taric is so dumb now

Big Lincoln·Jan 22, 2017·5 votes·714 views

who the hell thought a 2.5 second team invuln would be remotely balanced?

supports just get dumber and dumber kits every year

47 Comments

Best Kog NAJan 22, 20176 votes

It comes from the sky and it takes a second to activate so you should be able to you know, see it coming.

BeatzBoyFTWJan 22, 20171 votes

Feels like 3 seconds to activate to me.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20174 votes

yeah I guess it's not as bad if you're told in advance that you're about to lose the fight

DynikusJan 22, 20173 votes

Either kill them before it activates, or back away until it wears off. The time it takes to activate is pretty substantial, and gives you plenty of warning.

5000000000000000Jan 22, 20175 votes

You can start disengaging in advance or burst down some of them before the invulnerability sets in. If you disengage, now they don't have invulnerability. If you burst, your team can probably tank their damage for a few seconds.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20175 votes

Funny thing is that the update was supposed to increase his interaction in and out of lane...

They took 4 interactive abilities, three of which were core to utilize practically off CD, including passive, and changed that to 2 interactive abilities, one of which is core to use off CD...

#LOL RIOT.

Quick summary: Old Taric only had Q as far as uninteractive abilities. New Taric has Q, W, and R for uninteractive abilities. Riot thought they were making him more interactive.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20174 votes

Define uninteractive.

I think you and I have different definitions.

Last time I checked, you have to activate Q to heal, and E to stun.

You use W to shield AND cast spells from your link buddy.

R to make your team fabulous.

Seems pretty interactive.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20173 votes

Passive is less reliable, less potent, and far more expensive to utilize than before.

Q is a worthless ability now. Rarely worth using for the 140 potential mana cost. Heal is too small to ever be worth using if it isn't being leveled to that 140 mana cost. Cooldown is effectively 3 times as long as stated.

W does less than it originally did.

#E is the only part of the rework they got right.

R makes him impossible to balance. He will always be either pick/ban or practically never used because of it and the balanced adjustments they'll have to make due to it. This is pushed even further due to his overlap with Janna now...if he's ever worth using over her, it'll be when he's pick/ban. Only.

Yeah, you're right. Riot did a great job. :^)

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20172 votes

Hmm. All that text and you never once mentioned interaction or uninteraction. :P

Anyway, good luck dueling with Janna like you can with Taric. They don't overlap all that much.

I wouldn't say Q is useless, but I definitely wouldn't max it first. Seeing as the dude shields and stuns and kayle ults the whole team, I think it's only fair that his heal is gated.

Yes they did. Visually he's dazzling. (ouch that pun hurt.)

WoonStruckJan 22, 20173 votes

Interaction with the enemy laners was supposed to be what the rework addressed.

Q (Riot has always said heals/shields are uninteractive) wasn't really changed in that regard. In fact, its less interactive because its near-useless now. Old Q at least had a choice between yourself (with a boost) and an ally.

W (see above), less interactive because it only affects a single ally now. No interaction with enemies.

E they did right. Its more interactive for enemies and more satisfying to use.

R is less interactive with enemies...In fact, it does not affect enemies at all now. Enemies have effectively no agency over this ability and its use when being properly utilized...which basically just means not being a complete and total idiot with it.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20173 votes

No...

But his kit does allow him to interact with the enemy laners himself.

Now he can throw his own body into the lane and fight along his ADC, with the shields and heals to sustain. Seems interactive when you look at it that way.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20174 votes

{quoted}

No...

No what?

But his kit does allow him to interact with the enemy laners himself.

His kit did even more before. E-passive->W->passive->Q->passive->W->passive->R->passive->W->passive->E->passive->W->passive->Q->passive allowed Taric to do FAR more against enemies than the current rework.

#Hell, just the basic E->auto->W->auto trades that embodied his laning phase were more interactive than the current Taric.

Now he can throw his own body into the lane and fight along his ADC, with the shields and heals to sustain. Seems interactive when you look at it that way.

He could before too. His current kit does it less successfully and with less interaction in total.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20173 votes

His passive was actually buffed.

According to the wiki, his old passive was:

After using an ability, Taric's next basic attack deals (20% armor) bonus magic damage and reduces his cooldowns each by 2 seconds.

The new one is:

After casting an ability, Taric's next two basic attacks within 4 seconds each gain 100% total attack speed, deal 22 - 90 (based on level) (+ 15% bonus armor) bonus magic damage and reduce the cooldowns of his basic abilities by 1 - 0.55 (based on cooldown reduction) seconds, increased to 6 - 3.3 (based on cooldown reduction) seconds for Starlight's Touch's recharge time.

The cooldown reduct is roughly the same, split between the two attacks, and he gets to attack twice, applying 30% bonus armor damage plus flat magic damage together.

I really don't feel like doing the math, but they aren't all that different.

I'll give you the rest of the abilties being tweaked to be overall weaker, but now his sphere of influence can be increased so much thanks to his W passive being linked to a diver, who can send his stun into the enemy team.

