Taric's early game mana costs. Riot's current opinion on Taric?

Skias·Aug 27, 2016·2 votes·529 views

Any chance of easing his early mana costs or improving his heal value early on? Alternatively, adjustments to Righteous Glory to include armor and remove something else so he could viably build Catalyst would work.

He absolutely struggles with the bot aggression and is a superior pick elsewhere so he can skip his terrible costs. I'd love to hear some thoughts on him.

I should add that, making Catalyst a better purchase on him lategame would be fantastic, without having to buy items meant for AP carries that end up useless on him.

15 Comments

MagicFlyingLlamaAug 27, 20163 votes

I have never seen his heal cause a visible increase to a health bar, at any level.

SkiasAug 27, 20161 votes

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I have never seen his heal cause a visible increase to a health bar, at any level.

There's that as well.

RogueWillAug 27, 20161 votes

I don't have early mana problems. I normally run Secret Stash and meditation on him thou since I have to go down that tree for Bandit anyway and Merciless seems pointless on a tank.

Just do not spam your abilities, try to always go for the shield and not for the heal (the mana cost increases with level on the heal but bastion mana cost is fixed) and use dazzle only if you are certain it will hit.

SkiasAug 27, 20161 votes

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I don't have early mana problems. I normally run Secret Stash and meditation on him thou since I have to go down that tree for Bandit anyway and Merciless seems pointless on a tank.

Just do not spam your abilities, try to always go for the shield and not for the heal (the mana cost increases with level on the heal but bastion mana cost is fixed) and use dazzle only if you are certain it will hit.

That tree is sub optimal though. Windspeakers is nothing compared to Fervor.

VoidStaresBackAug 27, 20162 votes

erm...

What kind of Taric are you playing that you run Fervor?

It's barely relevant to him in the first place because he does so little damage in general, and there are quite a few other masteries that have better team synergy like Windspeakers or Bond of Stone. Sure, if you want a duelist Taric you could go fervor, but the rest of your team should bring enough damage that the tiny amount of extra damage that you get from that is massively overshadowed.

SkiasAug 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

erm...

What kind of Taric are you playing that you run Fervor?

It's barely relevant to him in the first place because he does so little damage in general, and there are quite a few other masteries that have better team synergy like Windspeakers or Bond of Stone. Sure, if you want a duelist Taric you could go fervor, but the rest of your team should bring enough damage that the tiny amount of extra damage that you get from that is massively overshadowed.

You think he does little damage? He stacks fervor to full in two spells. Tank masteries are terribly underpowered and windspeakers gives you a percentage of his very very small heals. Even counting the extra armor and tiny bit of MR, its not even worth it compared to the increased damage output from Iceborn/Fervor. Not to mention, going Windspeakers means you do no damage, still run out of mana, heal for nothing and you're squishy.

I find it extremely easy to out damage other bruisers on my team and be a massive damage threat to protect my carries. The point of my post is, Catalyst has everything Taric wants, but Righteous Glory's stats suck.

RogueWillAug 27, 20161 votes

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That tree is sub optimal though. Windspeakers is nothing compared to Fervor.

I don't go windspeakers.... I go grasp of the undying on him, so I can also grab runic armor. Then the 12 other points I go for the Bandit mastery leaving nothing on ferocity. Grasp gives me a lot of sustain (so I don't have to spam my heal) as well as some nice burst. The other two keystone (bond of stone and strength of ages) are rather weak and I wouldn't recomend getting them

I don't like fervor on Taric simply because the rest of the Ferocity Mastery tree is wasted on him due to his somewhat weak ratios of scaling. Anyway if you are set on grabbing Fervor then I suggest grabbing an item 1004 early on before sighstone and sell it whenever it becomes an annoyance

SkiasAug 27, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I don't go windspeakers.... I go grasp of the undying on him, so I can also grab runic armor. Then the 12 other points I go for the Bandit mastery leaving nothing on ferocity. Grasp gives me a lot of sustain (so I don't have to spam my heal) as well as some nice burst. The other two keystone (bond of stone and strength of ages) are rather weak and I wouldn't recomend getting them

I don't like fervor on Taric simply because the rest of the Ferocity Mastery tree is wasted on him due to his somewhat weak ratios of scaling. Anyway if you are set on grabbing Fervor then I suggest grabbing an early on before sighstone and sell it whenever it becomes an annoyance

That's sort of the problem. His best items are ones that double dip armor and other stats. Mana pendant isn't nearly enough to fight off 4 man dives and constant harass. It often feels like it is very hard to wait for 3 stars to get a decent heal while your ADC is being hammered. Coin and Shield both have HP or Armor, not both, so they end up being slot inefficient.

Eternity is a great passive that Taric could use if its final builds were less awkward for him. It feels like tanks that can't deal damage are worthless in the current game. Stunning things like ekko etc won't save my carry unless I'm a large enough threat to throw them off target. Pure tanks melt pretty fast, I've tried it a few times on Taric, had better results mixing damage in.

I personally don't think Taric is underpowered or OP. His heal is just godawful early for the cost. I basically just use it for Bravado.

RogueWillAug 27, 20161 votes

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That's sort of the problem. His best items are ones that double dip armor and other stats. Mana pendant isn't nearly enough to fight off 4 man dives and constant harass. It often feels like it is very hard to wait for 3 stars to get a decent heal while your ADC is being hammered. Coin and Shield both have HP or Armor, not both, so they end up being slot inefficient.

Eternity is a great passive that Taric could use if its final builds were less awkward for him. It feels like tanks that can't deal damage are worthless in the current game. Stunning things like ekko etc won't save my carry unless I'm a large enough threat to throw them off target. Pure tanks melt pretty fast, I've tried it a few times on Taric, had better results mixing damage in.

