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An In-Depth Look at Taric, his flaws, and a potential direction in a rework.

Dubsteppe·10/6/2014, 11:27:44 PM·4 votes·1,196 views

Hello, community. As of late, Riot has been reworking champions they feel are weak, toxic (gameplay wise), or outdated. I see no greater example of a champion in need of this than our flamboyant Taric.

What is wrong with Taric?

In my own opinion, no other champion in this game has a more bland, uninspiring kit than Taric's, and Riot has given him nerfs because of his kit.

Taric has had an odd history throughout the year. Taric received some changes at the beginning of preseason, which made him spiral into an unhealthy monster that could not stay in popularity. Taric then received nerfs that would keep him irrelevant for the rest of the year.

Taric's kit has major faults that must be dealt with:

  1. Taric's kit is set up in a way that a good Taric can hardly stand out from a bad Taric. This is because most of Taric's abilities are point and click, nothing more. Anybody can do that. This also leads to a kit that is relys fully on numbers. When the numbers are high, Taric is strong. When the numbers are low, he is weak.

  2. Taric wields a large amount of "Hidden Power" that often goes unrecognized. Two examples being his ultimate and W. Currently, Taric's ultimate gives bonus AP/AD to his allies, and his W gives bonus armor to his allies. In a teamfight, that does not go through people's mind, they are simply fighting while their support glows for some reason. Taric's W is even worse of a case, a static aura that has little to no indication. This was an issue Riot has shown they do not want as a part of their game. If we take a look at the new Sona rework, we can see that all of Sona's auras have turned into perceptible effects.

  3. Taric has aspects that seem interesting, but simply is overloaded with a little bit of everything. Taric takes "skilled at many; master of none" to a craxy extreme, making him end up having no true role, because he excels at absolutely nothing. If we look: Taric tries to be:

  • An aura support (W, R)*
  • A Healer (Q)
  • A Protector (W)
  • A fighter (P)
  • A Pick-Creating Support (E)
  • A Lock Down Support (E)

What worthwhile traits does Taric have?

I have heard many people that enjoy the idea of Taric, yet cannot stand the execution of him. I have gathered a consensus on what people generally enjoy out of Taric.

  1. Taric is a protector, but also loves to brawl.
  2. Taric is a fighter, but also has slight sustain, making him unique from other fighter/lock down supports like Braum or Leona.
  3. Taric is useful against heavy AD compositions.

What role should Taric fit, and how do you make him unique?

Taric has the kit of a jack of all trades (though a crappy one albeit), and that is not always a bad thing. However, in terms of basic categorization, Taric is a fighter, and Taric is a protector. With those two aspects in mind, we begin to shape what Taric should excel at.

Taric should be a support that works best at levels 3-6. Taric should be a heavy 2v2 champion that can create strong and lasting trades. Taric should pair best with carries that have CCs of their own or like to brawl, such as the likes of Jinx or Vayne (and Ezreal ofc).

Any support should know that without having to worry about farming, the most important trait in a support is how they adapt their positioning based on a situation. Weather it be a zoning Leona, a Lulu poking from a bush, or an Alistar standing on top of their carry, supports need to make meaningful choices about where they position themselves. Taric is no different, so it is important to have a kit that makes Taric decide "Do I want to protect my carry, or distance myself to press a lead?"

I will only touch on this a little bit, but Taric's flamboyant attitude works perfectly for the character, and can easily be poked at in his quotes or subtleties in his kit, but that is a whole different ballpark.

The following kit is simply one that I theory crafted this past week. I will not be delving into numbers, but I created the kit to explain how I think Taric's values should translate into his gameplay. Please leave feedback if you think there is a better way to interpret his values, or if you believe a different value should be stressed.

My Personal Proposal

Passive: Invigorating Eminence

Every Xth ability cast by Taric will create a low-range aura that regenerates the health of allies (not Taric. Sorry top laners!) by X for 1.5 seconds.

Why?

