Blah, blah, blah peaked at Gold 2 in Season 7. Ended up in Gold 5 in Season 8. Flirting with like a 48% win rate in Season 9 even though I've got a pretty good win rate on a handful of champions, though some of those are ADCs as I got so frustrated with my Bot lanes getting stomped that I switched to that role for a while. Climbed a bit and then realized that it was such a **** shoot as to they quality of your support that it wasn't worth maining the role in Silver.
Season 7 I mostly played
Shyvana and she isn't sitting in a horrible spot at the moment. Around a 50% winrate IIRC. Before the
Kindred spam, I tried a couple of games with Shy using the
Press the Attack rune path. Ran over one game and lost the next two when none of my laners managed to get a lead on their own. Having about 0 gank potential feels like a rather big liability at the moment.
And I realized that I really should try the advice of just sticking with one champion and learning all their ins and outs come what may. My goal is Platinum 4, but the main point of this exercise is giving an honest go at seeing if I can improve my ability to climb by focusing on one champion exclusively.
Why Kindred?
Good but not so good that they are drawing bans
Hate dealing with their marks when I'm playing vs. them, so if I'm playng them I only have to worry about obtaining the marks.
1v9 potential if you can get a lead
ADC so if you get one of those wonky comps with no ranged champions at least you are playing a ranged character
Potenially third highest range in the game (okay, that is extremely unlikely, but the potential is there)
Ability to dodge skill shots if you are aware and savvy with your Q usage.
Marks are a built in get on the other team's nerves taunt.
Pretty darn good at chasing if you use your abilities correctly.
Ranged so it is safer to defend/hold turrets than it is with a melee champion
Ability to go through thinner walls (terrain scaling)
I'm still monkeying around with rune pages.
Conqueror seems to be the preferred keystone at the moment. I've tried a little
Press the Attack and lately I've been trying
Phase Rush. Not sure which one is truly better or if I need to tailor my runes to the particular game as Credenda (high ELO
Jayce main) suggests is a requirement for playing at a high level this season.
Item path is also in question.
But that I think is one of the interesting thing. Can I get the point where I know what is going to work in a particular game?
E.g.
All squishies with high mobility?
Phase Rush +
Enchantment: Warrior.
Conqueror +
Enchantment: Bloodrazor
Mixed comp where I think we'll be teamfighting a lot?
Press the Attack + ???
Champions that I've had some trouble with
Ryze - point and click + Q spam no bueno (but looks like this may be getting changed)
Nocturne - hard to duel pre-ult
Jax - dunno, because he is who I've been banning
Rammus - I've seen Kindred's take the dillo down in the early game, but I failed when I tried it. Forest Within suggests
Legend: Tenacity +
Black Cleaver, which I've tried and it does make this matchup more manageable because you can walk away from the taunt before you kill yourself AAing him.
Vi - Depends on if she tries to Q you or just ults you. You can dodge the Q, but you can't dodge the ult.
Tristana - Has the tools she needs to peel you off of herself and can knock you out of your ult.
Zed - I think I need to ult just before their mark pops and this will work out better, because if you ult too soon it will time out before the mark pops. Good
Zed's will try to combo you to force you to ult and only ult you in turn toward the end of of your ultimate.
Ninja Tabi and Challenging Smite and possibly
Phantom Dancer are you friends when dealing with him.
Kled - Honestly just think i was playing this wrong, but I had some trouble when I tried ganking him so will put him on the list
Teemo - You pretty much have to have
Quicksilver Sash to kill him and if you can't burst him quickly he'll just run away and try to path you through shrooms to slow you down.
Hecarim - probably will just maul your entire team if he gets a lead. If he is running
Ignite he will win every trade after his first back. Try to kill him early as he does get low in the jungle unless he uses the raptor +
Hunter's Talisman interaction and if he is trying to juggle that and Red Buff he is vulnerable.
Urgot - Hard to deal with if they have a lead. And he can pull you out of your ult.