You gotta look at the big picture. He can win games, and I personally find him fun to play. His rework wasn't a failure.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20174 votes

It's okay everyone.

OP has mentioned before that he makes posts like this to get responses.

So let's oblige ol' Uncle Lincoln, shall we?

Ahem.

No. He isn't. That is all.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

this isn't a bait post, taric's ult is genuinely one of the stupidest things we've gotten from a rework

there is almost no real interaction in his kit for the enemy beyond his E. you can't -prevent- him from doing anything except landing his stun - everything else, you have no say in it. the onus is on the other 4 players on his team to waste that opportunity for a free teamfight.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

Wait so you're saying he's OP, or garbage save for his ult?

I'm confused.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

He's either OP, thus used, and his ult makes him gamebreaking (in which case he gets gutted), or he's garbage with his ult being his only redeeming quality...in which case he's never used because Janna does almost everything else better.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

I see.

So you're saying I should just play a different support if I want to be relevant?

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Due to his ult you will always be relevant. Don't get me wrong. However, without a lead, that is where the majority of your relevance will come from.

With a lead, there are supports that can push said lead much further while being more reliable.

And there are supports that can obtain a lead much more reliably than Taric while also being better at playing from behind.

Old Taric had a niche (anti-armor/bruiser support). New Taric just has a gimmick and outside of that relies so much on having a lead he puts Leona to shame.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

So he's more of a jack of all trades kind of support?

If that's the case I'm fine with that. I'll play him regardless. I just won't think he's as much of a stellar support as I once thought.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Ehh, more like a 4 of all trades, with only his E and R qualifying as a Jack. If they buffed his passive/Q/W, his E being king and his R being Ace, so he's in between a rock and a hard place, balance-wise.

Passive would be jack too if his Q wasn't so ungodly expensive (and useless), preventing him from chaining it without instantly going OOM.

Point is, they could have done so much better. They made him less interactive, less satisfying, and more gimmicky in the eyes of most classic Taric players. Its essentially what Karma is now to classic Karma players: a butchering of their once-loved champion.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

I can respect that.

But now I'll feel a little bad that I'm enjoying a champ that classic mains feel got ruined, therefore validating Riot keeping them the way they are.

Agree on that Q mana cost though. If only a tear could be squeezed into the budget somewhere.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

You don't have to feel bad for enjoying him lol.

Just know that Riot messed up and that he could have been even better.

Push Riot to make Taric what he could have been because you'd enjoy him that much more.

If Riot gave his original Q the 'bonding' effect for a limited duration to give an incentive to use it on allies, despite the lower heal originally, he would have been fine.

It would have given him FAR more decision-making as far as the ability's use goes ("Do I Q an ally to grant them W/E bonuses, or use on myself for significantly increased healing?"), and without removing Taric's original self-sufficiency.

If Riot made his original W's armor only apply to himself and, while active his Q target, maybe still shielding, it would have been effectively like the current W, but much more decision-making and much more interactive with enemies.

You'd be forced into decisions where you'd use your W to support your ally, or possibly use the supportive aspect inefficiently (or even not at all) in order to damage/debuff an enemy.

E's perfect as it is now, tbh.

R could have been pretty much anything else, even just a team-wide W shield/armor buff, maybe some damage like originally, on-cast and he would have been more interactive, more fun, and less gimmicky overall compared to the current rework.

The only thing the Taric rework successfully accomplished was removing his two auras and his original playerbase, and then modernizing his E. Passive was neutral at best.

Everything else was better off just throwing on a new champion. Trying to keep old Taric in this new AoE enchanter champion (that's not Taric) was the worst mistake Riot's made with updates outside of Karma.

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

Well I can see that working in a kit that I would like to play.

Just when I think I finally understand the finer things in this game, some new knowledge gets unlocked.

Just curious, but how exactly do you know all of this stuff about design/creativity on champs?

Have you just played the game a long time? Also I really need to stop trying to justify things in Gameplay when I've only been playing for like a year but think I understand how the game works lol.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Just curious, but how exactly do you know all of this stuff about design/creativity on champs?

Paying too much attention to interactions and enjoyment when making D&D characters and characters in other games.

For example, I've made a lot of characters that were absolutely broken and 100% legal, but were no fun to play, just fun to piece together within the rules.

I've also enjoyed designing characters that revolve around a solitary niche that was somewhat widely available. They were by far the most fun to play.

All of that translated into my judgement of other games, unfortunately making me extremely critical of most and losing a lot of the enjoyment, and got me to thinking about how they could have been better without too much additional effort.

Kinda want to be a game designer, and starting to head in that direction. I want to do college debt-free, so I've been working up towards that.

Have you just played the game a long time? Also I really need to stop trying to justify things in Gameplay when I've only been playing for like a year but think I understand how the game works lol.

I've been playing since season one, around when Graves came out. Though, season 3 and on I haven't been playing too much.

