Why is Taric considered bad?

SpartenA7991·Oct 9, 2015·3 votes·1,409 views

Why is he considered trash tier? I really don't understand. Most of his kit sounds amazing and possibly overpowered. His passive is a spellblade that deals magic damage of 20% of his armor. His Q is a heal for him and an ally, if he heals just himself, its a stronger heal. His W gives him passive armor and activate it to break his armor, deal AoE damage and reduce nearby enemy armor. Level 1 in game I have 60+ armor! That's alot for level 1 defense. His E is a lock on stun so their is no avoiding it. His ult has him do Aoe damage and gain 30/50/70 attack damage and ability power and half that bonus to nearby allies. All those abilities are very strong but he is still considered bad? Can someone explain whats happening here? Is it a good idea on paper but in game the numbers are just too weak to make a measurable impact or what?

28 Comments

EndlessSorcererOct 9, 20155 votes

He's a generalist and is generally outdone by other supports in their specialties.

Lulu, Janna, and Braum are better body-guards. Blitzcrank, Thresh, Alistar, and Leona have better initiation. Nami and Soraka are better healers.

Most supports are better at setting up kills and engaging early during the laning phase, while Taric primarily tries to protect and heal his ADC while they farm to mid/late-game. This doesn't mean that he can't set up kills when the opportunity presents itself, but he isn't as good at it as many other supports.

If you are picking a support to fill a certain niche on your team, then there will usually be someone better-suited to it than Taric.

However, Taric does have his own strengths. He's essentially a high-utility bruiser come late-game who can duel many champions without issue. While he's not a good at protecting his allies as many supports, he's quite good at killing anyone trying to get past him to reach his allies while buffing his allies significantly.

SpartenA7991Oct 9, 20152 votes

So he is a jack of all trades, master of none type? Wouldn't that be good? He wouldn't be easily countered because he isn't specifically a special type like peeler/initiatioin/healer. He does it all and that should make him good in some degree?

EndlessSorcererOct 9, 20151 votes

While generalists like Taric aren't easily countered, they are often out-performed by specialists within certain areas. If someone wants to provide something specific to their team (peel, initiation, sustain, poke, etc), then they will likely choose someone who excels in that specific facet instead of someone who is good at every facet.

I think the biggest factor holding him back is that he isn't great at early skirmishing during laning phase. He's quite good at allowing his ADC to survive laning phase and can punish anyone who initiates on him, but he isn't that good at forcing fights due to his lack of mobility and the travel-time of his stun (many mobile ADCs can just dash away when they see it coming). He can also have issues sticking to targets due to his autoattack animation and the short duration of his stun.

However, if he gets a few items he is a force to be reckoned with. His late-game is monsterous with a proper build and he's essentially a fighter with a massive amount of utility. His power-curve is basically the opposite of normal supports; he starts off relatively weak and gradually becomes a monster.

Miku Hime samaOct 10, 20153 votes

Except Thresh is a Master of all Trades champion. Hard to outshine someone who does everything you do, but better.

CatastropOct 11, 20152 votes

You would think that this would be quite good, but it all just adds up to a champion that's just outclassed in everything he does to the point that picking him is just laughable. In addition, his style of gameplay is quite boring and that's a deciding factor of people's opinion of a champion. Overall, he does need a rework because he might as well not even be a part of the champion roster due to his extremely non-interactive gameplay.

SirsirOct 11, 20152 votes

No one counterpicks the support except the enemy support. His only real niche is vs 4-5 AD teams.

BastionKrossOct 9, 20153 votes

Power curve. Supports generally have a power curve that starts out strong and gets weaker as the match goes on. This makes sense, since supports need to be strong early to help their marksman get fed. Taric's power curve is the opposite; he starts off really underwhelming in lane but once he starts stacking armor he's a raid boss.
Auras. Auras are difficult to balance. If the aura affects one or two champs, it's not doing a whole lot. If it affects a whole team, it's going to be very strong. It's difficult to make an aura that's still helpful if it's hitting one or two while not granting thousands upon thousands of gold worth of free stats if everyone is grouped. Look at how they messed up Sona.
Skill floor. Taric's skill floor is extremely high. Someone who's playing him for the first time is still going to be effective. His kit is full of abilities that are either point and click or automatically hit an AoE around himself. The most mechanically intense part of his kit is weaving autos in-between spells to take full advantage of his passive. So Riot has been stingy about making Taric too powerful.

HentRexOct 9, 20152 votes

Best explanation to Taric I've seen. Well said.

Miku Hime samaOct 10, 20154 votes

Riot is the only company who claims auras are "difficult to balance." This is solely their own bias and is not shared by any other game.

XemeronOct 9, 20152 votes

Mostly because everything he does, he does medicore at best and he is outclassed in basicly every Aspect. His heals are not great, his stun, while being targeted, the only thing he actually has that makes him better than other supports, is very slow moving and has a long Cooldown. When you want a tank support, Braum and Leona just leave him in the dust, because they are so much better at protecting the ADC. His Aura is a joke, again, Braum leaves him in the dust.

His Problem is: Braum and Leona can do what he does in tanking and peeling, but better. His Heals are not enough to give him an advantage.

The Bonus stats on his Ultimate are wasted on him, since he is very slow, as well in Movement and Attacking, and his AP scalig sucks. At the point where his Ultimate gives noticeable bonus power to your team, its already at a point of the game, where 35 AD dont make a difference.

