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A Look at Taric

Zagios··15 votes·3,155 views

Okay so let me start by saying that I am a support main, Platinum V on North American server, and previously played on a collegiate team that finished top 16 in a season of Ivylol. I'm far from the most qualified person to speak on the dearth that is Taric's game play, but with the end of season and the -amazing- rework of Sion, one of the last of the pizza-footed, I felt like it was an appropriate time to try to contribute to his redevelopment.

Like many are aware, Taric suffers from a simple, linear play style that lacks the dynamics of other supports that are arguably more fun to play (Leona, Thresh, Braum, Janna, Nami, Soraka, Annie, Zyra, literally everyone else). In lane, its zone with Dazzle, walk up and Shatter, and heal with Imbue when necessary. At level six the combo changes to Dazzle -> Radiance -> Shatter, and on ganks the auto-lock Dazzle can ensure a kill or burnt summoners. While there are other ways to play Taric, this is essentially what his kit lends itself too. There's very little decision making required with Taric players and there is limited peel when compared to other supports. Taric is simply far outclassed by the tanky supports (Leona and Braum) that do his job way better.

Taric enjoyed some spotlight in between seasons with some of the changes and buffs, but when his stats were scaled back to more appropriate levels, he was kicked back to the realm of unused. While I love the Paladin-esque design of Taric, I feel like changes to his kit could give him more of a dynamic flare and make him more viable in competitive play. The goal of these proposed changes is to re-envision Taric away from a support that occasionally heals or stuns and provides passive, AoE buffs to a support that requires players to make tactical decisions and to take risks and a support that provides his team with the support mandated by current meta. Hopefully, these changes will seem similar to the recent changes to the other passive supports, Sona and Soraka; they maintained the integrity of the champions while also moving them closer to viability.

Gemcraft

After using an ability, Taric's next basic attack deals bonus magic damage equal to 20% of Taric's armor and reduces his abilities' cooldown by 2 seconds.

  • I think the idea behind Gemcraft is fantastic. It definitely reaffirms the idea that Taric is the Gem Knight, or as I like to refer to him, a Paladin. It actively rewards players for getting in and attacking by reducing cooldowns and it gives a bonus damage that scales with what he's supposed to be building, armor. I feel, however, that the reward is limited and rewards skill spamming rather than decision making.

  • An alternative might be something along the lines of:

Each auto attack enchants a gem encrusted in Taric's hammer and whenever a gem is enchanted, Taric's cooldowns are reduced by one second and his attack damage increased by 10% of his armor. After three enchantments, Taric's next skill becomes empowered.

  • This alternative not only rewards players for auto attacking but also empowers them to think critically about what to do next. By changing the dynamic of the passive from skill -> auto attack to auto attack -> skill, more diversity and decision making can be infused into an otherwise linear champion. In redesigning his passive I hoped to give it a feel similar to Karma's ultimate or Sona's passive. At the same time, because this is only a passive, I wanted to make sure it did not result in one character's passive being equivalent to another character's ultimate. Rather than giving his skills additional effects linked to his passive, his passive results in increased potency of his skills as discussed below.

  • EDIT: Added back additional damage on his auto attack that would increase in strength with each consecutive autoattack up to the third. This gives him back the damage on his passive.

Imbue

RANGE: 750 COST: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 MANA COOLDOWN: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 ACTIVE: Taric channels earthen energy to heal a target allied unit. As the magic flows through them he is healed for the same amount. If Taric heals only himself, the heal will be 40% more effective. HEAL: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+ 30% AP) (+ 5% bonus health) SELF HEAL: 84 / 140 / 196 / 252 / 308 (+ 42% AP) (+ 7% bonus health)

  • Compared to other heals, Imbue is actually pretty strong. Early game, its numbers may seem weak when compared to the single target, level 1 heal of Soraka with its base of 120HP + 60%AP, but when compared to a multi-target heal like Sona's (25+20%AP & a 35+20%AP Shield) or Nami's (65+30%AP) the heal is comparable. These relations are relatively consistent with at other ranks as well. With his proposed reworked passive, I propose the following change:

