Kindred Build Guide by Rermo99

Ladies, gentlemens and Draaaaaavens! My summoner’s name is UtsukushiiSempai. This is my first guide on Mobafire (about two year now) and it's about Kindred in mid lane. I like to play jungle, but I'm a MID MAIN, and Kindred are my favourite characters. I made this build to play them in my main lane. Why should you trust me with this? Don't... ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Just kidding, I'm probably the only one you'll see who mains Kindred in mid lane! I've played Kindred once in jungle and I didn't like it that much. Kindred was still my favourite champions so I decided to try them mid and absolutely loved it??? I hope you’ll enjoy this guide about an awesome way to play Kindred and hope you'll have as much fun as I do while trying it!

Why is Kindred Mid any good?

Kindred are good junglers, but can also be really quite surprising in lane.

Starting with the basics, Lamb is a marksman. It's an important advantage in mid because most mid laners play mage characters and are too dangerous for fighters and other "melee" champions in early game.

Another good point, Kindred have a very good burst and make it easy to keep a constant pressure on your opponents. They can deal much damage even if you don't focus your build on AD.

In mid, they get 2 big advantages over other lanes.

First one, they have only one opponent, which makes it easier to get their mark.

Second one, they can dodge many skill shots with Dance of Arrows. It makes them really strong against many mages.

It's important to note before anything that Kindred mid are a HUUUUGE counter to Caster/Artillery mages using skill shots. Use them as a counter pick.

A fair warning though :
Click-to-win mages like Malzahar or AD assassin like Yasuo, Talon and Zed are gonna eat you.

The most important thing to note is that Kindred mid are a good pick to have fun. It's not really viable for ranked, but playing them in mid lane with this build or even with smite is one of my favorite thing in the game. Have fun!

Strenght ... Very Mobile; ... Tons of buff with passive; ... Very good laning phase; ... Excelent sustain with W; ... Very useful Ult that can secure team fights; ... Gap closer with Dance of Arrows; ... High damage to tank; ... Strong execute on low health enemy; ... Counter mages using skill shots; ... Ult allow you to tower dive without dying!

Weakness ... Squishy; ... Ult can save your opponent's life; ... Short range early game for a marksman; ... An immobilized Kindred is a Dead Kindred; ... Low pressure in lane. ...

Mark of the kindred is your passive.



Dance of Arrows is your Q and your first one to max.



Wolf's Frenzy is your W and your second ability to max.



Mounting Dread will be your third pick and your last ability to max.



Lamb's Respite is your ultimate. You must upgrade whenever you can.

About Kindred

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Kindred are marksman champions that have been created mostly for the jungle. This guide is for Kindred in lane, which plays very differently.

We rarely see them in mid lane, and yet, Kindred have a very good burst on champions. Many people only fight against Kindred when she’s ganking, but there, your opponent has to fight you in a whole laning phase. Kindred also give you a good advantage on a bunch of mages, because you can easily dodge skill shots like Light Binding, Flash Frost or Pillar of Flame with Q.

Furthermore, Kindred need their marks to be strong. Being in mid lane let them focus one champion and makes them closer to their jungle marks than if they were in top or bot lane. With those easy marks, your early game can become a real problem for your opponents.

Early Game (Levels 1 to 6)

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In early game, Kindred can be a real monster. You have to play aggressively to try and have your opponents far from their farms.

In mid lane, you only have one opponent, so you know who you’re going to mark first with your passive. Many mages will try to begin with a skill shot spell. If they do, dodge it and get closer to your opponent with Dance of Arrows. You will be able to deal a good amount of damage to them even before minions get in lane.

Each of your Q, W and E must be at least at rank 1 for your main combo (AA > Q > W > E > AA > AA > Q > AA > AA). Be sure to have them all unlocked at level 3. With this combo, you’ll have one of the easiest counter-engage of all mid laners.
Up until level 6, you’ll out-damage your opponent or even kill them if they try to play aggressively.
At level 6, you also won't have much difficulty killing them, because Lamb's Respite can save your hide while you’re under a tower's aggro. That makes you one of the best champions for tower-diving. It's a risky move, but it is worth learning how to do so. You just need to be sure that you can secure the kill quickly before attacking under tower and be sure to activate your ult only if your opponent is dead and if the tower is going to kill you.

One more thing about their ult, taking Ignite or Barrier instead of Heal or Teleport is important to get early kills. You'll have a lot of fight early game where it's even in damage and using your ult can makes you and your opponent at 10% HP. Both of you will also get the flat healing. If you really want an adventage on your ult, you just have to use Ignite right before your ult ends. Your opponent will get Grievous wound from your ignite and will get 40% less healing from your ult. That's a huge advantage you get there and the ignite is still burning his health down. However, Barrier is still better in bad matchup since you'll get a shield so you can take even more damage to flee out of combat.

