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Kindred Build Guide by

KindredBueno|16.3|The Eternal Hunters' Definitive Jungling Guide

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67 5

135,838 Views

10 Comments

Kindred Build Guide By Updated on

Support

Guide Discussion (10) Reviewed (1) More Kindred Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Cheatsheet + guide
Straight to in-depth guide

Runes: Standard

1 2 3 4

Precision

Press the Attack

Triumph

Legend: Bloodline

Cut Down

Inspiration

Magical Footwear

Cosmic Insight

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health

Spells:

Spells™

Flash

Scorchclaw Smite

Items

Choose your pokemon!

Boots

Remember about vision

1st item choice

Standard Crit / JOAT

First back

JOAT CORE (5 stacks)

Standard build

Standard build (Late game)

Situational items

Bruiser

Bruiser Core

Standard Bruiser

Situational Items

Ability Order Q -> W -> E

Kindred Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Jax

Extreme

Do your best to kite him and avoid his stun if possible. Use terrain to your advantage

Galio

Ideal

Pretty much all his abilities work great with Lamb's Respite

His Hero's Entrance the most obviously due to huge AOE knockup

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Galio

Ideal

Pretty much all his abilities work great with [[Lamb's respite]] His [[Hero's Entrance]] the most obviously due to huge AOE knockup

More Kindred Counters

Champion

Pros & Cons
Abilities
Runes
Items

Other

You & Smite
Jungle 101
Game Phases
Kiting
Credits™

Season 16 Info:
Due to new season just starting there may be some incorrect info that needs time to be verified in-game, so if you find anything that's inconsistent let me know in the comments!

This is my 2nd guide for my 2nd most played champion: Kindred
I've been playing them since 2021 (not nearly as much as though). The guide mainly focuses on , even though the build is your standard crit build. There are non-joat runes as well so don't worry if you don't like that rune.

Personal Achievements:

Season 15:

Season 16:

Guide Achievements:

	Season 15 Split 2 Contest Winner
	Season 15 Split 3 Contest Winner

Pros

+ Very unique playstyle due to passive and also being one of the only two ADC champions in the Jungle

+ Can easily snowball if fed

+ makes you a lot stronger thanks to buffing abilities and the bonus

+ Rewarding if properly mastered

+ Can significantly impact teamfight or objectives outcome with

+ Can technically scale infinitely except for the

+ High skill ceiling

Cons

- Weaker in early game than most junglers due to being an ADC and reliant (at least 4 for powerspike)

- Lowest base (500) from all ADC's

- Can easily get 1-shot by assassins
( ) and stronger junglers such as and especially in early game

- High skill floor required

- Can easily fall into the dying for a mark syndrome if you don't know when to go for them.

- Requires jungle and kiting knowledge to be good

PASSIVE ABILITY

Mark of The Kindred

How does your passive work?

IMPORTANT TIP

Don't focus on just getting , especially in early game, focus on doing your jungle to build ASAP as it'll greatly improve your dueling potential.

IF you see an opportunity (i.e The enemy champion you have marked is overextending / You see low health enemy that you could easily mark and kill / Enemy jungler is dead and you can safely take from their camp) then go for it.

Dance of Arrows

How does your Q work?

IMPORTANT TIP

Be sure to use before and use it whenever possible during . If you do it correctly you will be able to use 3 times total and then have it at 4 second cooldown instead of 9(use it once your current runs out, it will refresh attack speed buff thanks to which you'll have it for longer if used this way.

Keep in mind this example video is for when your is at lvl 1-3 as at the 2.5s cooldown you can use it 4 times total before ends, and 5 times at 2s.

EXAMPLE

Using Dance of Arrows through walls

Green - Easy

Yellow - Can be tricky, but easy once mastered

Red - May feel impossible at first but it requires a VERY specific angle

Wolf's Frenzy

How does your W work?

IMPORTANT TIP

You can use to check brushes / start objectives without engaging them yourself. Just make sure it's close enough as it won't attack anything outside it's range.