RANGE: 750 COST: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 MANA COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 ACTIVE: Taric channels earthen energy to heal a target allied unit. As the magic flows through them he is healed for the same amount. HEAL: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+ 30% AP) (+ 5% bonus health) RUBY FOR VIGOR: If Imbue is enhanced by Gemcraft, Imbue's heal is increased by 50% HEAL: 90 / 150 / 210 / 270 / 330 (+ 45% AP) (+ 8.5% bonus health)

  • This change slightly reduces the cooldown of Taric's heal to offset the change in cooldown reduction on his passive. It also removes the increased heal on himself. In exchange, his heal is increased for both himself and his target when he uses his enchantment stacks on Imbue.

Shatter

COST: 50 MANA COOLDOWN: 10 PASSIVE: Taric reinforces his armor with gemstones, increasing his armor while Shatter is off cooldown. He also gains a 500-range aura, increasing his armor and allied champions' armor by 12% of his total armor. ARMOR: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 ACTIVE: Taric shatters his gemstones, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies within 200-range and reducing their armor for 4 seconds. MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 (+ 20% armor) ARMOR REDUCTION: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 (+ 5% armor)

  • I like the idea behind shatter, it gives a nice armor bonus to allies that one would expect from a Paladin and the damage and armor shred are nice. The main benefit of the skill, however, is the passive armor increase and this really plays into the passive aspect of Taric. Taric, much like old Soraka is a champion that's sorta "felt but not seen." I believe a change in the active of shatter while maintaining the armor bonus will provide a more visible and understanding benefit to choosing Taric.

COST: 50 MANA COOLDOWN: 15 PASSIVE: Taric reinforces his armor with gemstones, increasing his armor while Shatter is off cooldown. He also gains a 500-range aura, increasing his armor and allied champions' armor by 12% of his total armor. ARMOR: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 ACTIVE: Taric shatters his gemstones, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies within 200-range and knocking them back to a 350-range. MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 (+ 20% armor) OPAL FOR HARMONY: If Shatter is enhanced by Gemcraft, Shatter's damage is increased by 20% and the knock back increased to a 500-range. MAGIC DAMAGE: 48 / 96 / 134 / 192 / 240 (+24% armor)

  • By giving Shatter a knock back, Taric is given a small AoE disruption that goes along with the desire for Taric to be in the middle of a fight. Furthermore, the knock back allows Taric to have some viable peel for his ADC. I’m not completely sure about numbers for damage and the knock back range so feedback would great!

Dazzle

RANGE: 625 COST: 75 MANA COOLDOWN: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 ACTIVE: Taric fires a prismatic sphere at a target enemy. On impact the target is stunned and takes magic damage that increases the closer the target is to Taric (up to 200%). STUN DURATION: 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6 MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 (+ 20% AP) MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 140 / 200 / 260 / 320 (+ 40% AP)

  • Ok so I understand the rationale for Dazzle. A melee support who is meant to get in there and duke it out NEEDS to have some way of getting close to a target. All other melee supports have it: Thresh's hook, Blitzcrank's grab, Braum's slow and hop, Leona's zenith blade. None of these, however, are an autotarget skill and, yet, all of them are more rewarding.

RANGE: 650 COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 ACTIVE: Taric raises his shield and releases a cone of prismatic light in front of him. The first champion struck by the light is dealt magic damage and briefly stunned. The closer the target is to Taric the more magic damage that is dealt. STUN DURATION: 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6 /1.7 MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 (+20% AP) MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 140 / 200 / 260 / 320 (+40% AP) EMERALD FOR INSIGHT: If Dazzle is enhanced by Gemcraft, Dazzle deals damage to and stuns all targets within the cone of effect.

  • With this change there is actually a necessity for skill to go along with landing the stun. The stun range is similar to Annie's Incinerate and with it only effecting the first champion that is hit, an idea for strategic position comes in on both the offensive and defensive side. Using the gem stacks of Gemcraft on Dazzle has a clear bonus: more champions can be damaged and more champions stunned. This stun late game is similar in duration to that of Annie's incinerate and mid game it is similar to the knock up caused by Nami's Aqua Prison. At lower levels, the stun is weaker than equivalent disables in order to compensate for its potential AoE effectiveness and at the same time it is stronger than most in late game in order to reward/punish aggressive play. (Also I think this would look really pretty in game with a blast of light and shadow effects on the first champion hit.)

