Hey guys, I don't do guides often - but I have been a Kindred OTP since release back in season 5. I've gone under a bunch of different aliases, but as of late I am known by either kindo or Doopliss. This is my first guide on here, so I apologize if I'm missing information. I will update it I can and I become more familiar with making guides.

I've played Kindred Jungle for 4 seasons through season 9, and peaked Challenger in Season 9, but remained Masters the majority of the season. I started to play Kindred Mid in season 9 on a second account and found it enjoyable, but was frustrated that I was losing due to inexperience. In season 10, I quit jungle and moved onto Kindred mid since jungle is an extremely unfun role to play and in season 10 I managed to consistently stay GM+ throughout the entire season and remained challenger for a few months. My peak in s10 was nearly 1000 LP with a 70% Winrate.

In season 11, I maintained Challenger for nearly the entire season and currently at 800 LP with a 60% winrate.

In season 12, I took a break for a few months, but I came back and reached Challenger in ~300 games with normal gains.

I stream almost all games I play on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfXdp5JwO4QghC01p-_h5OA/featured.

I wrote this guide mainly for my stream since it is a niche pick, I'm really the one that plays it. I think it's an extremely underappreciated pick, and I genuinely believe Kindred is stronger mid than jungle in almost all scenarios.

Thanks for reading, hope this guide helped you guys out!

Kindred is supposed to be a jungler, right? It's really hard to say, but Kindred mid has some glaring advantages over jungle. You're an exceptional duelist, but so are most junglers. Given that jungle is an extremely snowball-based role, and Kindred suffers the most when falling behind, it's almost counter-intuitive to play Kindred in the jungle since it's very coinflip.

Jungle more than any other role is extremely unforgiving. Kindred's midgame is already their weakest point in the game, and they naturally fall behind going into midgame because of pacing. Other junglers farm faster than Kindred, have higher movespeed for rotations, and have stronger gank potential.

Kindred mid covers some of these weaknesses more than jungle by far:

- You don't get penalized for the lack of base movespeed as hard in midlane, since you're not rotating around the map as much. Yes you're roaming, but ~10-20 movement speed is not the difference between rotations if you rotate first.

- You almost guarantee that you can get lane priority for jungle in any given game. Kindred suffers heavily from lack of lane priority. If you can't get lane prio, then become lane prio.

- Kindred's ult makes them an exceptional duelist in lane and gives them gank protection that they normally wouldn't have. Ulting under or near a tower is going to put a lot more pressure on the enemy than somewhere in the jungle.

- Almost unfair lane sustain, Kindred's W is one of the sole reasons that lane Kindred is playable. It gives immense lane sustain for free, and makes most poke you take in lane negligible. Something I'll emphasize later, taking seemingly bad trades is more beneficial to Kindred due to this.

- YOU ONLY NEED ASSISTS ON MARKS, so helping your jungler secure enemy camps or scuttle crabs nets a huge advantage to jungle while simultaneously getting you to 4 marks.

- Being an exceptional duelist, you're also extremely strong in the early 2v2 with mid/jungle. You provide burst, a bit of soft cc, and sustained dps.

Flash is standard. Don't try to be different and take Ghost because you have your Dance of Arrows. You will regret it.

Flash + Ignite always for synergy and executes out of Lamb's Respite. It also provides vision, which is extremely useful.

I take Flash + Ghost versus high range control mages such as Syndra, Xerath, or Ziggs or when you have an enchanter on your team like Lulu and your lane isn't volatile (don't take ghost versus champs that require it for dueling like Yasuo or Irelia).

Flash + Cleanse versus Twisted Fate. Makes the whole game 10x easier if he can't point and click cc you mid/late game.

Exhaust is a longer cooldown than ignite, and it always feels underwhelming when I use it. I prefer Ignite although I think Exhaust can be used versus assassins if you prefer it.

All other summoners suck and should never be used.

There aren't many combos to know on Kindred.

Standard Auto/Q/Auto followed by your Wolf's Frenzy. Save your Mounting Dread for when you will execute them off the third auto.