TLDR: Hes terrible outclassed and his kit is bad.

khorneyOct 9, 20152 votes

Lets start from the top he has high cd high mana cost little benefit to own team because he is filled with penalties on his moves As in his q heals allies for 50% less then himself his ultimate gives like 50% of what taric gets I mean at max cd and with certain items he can 2 shot squishy Champs if you combo right. Generally you will w or e first then basic then ultimate then basic and poof dead. He is really bursty

BoulderoxOct 9, 20152 votes

on paper they are amazing, but he has nothing that makes him worth it, braum outshines him because he has ways of inturrupting and peeling when a bad fight breaks, taric can only smash his hammer and hope his team can kill everyone first. His kit suffers from cooldowns, i find his abilities on cooldown too much. His heal although decent, is awful compared to other supports where those supports can bring multiple ways to lockdown targets than just one that taric has on his e, and have a decent or better heal.

His armor from w is a shining grace i think, it is just under appreciated because of how bland his kit is, he needs something to make him more fun and exciting to play than press e to stun, press q to heal, press r to buff. He can't do anything alone, which is why he is considered bad, braum again, can q kite them out, and jump to minions for safety and has a free block ability, taric has nothing like that for utility/defences other than raw stats, which shows how old he is as a champion.

OverpoweredSoapOct 9, 20151 votes

It's honestly not that he's terrible (he can perform well against the right team) it's just he's really boring to play.

He's slated for a rework anyways, so changes from now until then aren't going to happen.

SpartenA7991Oct 9, 20151 votes

So by that logic Singed is also bad? Skillshots make a champion good?

FlahertyOct 9, 20151 votes

He does a lot that other supports do but is a worse version of them. He excels against teams that have super heavy physical damage due to the scaling he gets with armor, though.

SpartenA7991Oct 9, 20151 votes

How worse? what other supports? Can you list some examples please?

FlahertyOct 9, 20153 votes

He can heal but is worse at healing than Sona or Soraka, he can stun but his is worse than Annie's or Leona's, his bonus armor is worse than Braum's bonus armor and magic resist that he gives when he jumps to an ally (in this case though the aura Taric gives would be better if the enemy team is heavy AD). At max rank Taric's ult gives allies 35 AD and AP which isn't that much. So Taric does a lot of things but no single thing particularly well.

Miku Hime samaOct 11, 20155 votes

No, Sona is the worst healer in the entire game. Regarding the comparison to Taric:

Sona - 30 Base, 20% AP, 80 Mana
Taric - 60 Base, 30% AP + 5% Bonus HP, 60 Mana

I kindly ask you please double-check facts so as to prevent misconceptions.

FlahertyOct 11, 20152 votes

Sona's heal scales with the target's missing health so it becomes better at low health. Those values are the minimum they can heal. So maybe you should take your own advice.

I Love ThreshDec 9, 20151 votes

What the ever loving fuck are you on?

PennsOct 9, 20151 votes

Because hes not played by "pros". I bet if Poppy and Taric were picked at worlds and won a game, theyd be played a lot and probably nerfed too lol.

khorneyOct 9, 20151 votes

Don't ever ever say poppy is. Bad she is hands down like the strongest hyper carry in the game.

Dar RaksadaOct 9, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Because hes not played by "pros". I bet if Poppy and Taric were picked at worlds and won a game, theyd be played a lot and probably nerfed too lol.

poppy would, riot said that if she sees pro play before her rework hits she'd be nerfed.

BeatzBoyFTWOct 9, 20151 votes

He's nothing more than a tankier male version of Sona(since he grants Armor/AD/AP passively).
No mobility.
Does not have hard CC compared to the likes of Braum/Janna/Thresh
Quite a useless support against a full AP enemy team.
Has very plain playstyle with no excitation in him whatsoever, which really limits his spotlight in Worlds/LCS.

DrNovaOct 9, 20152 votes

He is nothing like sona

BeatzBoyFTWOct 10, 20151 votes

I mean the way he grants bonus stats to his teammates similar to how the old Sona usually does it.

His W is most of the time not procced to keep the bonus Armor for his allies simply by not clicking it.

His ult technically acts like an AoE Sona Q, and then leaves the aura for granting bonus AP/AD for his allies.

Miku Hime samaOct 10, 20153 votes

You're right, he's better than Sona. Higher damage, stronger heals, pre-6 CC...

Of course, it's not saying much for anyone to be stronger than the weakest champ in the game. Taric factually being stronger than Sona means nothing, he still needs a lot of help.

SirsirOct 11, 20151 votes

He's nothing more than a tankier male version of Sona(since he grants Armor/AD/AP passively)

For Auras only. Lacks poke and the level of sustain Sona has.

No mobility.

Not important. Very few Supports have mobility and most are movespeed buffs that can be shared with or used on a teammate. In fact the only mobile support is Braum (and kinda Leona)

Quite a useless support against a full AP enemy team.

Thankfully you see those... never. AD champs are much more common, and certain enemies still suffer from the attack speed buff from the Heart Tarics always build.

Has very plain playstyle with no excitation in him whatsoever, which really limits his spotlight in Worlds/LCS

Which effects .0001% of the playerbase. In fact simpler kits are better in soloque, particularly lower levels. You can't really screw up Taric. He is a low risk-med reward character.