Radiance

ACTIVE: Taric slams the ground with his hammer, dealing magic damage to enemies within range. For the next 10 seconds, Taric emits an aura of light that increases his attack damage and ability power, while allies within 500-range gain half of those bonuses. MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% AP) SELF AD & AP BONUS: 30 / 50 / 70 AURA AD & AP BONUS: 15 / 25 / 35

  • I think this is the perfect ultimate for Taric but in order to give it a little more oomph past the mini-Baron buff aura bonuses, I think it might be useful to incorporate the potential idea for his new passive. After some discussion its become clear that people do not like Taric's ulti, like at all.

ACTIVE: Taric slams the ground with his hammer, dealing magic damage to enemies within a 200 meter range, reducing their armor for 4 seconds, and briefly blinding them. MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% AP) ARMOR REDUCTION: 10 / 25 / 20 (+ 5% armor) BLIND DURATION: 1 / 1.5 / 2

  • This new ultimate maintains the general concept of having Taric run in, ulti, and apply a boon to his teammates while also adding to his ultimate increased importance in Taric's actions and not just his presence. The biggest benefit from Taric's current ultimate is not the damage but simply him sitting nearby and providing the aura to his teammates. While his damage is not the major component of this slightly modified ultimate, this change does make the players actions following his ulti have more relevance and meaning. These changes hopefully maintain the auraish aspect of Taric but switch the effects of the aura from empowering allies via buffs to doing so via debuffing.

These are just some random changes I'm throwing at there and they largely revolve around changing his passive into something more dynamic and more intuitive to Taric's design. Other ideas that I thought long about included adding a blind effect to either Dazzle or Radiance in order to give Taric additional CC but I felt with the mini-knock back added to Shatter and the cone stun added to Dazzle, he had the right amount of CC to make himself competitive without being too much.

Any feedback on any of these is more than welcome! I'm not proposing all of this as THE solution to Taric. These are just some ideas that I felt would bring a more cohesive feel to his character design as well as make him a competitive champion while maintaining the integrity of a paladin.

I would also love for Riot to take a more serious approach to Taric's character design. As of now, he appears to be more of a joke than a serious embodiment of valor and integrity. He has become the butt of jokes by the community regarding his perceived/intentionally-crafted sexuality. These jokes and perceptions have resulted from the allusion to the proverbial closet in his lore, his appearance, his skins, and the names of his skills. Even his voice has been conflated as "gay" (read comments on his wiki page) and this is most likely due to the other aspects of his character. I'm not saying "make Taric gay" or "make Taric not gay," but Riot prides itself on the fact that the Tribunal "overwhelmingly votes to punish those who use racist or homophobic slurs." If correct representation and diversity are an important issue to Riot, than a critical lens must be taken to Taric's redesign. If the original intent behind Taric was to create a gay caricature, then use this chance to fix that past wrong. If that was not the original intent, then use his redesign as a way to delineate stereotypes and homophobia from his character.

Thanks for reading to anyone who's made it through all of this~

TLDR; & Summary of comments.

Zagios

New passive adds depth to skill usage. His current heal is great. Adding a knockback to his W is highly liked. Changing Dazzle to an AoE cone adds skill and reward. His Ulti aura is boooooring. Changed to blind, armor shred, and single burst. His tri stat scaling hurts.

38 Comments

Cubism6 votes

This.... This is great! Glad to see somebody else is willing to put this much thought into the guy as I would.

Rew7111 votes

i like it but can someone help me with the new passive. I main taric too... I don't understand. is it after every 3rd hit his passive takes effect?

also, the way he is now, I don't really mind if I wanted to use Taric top. it would be more difficult with the new passive. the only two that would do something are the W and R. E would be purely for supporting.