Mounting Dread

How does your E work?

IMPORTANT TIP

You can set up during your and hold it on 2 stacks on low health enemy till your ult finishes, after that you can easily kill them with one more auto attack.

Example

Lamb's Respite

How does your R work?

IMPORTANT TIP

If there are hextech gates due to the You can use them while on the health threshold since you cannot be dealt any damage in that state.

PRECISION

is amazing rune for squishy teams or short fights. The extra 8% damage amplification also helps you with longer fights as you can easily auto attack someone 3 times especially thanks to and resetting auto attack cooldown, so be sure to abuse it.

I recently started testing to figure out if it might be on par / better than .

It feels okay and works for early game and team fights as it provides you with free as long as you're attacking an enemy champion (at max stack it provides 24% bonus and on-hit damage that scales with your bonus a.k.a 1% attack speed = 1% more dmg).

Is it better than ? No, and personally I'd still pick over it. But it's definitely viable so feel free to pick it if you want to test it for yourself.

will 9/10 be way better than but only if you are going for bruiser build as it provides you with healing and free during fights.

You should realistically never build bruiser nowadays as it's simply worse (in my experience) than standard crit build.

Is the only good rune in this category for kindred. It grants you more gold for takedowns and restores 2.5% max health + 5% missing health.

will rarely if ever be of use to you as the heal it provides is simply nothing, especially when you're already healing from jungle monsters thanks to your jungle item.

The same goes for which won't be helpful because you naturally regenerate more mana in jungle thanks to being a jungler.

gives you 15 for your basic abilities (Q, W and E), which given you don't really build it on (beyond that is) is more helpful than just 18% more that provides on top of items like and .

is amazing due to providing one of the few stats that you won't really have until you start building or a different item. grants 7% total which is as good as .

A choice where every rune is a good choice. and are two sides of the same coin, one helps you with squishier (low health) teams, the other helps you with tankier (lots of health) teams. I prefer due to it being more useful in early game since you usually don't have enough damage yet to get enemies to <40% health threshold reliably.

is best used in bruiser kindred build, but can also be used with crit build the same way the other two are. It's simply less useful and more risky due to lack of bonus health.

INSPIRATION
(Secondary)

secondary runes are your standard runes that you'll take most if not all of the games.

grants you boots that have +10 movespeed at 12:00 (-45 seconds per takedown) but prevents you from buying them yourself beforehand. You will also not obtain them if your inventory is full so be sure to keep a free slot for them.

will give you 8% gold back per purchase (267g after purchasing which can provide you with free boots if you have some left-over gold) and 1.5k gold total (late game standard build with 6th item instead of boots).

is great choice if you're not going for as not only will it lower your cooldown but also your cooldown by 13% (provided it works the same as ).

is a funny rune that grants you free per stack (You get stack per unique stat provided by items such as Attack Speed, attack damage, health etc.), and 6 or 15 at 5 or 10 stacks respectively, which may not seem like a lot, but given that you are an ADC and your main damage is auto attacks that 16 is basically 16 more damage you can deal per attack.

At 10 stacks with it lowers your ability cooldowns by 20% total and with it lowers your basic ability cooldown by 28% instead of 20%)

DOMINATION
(Secondary)

works with any sort of CC even if it's not from you, but it also works with your , and (ONLY WHEN YOU FINISH THE SMITE QUEST ITEM).

is the best choice here, due to working perfectly with your . Keep in mind it has 10s cooldown so you won't be able to use it as often during your

is the worst choice of the bunch. Providing only 450g total and nothing afterwards, which given you have to get 5 takedowns in the first place (at least 750g, 150g per assist) does not give you too much.

for when you want even more out of combat movespeed. Perfect for ganks and returning to jg from base.

lowers your cooldown by 31 at max stacks and by 6 at 0 stacks, which let's you use it more frequenty to save teammates while also having it back sooner for fights.