Be sure to take your jungle hunt each time you kill your laner or whenever they recall. You can ask your jungler for help if you don’t feel secure enough to invade the enemy's jungle. Your marks are your main preoccupation, like Nasus and his stacks.

Mid Game (10 to 25 minutes)

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That’s when the real fun begins. You’re now powerful enough to gank without your jungler in other lanes, so your game won’t be summarized by farming and pushing your lane for a thousand years. With Wolf's Frenzy’s extra damage on monsters, you can help your team easily get their jungle objectives. Also, you can jump over most walls with Dance of Arrows and chase low health enemies trying to escape team fights.

Around 15 minutes in, depending on your division, team fights might begin in the jungle. In such case, you must focus the squishies in the back line. ADCs and Mages are the squishier and they usually try to stay behind the jungler, the tank and their support. Be careful, you can't just dive in because you also are THE SQUISH. Instead, try to move around the fight to avoid becoming a living fluffy-cute punching bag.
Mark of the Kindred also gives you a lot of damage against tanks, but they are not those who deal the most damage, so chasing and killing the ADC will better help your team toward victory.

During this part of the game, you can gank as many times as you want, as long as you don’t let your laner alone. Don’t forget: You are Kindred. You dominate many champions in 1v1. So kill your laner as much as you can, then choose between ganking or farming, depending on what you need (Kill/Assist or CS).

One of the biggest problems with Kindred in lane is your low damage to towers. So ask for some help if you have a short window of opportunity to push. If you don’t, you’ll give the enemy team all the time they need to organize and corner you while you're trying to destroy the tower.

Late Game (30 minutes or more)

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In your late game, you are a real monster. Your passive will be (I hope for you) at 12 or more stacks, which means that you are going to destroy pretty much any opponent in 1v1.

In team fights, you should always target their biggest damage (usually the ADC). That's not a rule for Kindred mid, it's a trick for any champion no matter your lane or role.

You will kill very quickly any squishies in 1v1, but you still deal relatively low damage to towers and inhibitors, so try to attack them along with someone else. It will also give you a chance to survive, because the enemy team will focus on you. If you die, they will take a big advantage on your team.

On the same subject, winning a team fight can very well make you win the game. You must use your ult wisely. Don't activate it in the middle of a team fight, you'll save the enemy team. So cast it behind your team, in the back line. If an ally is going to die, he'll go back to your ult, but don't cast it to save only one guy if your team is winning the team fight. Use it to save your whole team.

At last, during your early game you must focus your mark, but in the late game, if you got around 7 marks or more, you won't need to focus them anymore.

You'll have to focus on jungle objective and on your team. Kindred aren't the best champions for split-pushing. Let this job to another player on your team and focus on fighting in team. Your ult is one of the best fight-changing tool of the game and your high damage to champion isn't really good against towers.

You can also use your passive as a call to objectives. Whenever a mark appears on the Baron, it would be a good time to do it. First, the enemy team probably think you'll wait to win a fight to do it. If they appear to suspect your team doing it (or it was warded), you can use it as a bait. Kindred's ability for good positioning in the river is amazing. After all, they were made for the Jungle. Even in mid lane we can use this at our advantage.

Relationship goal with your Jungler

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Every games, you must have good communication with your jungler, because as the mid laner, you won't have Smite to secure your marks in the enemy jungle. At least if you follow this guide.

When your marks appear, it'll be easier to get if your jungler wants to invade. Being two at your marks will help to get them while keeping the enemy jungler out of your path.

Also, receiving gank at the right moment in mid lane can give you your marks on your laner. If you want marks on any other champions, you can gank with your jungler every time he's ganking where you have your marks, putting your opponents in a 2v4 or 1v3, depending on the lane you gank.

Collecting your marks during Team Fights

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In team fights, if you have at least 10 marks in 25 minutes, you'll be the biggest pain spreader of your team. Before the team fight, marks the enemy ADC or Mid laner (mostly the ones dealing the most damage of their team). You can also farm your mark on their inting jungler because you know, free marks are free fun! After this, your team must focus first the ones you target. This way, you'll get many marks in late game and your team will get the advantage quickly.


With Kindred mid, Junglers that can push very fast or lock down your laner with a stun or something (Like Jax!) are the best matchup for you.
ok I know the best matchup is actually Tahm Kench, but he's just to funny to play with. Best memories of LoL I have.