The most useful combo is comboing your Lamb's Respite with your Mounting Dread and Ignite. This can net you kills from seemingly impossible situations. Just force yourself onto them with Dance of Arrows, and drop your Wolf's Frenzy when they're in melee range. Drop Lamb's Respite when low, and bring them to 10% hp. Drop Mounting Dread and prime it with 2 autos, ignite, then Dance of Arrows and auto to execute almost anyone out of your ultimate.

Be careful of an enemy using invulnerability such as Stopwatch, Zhonya's Hourglass, or other effects such as Tryndamere's Undying Rage.

For any further clarification or specific questions, ask on stream! I'm always willing to answer questions and am always open for discussion :]

Dance of Arrows > Mounting Dread > Wolf's Frenzy

Standard Q > E > W. Dance of Arrows for spamming in your Wolf's Frenzy, Mounting Dread for more execute damage. Wolf's Frenzy doesn't provide much impact when leveling it up, only a slight increase in bite damage and 1 second less cooldown.

Max Wolf's Frenzy second when playing against tanks such as Malphite or Ornn.

I take one primary rune setup every game:

Conqueror or Lethal Tempo -

Lethal Tempo has been my go-to almost every game since patch 13.4. It scales extremely well, and making it to 2 items ( Kraken Slayer + Wit's End) oftentimes outclasses Conqueror always. With perma-gank meta it's very easy to overextend into your lane opponent and find yourself getting ganked. It's much safer to play consistent and farm well with tempo and try to mitigate enemy jungle impact and wait for your jungler to play aggressive.

Conqueror when you need to duel your lane early game. When playing vs champs like Irelia, Yasuo, Zed, etc. you need to play aggressive to stop them from roaming and snowballing. If you take Lethal Tempo, you give up lane dominance early in favor of scaling and likely allow them to farm safer and snowball easier.

Lethal Tempo when you have a lane that you don't need to fight - think high range mages like Syndra, Ziggs, Xerath, and/or when you're against 2 tanks and you'll need the attack speed to shred them late game in teamfights.

Sometimes you'll be against a volatile lane and they'll have tanks, in which case use your own discretion on whether you can get away with laning with Lethal Tempo or not. I like to look at my team comp and decide (if I have an enchanter like Lulu or Janna then I'll usually opt for Lethal Tempo).

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Conqueror outclasses Press the Attack in almost every single scenario - it's a placebo rune used by inexperienced players. There are only 3 matchups I will ever take Press the Attack in - those being Lucian, Tristana, and Teemo. That's because these are extreme duel-heavy marksmen and a lot of the lane can be decided very early. It's better to play it safe and not put yourself far behind because of a weak levels 1-3.

Press the Attack also suffers heavily from your main trading patterns in lane. Often times, Auto/Q/Auto is your main trading pattern before you over-extend and take too much minion damage. Conqueror will always provide consistent dps increase in any trade, even if dealing slightly less in an extended fight on 1 target. the MAIN PROBLEM with Press the Attack lies in its inability to target swap. In every single game, including early skirmishes, you lock yourself into hitting one target. Oftentimes, whether you realize it or not, you bait yourself into losing the fight BECAUSE you don't think about targets to hit. It creates bad habits. The marginal dps gain is nowhere close to worth the downsides.

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Row 1:

Presence of Mind is necessary when not building Essence Reaver since mana costs are relatively high on Kindred in lane. Presence of Mind gives enough mana to usually push your wave after a favorable fight early.

Triumph is extremely impactful and can oftentimes be a deciding factor in early fights - unfortunately it's something you need to give up in favor of mana when playing something like Kindred mid. You can take Triumph if you like and try to get away with Biscuit Delivery for enough mana early game but you will still struggle later on.

Overheal is pretty worthless and should never be used.

Row 2:

Legend: Alacrity is the standard choice in this row. It gives good early attack speed for winning early duels with your laner or 2v2s with your jungler. There's not much to say other than it's strong early, mid, and late.

Legend: Tenacity has been nerfed pretty heavily at this point. One of Kindred's biggest weaknesses is being cc'd before you can use Lamb's Respite, but 20% tenacity is just not enough to justify taking it anymore. Realistically, if you need tenacity you should go into Unflinching or Mercury's Treads.

Legend: Bloodline has been nerfed more times than I can count at this point. It takes longer to stack than the other options, and only gives 6% Lifesteal when stacked. You'll likely lose too many duels or trades early to make it worth using by the time it's stacked.