Once they fix the game, or possibly after the 7.3 Vlad buffs, since balance is way too far gone atm, I'm going to finish hitting Diamond. I've skipped 2 tiers every time I've done a promo series for the last 3 years, and supposedly was going to skip from plat 5 to plat 3 back during post-rewards pre-season, so definitely think its a reasonable goal. I think its fair to say I know a bit about the game because of that, but I still think I've got a lot to learn. Huge emphasis on "a lot".

Another factor is that after the first month of playing (I was absolute trash before that lol), I was actively aware of what I was doing and why I was doing it. I called a lot of the meta things that happened before they actually started, despite knowing relatively little about the game, and it was all because I like to over-analyze things...not because I was good at the game. I was very bad at it back then.

One example is how Abyssal in season 1 was effectively a 20% damage boost and 20% damage reduction mid-lane from the Aura+MR alone; add in AP and it was even better. I thought there was no reason to pass that up ever if you're mid. Later (think it was season 2) it ended up becoming a standard rush and got its AoE range drastically reduced.

Sorry for the wall of text haha.

Just an FYI, the Taric that I suggested would still be very hard to balance...there would be a lot going on there. He just wouldn't be a gimmicky, watered down version of the old Taric.

A CertainlyT Taric, essentially. lol

However, he would have a TON of balance levers.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

i always felt like they should play up his fighter half more. he should definitely be a support first but they really didn't do enough to emphasize the fact that he could do a lot of DPS on his own, besides his passive

the rework kind of fudged it up on both sides though.

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Yeah I thought his support-fighter thing was unique among supports, especially for melee.

I almost feel as though he was better off being balanced around top/jungle.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

i felt the same way about TahmKench but that didn't end up so good

a lot of these VGUs have just been giant misses for me. starting to grow dissatisfied with league as a whole with how many champs I keep thinking "this could have been better"

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

I mean, I think that about almost every change League makes, not just VGUs. lol

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

his basic abilities are ok outside of his W being a dumb gimmick

his ult is a bad concept at its core and he will never be a solid champion because of it. he'll be either be top tier or bottom

an amateur could do better than what we got

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

Interesting conclusion.

But just for the sake of argument, what would you suggest for an ultimate?

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

good question, I've been mulling it over myself for quite a bit

since i have a clear preference for old Taric and his versatility, i'm inclined to say a strong team-buff or enemy-debuff ultimate would be best. we have enough CC monsters; his stun is enough for him. possibly something that really affirms him as a fighter support, lets him do more with his passive or the likes.

i have ideas for the rest of his kit, too

TyrekGoldenspearJan 22, 20171 votes

Well let's hear them then. I'm curious.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

Q - heal over time, counts as a channel; can be interrupted, but taric can move, attack and cast other spells freely. large mana drain but leaving it on for every X seconds gives him a passive stack. returned to the old mechanic of being castable on himself or 1 ally; selfcast makes it less costly

W - ~~old W, nothing more needs to be said.~~ i actually like some of woonstruck's ideas on this, gating its power to make it more interactive

E - point and click again, but with a caveat; instead of stunning the target, it stuns everyone around them after it collides, but the primary target is unaffected, or minorly debuffed. bit iffy on this but i'm tired of everything being a delayed skillshot

sheldonbunnyJan 22, 20172 votes

A bit late to the game to be complaining about a key component of his rework...

Big LincolnJan 22, 20174 votes

just wanted to remind delusional support mains that taric is not well designed

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Let's be honest here...none of the supports are well designed...outside of Morgana, who was not designed to be a support, and Nami.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20171 votes

Bard is great but a lot of the time it feels like he'd have been better off being made as a mid lane or jungler

but i guess since riot will never address how dumb supports actually are I'll go back to spamming them for the easy way out of gold

WoonStruckJan 22, 20171 votes

Bard is great, but like you suggest, he doesn't fit the game that well.

If League had the capacity for roamers like other MOBAs, he'd be great. However, League killed that concept very early on during its growth.

sheldonbunnyJan 22, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dmpnzRaf,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2017-01-22T02:17:09.769+0000)

just wanted to remind delusional support mains that taric is not well designed

Not sure if that was a stab directed at me or not. Regardless, I've gone on record more than once saying i've heavily disliked his rework.

fyi, a bit less tart responses may better serve you. After all the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey.

OleandervineJan 22, 20172 votes

You're making things up OP.

I just read you're a troll, so I am mended my post.

CatastropJan 22, 20172 votes

You have to be a special kind of deluded to actually call Taric's ultimate anything other situational OP'd.

Big LincolnJan 22, 20172 votes

it's OP all the time bubbi you're just not able to utilize his power

CatastropJan 22, 20173 votes

It's in the same OP as Illaoi's ult, you disengage as soon as you see it, if you don't, you're going to get steamrolled. Considering it's an entire 2.5 seconds, that's more than enough time to kite away. Unless you started a teamfight beforehand without even giving his ult a thought and how it can impact the fight, I don't see why it would be a problem.

Then again, this is SoloQ we're talking about, half the people are clueless so I guess I can see that making things harder than they need to be. However that's really more a L2P problem by the playerbase than Taric's ult.