Kindred mid is good in solo queue, but if your jungler doesn't want to help you or won't communicate with you, it'll be better to play something else. In duo queue with a jungler, you'll be a real monster.
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The runes are basically what's gonna decides if you win your lane or not. And that is for any champion, not only for Kindred mid.

There is usually multiple ways to build your runes page for each champion, for exemple, Malzahar is good either with Aery or Electrocute. For Kindred mid, there's sadly only one way that it works, because they aren't made to be played in mid lane at first.

Let's get to the point now.

First, there are 5 different path you could take :



I won't explain each of them, because for kindred mid, there's only two that matters :
Precision and Domination.

For those who doesn't know, you may choose in your runes pages two paths: Your primary path and your secondary path.
With Kindred, we will go for the Precision path as our principal. This path has been made for the ranged champions, in other word those who mainly kill with AutoAttack and for big AD carries that are not necessarily assassins. We'll go for Domination as our secondary path because this path has been made for allowing an assassin to reach its target easily. Kindred may not be assassins, but they put marks on champions to get buffs when they kill them. Going Domination can help them get their marks.

Precision :

Conqueror : Ranged basic attacks on-hit against enemy champion grant 1 stack of conqueror. Abilities that deals damage to enemy champion always grant 2 stacks.
Each stack of Conqueror grants 1.2 to 3 (based on level) bonus attack damage for 6 seconds, stacking up to 10 times, for a maximum of 12 to 30 (based on level) bonus attack damage.
When fully stacked, you heal for 8% of the post-mitigation damage dealt. The buffs refresh upon dealing to enemy champions with attacks or abilities.




Triumph Takedowns restore 12% of your missing health and grant an additional 20 gold.




Legend : Alacrity : Gain 3% attack speed plus an additional 1.5% for every Legend stack (max 10 stack)
Earn progress toward Legend stacks for every champion takedowns, epic monster takedowns, large monster kills, and minion kills.




Coup de Grace : Deal 7% more damage to champions who have less than 40% health.
Additionally, takedowns on champions grant an adaptive bonus of 9 AD or 15 AP for 10 seconds.

Domination :

Taste of Blood : Heals when you damage an enemy champion.
Healing: 18-35 (+20% bonus AD and 10% AP) health (based on level).
Cooldown: 20s




Relentless Hunter : Gain 8 out of combat movement speed plus an additional 8 per Bounty Hunter stack.
Earn a Bounty Hunter stack the first time you get a takedown on each enemy champion.

Spicy Shards :

This is a new thing that gives you the opportunity to choose some basic stats to start with in your games. This means you can now go with the runes above and still get a dang amount of resistance like armor and magic resist. Don't do it. I know you want to but don't.

Those are the shards you should take with Kindred mid :

• 9% Attack Speed
• 10 Adaptive (6 AD in your case)
• 6 Magic Resist

You need some attack speed with Kindred. Stacking your E faster means Stacking your kills faster.

Since you are a damage dealer, you'll need a bit more AD in early game. Don't you think I'm right?

At last, you are in mid lane, where a bunch of mages parties up to burst everyone who isn't supposed to be there. Especially you. But sometime they give that job to an AD champion, in which case you should take some armor instead.

First of all, you must know that this build is made for Kindred mid. Not jungle. You doesn't take smite in lane. Kindred need a great amount of AD because they have huge scaling. That's why even if you have synergy with your E and Crits items, you'll have to put them aside for your early game.

