@Riot Let's talk about Taric
Everybody loves the good ol' pink fuzzy-booted Gem-man, but he's been in a weak state for far too long. The last time I can remember him being played even situationally was back in Season 2. There have been a couple attempts made to bring him up to somewhat viability, but they have missed the mark entirely on what makes him such a weak pick vs any of the other tank supports.
- He has less CC than any of the other tank supports.
All he has is a point-and-click stun, that he has to skill up in order to get a longer duration on it. I know that targeted abilities tend to be weaker than skillshots due to them being low risk, I don't have any complaint over the ability itself, but that's literally all he has to try and lock down someone, compared to a Leona E->Q->R or a Thresh Q->E->R. After the stun he is reliant on someone else on his team to get into position to follow up with more CC or kill the target outright. Even Soraka, a support who doesn't want to be anywhere near the front line has more CC than Taric does.
- He has a little bit of everything, but doesn't have anything that makes him stand out
He has his armor passive and the bonus AD/AP on his Ultimate, but if a team is looking for auras they would take Sona due to hers providing more utility. He has sustain, but it is unarguably the weakest of any other support with sustain. He has a little CC, but a lot less than any support I can think of with the exception of Zilean.
- He doesn't have a gap closer or any way to initiate for his team.
This is usually the bread and butter of tanky supports, their ability to get into the enemy team and start a fight. All poor Taric has is a Flash+Stun on a single target from 625 range. Odds are if he attempts that kind of a play, at best he'll be able to stun someone on the enemy front line unless someone makes a major positioning mistake, and once he's there, he's all in.
- His Ultimate does..... Well I'm not sure what it does.
It makes a pretty cool looking blue flash, but that's pretty much it. He gets 70 AD and AP from it, but that's hardly useful to a tank who won't build a single damage item throughout the game, and has puny AP ratios on his abilities. Supports are known for having Ultimates that are some of the most high-impact in the game that would be overpowered if it was on any non-support champion, but his doesn't. In a team fight nobody really even notices if he uses it, because it doesn't provide any impact at all.
- The fact that he has to give up his defense in order to be aggressive.
I can understand this on a champion like Olaf, where you get to be an unstoppable beast for 6 seconds for giving up his Armor/MR, but Taric gives up all of his defense for not only him but also his whole team for 25 armor reduction.
Taric is a cool champion, but he needs a lot of help.