Diana - If fed can blow you up even if you have a
Maw of Malmortius. But you should be able to nullify her with
Maw of Malmortius and Challenging Smite and kiting her out. #getgoodXD Tried this match-up again and she just overkills you until you get enough items to deal with her burst. Don't facecheck her and dodge her Q.
Amumu - Maybe need to try to brutalize him early. He is strong enough at my ELO right now that he is problematic. He farms your raptors and krugs faster than you do early game so if you go for a gank on the opposite side of the map while they are up be mindful that you could end up behind overall. Oh you also have to watch what you are standing next to when playing him as you may dodge his Q,
Bandage Toss, but if he hits something nearby and you are close enough he can still ult you.
Nasus -
Wither is brutal, especially given the single target damage that the dogge can put out if he gets on top of you. Best to tackle him in a group with some CC, but if you have to try to kill him before you are itemized to the hilt put your W,
Wolf's Frenzy, behind you so you can kite away from him. #getgoodXD
Yasuo -
Wind Wall, need I say more? It really depends on how fed they are if there are minions around. Since you can Q dash through his Windwall you have some options, but his kit just lends itself to a high level of frustration when playing against it.
Olaf - Specifically don't try to facetank
Olaf. You want to keep him at range at all times in order to kite him and dodge his Qs. If he gets on top of you before you can stat check him in the late game you are dead. Some
Olaf's get themselves really low on their first jungle clear in order to clear faster. He is vulnerable if he does that, however remember that he has crazy attack speed so try to catch him when he is on a camp and has his abilities on cooldown.
Executioner's Calling can be helpful vs him and is an excellent and likely required choice if they have any other champs with strong healing on their team.
Well that is all for now. If I get far enough into this experiment, perhaps I will create a guide. There is at least one decent one on the site for jungle Kindred, but I feel like some important thought processes in the usage of their abilities are lacking even in that guide.
Or maybe I just end up spamming
Hecarim. We'll see. XD
What seems to work is going in only when you can blow your target up quickly. You can then pop Lamb's Respite to absorb a tower shot. If you have to pop Lamb's Respite early and your opponent can also make use of it the best you can manage is a 1 for 1 trade depending on the timing of the turret shot.
This is a topic I'm going to explore some more. Teammate's are still a bit hesitant to tower dive in Silver so some of the issue may arise from poor tower aggro management.
So there are probably some scenarios where you can go in and take tower aggro, pop Lamb's Respite and then let your teammate finish the target off, but I've not nailed down the particulars.
You do have to remember that while you can absorb multiple tower shots with your ult active, the turret shots are still ramping up in damage, so if you muck up the timing on your exit you are going to take a lot of damage.
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Currently one S from getting mastery 7 on Kindred. Estimating but I believe you need somewhere between 15-18 kills and 200+ farm to earn an S on them at the moment. It obviously helps to pop off early, but isn't necessarily a requirement. You do scale well if built properly and if the opposition doesn't have the damage or CC to neutralize you quickly you'll start to see the swing with either your healing kicking in to keep you alive in situations you think would kill you and/or you start to pick up a lot of "fade away kills" where the enemy dies off screen to your last Q or third stack of your E.
I think this should have been an Ultimate Hunter game and maybe even Nullifying Orb to boot.
To elaborate. Diana could blow me up. LeBlanc could blow me up though she has more counterplay. Pantheon & Pyke could blow me up since I was building to try and deal with three AP threats. Neeko could also blow me up, but I mostly stayed out of the **** she throws out.
I really wasn't that useful to my team until after I finish Maw of Malmortius and Guardian Angel. Since we did manage to hang on that long our scaling kicked in and we were able to turn this one around.
Alternatively he said he liked Absolute Focus + Gathering Storm in games where he has to scale. Because Gathering Storm gives the AD going attack speed based items lacks.
I haven't seen him use the Sorcery treat of late on his main, but food for thought.
Another tidbit about Enchantment: Warrior vs. Enchantment: Bloodrazor that I got from the reddit for Kindred Mains is that Enchantment: Bloodrazor is the better scaling option and it is always superior when the target exceeds 1500 heatlh (have not verified the numbers myself). However you do lose 10% CDR compared to warrior. And CDR can be rather helpful say against comps with a lot of skillshots because you can W & Q more often for mobility.
