Patch 5.20 has recently hit live in League of Legends and with the patch came a new champion, Kindred. Kindred is a champion that skirmishes incredibly well. She has high damage as well as decent mobility to counteract for the fact that she's an AD carry designed to be played in the jungle. Her plus sides is that she does great damage as early as level 2 but she has plenty of downsides, namely that she's susceptible to invades and her jungle routes can be predicted easily due to her passive mechanic which marks jungle monsters in the enemy jungle. In this article, we'll be looking at Kindred as a whole and why she can be considered a power pick in the right hands. This includes going over pros & cons, her build path, and the basics on how she should be played.

So let's go more in-depth on the strengths and weaknesses of Kindred jungle.

Pros

1. Great early game damage.

Kindred's early game damage is decent due to the nature of her kit. She has a "zone control" W that deals damage, a Q (hop) that has a partial cooldown reset when your W is active, and an E that does % max health damage on the 3rd auto. With her kit, her early game can allow her to skirmish with almost any jungler, even those like Lee Sin & Nidalee if you can use your hop to dodge their skill shots.

2. Decent mobility.

Kindred's Q is a dash/damaging ability. It has a relatively long cooldown but, if used along with her W, the Q receives a partial cooldown reset. The cooldown is reduced from around 9 seconds at rank 1 to 2 seconds with W active. This allows you to dash up to 4 times with W active. The dash allows you to hop over walls so it's a great tool for chasing or escaping.

3. Strong late game.

Assuming you utilize Kindred's passive correctly, you'll be farming up your "Mark of the Kindred" stacks either by enemy champions or jungle creeps. Assuming you stacked effectively, you'll be doing an absurd amount of % health damage per auto attack.

4. Insane neutral objective control.

Kindred deals % health damage per auto. This is % health damage based on the targets current health so she shreds objectives like Baron & Dragon very easily. A very common strategy for Kindreds is to set up for a 20 minute Baron since it should die within 15s with at least 2 other members present.

5. Decent clears.

Her ability to clear is fairly decent and she remains healthy due to her kiting as well as the passive on her W which helps her sustain. Kindred also has AoE clear with the triple auto on her Q.

6. Game changing ultimate.

Kindred's ultimate can change the course of a teamfight and can allow you to win it or lose it based on how you use it. As an example, you can utilize the ultimate to survive an enemy team's wombo combo and then turn around to unload your kit.

Cons

1. Susceptible to early invades.

No matter what, Kindred is still an AD carry early game. While she has the capability to skirmish with many junglers, if you engage on her while she's clearing another camp, she's a fairly easy kill for some of the stronger early game junglers. Champion's like Lee Sin, Nidalee, and Rengar can snowball themselves by feasting on a Kindred while she goes through her early clears.

2. Kindred is an AD carry.

This means that, if your team doesn't pick champion's around the fact that you have Kindred, you may potentially have no tank or initiate. Your team composition may end up being full AD as well.

3. Jungle routes can be easily predicted due to your Mark of the Kindred passive.

Kindred periodically marks jungle camps until you have 6 stacks of Mark of the Kindred. Since you want those jungle camps, the enemy will know where you're heading because they can see the marks as well. This can potentially put you in a bad position if the enemy team collapses on you. This applies to marking enemy champions as well. If you mark their top laner, as an example, the enemy jungler may spend some time top lane in anticipation for a countergank.

4. Game changing ultimate.

This is a pro but it's also a con. Poor usage of Kindred's ultimate can be detrimental to teamfights. Your ultimate prevents your teammates from dying but it also prevents the enemy team from dying.

5. Reliant on positioning in teamfights.

Kindred is an AD carry which means that she's squishy mid/late game. Because of this, you really need to focus on not getting caught out of position since you'll be a sizable portion of your team's damage.

Early Pressure

With every article on jungle champions, I like to go over the pressure that they can apply early game. Kindred's interesting as she's very reliant on the application and usage of her E to get her ganks off. Applying the E cripples the target, slowing the target by 70%. It also deals a % health damage if you trigger the E with 3 auto attacks. Outside of that, her early game ganks aren't the greatest. Ideally, you'll only want to look for ganks if the target is overextended, has no summoners, or you have a lane that provides the hard CC that you lack. Outside of ganking, Kindred can skirmish fairly well and I've had decent success with her when I look for invades. Against most junglers (exceptions being the likes of Xin Zhao and Lee Sin), I like to go for a level 2 invade. After taking one camp, I'll invade the enemy buff and look for a kill. More often than not, this results in a kill because of your decent early game damage + chasing potential with your W & Q. If you had applied a mark on the enemy jungler, this also provides you with a stack of your passive, increasing your damage.

Clears

Kindred's clears are fairly healthy. You should be able to kite a jungle camp easily with the new reset mechanic. Plus, as long as you keep moving, you keep generating stacks of your W passive which helps sustain you. The main problem with her clears is that it takes a little bit longer to clear than champion's like Rek'Sai/Nidalee/Elise. In addition, she's always susceptible to invades from a more aggressive jungler. Your clears will generally involve activating your W, using your E for the % health damage, and using your Q to kite a camp while continuously moving to keep generating stacks of your W passive.

Teamfighting

In teamfights as Kindred, you'll want to stay behind whatever backline that you have and then focus on dealing "safe" damage. Remember that if you stacked up your passive, you're going to be dealing % current health damage to any target that you attack which allows you to shred tanks. Don't dive for the enemy back line. Just attack whoever is in range of you. Keep your W active and use your Q to mainly dodge skill shots. Apply your E on CD on the closest target. As for your ultimate, try to use it on teammates who get caught out of position. Be very careful with how you use it because it can easily save the enemy team. In general, your priority is the same as the AD carry. Kill targets closest to you and then push turrets.

Finally, we'll be going over different builds that I've found success with on Kindred. These builds are either experiments by myself or builds that have been seeing some success by professional players.

Build #1

This build has been popularized by Spirit, World Elite's jungler. Attack Speed is very useful on Kindred as it allows you to utilize your passive. Blade of the Ruined King synergizes with your kit. Runaans spreads the application. The Mercurial Scimitar is mainly for the QSS portion to avoid CC. Last Whisper to shred armor. Devourer can be swapped out for Warrior instead, depending on the game. Personally, I prefer the feel of Devourer but I'll only get it if I feel I'm able to farm up safely. For the most part, I'll go Warrior enchantment.

Build #2

This build is a build that would be considered a standard Kalista build. Double lifesteal synergizes well with Runaans. This build allows you to basically easily solo baron once you have your double lifesteal. It gives you pseduo tankiness due to the lifesteal.

As of now, I still don't know where I'd place Kindred as a jungler. She feels a little bit underwhelming right now but she snowballs very hard. Her objective control is unmatched but I believe she's still outclassed by champions such as Rek'Sai and Elise. Once better builds have been found, Kindred may end up being a power pick. Thanks for reading!

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