Hi guys I'm a Kindred main

I have a 75% win rate in high elo normals upon release (yes I actually counted), so I obviously know what I'm taking about.

Here are my most recent 10 games:


I also steal builds and ideas from high elo players playing her in different roles so I know exactly what to build and what not to build.

• Jungle Route - Start at bot and work your way up
  
• Items - Start with Talisman.
  
• Power Spikes - You have a level 3 power spike, so farm to level 3 before looking for fights. You have another power spike after completing Warrior and another if you choose to buy a Youmuu's.
  
• Buy - Warrior > RFC > BoRK > Boots then either crit or flat penetration, life steal or %-penetration last.
  
• Skills - W at level 1, then > > >
  
• Use Ult for tower diving and to protect your squishies.

Pros:

• High mobility
• High damage
• Infinite scaling
• Artificial tankiness with ult
• Very sustained jungle clear
• Above average ganks

Cons:

• Short ranged
• Ult is hard to use
• Damage is reliant on enemies staying in a zone
• It's a jungle ADC so you need a frontline from another role

Kindred brings a lot to the table as a jungler. With high base damages on all three of their basic abilities they're able to efficiently clear camps even without items. Working twofold, the high base damages coupled with high mobility and very potent 70% targetted slow makes ganking easy and effective. With your skillset you can solo kill most laners and junglers. To put icing on the cake, because Kindred is a marksman and naturally wants to kite jungle camps, the life steal from Hunter's Machete and heal from Wolf's Frenzy keeps your health full when left alone. All in all Kindred's kit is made of every carry jungler's wet dream.

However Kindred has a few weaknesses which can be exploited. With a base range of only 500 units they are outranged by nearly every other marksmen and puts them at significant risk in teamfights. Also, because Kindred is a marksman they are naturally squishy and as a result your team's jungle slot will not be a tank; this can sometimes be offset by good ult placement or from a tanky support and top laner, but on average your team will be squishier than the other team. Lastly, Kindred struggles against champions with displacement as they can simply knock you or your teammates out of your ult.

I take armor pen reds because all of your damage early game comes from base damages and because Kindred has very poor AD scaling. Also, armor pen scales harder than flat AD mid to late game.

From the math below I feel there's no reason to take flat AD over armor pen, armor pen gives more overall damage than flat AD even at lower levels where flat AD would be superior because of how low your ratios are.

You can take armor/level, flat armor, or hp for yellows, you don't really lose too much health in the jungle because of W so if you know how to kite the camps you can literally take anything here. Flat armor is the safest.

Glyphs can be anything.

Take attack speed quints because 14% attack speed gives you more dps than AD or armor pen as long as you're constantly hitting something; in this case it's the jungle creeps.

Flash because it's Flash and Smite because you're jungling. No exceptions.

Flash lets you reposition, dodge skillshots, escape, chase, etc. There's no reason not to take this.

Smite speeds up your jungle clear and lets you secure objectives. Mandatory for a jungler.

While playing Kindred, you get an interface above your Items on your UI; here, you (or randomly, Wolf) get to pick a target and if you successfully kill it you gain a stack which makes your basic attacks deal bonus damage equal to a portion of your target's current health. It also applies to Wolf's Frenzy.

What I like to do in the beginning of the game is to mark the enemy jungler. This way when one of us eventually invades the other I can get a free stack.

When ganking you have ~8 seconds after you click on the icon before the enemy champion actually gets marked, so just do it ahead of time. What I've noticed is people don't back off when they get marked unless they see you through a ward.

Making a pick in mid game is hard because that's when people actually back off the second you click on their icon; just practice the timing and you'll get stacks here.

Before teamfights you usually want to mark their tank or frontline, unless you're fed enough to assassinate their backline, then mark whoever you're planning on killing. You want to mark their frontline or assassins because that's who your entire team will be focusing.

You can also use your passive to bluff against split pushers, or not mark someone at all and you'll surprise them.

One last thing I like to do, but isn't very reliable, is leaving an enemy camp that is marked up when I already have 6 stacks; the mark never disappears and if it's a Krug (I don't know why, but no one takes those after level 1...) it's basically a free stack. This is kind of useful late game when stacks come by more rarely due to less kills, but the enemy team can clear it at any time so it's not reliable.

