Speculation on Taric's Reworked Kit
Warning, long post.
Hey guys, I'm Gusicles (prounounced like Pericles, not popsicles) and I'm a huge Taric fan. Ever since I started to play him I got hooked. I live and breathe Taric, man. Anyways, as many of you know, a while back Riot Repertoire held a Q&A about his current projects and shared a lot of information about what to expect with Taric's rework.
I'm (almost paradoxically) scared and hyped to hell. Repertoire has stated that the overall gist of Taric's feel will remain- that of being a fighter tank and battle healer. He has also confirmed that Taric will still "benefit from armor", especially noting the Glacial Shroud line of items. Sounds good so far!
But then a bombshell hit. Almost nothing in his current kit will be kept. The very thought of this gave me insomnia from when I first read it. Repertoire didn't exactly describe any abilities in detail but he did give hints and clues as to what they might be. And since I can't take the anticipation and fear anymore, I'm going to try to speculate what Taric's new abilities are going to be using Repertoire's comments and my own imagination. Note: This isn't even particularly where I WANT them to take Taric, just where I imagine they would.
Passive: Juggle? This was stated to be the only thing in his kit that would resemble what he has now. With good reason, too. I give props to Riot for his current passive. Upon every spell cast, his next auto attack is empowered, dealing extra damage based on his armor and reducing his cooldowns by 2. This means that early game, he does suffer from long cooldowns but later into the game he can essentially "juggle" his abilities to use them in quick succession. This doesn't feel as gimmicky as other "mini-game" passives (LOOKING AT YOU, SKARNER) and gives him a nice bit of damage. If I had to speculate further I would also guess that they would port his armor sharing passive to his champion passive as well. That being said, his armor aura was stated to be "played up dramatically", which to me sounds like it has important interaction with his abilities.
Q: Heal? This is where things begin to get more nebulous. Taric is confirmed to keep some kind of heal in his kit, and I'm going to assume it will be in his Q like his current heal. Currently, the problem with Taric's heal is that it has high mana costs and awkward scaling. Other than that though, it's pretty great. However, my intuition tells me that they're going to change Taric's heal into an AOE. Why? Because I'm thinking that they're going to turn Taric into an close-combat "zone fighter". Riot has been known to use ideas that didn't work on one champion on another, and if I'm not mistaken, there was talk back when Sona was getting a rework about "music zones" that she could control. With all this talk about Taric's armor and auras I think this is the direction they would take. Think Skarner, only not as stupid. If I had to guess how it would work, then I would assume that Taric can heal teammates close enough to him to also be within his armor aura. Of course this would mean lower numbers but I think it would be a good direction to go towards.
W: Damage? I can't praise Taric's current W enough. It makes me want to mastu- nevermind. Anyways, it's his bread and butter ability and feels really good. The whole armor/armor shred dichotomy is pretty cool. Personally I wouldn't really change this, but its confirmed. However, Repertoire does provide some interesting information about it, "I think his W, E, and R all have the potential to be pretty exciting to players that haven't seen them". Really, this could mean anything. But what I'm interpreting it as is that those abilities are in some way unique and haven't been seen before in League. Huh... Well that's hard to speculate on. My best guess is that Taric can erupt the ground nearby (armor aura radius) with gems and deal damage to people based on his armor. Maybe it also marks them with gems that can proc for extra damage. Again, "zone fighter".
E: Stun? Taric was also confirmed to be keeping his stun. There WERE talks about a charm mechanic before this, but it was said to be dropped. It's a shame too, it would have been cool. Taric's current stun is very basic and that's what makes it unique. There are almost no targeted crowd control abilities anymore, which has its pros and cons. Personally I think the mobility creep in this game is getting stupid but that's another discussion. It's a strong ability with a few downsides, like how slow it is and the weird distance/damage thing. But otherwise, very good lockdown tool. Again, difficult to speculate on but I'm thinking some kind of blind mechanic similar to Quinn except of course, overcome with dazzling light rather than darkness, that turns into a stun under certain conditions. Maybe channeled AOE?
R: Outrageous? This is where it gets real, guys. Not only was this ability stated to be... "exciting", but Repertoire also had this to say about it, "A lot of the same things he always has contributed. And situationally the strongest spell in League of Legends". Damn. Well, this is pretty hype I suppose. I like Taric's current ult, as it gives him nice burst damage and significant buffs, but... I don't think it's anywhere close to strongest spell level in League levels. Staying with the "zone fighter" hypothesis, I would assume it would be an AOE zone on the ground that deals damage per second, buffs teammates, and also increases the range of Taric's abilities to fit in it.
Anyways, that's all I got now guys. These are just mad ramblings, really. But I needed to get it out of my system! I literally cannot wait for this Taric update. Anyways, any thoughts on this? If you read this far I really have to congratulate you.
PS: I don't hate Skarner. In fact I love playing him. But that passive, WTF...
tl;dr **Taric **