This ties into the meaningful decisions of where Taric should be positioned. When Taric is pushing a lead, Taric will either have to lose his lane presence to heal an ally or waste the aura altogether to keep presence. With some visual changes Taric is bound to receive, this can change from a simple aura to a more visible and noticeable effect.

Q: Shatter (Nothing to do with his current W)

Taric hurls a mystical crystal outward, dealing damage and slowing the enemy hit. The crystal will shatter upon hitting the target. Anything hit by the shattered projectile will receive significantly less damage and will be slowed by half of the initial amount.

Why?

I believe Taric's "less effective at a distance" (E) is an interesting mechanic, and fits into his playstyle quite well. This ability can provide meaningful peel, can be used as a zoning tool, but will not be as meaningful as a poke due to the reduced damage, and it may not be worth the mana costs (which I haven't even posted, go figure...)

My own personal downside to this ability is that I talk about individuality and being unique, and here I literally slap a modified Lissandra Q on him.

W: Crystalline Safeguard

Taric surrounds an ally champion with gems, reducing the physical damage dealt for X seconds.

Why?

Taric is a protector, no doubt about it. I wanted to find a unique way to protect Taric's team from AD threats without some undervalued aura. Plenty of Magic shields exist (Black Shield, Hexdrinker, etc.), but where is the character dedicated to physical damage threats, while leaving a soft spot for mages? I also want to stress the decision making behind Taric, "Who would be the best in need of a shield, the initiating tank or the threatened ADC?"

I initially was going to have a "shield exists for some time, then explodes for X damage", but decided against it in hopes of being creative, not to mention Taric will likely buy FoTM at some point.

E: Glimmering Embankment

Taric slams his hammer to the ground, creating a fissure leading to a certain point, when the fissure and the point collide, a large deposit of gems emerge from the ground. if an enemy stands above the area during the collision, they are briefly suspended. If the enemy is farther from Taric when hit, the enemy is knocked towards Taric a slight amount. (If this confuses the hell out of you, think Vel'Koz's E, but used for catching fleeing enemies, rather than as peel.)

Why?

Finally, something to "separate the good Taric's from the great ones." In my head, this skillshot would be fairly difficult to land and would require movement prediction and skill to effectively use, like Nami bubble or Vel'Koz E. Taric should be able to keep his foes from running with this spell, or perhaps bring an enemy closer in order to land an unshattered Q onto an enemy to begin a fight. This skill brings the CC to this fighter, giving him more brawling tools than simply one damaging spell.

R: Radiance

Taric gives off a dazzling flash in a cone, charming enemies hit for X seconds and reducing their armor and magic resist by X for X seconds.

Why?

Here we go boys, Taric needed an ultimate that could give room for his character design, and what better CC describes Taric than a charm? Taric as a truly fabulous man, and as such, deserves a fabulous, dazzling ultimate. As for the resistance shred, I did not plan on even adding it, but felt that the bonus AD and AP from his old kit was interesting, and gave another key value to Taric, how well he worked with ADCs with slight AP scaling or magic damage. I simply figured there could be another way to display this value without some invisible aura.

Wrap Up

Taric is a champion that needs love, and should stress certain aspects of his kit, making him into his own unique character.

Feel free to critique my proposed kit, create one of your own, or mention the direction you would take Taric. I hope for this to be an open discussion with everyone's opinions accounted for.

For those of you who read the whole thing, you're truly, truly, truly, outrageous.

7 Comments

BastionKross10/7/2014, 12:46:02 AM2 votes

The kit doesn't seem too bad overall, but I don't think you've solved a major problem with Taric. Why would you pick him over other supports? The new kit here brings a lot of CC, but so does Leona and Thresh and Braum . He does bring sustain where they do not, but it's situational sustain and not a burst heal like Soraka or Sona or Nami. He's got a shield that defends against physical damage, but most supports roll with magic damage and they're generally the ones poking at you. I'm having trouble placing that kit into a niche that is for the gem knight, and for the gem knight alone.

Let me give a couple examples.