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Lamb vaults forward and fires 3 arrows to the closest 3 targets. Dance of Arrows can allow you to jump over small walls and is your primary source mobility and early game damage. Try to use this in between basic attacks.

Fairly straightforward ability, you jump forward and shoot at 3 nearby targets. Dance of Arrows can let you jump over small walls.



Keep in mind if you use Dance of Arrows to leave Wolf's Frenzy the cooldown will be reduced to 2 seconds, so try to use Dance of Arrows to leave Wolf's Frenzy to get an additional cast.

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Upon casting Wolf's Frenzy, you place an AoE below you for 8 seconds. While you're in this AoE, your Q cooldown is set at 2 seconds and Wolf attacks your target. This ability also has a Kircheis Shard-like passive which heals you for a decent amount of health at 100 stacks.

There are a few important properties about the active.
1. Wolf does not switch targets until Lamb either attack a new target, or the current target leaves the field and Wolf starts to attack another target. This is good for zoning.
2. This has no cast animation, so you can cast it during Dance of Arrows' animation. This slightly extends the range, but also puts you at the dead center of Wolf's Frenzy, letting you chase with Dance of Arrows further.
3. Because Dance of Arrows's cooldown is determined at the time of its cast, you always want to consider waiting to use it to leave Wolf's Frenzy for another cast.

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Mounting Dread is a point and click slow. Upon hitting your target 2 more times, your basic attack sends Wolf to attack as well, dealing a percentage of your target's maximum health.

There's not much to say about this ablity. You point it at someone and then you right click them and then they take a lot of damage and die. You usually want to open ganks with Mounting Dread because a 70% slow, even if it only lasts for 1 second, is really strong for an ability with 1 point in it.

In the jungle you want to use this on the big monster in the camp. This will slow it, making it take more time to reach you, effectively reducing your damage taken.

Another application of this is using it in combination of Smite to secure objectives, a crit + third hit on Mounting Dread + Smite can easily do 1500 damage or more to large objectives, although this has been nerfed due to Last Whisper nerfs. It's still worth doing and practicing though!

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Your ultimate places an AoE under you which prevents all living units from going below 10% health. Any units at 10% health cannot receive healing or damage. After it ends, any units still on the AoE will be healed a fixed amount of health.

1. Extending the range
You can ult an ally next to an ally to extend the range of your ult, kind of. Useful in clutch situations. This can also help in placements where the position of your ult can be under your ally but not your enemy.

2. Ulting over a wall
If you're looking to jump a wall away from immobile enemies, try to ult as close to a wall as possible. Your ult aoe can cover over thin walls such as the wall behind blue buff, Baron, dragon etc. Useful for a last ditch effort to survive.

3. Proper ult positioning
Tower diving - remember to leave a portion of your ult outside of tower range to reserve a 'safe spot'.
Teamfights - just put it under your squishy teammates so they don't die to assassins, but not under enemy squishies.

4. Saving your burst until the end
Specifically proccing the third hit on your E and Q. If they're at 10% hp save your abilities to last hit them after the heal. A trick your should practice is throwing your Q and E projectiles roughly .2 seconds before your ultimate ends so that they land just after the heal, reducing the window for possible counter attack.

5. xPeke the nexus
Your ult prevents all living things from dying. This doesn't include towers or the nexus. If the other team has no displacement you can just ult your team and bumrush the nexus.

6. Stealing Baron/Dragon
As long as Baron or Dragon is in your ult they can't be Smite secured. You can prep the third hit on your E and Smite to steal it afterwards.

R > Q > W > E

Because even though it looks like you get absolutely nothing from ranking up Q, the extra 30 base damage that weaves in between autos every two seconds actually adds up to a lot

Then max W because it does more damage than E and E's slow doesn't increase per rank.

Also lower cooldown on W = lower cooldown on Q

You want to have W at level 1 because it's the most effective ability for taking the jungle camp.

Why don't you build Devourer or Blade of the Ruined King? (Let's get this out of the way first)

Because I think Blade of the Ruined King is far too expensive for what it does now. Honestly I'd still buy it if it was the only item that was viable, but Riot superbuffed Statikk Shiv and released Rapid Firecannon and nerfed BoRK at the same time. So not only is BoRK weak, it's alternatives are strong, cheap, and have good build paths.

But then I checked probuilds and it was brought to my attention that people still build it and yeah it's probably still worth it. And also there were countless times where I wanted attack speed, AD, and lifesteal. So it stays.