Kindred Mid
Starting Item	The Doran's Blade will be your starting item if you want or have to play an aggressive laning phase. It is also the most common starting item for any AD champion in mid lane. It gives you a bonus AD for your Auto Attack and your Abilities. For any lane matchup that have a threat level lower than 7, It will be preferable to take this one because of the health and lifesteal boost. They will both help you putting pressure on your opponent.
	The Cull will be you starting item if you want or have to play a passive laning phase. It is rare that this item will be picked as a starting item, but it is for me the best starting item for Kindred if your lane matchup has a threat level of 7 or more. It doesn't give bonuses health like the Doran's Blade, but the 3 life On-Hit it gives will heal you more than 3% lifesteal for your early game. With the Cull, you won't only have a better healing On-Hit but you'll also gain extra gold while farming so even if your opponent do a lot of pressure and you have hard time to farm, you'll be able to catch up with the gold.
First Back	The B. F. Sword is the first option for your first back item if you choose to go for the Stormrazor or the Infinity Edge. It gives you enough AD to make your whole kit super effective early in the game. I recommend going B.F.Sword only if you are confident you'll win your lane. Kindred is still quite a big squish when it comes to 1v1. They may need more resistances.
	The Hexdrinker will be your first back item if you plan on taking the Maw of Malmortius, which I greatly recommend. I mostly pick Kindred against AP champions because they are getting countered by any AD champion you can imagine being mid. Getting a quick 35 magic resist is more than enough to make you win lane. You still gets some AD to scale your abilities, and you will get a pretty sweet shield if you get low. If you take this item, just play aggressive. Just do it
Core Item	The Maw of Malmortius is really strong while playing in mid lane because of the magic shield and the magic resist. You will try to pick Kindred mostly against AP champions because most of the AD ones counter you. As a first item against any AP champions, you will get a serious advantage on your laner.
	The Infinity Edge Is your second pick (or first if you go as aggressive as a pizza). The AD scaling will have a huge impact on your abilities, and it will bring your E back on the line for an easy execute. It also boosts your critical damage by 25% and gives you the same amount as critical hit chance. This means for you that your E will get a great damage spike. First, 80 AD is nice when you scale a lot with bonus AD. Second, your third hit on E crits on enemies under 15% (+half your critical chance) heath. With 25%, you get your E to crit on enemies under 22,5% health, which is nice, and it also get a +25% damage with the item passive. And even if your enemy isn't under 22,5% health, it still counts as a basic attack, it can crit by itself.
	The Berserker's Greaves are your boots. I pick them as my third item for a more personal gameplay, so feel free to take them whenever you want. The berserker's greaves are my pick because I love to play Kindred Aggressively, but I suggest the Mercury's Treads for a more passive play style.
	The Statikk Shiv is your third pick. Reasons? You want 75% crit chance and more attack speed. You will need to farm, and if you are as bad as me at farming, getting a chain lightning on your autoattack will help you a bit. This item can however be swap with the Rapid Firecannon. The Rapid Firecannon will still gives you the on-hit burst but won't help you getting those damn minion that I apparently can’t kill with a ******* autANYWAY, take the one that fits you better as your third item, they are both good.
Late game Possibility	The Runaan's Hurricane is the best one for late game. You'll also be getting even more attack speed, you'll raise your crit chance to 75%, wich means your E will crit on enemies under 52,5% health. Litteraly you insta kill any squish bag with E>AA>AA>AA. At last, FARMING is still something I can't get good at and damn this item helps a lot.
	The Blade of the Ruined King was amazing on Kindred, but since her passives buffs your abilities instead of your Auto Attacks, it's no more a core item. it will give you the sustain you'll need in late game, but I'm still able to win games without it. You can replace it with any situational items if you need to.

So this is where the guide ends. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to check the few next chapter if you wants for additionnal info and leave a comment on what are your thoughts about it! It's not because I said something that it will be true for everyone, so feel free to experiment on your own too!




( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

10.12 : Doesn't seems to be any balance change for now affecting Lamb or Wolf!

Stay informed about Kindred and items balance changes for the next patch on SurrenderAt20!

First, I want to give a SPECIAL GOLDEN CHOCOLATE BAR to JhoiJhoi, because of her guide: "Making a Guide". Without this guide, I would never have finished mine. I suggest to all new users who want to create a guide to read all through all of her "Making a Guide" guide. It helps A LOT.

Also, I give a VERY BIG COOKIE to my dear friend Capuccinoglace for the correction and the review of the whole guide in addition of the spell check program Antidote I used, and for supporting me all the time I was working on it.

TY TO EVERYONE WHO CLICKED ON MY GUIDE! OVER 500K VIEW IT'S AMAZING! X3

Next is a HUGE MEGA FLUFFY STRAWBERRY CAKE to both Mowen and PsiGuard for being the fastest admins I've ever seen when someone's in need and for helping writers at any moments.

At last, I want to give a SPECIAL PLATINUM COOKIE to my brother Fuzzy Demon. He showed me many tricks in text formatting and BBCode for making my guide better and more comprehensive. He also helped with a full correction of this guide.

I'm an artist in real life and I know how copyrights are important, so there is the list of the website I used for picture, the guide I read to help me and anything like this. Remember that all champion, runes, masteries, runes reforged, items and summoner spells are the propriety of Riot games.

6th december, 2019 (11:17)

• Build changed for preseason 10!
  • Youmuu's Ghostblade replaced by Stormrazor
  • Infinity Edge and Statikk Shiv swaped order
• "Runes" chapter has been updated!
• "Items" chapter is being updated!
• Keystone changed from Press the Attack to Conqueror