Zagios1 votes

The idea behind the new passive is that he would gain stacks after each autoattack up to a maximum of three. After that, his next skill would then exhaust those stacks for an increased potency of the skill.

This new E proposed is essentially the same as his current one except it requires more skill to land and can be me more rewarding. I kept the same AP ratios and the same stun duration.

Shurle3 votes

I hope they give him a full rework. He is not fun to play, he is fun to win with (like everyone) but not fun to play. Everything you said is true, including that last paragraph about his perceived sexuality... I don't think its necessary to add a "gay champion" to league just for the sake of being inclusive, but at the very least I'd Riot should not encourage making jokes about him.

I hope if they do rework him and visually update him, he becomes more of a badass paladin. Leona/Taric fill that "Paladin" archetype, but Leona is fun to play... Taric isn't.

BastionKross2 votes

Three problems that Taric has now, and that your rework doesn't solve:

  1. Taric's abilities scale with three stats, AP/Health/Armor. That's a lot to ask of a support that won't be getting the gold flow other roles would. Naturally as a tank support, Taric would build HP and Armor as a matter of course; Thus the AP scaling seems out of place on him. That self granted AP from his ult is at least getting used, but that leads up to my next issue.

  2. The passive auras are boring. His W and ult suffer from the same syndrome Sona had: He can be giving thousands of gold worth of stats to his team, and no one notices. Even worse, these auras drain significant amounts of power from the rest of his kit while being unengaging. Taric's biggest power is him standing next to you. That's dull for both you and your allies.

The W aura could be fine on it's own while having a completely different ultimate, or vice versa. Getting rid of one aura would free up a lot of power to do whatever with, while still letting him have a protective aura. Hopefully that power goes into making his gameplay more engaging and less giving free stats to his team. If you get rid of the self AP buff on his ult, you can safely remove the AP scaling from the rest of his kit. Maybe replace them with health scaling like his heal, or no scaling at all and just having buffed base damage. (His E really doesn't need scaling damage anyway, it's primarily there for the CC)

  1. Taric has no niche. Or rather the niche he has, a jack of all trades support, is already being filled by Lulu and Nami who do his job, but better. I guess you could also say he's the armor champion used to counter AD comps, but Rammus has that pretty much down pat. You need to find a niche that no other champion fills, and that would be appropriate for Taric as a character, and then build his kit around that.

For example, you could have Taric be an aggressive protector. Every time a nearby ally takes damage, his abilities increase in power. Or you could make him into an anti-mage type of character, with a silence and a move that scales on how much AP the target has. Or you could have him be a zone control tank, where he's tossing AoE abilities that stay on the ground and control the terrain of the battlefield like Ziggs minefield.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

I've believed his niche was as an early game support who became a late game bruiser. With a normal support build (item 3117 item 3401 item 2045 item 3025 item 3190 item 3143), he can duel a lot of bruisers late in the game, which makes it very dangerous for people to dive his ADC.

Zagios1 votes

I think the problem with understanding his niche as a late game bruiser is that he is severely outclassed by other supports that can use that same build far better. Leona, Braum and Thresh, with that exact same build, currently provide way more utility for their team. Similarly, as an early game support he lags behind both Leona and Braum as melee supports.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

I may have mispoken. I believe that his niche is his ability to fight evenly with many solo laners assuming you are at a similar point in your builds. With an Iceborn Gauntlet and his passive, he does a lot of consistent damage when weaving autoattacks between abilities, allowing him to solo many champions. Additionally, proper spell rotation and some CDR pretty much allow him to keep at least one ability off cooldown at all times. While people like Leona, Braum and Thresh may provide more utility, they still rely primarily on their team to supply damage, whereas Taric essentially becomes a second top lane bruiser with a lot of utility and auras.

You are also pretty versatile in the early game, able to adapt depending on how the lane is progressing and has the basic tools to fill more support roles. While he may not have as much CC or damage early as Thresh or Leona, he provides sustain and defenses to his laning partner. This is useful when, for some reason (you are behind, low health, etc), you can't afford to engage on your enemies and allows him to still be useful (not that Thresh or Leona are useless in that situation, but I find Taric handles it slightly better).