Row 3:

Coup de Grace is horrible, don't ever take it. EVER.

Cut Down is very strong and can be taken if the enemy has 2 hp stacking tanks if you prefer, personally I still prefer Last Stand since it works better for me in lane but also works versus tanks.

Last Stand is one of the strongest minor runes on Kindred, and oftentimes gives ridiculous numbers on it, even outdamaging many keystones some games. If you're low, you will always get the 11% damage bonus so it synergizes extremely well with Lamb's Respite.

Secondary Runes

Inspiration - Biscuit Delivery + Cosmic Insight

For the games with a lot of early skirmishes (early game jungle/lanes) Biscuit Delivery solves almost any mana issues you could have early in the game. It also helps in conjunction with your Wolf's Frenzy passive for some low HP regen if you survive a gank or take a bad trade.

Cosmic Insight is just a nice rune to have since there aren't many more appealing options. -30 seconds on your Ignite cooldown means it is more reliably up for duels or executes out of Lamb's Respite. -50 seconds on your Flash means you have a large window of opportunity to catch your opponent off guard if you trade flashes early.

2 - Conditioning / Second Wind / Bone Plating + Unflinching / Overgrowth / Revitalize

Row 2:

Conditioning was nerfed pretty hard and seems pretty bad to take now. I still take it very occasionally if I have a strong scaling comp where Bone Plating seems pretty useless (poke lane).

Second Wind should only be taken versus high range mages like Azir, Syndra, or Ziggs.

Bone Plating should be your go-to since it oftentimes provides you safety to walk up even for a few extra cs in lane when your laner goes to poke it off. If they don't poke it off and decide to trade into it, that's a ton of damage mitigated and chances are it's a trade you'll win out on.

Row 3:

Overgrowth is pretty good, but oftentimes I personally prefer Revitalize or Unflinching.

Revitalize should always be taken if you have enchanters like Ivern, Lulu, or Janna. It also gives you a stronger shield with Immortal Shieldbow and extra healing when low with Wolf's Frenzy.

Unflinching gives some needed tenacity and slow resist versus high cc comps.

Other Potential Setups

Sorcery - Nullifying Orb + Scorch

Nullifying Orb is an extremely underrated minor-rune, though it does force you into Sorcery tree. If the enemy team has heavy amounts of AP or a difficult AP paired mid/jg, taking Nullifying Orb combined with either Immortal Shieldbow or Hexdrinker makes it extremely hard to 1 shot you and force your Lamb's Respite.

Scorch is some good extra poke damage early in lane but can oftentimes just be mitigated by enemy building Doran's Shield with Second Wind.

Sorcery lacks a lot of good minor runes to take, so it's extremely rare that I will take it unless it's a very ap-heavy comp. However, I am not opposed to Waterwalking or Gathering Storm as minor runes combined with Nullifying Orb. All other minor runes are just not worth taking on Kindred.

Domination - Taste of Blood + Ultimate Hunter

Taste of Blood - Just adds to good lane sustain, other options are pretty bad. Cheap Shot can't be proc'd consistently, Sudden Impact is horrendous and should never be taken. Second line of runes Ghost Poro, Zombie Ward, and Eyeball Collection just don't function as well in lane compared to jungle.

All Ultimate runes are good, but they're all high risk high reward. If you don't get takedowns, the runes are effectively worthless. Either way, I prefer Ultimate Hunter simply because Lamb's Respite is one of the longest base CD Ultimate's in the game being 180/160/140 second at ranks 1/2/3 - and since you don't build much ability haste, you get immense value. Ingenious Hunter can be good if you're using Immortal Shieldbow with Essence Reaver, or if you're a masochist and build Galeforce. Treasure Hunter can be useful but it's relatively underwhelming for just a bit of raw gold. Relentless Hunter is pretty bad considering you get such little value out of it until it's stacked.

BUILD 1 -> -> Situational

Kraken Slayer has been core on Kindred for a while, it's the most ideal first item in terms of consistent dps and a small amount of crit. Kraken Slayer mainly excels in situations where the enemy team has low or mid-range champions like tanks, bruisers, mid-range marksmen or mages.