RESOLVE
(Secondary)

secondary runes are more ""beginner"" friendly secondary runes as they provide you with sustain or simply for bruiser build.

isn't a good rune in comparsion (it will give you around 10 armor & magic resist max). It's more of a tank rune so unless you're doing some weird tank kindred build it's not worth it.

is great pick for bruiser since you're going to be building health items.

is better for squishy builds, especially in early game or against burst/assassin teams since it reduces the damage you take from next 3 spells/attacks within 1,5 second.

is in my opinion the best choice in here. It makes your passive's & 's healing (and also any enchanter's shields & heals cast on you) better, where in comparison won't be as useful since you're not a laner and as such have way less minions to soak in for the extra health, is in my opninion still a dead rune ever since it was changed.

Stat shards

You should always pick 10% as basic attacks are your main damage source due to being ADC.

Pick , because it's simply more AD, which is more damage. You can already pick bonus health in 3rd shard anyways so it's not worth getting even more health.

You can pick either or . Keep in mind that grants you 65 more health at level 1 (which let's you survive invades for longer even if it's just a single auto attack), while gives you 10 health per level, which adds up to 180 bonus health total.

Trinity Force

+ 200% Base Spellblade effect

+ 20 flat on dealing physical damage

+ Provides 4 stacks for
(,,,)

- Spellblade requires ability and in order to proc

Kraken Slayer

+ Damage from 3-hit passive scaling with enemies missing health and your level

+ 333g Cheaper

+ Provides 3 stacks for
(,, % )

- Relies on your to be effective

Which should you take?

TL;DR: wins in damage (especially if used properly), however the choice is yours at the end of the day.

After testing ( with no extra from anything other than Q against , both in live game (images below) and against dummy (one full duration of W at lvl 3 against 5k hp no armor dummy ended up being 1,280 to 1,230), ended up having more damage.

Remember that is an on-hit item for champions like or rather than so it won't perform as well.

Mortal Reminder

+ Reduces enemy healing by 40% for 3s after attacking them. Exceeds against champions who build healing items or self-healing like or .

- 5% less

Lord Dominik's Regards

+ Bonus damage based on enemies bonus health scaling up to 15% at 1.5k bonus health (Works on bonus health from leveling up, not just bonus health from items)

- 300g more Expensive

Which should you take?

After start of season 16 became an actual item again and not just a worse option. Due to which I'd now choose it over Mortal Reminder when it comes to default choice, however I'd still choose mortal against teams with champions like and , or a lot of healing items like , , and the newly added .

Trinity Force

Already mostly explained it's pros and why it's better 1st item in the First item Choice above.

Berserker's Greaves

They provide and you only gain unique stack for movespeed from them. Usually better to take or , however it's enemy team-dependant,

Infinity Edge

Increases your by 30% which affects both your auto attacks
and .

also counts as a stack for .

Hexoptics C44

Based on distance between you and the enemy you deal up to 10% more damage at 600 . Amazing item when you have 7+ marks as that's how much you have at 7 marks. Even if you don't have that much you can simply get additional 100 for a few seconds on takedown.

Keep in mind that you need to be 600 units away from the enemy for your attacks to deal that 10% more damage

Lord Dominik's Regards

Already mostly explained above, along with . Take this if enemies are not building healing / don't have healers like .

Mercurial Scimitar

My preferred life steal item as it gives you cleanse for free. Great item against mages or cc. Gives you 2 stacks ( and ) along with active that all (with airborne being the only exception) off of you & gives you 50% move speed for 1.5 second. Perfect replacement for as it still grants you , just a bit less which can be made up for with .

Phantom Dancer

Great item that gives you 10% , which not only counts as a stack for , but also gives almost as much as boots.

Situational items

Bloodthirster

80 and 15% that will easily turn into 100+ healing per attack with full build. You also gain overheal shield when your health is full. Perfect item for non- build, or lack of CC in ememy team.

Mortal Reminder

Already mostly explained above, along with . Take this if enemies are building healing items / have self-healing or healer champions.