I may be wrong since I don't play support a lot, but that's pretty much my experience as Taric in the late game. If you disagree, that's perfectly fine. I just find that he provides far more damage to kill people diving his carry while providing slightly less utility than people like Braum, Leona, or Thresh and better suits my playstyle.

BastionKross1 votes

Taric's kit definitely could be modified to further reinforce this niche. Let's strip the aura out of his ult, and use all that power to go into his ult's self-buffs. Let's axe the AP bonus he gives himself, and instead give him percentage damage reduction instead. Something in the realm of Taric now ignores X% of all physical and magic damage while his ult is on.

Now we just clean out those annoying AP scalings on the rest of his kit, and boom. You now have a support that transforms into a real bruiser for a short time when R is pressed. As long as this Taric has his ult up he could safely go ward by himself, make an impact on teamfights like a top laner instead of a support, or defend a tower like a pro. If it's too strong, we could add a fatigue penalty to Taric after his ult wears off, reducing his stats for a short time afterward. That would force you to intelligently use his ult, instead of popping it every time there's a scuffle.

junglerboy162 votes

I think it is really important, though, that Taric be kept less as a "Tank Support" and more of a "Fighter who supports his team" He shouldn't be squished into the standard "I'm a CC support tank with burst" role, he should be the kind of support who could still be able to take a solo lane and then rely on his utility and damage late game to be supportive to his team. He should certainly focus on supporting, but not so much that he cannot survive outside a duo lane.

Zagios1 votes

I get what you're saying here but I definitely just approached this redesign of Taric from the lens of a support player. He was one of the earlier support champions so I focused on making him more viable when compared to other tanky supports that provide the right amount of CC and damage mitigation for a team.

I still think this redesign would maintain his caliber of top laning though maybe damage on his passive should be added back? I mean currently as is he's not a great top lane pick.

Zagios1 votes

  1. I understand where you are coming from regarding the awkwardness of his skills scaling off of AP, Armor and Health and I debated changing it to remove the AP aspect but I felt doing so would deviate from Taric's concept. Taric as Gem Knight, as Paladin, builds upon the idea of the integration of tankiness and support magic. The support magic scales more strongly with AP than HP/armor which results in a trade off between building tankier or doing more damage. This trade off is something that could be removed from his kit or it could be left for players to decide. Totally open for more discussion.

  2. The auras are definitely boring which is why I dramatically changed the active on W and made it have a stronger game play aspect. I debated removing the passive W when Shatter was on cooldown in order to add more decision making into his play style but that was something that Riot had previously had and then removed. Similarly, I debated on changing his ultimate all together or adding a CC element to his ultimate. With the CC worked into Shatter and Dazzle, however, I thought CC also on his ultimate would be a bit too much. With the changes I proposed on his passive, his ultimate becomes more rewarding beyond just empowering his allies by also providing a temporary benefit to his own skills.

I do really like the idea of changing his ultimate into a more of a zone/terrain like ability and that would definitely help move away from the boringness of the two passive auras. I was just aiming at maintaining the initial concept of Taric and improving upon it. If these changes to his W and R still belay a boring role for the champion I will definitely take another gander at his ultimate. Taric's ultimate is the only one of its kind so I was reluctant to remove the boon all together, however.

  1. Thats right, Taric has no niche. The idea behind this kit was to move him away from the jack-of-all-trades that is dominated by Nami and Lulu and move him into the role that he was meant to be: the only melee tanky support with a heal and boons.

Thank you for your feedback! It is definitely making me look back over my proposed changes and I'll update them when I can.

BastionKross2 votes

I love Taric as well. He's calm, restrained, but goofy at the same time. He's got more character than most of the other League champs anyway.

Taric as Gem Knight, as Paladin, builds upon the idea of the integration of tankiness and support magic.