Devourer on the other hand, sucks. Below this section is a section on stats to prioritize to determine whether an item is worth buying or not.

Raw attack speed is not good on Kindred because both BoRK and your passive deals %-CURRENT health damage. Meaning, while it sounds good in theory, attack speed is useless without flat damage to back it up. If you buy Devourer you lose out on an item slot which could be used for crit or AD, stats which actually helps you kill people after you %-current health damage wears them down instead of wearing them down some more.

The next reason why it's bad is because Kindred lacks an attack speed steroid. The users of Devourer, mainly Master Yi and Udyr, have insane steroids or actually benefit off applying on-hit effects twice. Kindred can apply their %-current health damage twice, which again, won't finish off enemies with low health. And also, without an attack speed steroid, it takes quite a while to reach that 4th hit.

The final reason is Kindred is an early game champion. Buying Devourer delays your power spike until it's Sated, while Warrior gives you a ton of damage instantly. Having all that power instantly lets Kindred capitalize on their strong early game to swing the game in your favor. Also, you aren't a power-farmer like Yi or Udyr, Devourer simply takes too long to stack.

tl;dr
1. You need flat AD and crit, not raw attack speed
2. You don't have an attack speed steroid, 4 hits takes too long to acquire
3. It delays your power spikes which you don't want for an early game champion
4. You aren't a power farmer.

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Stats to Prioritize, in order

Armor Pen, because most of your damage comes from base damage and %-health damage that doesn't scale with flat AD. Armor pen gives you the most out of how your skillset works.

Attack Speed, attack speed goes hand-in-hand with armor pen because of your passive and stacking your E.

Flat AD and Crit, I think these are the least important 'important' stats because you have high enough base damage on your abilities and passive that these stats aren't as necessary on Kindred as they are on other marksmen. However, without flat ad and crit you have nothing to back up your %-hp damage. Crit and AD make it easier to finish off low health champions.

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Start

Hunter's Talisman - Why the fk are you starting with this

Because you run out of mana faster than you run out of health. Scuttle Crab + W means if you opt to take an early scuttle because it happens to be marked you will be at full health. At the video later, notice that I took Scuttle and I was able to take both buffs and 2 camps at full and end up at full health...with a potion to spare. And yet I was completely dry out of mana.

Why is mana important?

Because Kindred is a squishy ADC. Her damage comes from her abilities, and without mana she cannot Q to outmaneuver melees, cannot chase, cannot cast W etc...

An example with numbers;

At 30 mana you can cast Q once. Maybe you can dodge a skillshot, or get that last hit in.
At 40 mana you can cast W. This does a lot of damage if a single enemy stays in it.
At 70 mana you can cast E for a strong slow and a good chunk of damage. Can be better or worse than W depending on the situation.
Also at 70 mana you can use W and Q once each. So if an enemy decides to stay in your W you can kite a bit and do a good amount of damage.
At 100 mana you can cast W and two Qs. With Red Buff an a good position, you can do a lot of damage and even chase down a target for a bit.
At 110 mana you can cast a W and an E. If anyone decides to fight you can probably kill them.
At 130 mana you can cast Q three times and W once. Or cast each ability once each.

I can go on but because of the way Kindred's abilities work with each other, every little bit of mana counts.

Also, it gives more health back on average than Hunter's Machete. 3 monsters in a camp + 5 health/second = 15 health restore each second while you're using Dance of Arrows, as opposed to 8% of ~75 damage, or 6 hp every 1.5s from basic attacks.

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Core:

+ + or +

Warrior is core because it's the best jungle item upgrade on Kindred and because you're jungling.

Rapid Firecannon is pretty good because it's attack speed, crit, and the Energized passive synergizes with your Q + W. Being able to apply red buff at 600 range is also a plus.

Youmuu's Ghostblade is a snowball item; if you've already gotten a few kills and really want to carry a game you buy a Youmuus instead of a Rapid Firecannon.

Skirmisher's Sabre is the best Smite upgrade since it does the most damage and the pseudo-exhaust is great for 1v1s. You don't need the slow from Stalker's Blade since you already have a slow from Mounting Dread and maybe Bilgewater Cutlass/ Blade of the Ruined King.

Stalker's Blade is still okay to buy if you're uncomfortable without it's slow + speed buff.

