Hello summoners,

My name is Liibron and I am a Kindred main on the EUW server. I hope this 1v9 Kindred guide helps you improve at my favorite champion.

On my Youtube channel I make video guides where I break down some of my matches, if you want to learn more about the champion you can click the link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUa9-o9ne-mz3S--L_seOLQ

Kindred is a very strong counter pick in this meta. She counters popular champions like Karthus and any tank in the early game. She is not the type of champion that you can pick up and instantly be good at. You will need to put in a lot of time to learn her strengths and weaknesses. The most important part about Kindred is kiting, she has a lot of tools that help her do this. Dance of Arrows is very useful, not only can u increase the distance between yourself and your foe but you can also jump over certain walls.

Wolf's Frenzy reduces the cooldown of Dance of Arrows as long as Kindred remains in the highlighted area. This helps a lot with kiting.

Mounting Dread is an execute. When you apply it, the third auto attack on a target will deal execute damage. This damage scales off your crit. Mounting Dread will also slightly slow the target helping you catch up to them to auto attack.

Lamb's Respite Will save everything inside its area from dying. Champions, Baron, Dragon and monsters. Everything that has a health bar and can die. This ability will help you survive against heavy dive champions and assassins. You will also want to use Lamb's Respiteto save your allies.

Kindred's early game can go two ways. If your play style is very aggressive and you like to counter jungle a lot, you can snowball very hard and win your team the game on your own. However, if you counter jungle and it goes wrong you will set yourself at a massive disadvantage and it will be very hard to come back on Kindred. You always want to look at your lane states. If your laners don't have prio, its risky to go into the enemy jungle. So if you can get a few early kills by either ganking or counter jungling, you will want to reset at power spikes. Such as on your Skirmisher's Sabre along with Caulfield's Warhammer. This will allow you to always stay ahead of the enemy jungler.

The mid game is very dependent of your early game. If you are snowballed, try to stay ahead by picking good fights and asking your team (ideally your support or someone with good mobility) to walk with you to your marks. Marks are the most important part about Kindred's mid game. They allow you to do more damage, give you more attack speed and most important increase your auto attack range to further improve your kiting skills. Kindred is a marksman, you will want to play her like any other adc. Depending on the enemy team. If they have a strong frontline you can't get past, you will be forced to play ''front to back''. This means that you will have to kill the tanks first and then move to their backline. However, if you are confident that you can get past the frontline with for example your Dance of Arrows and rapidly kill their carries, go for it! If you have Lamb's Respite up this is a perfectly fine play to go for.

Kindred's late game doesn't change much from her mid game. Apart from the items you have purchased. Depending on your items build you can change up your play style for the rest of the game. If you for example have bought a lot of armor penetration, focus on the frontline instead of diving the backline. If you have focused yourself into a more burst type build with a lot of crit, try to dive or flank the enemy backline and tear them apart.

Kindred's early game is what really decided how hard you will snowball. However, Kindred's high risk high reward playstyle can often lead you to your death. This can have many causes, such as invading the enemy jungle for your mark without lane priority, not knowing your match up and many other reasons. If this happens its important to play accordingly to your strenghts. Kindred has a lot of tools to help her win duels. Try to gank any winning lane and identify your win condition. For example, ganking a fed Kassadin mid lane and getting him more ahead. This works with a lot of champions ofcourse and not only with Kassadin. Something you must keep doing while you are behind is farming your camps, and try to cover lanes when your laners are going base. Kindred scales super hard into the late game like a lot of adc's.

The only viable enchantment on Kindred is the Warrior enchantment. With the Skirmisher's Sabre. The overall damage and duel potential it gives you early on is too much to miss out on. Skirmisher's Sabre is especially good with Berserker's Greaves. The attack speed from the boots and damage from the jungle item combine well together for an early power spike. The ideal reset would be to get these both at the same time. You should be able to do this on your second or third reset.

Stormrazor is the number 1 power spike of this build. The crit it gives you helps a lot with your Mounting Dread damage. Apart from that the added slow on your auto attacks helps not only with chasing a foe, but most important to kite enemies a lot more effective. You ideally want to purchase a Cloak of Agility and a B.F Sword soon after your Warrior and Berserker's Greaves. This is to boost your damage while you are completing Stormrazor.