The trouble here is itemization. Supports that want AP build item 3303, but Taric can't. His ranged harrass is his stun, which is better served being held for engages or jungler ganks. item 3027 would fit him perfectly, but as a support item 2049 , item 3401 , and item 3117 would come first most of the time and generally you want to get a ROA as quickly as possible. item 3157 seems like it would be a good fit, but Taric is better off weaving auto attacks for DPS and CDR than being frozen.item 3170 would be perfect for Taric, but we don't get such fun toys on the rift. The idea that support magic is AP based goes back to the season 4 preseason where utility scaling was introduced, and then left to die as Riot abandoned it shortly after. For good reason as well, there's no reason to have supports build AP for greater support effects while other roles do not. There's nothing wrong with having support magic scale on something other than AP. In fact, that would help make Taric more unique.

Taric's ultimate is the only one of its kind so I was reluctant to remove the boon all together, however.

That's fine, just be aware that Kassadin Evelynn Shen have a similar situation. A unique move that is very powerful (short CD blink, perma-stealth passive, global TP + shield) that drains significant power from the rest of their kit, making their other abilities less than spectacular. I wouldn't want Taric to hang with that group, personally. He's destined to be more than a one trick pony.

The idea behind this kit was to move him away from the jack-of-all-trades that is dominated by Nami and Lulu and move him into the role that he was meant to be: the only melee tanky support with a heal and boons.

We could certainly make him into the League's "buff" support. We can give him a kit that focuses on strengthening others, while dissuading him from standing back and not being a tank. The problem is that Taric kind of has that kit right now, and it doesn't work because instead of buffing one ally (marksman, fed top/jungle, assassin), it buffs all allies. If we could have his buffs be targeted to one champ, we can remove those lackluster auras and strengthen his buffs in one swoop. Instead of his W granting armor to everyone as a passive, perhaps when activated it requires you to target an ally. That ally would then get a substantial armor bonus, and then Taric could activate the ability again to burst the armor, shredding armor and dealing damage to opponents around the ally. It would function similarly to Morde's shield. To make sure Taric stays in the action instead of casting this shield and hanging back, we could have the buff get stronger/last longer if Taric auto attacks an enemy champion while the shield is up. As for his ult, you could do something similar and have Taric select an ally when activated. That ally and Taric both get buffs, but there's no longer an aura to buff the rest of the team. Since the aura is gone and only two champs are given stats, the buffs can be strengthened accordingly.

Zagios1 votes

Yea, I completely understand that he has a major issue when it comes to itemization. There are not many options for a support who has to spread himself across three different ratio lines. I think having his skills scale based off solely his HP or Armor would be beneficial for Taric but that has the possibility of pushing him back to where he was earlier in the year: broken. Removing the AP ratios and having him solely rely on HP and Armor scaling would be great but how would that work in practice? I'd love help coming up with numbers so that I can edit the original post: would it be maybe increased base amount, removal of current AP ratios, and then a slight increase of current armor/hp ratios?

I like the idea of a single target effect on W but I think doing so wouldn't give him enough CC to truly be effective at peeling.

After rereading your comments and seeing others, his ulti definitely needed to go. I scraped it and added damage/blind/armor shred to his ulti. Let me know what you think?

BastionKross1 votes

I think having his skills scale based off solely his HP or Armor would be beneficial for Taric but that has the possibility of pushing him back to where he was earlier in the year: broken.

This is definitely a concern. If we just replaced his AP ratios with HP/Armor ratios without changing any numbers, the moves would probably end up doing too much damage. The solution is either less scaling (lower ratios) or less base damage. Less scaling would have the ability in question fall off damage-wise mid/late game, while less base damage would have it be less impactful early game but still have relevant damage later on. His E should probably have less ratios, as it's there for the CC primarily. If it's damage falls off late game, it's still an AoE CC. His ult could be argued either way, and I'll get to that later.

I like the idea of a single target effect on W but I think doing so wouldn't give him enough CC to truly be effective at peeling.

I see the new ult removes armor now too. Having two moves that shred armor would probably be too much, so we could remove that aspect of his W and replace it with that knockback. That way, when Taric detonates the shield, it peels all enemy champs off the target. Maybe if Taric empowers the move it knocksback and stuns for a second (or shreds armor, see below)?

After rereading your comments and seeing others, his ulti definitely needed to go. I scraped it and added damage/blind/armor shred to his ulti. Let me know what you think?