Move the Armor/MR shred from his ult to his Q - Instantly, Taric can now shred the resistances of opponents in an AoE on a short CD. If that shred also scales with something Taric would naturally build, like his armor, then he's now THE support to go to when you suspect a tanky enemy team comp. His other abilities don't even matter at that point and can be changed to whatever, since Taric is now the League's anti-tank support.

OR

The E is now something like "Taric causes gems to spring from the ground at target location. These gems will remain for 5/7/9/11/13 seconds, and slow all enemies who walk over them. If Taric or one of his allies lands an auto attack on an enemy champion who is standing on the gems, the enemy champion is rooted for 1 second. This root can not be triggered on the same champion twice per casting." - This, along with his ult, would make Taric a great zone control support, able to keep entire sections of the battlefield unfriendly for opponents.

OR

Taric's ultimate now reads "Taric gifts himself and each ally champion in a large radius a single gem that floats above their heads. This gem will absorb a single enemy ability before shattering." - Basically Taric gives everyone a free item 3102. This, along with his W, would help emphasize Taric's protective nature while still being just different enough from Braum. You could even have a new passive that lowers his CDs if an ally takes damage within a certain range of Taric.

Cancer Fizz10/6/2014, 11:52:43 PM1 votes

I agree with the start,taric imo really is THE most bland and boring champion in this game,I just wanted to say this really doesn't mean unhealthy kit,it just means that unless he is overpowered almost no one will want to play him.(cause that's the only thing which can make most people play something so boring)

continuing on that point,I'm not gonna rush and say that he needs to be irrelevant,or that he is irrelevant,I would assume he isn't but it's hard to judge as I refuse to play something that boring(that also held for when he was op,which was a horrible experience,as either you suffer playing a boring champion,or you suffer playing against an incredibly faceroll broken garbage) and don't see others play him much(presumably for the same reason).

tl;dr: imo his kit is indeed boring,and that might need changing,but gamehealth wise he is fine,he is only a problem for the person playing him.

EndlessSorcerer10/7/2014, 3:42:41 AM1 votes

I kind of enjoy Taric as he is now. He can set up ganks, be aggressive, or focus on peeling and healing depending on the situation in game. I enjoy playing him because he can relatively easily ensure both he and his ADC survive early game (stun, bonus armor, heal) and roam relatively freely around the map (very durable and a good duelist) to ward.

I find that the biggest thing about Taric support is that he serves a more of a brawler or duelist in the late game than a traditional support. He focuses less on CC and peel than on identifying a threat to his team and just sitting on them. He can 1v1 most champions late in the game with mostly support and defensive items relatively well and can't really be ignored after his spells are cast (because if you weave AAs between ability casts properly, they have essentially no downtime).

He's also hilarious to take top lane against AD Casters. A few mana and fighting issues, but you get 200 armor around 13 minutes in and they just kinda cry under their tower while you dive them.

PoE00dpWDk10/7/2014, 8:26:51 PM1 votes

I always thought the core of Taric's theme was his gems so this kit is based around that theme. So this kit is based around that theme, this is just a concept so don't expect many values for damage, cooldowns, etc.

Passive Armour Reduction Taric reduces the armour of nearby enemy The key part is that it is an aura what it does can change, how it scales, etc.

Q Summon Gem Taric summons a Gem at target location to resonate with his abilities can hold three charges to use like Vel'Koz rift This is a pillar much like trundles but thinner and without the slow, could have a knock-back on location when spawned. Here is the real meat of Taric, these pillars act like I said as beacons that resonate his abilities, pillars resonate with other pillars for reduced effect. The pillars would have to be in range of each other to resonate his abilities. For example Taric has a line of pillars going though the team by being near the closet one it will act like a beacon for his passive aura. The next pillar would resonate from the first for reduced effect. Finally the third would resonate from the second for even greater reduced effect.

W Heal Taric can heal himself or target for a medium amount or target a pillar to heal all units for a small amount in range.

E Stun Taric can stun a target or target a pillar for a short small slow in an area.

R ULT The same ult as before but now he can target pillars.

The core ability here is his Q and how he can zone abilities with it for reduced AOE effects. Just an idea I had what do you guys think.