This is my first written guide on Mobafire, Im a gold ranked player on EUW, who has recently been maining jungle. Kindred is perfect for the jungle and is very fun to play, in addition to being strong.

This is my basic guide for the recently released champion Kindred.

Pros

- High Mobility
- Fast Clear
- High damage
- Good sustain
- Game changing ultimate (when used correctly)

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Cons

- Squishy
- Ganks are a little difficult
- Ultimate can be hard to master

Mark of the Kindred // Passive

This will automatically mark enemy jungle camps and scuttle crabs, killing a marked camp will give you 1 stack. A stack will empower your autos to deal 1.25% of a targets current health per stack. Jungle creeps will only award stacks till a maximum of 6. Kindred can also mark champions for death, when killed these marked champions also offer a mark. This is the only way to gain more than 6 stacks.

Dance of Arrows

Kindred jumps shooting a volley of arrows. This is your bread and butter move, especially when combined with your W and is one of your main sources of damage. The jump can be used to jump over small walls on the rift, a nice one to remember is the back of Dragon pit.

Wolf's Frenzy

The passive element charges up, when it reaches 100 stacks your next attack will heal you. Keep moving to charge this up.

The active element places a circle around you where Wolf will roam and attack enemies whom are inside the area. Wolf will prioritise your target.

Note:

While stood inside Wolf's Frenzy, Dance of Arrows is always a 2 second cooldown. This greatly increases your damage output and has huge kiting potential. More on this in the combo section.

Mounting Dread

Lamb marks an enemy, initially slowing them. If 3 attacks are landed on the marked target Wolf will pounce on the enemy dealing damage as well as % health.

Lamb's Respite

This is your game changing ultimate. You can stop you and your teammates from dying for 4 seconds.. but also your enemies. After 4 seconds everyone, friend and foe, inside the area is healed.

Starting Wolf's Frenzy (W) gives you the option to use Wolf to attack, more importantly if gives you the passive heal. This is your sustain in the jungle and its important to take this at level 1.

Make sure you move in between autos to stack the passive

- This will keep you healthy and allow you to gank lanes if necessary.

As mentioned above W reduces the cooldown of your Q.

Dance of Arrows (Q) is your bread and butter skill and should be spammed to clear camps quickly. Max this first to deal the largest amount of damage to the most amount of people (3 to be precise)

Obviously max Lamb's Respite where possible.

Warrior VS Devourer

Enchantment: Warrior VS Enchantment: Devourer

Many other guides recommend devourer as the jungle enchantment for Kindred. It is a good choice however, I prefer Warrior. Warrior is by far the superior enchant.

Devourer has been nerfed for ranged champions, it now only procs every 4th hit. It will proc your passive, however, the effect not as frequent as I'd like it to be, even with 2.00+ attack speed. The bonus 50% attack speed it gives is however really nice for Kindred. This item needs to be stacked to reach its maximum output and therefore leads to a more farm heavy early game.

Warrior requires no stacking, this means you can focus more on ganking in the early game and getting your lanes ahead. It also gives armour penetration which is great for Kindred. The attack damage and cooldown reduction is nice too.

Core Build

Blade of the Ruined King

This is the core item of this champion, it gives your attack speed and attack damage and more importantly the on hit effect.

Youmuu's Ghostblade

The attack damage, cooldown reduction and crit change all benefit Kindred. Most importantly this item gives you armour penetration and also the active is huge, lending attack speed and movement speed.

Runaan's Hurricane

This item is best for the mid game, for the team fights. The extra bolts all trigger Kindred's and Blade of the Ruined King's passive. It also gives you more attack speed, meaning more passive procs.

Last Whisper

The enemy will buy armour, especially against you. This will allow you to cut through it and still deliver large amounts of damage. Build this once the armour on the enemy team starts to suppress your damage too much.

Situational Items

Black Cleaver

If the enemy team stacks alot of armour you can build this. Your Dance of Arrows will stack the passive armour reducing effects on multiple targets and if you have build a Runaan's it will stack even more. The item also makes you slightly harder to kill and the cooldown reduction is always nice!