AoE damage, blind, armor shred, and a beneficial aura? CertanlyT just got excited! That's probably too much for one move. The AoE blind itself would be extremely powerful. What if we removed all damage and damage scaling from it altogether, and made it a complete buff/debuff attack? If you don't like that, we could trim the aura off altogether, or remove the armor shred and put it back on his W.

Zagios1 votes

@Scaling: Thats what I was worried about, finding the correct balance so that he remains viable throughout the game. Ideally I think the better option would be to lower his base, remove AP scaling, and increase current HP scaling

@Ulti: While the new ultimate shreds armor, his new W doesn't, I removed that when I added the knockback. Having both would way too much. I also removed the aura on his ultimate so that its just damage, shred and blind.

BastionKross1 votes

That all seems pretty reasonable to me. It's difficult to say anything concrete without some way of testing it on the PBE, but Riot can't ask for more than we've put together.

Also, did you see the dev blog on champion updates they brought up recently in the news section? While Taric wasn't one of the three champs they're working on now, a Rioter in the comments stated that Taric isn't far behind them. Now seems to be a good time to feed them ideas and suggestions.

TeemoHunter13372 votes

tarics ult and w active feel really lame.

if only they updated his ult and w id feel he will be played more. not to mention if they fix how he looks.

YouLostMe2 votes

Of all the things in this kit, I am the most scared of the cooldown reset on his ult. A 350-knockback and a 1. 3s stun is oppressive enough, doubling that is ridiculous. Imagine keeping someone locked down for over 4 seconds. It's like a pocket Janna on steroids.

Zagios1 votes

Of all the things in this kit, I am the most scared of the cooldown reset on his ult. A 350-knockback and a 1. 3s stun is oppressive enough, doubling that is ridiculous. Imagine keeping someone locked down for over 4 seconds. It's like a pocket Janna on steroids.

I had not even thought about that and that is definitely something that would need to be nixed. My idea behind the reset CD on his ulti was that it would move him past being static after ulting but then I guess what its done has just ripped away the tactical decisions I had hoped to build into Taric and made it more beneficial to just spam his skills. I'll remove the CD aspect of his ulti while maintaining the gem stack aspect?

YouLostMe1 votes

I honestly don't know what's good and what isn't. You've probably put ten times more man hours into Taric than I have, so I trust your judgment a tad more. All I can do is point out things that jump out at me.

Zagios1 votes

No, no. Your comment was on point! Thank you

junglerboy162 votes

I like a lot of what you suggest here, it has a lot of potential.

Passive: I like where this is going, but without the bonus on hit damage after an ability, he would actually be surprisingly weak. Here is my suggestion: once you reach three stacks of these enchanted gems, he deals bonus damage with his basic attacks based off of either something like max hp, Armor, or maybe mana. This would make Taric have to choose between using the stacks to enhance an ability, or use them to keep his damage output. In the end though, I feel like your changes would take away the rhythm of spell>AA>spell>AA etc. you could still keep that same rhythm and just make it so every third empowered auto makes his next spell more potent.

Q: I actually really like where the heal is at right now on live, it gives a lot more sustain than people give it credit for, so just adding on more heal is a bad thing imo. He has to keep the strengthened self heal if not used on an ally, because Taric should still be able to solo lane like now. Maybe instead of just giving a bigger heal, make it scale off the targets missing health, or give another bonus like increased regeneration, or maybe remove all non CC debuffs.

W: I really like the idea of giving this a knockback, it seems really fitting for this type of ability as a sort of "BACK OFF" type spell. Only change for the empowered version is instead of dealing increased damage, it really has to keep the armor reduction. Removing the armor reduction is actually a ridiculously huge nerf, it minimizes his burst, and makes him much less efficient at supporting an ADC.

E: This is almost the same as something I had suggested on another thread, so for the most part I like this. I was wondering though, if maybe for the empowered version, he deals damage to all enemies in the area, but instead blinds them for the stun duration. You can put a blind in some how or another, but it seems really fitting, because seeing giant shining gems would be pretty blinding irl. All together, I definitely think it should be a directional cone that stuns the closest target, so good idea.