Terminus is an extremely strong item only because it can be built second. Typically, I strive for 2 high attack speed items before going for a situational armor pen item. This mitigates that, giving you dps, tank shred, and survivability while still giving you a good chunk of attack speed. This makes the rest of your build much more flexible in order since you'll have good attack speed, AD, armor pen, and a bit of durability.

Situational items include - Experimental Hexplate against assassins, Blade of the Ruined King for extra tank shred, Wit's End vs. high magic damage, Runaan's Hurricane with enchanters and against melee targets, I don't typically like it most games but Death's Dance vs. heavy AD comp, Guardian Angel vs. heavy AD/assassins, Silvermere Dawn for QSS.

Most often I'll build Experimental Hexplate, Wit's End, Runaan's Hurricane, Blade of the Ruined King, or Black Cleaver.

Crit items including Stormrazor, Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, or Rapid Firecannon make Kindred too squishy and provide no room for situational items. Almost every game you'll need situational buys against tanks, ap/ad stacked teams, cc, etc. - with crit items you lock yourself into almost an entire build with no room for situational buys depending on the game. You won't be able to carry if you get flashed on and one shot by anyone on their team being full crit.

I Always start Doran's Blade. If you struggle versus high range mages like Syndra, Azir, or Xerath, you can start Doran's Shield.

Kindred possesses extreme early game duel potential. With ignite, you can duel almost any champion in the entire game at level 2-3. This means you're guaranteed to get lane prio for crab at 3:30. Typically, both junglers will full clear towards one side of the map - although some don't. Depending on enemy mid/jungle and your jungle, you need to manage the wave differently.

There's a few different ways to manage the wave that I follow each game.

If your jungler is full clearing and the enemy jungler is as well -

- You can last hit the first two waves and slow push the third/fourth wave in while fighting your laner if they contest the wave. This goes for enemy junglers such as Udyr, Fiddlesticks, Evelynn, Morgana, Kayn, etc.

If you're prone to early ganks, you can either -

1 - Not fight your laner. Using your Q will indirectly push the wave early, which will make it difficult to dodge early ganks since you'll be pushing to their tower.

2 - Ward the enemy jungle early and hover the side of the lane you have warded. In this case, you can trade your laner, but always keep in mind that you'll likely get ganked and do not overextend on trades.

The crab at 3:30 -

- If the Mark of the Kindred spawns on the side of your jungler, walk over and help him kill the Rift Scuttler , making sure you tag it within 6 seconds of it dying.

- If the Mark of the Kindred spawns on the opposite side, see if your jungler needs help at their Rift Scuttler first. If they do, help them because they'll be able to rotate to the opposite side after. If not, just go up and prevent the enemy jungler from taking your Mark of the Kindred if possible. If you can't stop it, then just stay mid.

Your objective is to keep lane prio and pressure your laner. Poke with Dance of Arrows by Auto/Q/Auto since your Q is an auto reset. Try to save your Wolf's Frenzy for extended trades, as that is the main source of dps from Kindred. Fighting without Wolf's Frenzy will almost always lose you the fight. Sustain any damage taken in trades with Wolf's Frenzy passive.

Keep in mind, Wolf's Frenzy passive heals based on Kindred's missing HP, so often times a trade that seems bad will be better for Kindred than the enemy. If you take 40% of an enemies HP in lane from a trade and they take 60% of yours - you'll have much more sustain than them with your Wolf's Frenzy passive. Just sustain back up and trade again.

Kindred destroys objectives like Dragon or Rift Herald extremely fast, so try your best to ping your jungler to do objectives early. With a few marks, it's even faster and you can solo it if necessary. Once you get Essence Reaver, you melt turrets extremely fast. Keep your Dance of Arrows attack speed buff up and abuse Sheen procs with your Dance of Arrows.

Matchup-specific lane strategies are explained in the matchups section. Different strategies exist for different matchups, so understand what each matchup entails before thinking about what to do.

For early recalls - you should buy different items depending on the matchup.

I typically swap Stealth Ward for Oracle Lens once laning phase ends. Sometimes, if my Stealth Ward is on cooldown and the matchup is free, I swap for an early Oracle Lens.

- For hard CC mages, Mercury's Treads are a good early buy after 2 Long Sword, this lets you 1 auto the casters after a tower shot.