Spirit Visage

If the team have a fair amount of AP and you find yourself being focused and in need of a defensive item, I highly recommend it. The health and magic resist are great and will allow you to take more damage, the cooldown reduction is also good. The 20% bonus healing will increase the amount healed from your Wolf's Frenzy, increasing your sustain.

Infinity Edge

Makes your crits stronger and gives you a load of extra AD. I haven't played around with this item much and dont rate it too highly due to its high cost.

Maw of Malmortius

The first part of this item is strong, especially in the early game. If the enemy are heavy AP build Hexdrinker it will save you from fatal blows. The attack damage is ok for Kindred despite her ratios not being great.

Frozen Mallet

Hugely increases your kiting potential. Makes you harder to kill and gives you bonus AD. If you find yourself needing extra slows, pick up the Frozen mallet and watch as the enemy team struggle to get near. Kindreds kit is already designed to help you kite, I prefer taking other items over this one.

This is my current rune set up for Kindred. I feel like this is optimal for me, I will explain my choices and any changes you could make depending on play style and/or item choice.


Greater Mark of Attack Damage

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These are most worth for the early game. They speed your early clear up and help you hit harder in early ganks. Kindred's AD ratios are fairly low therefore these fall of a little bit more late game.

An alternative could be Greater Mark of Attack Speed

Seal of Armor

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These definitely should be taken. A standard rune seen in most rune pages. They will protect you from jungle camp and champion physical damage.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

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Another commonly seen rune. They will provide good protection against magic damage. Scaling runes could be taken as an alternative as most AP carries hit their power post 6.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed

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Attack speed is a great stat for Kindred, more autos means more percentage health taken from the enemy. These quints have, fairly recently, been buffed and are much stronger than any other alternative. They are simply a great choice for Kindred.

Early Game

During the early game you are not at your strongest, although your clear is still good. I recommend mostly farming at this stage.

The great thing about kindred is you can pressure lanes without showing yourself
Use your passive to mark a chosen enemy, this plays some mind games with him and may give your laner a little more pressure in lane.

This does not mean don't gank. If a play is available at level 3 take it.

Finally, this is the stage of the game where you can still build stacks from enemy jungle camps and scuttles. Play this mini invade game with caution! A marked scuttle can pull enemies in from the lane and the jungle to counter-hunt you. Only execute these invades with appropriate vision and knowledge. Stacks are very important but they aren't worth dying for!

Mid Game

You should be getting over 6 stacks now, meaning your jungle mini game is over. Marking champions is the only way to get stacks. Make sure you continue to plan your ganks and communicate with your laners to ensure success.

With your jungle item and blade finished you have hit a power spike. You also have your ultimate which can help swing team fights and skirmishes into your favour.

Late game

Make sure you build your items correctly. Don't just follow my example build but look at the enemy and make good decisions. Ask yourself 'Do I need more armour pen?' ... 'Do I need some MR and health?'

Your ultimate really comes into play here during the big team fights. Use it to save yourself but more importantly your team. You can also dive towers with it quite nicely.

Remember you are squishy, you need to take some what of an adc mind set, staying at the back of your team. Avoid being focused and give them little opportunity to dive onto you.

How to Gank

Kindred is not the easiest champion to gank with, you have no real gap closer. Once you have a Youmuu's Ghostblade ganks become a little easier due to the bonus movement speed. However until then you must think and plan before you gank.

An over extended target is a great target. Keep an eye on the mini-map and communicate with laners to set up successful ganks. Run into lane as far you can, if you can make it all the way to your target that is great, use your E to slow them and pop your W so you are able to spam Q.
If you can't make it to them by simply walking then pop your W / Q combo earlier to get the extra movement in.

Ganking is important on kindred as it is the only way to build stack post 6.

More to come soon!

Thank you for reading my guide, I hope you enjoyed it and more importantly learnt something. I'll be adding things as it is not yet finished. If you have any questions drop them in the comments I'll do my best to answer them.

If the suggested builds and/or combos work for you please send me some screenshots so I can include them in a sort of 'kill secured' section.

Finally if this guide has helped you, please leave a comment or simply upvote the guide so it may be seen by others.