A late analysis on Tahm Kench

I didn't think to do this with Tahm Kench when he first came out. That was, what, a month ago now? I done goofed.

Mobility: C Lane Clear/Push: C Mana efficiency: D Damage: C- early on, but S in the mid-to-late game Crowd control: C for quantity, but S for quality Tower Smashing: C Sustainability: S- General required skill: S Durability: S++

Tahm.... Kench. As of this post, I'm almost mastery level 5 with him, and I've tried him as a support and jungler. I've also managed to carry a few games in his cavernous maw. He's really good at that.

My builds tend to focus around rushing pure, massive health as his ult's passive and E focus around having a gigantic health bar. In the jungler role, he can easily get over 5000 HP, and that's BEFORE the shield kicks in. I've actually ulted straight into a 4v1 (I was ulting into a teamfight, but when I arrived, the rest of my team was either dead or routed) and managed to score a double kill before they took me down, and outlasted a relentless thrashing from the entire enemy team that would bring any other champion to their knees long enough for my allies to charge in and sweep them up.

I don't think I've ever seen a champion this relentless and difficult to kill, and I've played Taric, Rammus, Braum, pre-rework Sion and Alistar. He even gives Mundo a run for his money (emphasis on RUN), which is why I gave him an S++ for durability. Not bad for a champion that doesn't have an actual heal.

Devour I've learned a few tricks to maximize my influence in teamfights. The first is to identify who might have some sort of nasty ultra-buff that you want to negate or remove from the fight, like, say Tryndamere's ult. Actually, I did this without even thinking about it. I intercepted Tryndamere in one game as he was shoving top lane, and we duked it out. Now, bear in mind that this is TRYNDAMERE, AKA the guy who can't die and is suicidal to fight in a slugfest post-6. When he ulted, I gobbled him up and held him in my mouth for the full duration. Completely negated it, and his heal is so negligible that he couldn't survive the second round. Devour I started using, not just to save allies, but also hold down any serious threats in a teamfight (chomp the fed assassin or the enemy's hyper death tank for the full duration) so your allies can focus on the rest of the vermin, or just plain old suppress them while your wounded allies can make their escape.

People keep giving me crap for building Wit's End on tanks, but Tahm Kench is another champion that completely validates it. I build it to increase the speed that I can lay stacks on the enemy along with my general DPS, and then I build sheer health and let the damage from his ult's passive do the rest of the work. By late game, I do about 250+ damage with every basic attack.

Tahm Kench's greatest weakness is his general lack of mobility and his inability to focus on more than one champion. The speed boost he gets from carrying an ally is rather weak and is only useful for getting them to safety (which doesn't work if the enemy jumps on you like a Goomba) or getting them closer to the enemy (which also doesn't work if they decide to burn a flash or something) or just getting somewhere faster. What I'm saying is the speed boost's usage is rather limited, and apparently people don't like being eaten and will jump out of your mouth long before the duration is over, even if it's against their best interests, and usually towards the direction of the enemy. How many troll Kenches have they deal with?

So yeah, at first I didn't really like him, but after playing him a LOT, Tahm Kench has grown on me, and I've gotten to the point where he's like the worst elements of a hooking champion and Alistar. Except worse. He's difficult to kill like Alistar, and he can remove an enemy or ally from combat long enough for the tide to turn in his favor, and that's DEADLY. I think, though, that he might get a nerf to his ult's passive. Dealing 250+ damage at level 18 per basic attack is a little broken and stupid, and I'm saying that as the Kencher.