As @ hamstertamer pointed out in another thread you can sell Enchantment: Warrior if it gets well into late game and you have the gold to burn for something else. For instance Death's Dance comes to mind since it also has 10% CDR and a chunk of AD.
With regards to itemization. I'm finding that it is extremely situational and good choices can make a difference in the outcomes of your games.
Don't forget to throw in a Executioner's Calling after your jungle item if you are against a bunch of healers. Forest Within did mention that he almost never builds both Black Cleaver and Mortal Reminder.
(I would guess this is because tBC makes Mortal Reminder less effective since tBC lowers the target's armor by x% per stack and Mortal Reminder ignores a % of armor (so the higher the target's armor the more effective it is)).
-Only Q, Dance of Arrows, in if you need to. Try walking into AA range and only using Q to close the gap when they run away or use Q to maintain your spacing if they try to engage on you.
You usually want to W, Wolf's Frenzy, right after your Q. This will drastically decrease the cool-down on your Q letting you potentially get off at least two of them in addition to the pre-W Q. You also get a big boost in attack speed.
You can put W where you want so you can for example leave it between you and them which can be helpful for retreating or kiting or lead them a little bit which can help with chasing them.
-Use your range advantage, sure if you are fed enough and have enough lifesteal you can probably facetank whoever you jump on (with Challenging Smite), but you are likely to take more damage than you otherwise would, which could force you into ulting (which has an extremely long cooldown) and putting it on cooldown for any followup skirmishes or teamfights.
-When you ult, hold onto Mounting Dread. You want to be ready to AA for the third hit just after your ultimate expires which should execute them.
-Only build as much defense as you need to not get one shot because if you have the damage a dead enemy cannot one shot you. Find the balance.
-Target Champions Only is good to make sure Q and E hit champions. (currently have it set to be a toggle via my C key). Assigning the key can be done outside of the game. Making a toggle for some bizarre reason has to be done in game/in the practice tool. If you notice you can't target minions and monsters then you have it active. The updated cursor turns red in the middle when target champions only is active.
So say you don't have any marks. RNG has not been kind to me in like my last 4 or 5 games so the first mark spawns on the opposite side of the map from me. So no mark for me. If I kill my crab first then if you don't obtain any more marks before the next crab spawns you know that the crab you killed the first time around will spawn in with a mark.
Now extend this idea to the other potential camps for the amount of marks you have and you will always know where Wolf's marks will spawn.
I was able to outplay the Kha'Zix a couple of times but I can see how he would be problematic with even a tiny lead.
Queued up for ranked last night with the intention of playing Kindred and someone dodged the game before we completed champions select. Then a buddy that is lower rank than me hopped on so I played some normals with him.
We won two games and then lost our final one, depicted above, of the evening.
I think I could have carried this one if I had itemzied better despite the fact that my Bot lane was touched and my Mid laner was effectively 2nd timing Veigar as a Mid laner.
This game offered three problems and it could have been four.
1. Three champions that could pull or push me out of my ultimate
2. Diana who could one shot me through Maw of Malmortius
3. Some dumb on my part
4. Urgot could have built armor
Since no one on their team built armor I needed to have built Wit's End instead of Black Cleaver.
So item path really should have looked something like Enchantment: Bloodrazor > Hexdrinker > Wit's End + maybe Blade of the Ruined King or Death's Dance (the former to cut through Urgot and the later to help with the burst from their team while also gaining some lifesteal).
The dumb I needed to fix was not facechecking Diana after we killed Urgot and Nocturne, which would have given us a shot at taking Baron.
And realizing faster they lured us into a trap when we were strolling up Mid. Urgot Predatored in from behind our team and I'm like okay we turn on Urgot, but then I got Blitzcrank hooked from the right side which left me with only Blitzcrank as a target and Diana and Nocturne dove onto our other carries from the left side of the map. Actually quite well played by their team.
Red > Krugs > He kills like one small raptor > heads to blue side
He also mentions oRed > tBlue > but only if you have lane priority.