- If basing with 1100 gold, I like to rush Berserker's Greaves for lane. Rushing boots mid lets you dodge abilities in lane, as well as dodge ganks easier - and, of course, roam.

-> -> Situational

- Look to base with either 700, 1100, or 1300 gold. This is for either 2 Long Sword or Berserker's Greaves. You can also go 2 Long Sword and Boots and a Health Potion in poke-heavy lanes. If you have 1300, Noonquiver is preferred for easier wave clear without wasting your mana.

- In poke-heavy matchups if not taking Fleet Footwork, you can consider sitting on a Vampiric Scepter for some extra heal from poke.

- In matchups where you aren't going to get poked, but still won't interact (think Veigar), Noonquiver is preferred early for waveclear.

- Otherwise, just buy whatever is the best value for your gold. Typically, try to purchase Cloak of Agility as late as possible since it's the least reliable form of damage.

Mark of the Kindred can be obtained both through champion takedowns and camp takedowns. Keep in mind, you only EVER need 4 Mark of the Kindred on Kindred. That goes for any role, since at 4 Mark of the Kindred you get +75 bonus range. Every succeeding 3 marks (7, 10, 13, etc.) only give 25 bonus range. The risk is not worth the reward from 4 onwards - free marks are free, but never risk a play for them post 4 mark.

Mark predicting is a strategy that I use extremely often to obtain marks - which pretty much boils down to understanding what camps can spawn marks at any given time along with jungle tracking. I won't go in depth with tracking the enemy jungler, since that's not something that's champion-specific to Kindred.

Mark of the Kindred has a 45 second respawn timer once a mark is killed. This means if, for example, a mark on Gromp is killed, you can almost guarantee that the next Mark of the Kindred will spawn as a 50/50 on either Crimson Raptor or Rift Scuttler . If one of them dies, then the mark is guaranteed to spawn on the other. Typically, once the mark disappears on the map, I add 1 minute to the timer and subtract 10 seconds.

At 0 Marks, Mark of the Kindred can only spawn on Rift Scuttler .

At 1-3 Marks, Mark of the Kindred can spawn on Rift Scuttler , Gromp , or Crimson Raptor .

At 4-7 Marks, Mark of the Kindred can spawn on Blue Sentinel , Red Brambleback , Ancient Krug , or Murk Wolf

At 8 or more Marks Mark of the Kindred spawns on Dragon , Rift Herald , or Baron Nashor .

Typically, you will obtain Mark of the Kindred through champion takedowns in early skirmishes, solo kills, or Rift Scuttler . Sometimes, you will get a mark on Crimson Raptor if your jungler invades, but not often. I hardly ever recommend invading Gromp for a mark unless you're following your jungler for other reasons, you'll always always lose a wave of minions since it's far from mid.

There's almost never a game I don't get 4 marks, I get marks much more frequently than I ever did in jungle - and when I don't get marks in jungle it feels infinitely worse to play than mid.

Like other mid laners, you'll wind up side laning to push waves and rotate for teamfights. Depending on the matchup and situation, you could opt to continue split pushing and attempt to pressure that way. Typically, you should shove a wave and then rotate to group with your team.

If the enemy mid is still clearing a wave bottom-side, try to force a fight while you outnumber them - but be careful is the enemy mid laner has Teleport.

I also like to use Oracle Lens after pushing a wave to see where the enemy team has a Stealth Ward. A good strategy is to catch an enemy on rotation where they don't have vision - sitting in their jungle where they don't have vision to catch them rotating can often net you a free kill.

For teamfighting, you are an ADC but don't necessarily play like one always. You should not be afraid to jump in melee range ready to use your ultimate. A good way to play teamfights is to either kill a priority target then use Lamb's Respite so that you outnumber the enemy team OR force a priority target to stay in your Lamb's Respite and then execute them with Ignite and Mounting Dread.

You shouldn't be afraid to play up on Kindred or the enemy will capitalize on it and bait your Lamb's Respite out easily. Lamb's Respite is an offensive tool more than a defensive tool. Keep that in mind and use it.

It's hard to really say how to play teamfights since it depends on the enemy team comp and a ton of other variables. You shouldn't ever play teamfights the same way, but keep in mind that you don't want to play where you're just running away and using your ult to survive only.