Phantom Dancer again gives u all the stats that Kindred loves. The extra crit will again help with your Mounting Dread damage and the attack speed speaks for itself. The main reason you want Phantom Dancer is for the shield it gives you upon taking fatal damage. This will help u survive all ins from assassins and other bruisers that like to dive the backline.

Infinity Edge is by far the best item to boost your damage to its highest. To get this item after you have already purchased 2 other crit items will make your crits deal insane amounts of damage. Depending on how early you get this item you will be able to 3 shot enemy carries with auto attacks. It is very glass cannon tough so be sure that this purchase will not sacrifice too much survivability.

Guardian Angel is a must have for the late game. The time it stalls when it procs is game winning. Since you will be the primary target for the opponents this item will come in handy. Although you have Lamb's Respite and the shield from Phantom Dancer you will find yourself dying when you get dove by 2 or more enemy champions.

If you need magic resist I will always recommend going for Wit's End. The attack speed it gives you is very good to have on Kindred. Maw of Malmortius would also be a good option, but this item doesn't work with the Phantom Dancer shield. You would have to buy something like Runaan's Hurricane instead of the Phantom Dancer which is totally fine if the enemy team has a lot of magic damage.

Wolf's Marks

0 marks: The very first mark of every game will always be one of the two Scuttle's.
1-3 marks: These marks will always be on: Scuttle, Crimson Raptor or Gromp.
4-7 marks: These marks will always be on: Red Brambleback, Blue Sentinel, Ancient Krug or Greater Murk Wolf.
8+ marks: After the 8th mark the only monsters that can get marked are: Rift Herald, Dragon and Baron.

Here is what marks do exactly for Kindred:

Dance of Arrows will give Kindred 5% more attack speed per mark.
Wolf's Frenzy will deal 0,5% additional current health damage per mark.
Mounting Dread will have its missing health damage increased by 0,5% per mark.
Mounting Dread will gain 75 extra range at 4 marks, after the 4th mark it will have its range increased by 25 per 3 marks.
Kindred's auto attacks: will gain an extra 75 range at 4 marks, after the 4th mark her auto attacks will have their range increased by 25 per 3 marks.

How to play around Wolf's marks:

The first Scuttle is very important. It will be a 50/50 about which of the 2 {scuttle]]'s gets marked first. If you lose the 50/50 and you know the enemy jungler is on you mark you can always wait out until the other mark expires and wait until the scuttle on your side of the map gets marked. For the marks on all other camps you have to play it smart. Whenever you see or you know/assume the enemy jungler is on the other side of the map opposite of you mark, always try to get it safely. So always keep an eye on the map and listen to enemies missing pings from your team mates. Ideally you want to ask your team mates to collapse on your marks so you will always have backup.

How to play around Lamb's marks:

You always want to start out by marking the enemy jungler at the start of the game. You have the highest chance of finding the enemy jungler as your first opponent. After that you want to mark enemies u are planning to gank or kill. In fights its best to mark the enemy frontline, chances are that they will dive on you so you wont have any other choice other then killing them.

Time between marks:

Wolf's marks will last up to 3 minutes and will reappear on other camps after 40 seconds of the currents mark death. When a marked camp is killed, the mark will disappear after 10 seconds.

Lamb's marks can be chosen by yourself. After you kill or assist in killing a marked target you will not be able to mark the same player in the next 4 minutes. If you are not successful in your hunt, you will be able to select a different target after 1:30 minutes of the failed hunt. After you mark a target it will take 8 seconds to apply the mark.

At the start of the game I like to ask my team to walk with me to the enemy Crimson Raptor so i can ward it safely without dying. This ward is very important. It will let u read the enemy junglers pathing, it will let you know on what side of the map the enemy started and it will also indicate if the enemy is about to walk into your jungle or early gank.

After placing this ward you want to instantly reset and buy your Oracle Lens. This allows you to clear any wards on your first gank.

I like to start on Red Brambleback, the extra burn on your auto attacks and health regeneration it give you will help you out on your first clear in terms of speed and health. After clearing Red Brambleback I will move to Blue Sentinel and after to Gromp. This will allow u to get the fastest level 3.

After this look to gank the 2 nearby lanes. If the opportunity doesn't present itself you can always move into the enemy jungle. From here you can either kill the enemy jungler, get vision for you and your team or simply take away enemy camps.