Immortal Shieldbow

You can build it to help you deal with assassins and burst mages. Although I personally feel like already does it's job and better due to not taking up an item slot.

(if you're going for DO NOT build it. If you REALLY want to you can build instead of + instead of boots to keep your stacks at max.

stacks:
1 stack ()
2 Stacks (, )
3 Stacks (, , )

Berserker's Greaves

Your go-to boots with free for when you don't need to go very defensive.

Plated Steelcaps

Boots you take when the enemy team has a lot of auto attackers (, etc.) and/or champions.

Mercury's Treads

Boots that grant you for when the enemy team has a lot of and/or champions. (Especially since usually deals magic damage if it deals any to begin with).

WARNING

Items such as & have already been explained above in First item choice & Standard build.

Black cleaver

Core item for when you're going bruiser. It gives you and bonus whenever you deal physical damage, making it easier for you to chase someone down.

Blade of The Ruined King

Great anti-tank item due to dealing % current health damage and slowing the enemy every 3rd attack. It also grants you and which are both great for you.

Sterak's gage

Gives you which can come in handy if the enemy team has a lot of , a shield when you reach low health (<30% ) and also free that scales with your level (Currently 54 at max lvl).

Runaan's Hurricane

Great in teamfights (let's you hit 3 people at once due to it's passive). Grants you some which boosts your 's damage, and grants some which makes transition from boots to not be as painful.

Situational items

Jak'sho, The Protean

This is your best option for defense as it'll grant you both and . After 5 seconds of combat it will also increase any bonus and you got by 30% (including ones it grants. Giving you total of 59 & during combat).

Mortal Reminder

If you need anti-heals or simply want to combine with in order to have additional item slot.

Keep in mind you can't buy both Black Cleaver and Mortal Reminder. You can only have one armor penetration item!

SMITE

This summoner spell is the only reason you can buy a jungler item to begin with.

It let's you deal 600 -> 1000 -> 1400 (Upgrades at 20 and 0 stacks) TRUE damage to monsters and objectives like dragon or baron.

UNLEASHED SMITE

This is the first upgrade of (15 stacks out of 35)

It now deals 1000 instead of 600 true damage AND it now can be used on enemy champions to slow them by 20% which may not seem like a lot but it can easily make a difference in your gank being successful or failed due to letting the enemy run under their turret.

THE SMITES™

RED SMITE: It's your go-to smite, due to the 30% slow (which makes it easier to catch up/run away from enemies) and the 5% true damage burn (over 4 seconds) which can genuinely help you secure kills even if it may seem unlikely.

GREEN SMITE: My least picked option due to it simply not being a good one for Kindred. The only thing it provides is 300hp shield which is not a great option even into assassins as it's only available when you finish smite item.

BLUE SMITE: Great for movespeed as upon entering a brush you gain 30% movespeed that decays over 2 seconds upon leaving it, and 45% decaying movespeed upon killing a large monster (, , , etc.) that scales with the newly added season 16 bonus movespeed in the jungle.

As you can see my first clear starts from Blue buff (), however Red buff( Red Brambleback) clear would be identical (start from buff -> Krugs -> raptors etc.), except for placing the ward in the bush next to the instead.

0: Start by warding bush next to , that way you know if anyone invades it while you wait for . You can recall for or keep . Keep in mind that if you keep Stealth Ward you trade denying vision (with more than just Control Ward) for having your own.

1: --> 2: --> 3: -->
4: --> 5: --> 6:

IMPORTANT TIPS

Be aware that since has more bushes around it it is more likely for enemy to invade your red rather than blue.

Pay attention to when your Gromp respawns, especially if you can keep track of the enemy jungler as it might give you an opportunity to invade their jungle that just respawned.

You should always do your best to mark enemies at least a few seconds BEFORE ganking as it takes 8 seconds in which they could very easily die before you can collect your mark off of them. A good habit is to ALWAYS ping "on my way" so that your laner knows that you're coming with a gank since they most likely won't be paying attention to the map.