Boots:

Boots of Swiftness is very cheap movespeed on top of slow tenacity. These boots are currently OP so you should buy them in about 90% of your games. Berserker's Greaves and Mercury's Treads are okay to buy but they usually aren't worth the cost. Only buy Berserker's if you really want the attack speed and Mercs if you really need the cc tenacity.

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Other stuff:

Blade of the Ruined King - Synergizes well with your passive and lets you destroy health stacking tanks. Infinity Edge - I usually buy this after Rapid Firecannon if I just want damage Lord Dominik's Regards - You have very low base health so this item is really good on Kindred, buy it as a 5th or 6th item

Runaan's Hurricane - Good as a 4th or 5th item, otherwise you're building too much attack speed and not enough AD so you won't be able to kill people. Youmuu's Ghostblade - If you're fed, getting this on top of Enchantment: Warrior allows you to demolish squishies early to mid game. Frozen Mallet - If you're fed and need to force fights/kite champions, this is pretty good but it's almost purely for the slow and health.

Bloodthirster - Gives you damage and makes you a little bit harder to kill; there are probably better items though. Death's Dance - It's kind of underwhelming right now, I think it's bad because if you take 1000 damage it only blocks 120 and late game honestly you're going to take a lot more than 1000 damage so you'll die anyway. Bloodthirster shields you for like 400 hp and the equivalent for this item is taking about 3000 damage.

Maw of Malmortius - This is amazing now that it gives armor pen and an enrage passive, buy it when you want damage + MR + the shield. Mercurial Scimitar - Good, arguably core, QSS basically guarantees that you will get your ult off, a must buy against champions with suppression. Banshee's Veil - Good item, let's you block a free spell. Good vs combo reliant mages.

Sterak's Gage - Very potent against fed assassins as it's essentially +1100 health late game, it makes you harder to burst down giving you time to ult against champions like Talon or Rengar. Guardian Angel - I think not dying at all is better than dying and reviving, honestly with stuff like Sterak's Gage and your ult this isn't worth it anymore imo. Randuin's Omen - I think it's okay to buy this as a last item against an AA oriented team? As a last resort I guess but otherwise stick to other items.

I don't recommend any items not here as these are all the best options.

Regardless of where you start, you want to prioritize hitting level 3 first, then easy marks on scuttle. When scuttle is marked and is nearby I usually just finish my camp and head straight for it because with W passive it's like a free heal and a free passive stack and not a lot of champions can fight you 1v1 anyway.

The reason you want to hit level 3 ASAP is because Kindred's Q W and E all have insanely high numbers at rank 1 which grants them the strongest level 3 in the game. While the standalone numbers aren't very high, Kindred is able to use Q multiple times in quick succession which adds up very quickly, on top of basic attacks, on top of Wolf constantly hitting the enemy in Wolf's Frenzy, on top of a slow from Mounting Dread to keep them in place, on top of being at 110% health due to a fully charged W passive, on top of everything being targeted abilities. The mobility from Dance of Arrows which lets them dodge skillshots is just icing on the cake.

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Blue side:
Start at Krugs and have your bot lane leash for you. Your standard route should be

Krugs > Red > Wolves/Raptors > Blue, I usually do Wolves because the chickens do a lot of damage and take longer.

Krugs > Red > Blue is fine if you are afraid of getting a buff stolen

I like taking both buffs before backing because I still have ptsd flashbacks of s2 jungle shaco stealing everything ;-; but

Krugs > Red > Raptors > Base > Blue > Gank or farm Gromp/Wolves is fine as well.

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Red side:
Gromp > Blue > Wolves > Red

Gromp > Blue > Red

Gromp > Blue > Wolves > Base > Red

BASICALLY start at bot lane and work your way up. Alter your route depending on if Scuttle gets marked, if you see an opportunity to gank, or depending on the enemy jungler/invades.

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The above are your standard routes, BUT

Wolf likes to mark Scuttle Crab sometime during your third camp.

If it is convenient, as in if it's on the same of the jungle as you are, go take it. This is another advantage of starting where your bot lane is; if the Scuttle on your side of the jungle is marked you will usually take it uncontested, heal up, and be ready for your next camp.

If it isn't convenient, just continue clearing camps until you hit level 3. Remember that you are STRONG at level 3 so you can actively look to contest buffs, take Scuttle, or gank. If you are level 3, you want to head straight for Scuttle especially if your Smite is up.