I'll link the video here when I get the chance. Definitely some things to be learned about his clear as he stays healthier than I tend to which enables more options than just backing and picking up Hunter's Talisman because you are too low to do anything else.
I keep wondering about E, Mounting Dread usage for clearing. Adding it into your combo does burn through a fair amount of mana (usually not that big of a deal as when in the jungle you passively gain a quite a bit of mana back with the way the current jungle items work). But what I noticed when he did use it was that he used it toward the end of his combo, which makes sense because it is an execute so it does increased damage based on their missing health.
At one point he also dropped Wolf's Frenzy in between Blue and Gromp so that it could attack the 2nd target after the first was dead. I suspect you can do this when you are confident that you have the damage to kill one quickly enough that Wolf's Frenzy will not have timed out before you move to the next target.
He snowballed big time off of some questionable plays by the enemy so he went full crit starting with a Zeal second item which he said was normally one of the most reliable ways to throw a game. He was rather snarky about the questions he was going to get about it. Implied was full crit is basically never a good idea, but I did learn that you can get some ridiculous healing from the proc off of Statikk Shiv if you are running Ravenous Hunter, but otherwise the item is not in a good spot.
He also opted for Enchantment: Warrior that game because the enemy comp was squishy and he said that if you go Enchantment: Bloodrazor the enemy Soraka could out heal your damage in the early game.
Much better synergy with this team compared to the previous game despite several of my teammates having 0 mastery points on their champions and Annie getting autofilled in Mid.
Yorick did Yorick things such as mauling Irelia and taking turrets.
I picked up several kills on the Ekko after he killed Annie.
Lux and Ashe had some good rotations to help me out which turned some questionable situations into wins for the team. Go us!!!
Outside of the Ekko getting a lead, I kind of mauled their team with a little help from my friends.
At this point I've hit level 6 mastery on Kindred and given the numbers I've put up without getting S or S+ scores, I don't think I'm going to hit mastery 7 on them any time soon.
In the future I'll be taking them into ranked and seeing how I do in that environment, which is sometimes a little more coordinated, which should make life harder for Kindred. But ve shall see.
Have to mention this fiesta as it included something I'd never seen before.
Fiora got Darius low and pinged me to come help here with Darius. Now the problem was that she was so low that she didn't help in any way and she had used her ward at Blue so it was on cool down for like 22 more seconds. Darius runs into the bush on the side of the lane and foolishly used my dash to get to him. So you can probably figure out what happened next. Yep, he comboed me and got enough healing back from his Q that I couldn't finish him off. Fiora goes ape**** about it in chat so I mute her. Then basically runs it down into Darius a couple of more times. I tried helping her again at one point and ended up dying again. At that point Miss Fortune who was doing well in Bot lane switched lanes with Fiora and of course eventually dies to the Darius.
And this is the thing I'd never seen before. I see a low Master Yi doing Rift Herald. So I am like well I know what to here and proceed to go all-in on him. Except....Darius is there too. WaaWaaWaa. Sad Kindred.
Miss Fortune wanders over and ends up doing a dance off with the Master Yi and then helps him with Rift Herald. Later she helps him take a Dragon and eventually helps him take Baron though the rest of my team did put up a fuss about that and started a fight with their team which they of course lost because we were so far behind.
So I guess directly aiding the enemy is one way to get a game over quickly.
-Don't **** with Darius unless you positive you can kill him clean.
-Oh and remember to get inside his Q radius so he doesn't get the heal.
Our Bot lane was almost too heavy in this game and our Mid, my duo partner, was basically first timing Lux just so they could get a chest if I managed to get a S. Jarvan IV and I kept trading kills on our respective Mid laners. Garen was happily doing his thing in Top lane.
I had to switch from Black Cleaver to Mortal Reminder in the late game to deal with the Nasus and the Lucian.
-Be willing to vary your build, even switching to different items if the game state warrants it and you have the gold for it.
They surrendered after I soloed their Urgot. He even got his ult off. I just killed him before he could reel me in to be chewed up.