I've made 3 different zones on each lane that basically explain good and bad time to gank (You should always do your best to gank from behind (i.e the sides marked with arrows) the enemy, that way you're cutting off their escape route and force them to go through you):

Green - Enemy is overextending and they will be forced to at the very least burn if they want to escape especially if your teammate helps you. It's THE time for you to gank.

Yellow - Both your ally and the enemy are equally pushed and depending on if they actually help you with the gank you will most likely succeed or at the very least force the enemy to burn their or any other means of escape.

Red - Unless the enemy has low health or no OR your laner can help you kill them quickly (like assassins/burst mages (i.e & ) before they escape, you most likely will not succeed with a gank, however if you go further under the turret you'll most likely have to burn and maybe even in order to not die yourself if you stay in turret's range for too long.

Only go for these plays if you KNOW you'll kill them, don't be overly confident or you'll end up dying or wasting time.

REMEMBER, GANKS DON'T DEPEND ON JUST POSITIONING. TAKE HEALTH, MANA, COOLDOWNS, ETC. INTO CONSIDERATION.

Ganking as BLUE side

VS

Ganking as RED side

| Spawns at 5:00 at Bottom river | Respawns after 5 minutes | There are 6 different dragons and their order is completely random and varies from game to game.

Dragon types and what each of them provides

Personal dragon tier list based on their effect and soul

| Spawn at 8:00 at Top river | Never respawns | They spawn in a group of 3, each one of them providing a stack of team that kills it.

How amount of stacks affects it

| Spawns at 15:00 at Top river | Never respawns | Once defeated spawns a pickupable that disappears after 40 seconds if not picked up by any member of the team that has slain him.

| Spawns at 20:00 at Top river | Respawns after 5 minutes | Provides once slain.

| Spawns after 6 minutes at Bottom river once one of the teams obtains a Dragon soul (slays 4 ) | Respawns after 6 minutes | Provides once slain.

Surrendering objectives refers to not contesting fight for an objective. Ideally you don't want to give up any objectives, especially as a jungler such as or that make bigger use of objectives than anybody else. Unfortunately it's sometimes a necessary evil, be it due to your team not helping or simply being too far behind to contest anything.

You should surrender objective if:
• You have to defend the base
• Your is on cooldown
• Your team is mostly dead
• Nobody is near objective to help you contest it
• You & / or your team are heavily behind
• You can take something else i.e different objective / turrets

Objective priority:
• Dragon soul (4th dragon) /
•
•
•
•

examples

To make examples easier: everyone has all summoner spells, full HP & mana, everyone is equal in gold / items. Keep in mind that your team consists of: Dr. Mundo, Vex, Miss Fortune, Morgana, with you as Kindred, everyone else is enemy team.

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

Map of where the plants spawn

There are 4 types of different jungle plants:

- Drops 5 fruits that last 30 seconds. Healing 6% mana and 3,5% hp + 14-116 (based on level) and slowing by 35% on pickup.

When do Honeyfruits spawn?

- Reveals area in a cone-like shape in front of you, revealing enemy champions for 3 seconds and non-champion enemies (wards, monsters etc.) for 12 seconds.

When do Scryers Blooms spawn?

- Triggers an explosion that causes all units within it's radius to be displaced (as far as 900 units and over terrain) Can be used to jump over walls, escape from enemies chasing you on top of revealing everyone you displace with it.

When do Blast cones spawn?

- Special ward placement spots, that reveal huge area of jungle (including inside bushes within said area) on placement for 45 seconds, and have 25% increased vision radius.

Darker area is the area revealed for 45 seconds. Brighter is what stays revealed after 45 has passed (it doesn't affect bushes).

How do Dragon rifts affect the plants and their placement?

Know what you're up against
Make sure you know what the enemy jungler champion can and can't do. For example, what can and can't do?