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Marked Enemy Camps

These are not worth the risk. Unless you know where the enemy jungler is or if he's dead, just don't do it. Not even if you're stronger. Just don't.

Okay, if you can coordinate with your team, then yeah you can. But otherwise, don't.

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Sneaking/Soloing Dragon

After you complete Warrior, you can solo Dragon. Buy a Vision Ward and do it. Not many people expect an early Dragon solo, so a lot of times you can take it uncontested.

Use Q to kite backwards away from the large monster but remember to stay in your W so it doesn't disappear.

Start every camp at max range so the monsters have to walk to you.

There are some walls you can actually jump over to avoid damage as well. The wall at red with the bush, the walls at the wolf camp, probably the blue buff walls too, but don't try it in a real game unless you've tried it in a custom because you don't want it resetting.

Remember to walk between EVERY auto to maximize your W passive

In case it still isn't clear I made a video.

I made a few mistakes but w/e I still had an extra pot

Early Game

At levels 1-2 you want to focus on farming and acquiring easy Mark of the Kindred stacks from Scuttle or enemy jungle camps if you know where the enemy jungler is. Kindred's level 1 in a 1v1 scenario is fairly weak, and at level 2 you still lack the potent slow from Mounting Dread to really capitalize on out of position or overextended enemies.

At and after level 3, you want to aggressively look for ganks. With the cooldown reset on Dance of Arrows + Wolf's Frenzy and potent slow from Mounting Dread you should easily be able to kill even slightly overextended enemies regardless of if they Flash or not.

If ganks are unavailable, you can look to counterjungle and hunt down the enemy jungler. With proper guesswork it's possible to catch enemy junglers while they're low and about to recall, especially when you decide to invade before their first recall. Be careful here, however, because you don't want to be stuck in a 2v1 against the enemy jungler + laner; let your team know about your intentions so they can play or react accordingly.

Mid Game

Mid game is when you should look to dive low health enemies. Lamb's Respite is fantastic for tower dives when placed correctly, and with your mobility you're able to bypass a lot of commonly warded areas by jumping over walls. Once again, look out for enemy junglers and look to gank from behind; don't be afraid to die because your mobility and Lamb's Respite makes you incredibly difficult to kill.

When certain key members of the enemy team are dead, look to take Dragon, towers, Rift Herald, or even an early Baron. While your passive was nerfed to have a cap on Dragon and Baron, you're still able to take them fairly easily.

Late Game

Late game just stay with your team. You aren't a split pusher, there are more champions who can duel you now, and you are extremely squishy so you definitely do not want to be caught alone. By now just a 70% 1 second slow isn't enough for a pick unless your target is so far out of position, so don't try to force things either.

Don't try to start fights, instead wait for your tankier teammates to initiate fights and then stay near your squishies and help them kill the assassins and tanks/bruisers.

Positioning
As Kindred you want to stay near your ADC/AP Mid. With several stacks on Mark of the Kindred and the third hit on Mounting Dread Kindred is able to shred tanks with %-health damage.

Staying near your high damage carries will let you keep them alive against assassins with Lamb's Respite.

Unless you're fed enough to kill squishies within the three autos needed for Mounting Dread, you should not be targetting the enemy carries. The only exception is if they are far out of position because they used their gap closer/ Flash in. If you are targetting the enemy squishies it means you are jumping into their team and you are out of position.

The only champions you can save with Lamb's Respite in the middle of the enemy team is your team's frontline, you, and the entire enemy team. Meanwhile your team can't get under your ult and they can actually die.

So stay near your squishies.

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Role
Your job in teamfights is, first and foremost, to kill the enemy frontline. This is especially easy with your health shredding passive and BoRK combined with crits and Mounting Dread.

Your other job is to use your ult to save your squishies and yourself from fatal damage, or to use your ult to even the playing field through delaying your death and then equalizing everyone at 10% health.

Many times it is necessary to ult while an enemy member will be saved by it; if it means you can save your teammate from dying then it's usually worth it to keep both of them alive. But if you had to 'trade' kills, such as if the marksmen on both teams were about to die, think about who is more influential in fights; if your 1/5 Lucian would die for their 12/3 Vayne let him. Of course if there was a way to only ult Lucian, do that.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you learned something about Kindred, while they aren't the hardest champion to play and use properly there are many little things that can boost your success.