R: This still seems pretty meh in terms of feeling impactful, sure it buffs your other spells but you can only get maybe two rotations off before the effect ends considering how the new passive would work. maybe, if you want to still take the armor reduction from his W, put it on his ult instead, where enemies hit by the initial blast of damage have their armor reduced for a few seconds, while his spells refresh the armor reduction for the duration of the ult buff.

Zagios1 votes

Passive: You're right. I editted his passive so that he has increased magic damage on his auto attack that scales with the amount of stacks of gemcraft he has?

Q: I know his heal is really great as is, that's why I compared it's base stats to other champion heals. And I get that the self heal makes him a more reliable top laner but that wasn't really my goal in this rework (I honestly don't like him top lane). I was trying to make him more viable as a support and that's why I maintained his standard healing ratios and then actually buffed the amount he heals himself and an ally if he uses his Gemcraft Stacks. I thought about changing the additional effect on Gemcraft but I didn't want to make the passive give all of his abilities additional effects, just slightly buff the base effects. Giving additional regen or removing debuffs changes it from purely a heal skill and make's his passive seem more akin to Karma's ultimate.

W: That was definitely something I was worried about. I realized that removing the armor shred would nerf his damage output but I thought that was offset by the CC addition.

E: I fought so long about whether or not making it a stun or a blind because I mean it's called "dazzle." I think your suggestion on the armor shred and the blind should go into hit ulti!

R: I think moving the armor reduction on to his R is a great idea and I think to give it more oomph, adding a blind to it would be great. Adding these to his ulti I think should result in a removal of the passive aura.

Kitsuki052 votes

Taric's passive as it is is already pretty strong, I don't see why he needs a randomly-buff-your-skills passive that'll only proc like once or twice in a team fighter. His current passive is great because you can time all your abilities after each attack, and that'll really boost your stun and heal. I enjoy Taric's passive strength, his style is calm and collected. He doesn't need to be some flashy show off.

Zagios1 votes

His passive is strong as is. The problem is as a whole he is severely outclassed by every other support. I saw a change in passive as a way to give him more utility for his team rather than focus on giving him damage.

Kitsuki051 votes

His passive refreshes all of his abilities... how is that not utility?

Zagios1 votes

Like I said his kit as a WHOLE is lackluster. Changing his passive was just a way I saw empowering his kit. If the rest of his kit was better his current passive would be okay, but its not.

Skias1 votes

I had the same idea for Dazzle to be a cone. His shield should be redesigned to be a Mirror shield ala Legend of Zelda. It would be cool if you held button down and it would cause a channel that eats mana and keeps up a dot/blindness following the stun. Like it would eat mana very very fast, but give you a dazzle hose.

Dankest of Meme1 votes

love the idea of a knock back on shatter as for how far it should go or the damage I'm not too sure myself sorry

Zagios1 votes

That's definitely something I was debating on removing. I just felt like without the damage on shatter his kit lacks any real damage contribution all together. If the damage on shatter is too much (which I don't think it currently is but might be with added CC) it could totally be reduced!

Jbels1 votes

At this point, I'm fine with them not even touching Taric's kit as long as they finally give him the VU he needs. PIZZA FEET UHHHHHHHHHHGGGGG!!!!! At this point the only champions that have it are Mordekaiser and Taric, they just fixed Singed

AmightyT1 votes

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this would be a good idea, but I think Taric shouldn't be a healer, there are plenty of those and Taric isn't picked for his, So why not be the guy who gives mana?

AmightyT1 votes

Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this would be a good idea, but I think Taric shouldn't be a healer, there are plenty of those and Taric isn't picked for his, So why not be the guy who gives mana?

junglerboy161 votes

Because giving mana is inherently unbalanceable. Riot said that very specifically when they reworked Soraka.

hOrnn1 votes

revert his passive and w nerfs and hes fine, hes still nothing but a single target stun and heal though.

1337n00bh4x0r

[deleted]

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Imbue also benefits from health, which suits his tank and support itemization.

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