+ Has an additional 600 true damage "smite" at lvl 1 thanks to and 1.2k at lvl 9, which provides faster clear than you, not to mention usually being able to steal your objective if you're not careful
+ Great ganking potential with
+ Tends to hide in bushes with charging for cheesy one-shot which can be detected by the slow it applies when you're within it's range

- Has no mobility. Letting you easily kite or escape them
- no constant damage, especially once they use abilities
- Easily punishable

Pay attention to enemy jg
Each jungle camp counts as 4 farm if cleared. This incldues . When you're tracking it you have to pay attention to the jungler buff as well, so that you can figure out which camps they cleared, and which they haven't.

(If they have both buffs the side they're ganking is usually the side they cleared latest).

If you notice laners returning late to lane they were probably leashing their jungler.

Kindred is an ADC
You're quite weak early due to needing to stack your and being item-reliant. You should 100% look for ganks or invades to get marks, but only when they're guaranteed.

Don't let your team bully you into wasting your time trying to make their bad plays work, when you could (and should) be focusing objectives and farm instead, or the only thing that will happen is you falling behind, which is one of the worst things that can happen to ADC, since you need to scale into late game. You are named C(arry) for a reason after all.

Push Push Push
By 14 minutes all turret platings fall and mid game begins. You should try focusing on taking/denying objective bounties (as they can appear from 14:00 onward) and primarily taking turrets, preferrably with help of as she makes quick work of them (dealing half it's health on successful charge).

This will help you not only reduce enemy vision and make map less safe for them outside of their base, but also quickly gain gold advantage over enemy team. Possibly destroying or even straight up ending game if enemy team doesn't respond properly to .

Baron Nashor
spawns at 20 minutes and is a very important objective for pushing and possibly even ending game not long after obtaining it, due to buffing minions you're nearby.

Go for Dragon Soul
Dragon soul (maybe even ) is now available, and you should prioritize it as it's very important for winning the game.

Even if the dragon soul isn't amazing it's better to have it, than to let the enemy team get it as it is an advantage regardless it's even worth trading baron nashor for it as soul is a permanent buff.

Don't get gray-screen'd
By now the game has been going for 25+ minutes if not more and everyone has at least 3+ items by now and a high level, which makes respawn timers longer and more punishing.

If you manage to get ace'd (your whole team dies) it might mean that the game is already over since enemy team isn't being contested in objectives nor pushing into your base.

The longer the game goes on the stronger enemy team can get, especially if they have scaling champions like or who are definitely more useful now than they were 10 minutes ago.

Kiting is an important thing to at the very least be aware of for any league player, however it is an essential skill to pick up for any ADC champion. If you want to play You should learn it as soon as possible.

How to kite? (Step by step)

0. If you haven't done so already (or if it's normally not binded to any key), start by binding "Player Attack Move click" command.

1. Get enemy within your range (otherwise you will start walking towards them).

2. Press A (your "Player Attack Move Click" button) as close to the enemy as possible (it will target the enemy closest to your cursor only attacking enemies such as monsters/minions and enemy champions will count. (unless clicked directly on the enemy)

3. Right click away from them (as they will move towards you to get in range to kill you) / towards them (for example when they are running away from you towards safety)

4. Repeat constantly, make sure you keep your enemy at the edge of your so that you can safely attack them from afar.

If you don't kite you will be a standing target, and that's never a good thing, especially since you are a ranged champion and thus very squishy.

Example of doing Blue Sentinel without kiting:

Example of doing Blue Sentinel with kiting:

As you can clearly see you lose a lot less health since is constantly forced to move closer to you in order to even attack you.

Keep in mind that this is just an example on a monster camp.
Against real players you will make a much greater usage of kiting than in the jungle since AI is very simple.

(or simply choosing this chapter from chapter selection out of curiousity)

If you found my guide helpful feel free to rate it!

You can reach out to me in case of any questions or such through discord by clicking this link, or simply adding me (same username as here ^^). I'm also in Mobafire's discord server so you can reach to me from there as well!