game.

MARKS

As before mentioned in the passive, your late game marks come on drake and baron. This makes drake way more important than it was before if you don't have soul pressure. You can play similar to jungle Kindred when taking objectives like this (even on smaller camps). Combine your e on low hp with your junglers smite. You can also solo objectives with your e as a smite.

(((End of WIP 1/8/22)))