I personally don't think Taric is underpowered or OP. His heal is just godawful early for the cost. I basically just use it for Bravado.

I don't know how can you think Runic Armor is bad on Taric, his W scale of % max HP so an extra 8% is kinda a big deal when you are building him with a fairly tank build. You are probably misusing his heal and that's why you keep runing out of mana, you are not soraka or alistar so you shouldn't use your heal to keep your adc on lane ever (unless you are against a fairly passive lane and can afford the mana). Both his shield and heal are meant to be used during the trade to mitigate damage and not a follow up after the trade.

Anyway if you are set on such offensive build with Gaunlets and the Infinity passive I will suggest you woudl go something like item 3069 item 2049 item 3025 and then go for high HP items, I really don't recomend it since you will be fairly squishy midgame due to the lack of HP. Alternatively you could stop on the item 3096 and go something like item 1011 / item 3067 or even complete your full HP item and get talisman as your 5th item.

Personally I don't think the damage coming out of bravado is significant enough to build him so offensively, add to that the fact that you need bravado to achieve decent as making you burn though your mana pool so fast and missusing your spells just to grab another bravado.... Maybe you should think of playing him jungle instead, it woudl fit more into your playstyle

SkiasAug 28, 20161 votes

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I don't know how can you think Runic Armor is bad on Taric, his W scale of % max HP so an extra 8% is kinda a big deal when you are building him with a fairly tank build. You are probably misusing his heal and that's why you keep runing out of mana, you are not soraka or alistar so you shouldn't use your heal to keep your adc on lane ever (unless you are against a fairly passive lane and can afford the mana). Both his shield and heal are meant to be used during the trade to mitigate damage and not a follow up after the trade.

Anyway if you are set on such offensive build with Gaunlets and the Infinity passive I will suggest you woudl go something like and then go for high HP items, I really don't recomend it since you will be fairly squishy midgame due to the lack of HP. Alternatively you could stop on the and go something like / or even complete your full HP item and get talisman as your 5th item.

Personally I don't think the damage coming out of bravado is significant enough to build him so offensively, add to that the fact that you need bravado to achieve decent as making you burn though your mana pool so fast and missusing your spells just to grab another bravado.... Maybe you should think of playing him jungle instead, it woudl fit more into your playstyle

Misusing his heal? He has two ways to use it. Spam for Bravado or wait for 3 Shards. I don't play him bot as I've said.

RogueWillAug 28, 20161 votes

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Misusing his heal? He has two ways to use it. Spam for Bravado or wait for 3 Shards. I don't play him bot as I've said.

I don't remember you saying you don't play him bot, also this comment on your original post "He absolutely struggles with the bot aggression" makes people believe you were talking about support Taric. Spaming your heal for bravado is what I call missuse your heal, and that is probably the reason you are running out of mana. If you are jungle then you definetely need blue to do that, if you are top then you might want to rush item 3025 then item 3030 and just see the extra AP as something nice to have. Honestly item 3078 item 3042 is probably for him top but then you are going to be quite weak early game.

SkiasAug 28, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I don't remember you saying you don't play him bot, also this comment on your original post "He absolutely struggles with the bot aggression" makes people believe you were talking about support Taric. Spaming your heal for bravado is what I call missuse your heal, and that is probably the reason you are running out of mana. If you are jungle then you definetely need blue to do that, if you are top then you might want to rush then and just see the extra AP as something nice to have. Honestly is probably for him top but then you are going to be quite weak early game.

I never said "the only way I use his heal is to spam it for bravado". I said, That is one of the only two uses it has. Triforce is ok if you have a huge lead in the jungle, and you can't afford to have manamune because of it's lack of defense stats. This is my point exactly. AP is meh on him, his ratios aren't amazing.

Catalyst itself would be great for him to build but the tank option for it is rather lackluster compared to the vastly superior GLP-800 and RoA.

The reason I don't play him bot is his inability to keep up with the popular 4-man collapse. I wasn't really advocating for buffs to Taric himself, moreso to make Catalyst a better purchase for him without having to waste gold on AP.

SkiasAug 27, 20161 votes

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I don't go windspeakers.... I go grasp of the undying on him, so I can also grab runic armor. Then the 12 other points I go for the Bandit mastery leaving nothing on ferocity. Grasp gives me a lot of sustain (so I don't have to spam my heal) as well as some nice burst. The other two keystone (bond of stone and strength of ages) are rather weak and I wouldn't recomend getting them

I don't like fervor on Taric simply because the rest of the Ferocity Mastery tree is wasted on him due to his somewhat weak ratios of scaling. Anyway if you are set on grabbing Fervor then I suggest grabbing an early on before sighstone and sell it whenever it becomes an annoyance

I don't know how you can stand using Grasp with how terrible it is after the nerf. The heal is negligible and its damage is extremely low. Even runic armor is a percentage of such a very low value on Taric, it ends up doing next to nothing.

You should be autoing a lot, damage tree gives higher yields in combat whenbyou can actually fight champs like trundle and Darius head on and win.

OleandervineAug 28, 20161 votes

I think he operates just fine once you get the Glacial Shroud on him. From there, you can go into Frozen Heart or Iceborn Gauntlet, followed by Zz'Rot if you've completed the Sightstone and Face.

SkiasAug 28, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I think he operates just fine once you get the Glacial Shroud on him. From there, you can go into Frozen Heart or Iceborn Gauntlet, followed by Zz'Rot if you've completed the Sightstone and Face.

I'm not a huge fan of Frozen Heart and Iceborn. They take forever to buy both and if there is an AP threat on the enemy team, you die instantly for lack of HP. If I was that fed to have all that gold, Sunfire or Spirit Visage instead of Frozen Heart.