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Riot doesn't want champions "only usabe in one role;" Can solo-lane Taric get some love?

PopcornBunni··6 votes·3,703 views

I wasn't around during Taric's pre-update days, but I'm aware his kit use to be much more that of a juggernaut or skirmisher with armor shredding and powerful trading power. In his current state, he is a Warden/Enchanter hybrid and that is okay enough as a unique position, but it also relegates a large amount of his power to his Bastion-marked allies.

Something riot has said in the past at least, is they don't want champions only being playable in a single role. Even though some attempts at aiding alternative roles have gone under utilized (Top Vi and jg Zyra /Morgana come to mind), it's still evident that they are continually trying to diversify not just the cast of characters themselves, but individual positions of champions.

In this light, I think Taric could really appreciate being able to come out of the shadow of being the default funneler and be able to compete with the other wardens in top lane. At the same time, some feels-bad mechanics in his kit could use a bit of tweaking for both positions.

And so to this end, I would propose something along these lines:

Starlight's Touch (Q) NEW: Mana cost scales with charges consumed rather than with rank. (Mana cost: 60+Number of Charges or 70/80/90/10/110)

The feels-bad mechanic mentioned above. Allow this ability be ranked past 2 without it directly hindering Taric more than it helps.

Bastion (W): Armor increase: 10/12.5/15/17.5/20 % -> 10/17.5/25/32.5/40 % NEW!: His bastion-marked ally receives half this bonus armor

More up-front resistance for making trades while still preserving the same ally-buff late.

Dazzle (E) Stun duration: 1.25 s -> 1 s Base Damage: 90/130/170/210/250 -> 100/125/150/175/200 AP scailng: 50% -> 80% Armor scaling: 50% Bonus Armor -> 60% Total Armor

Less damage from the followup his team offers and more from his own resources.

I know besides the W change these are side-grades at best and hindrances at worst for his support position, but the character has also been sitting at a cozy 51%+ WR since forever even in a time where tanks were their weakest.

13 Comments

Saezio3 votes

Riot say this, but they don't mean it.

As soon as something is relevant in high elo and pro in a position they don't deem acceptable they nerf.

The Trent3 votes

No thank you. Taric already has been op in a solo lane for a while. Funnel strats are annoying as hell. If they buffed his solo lane anymore that just would be horrible. I think it's clear riot makes some champions for one role specifically, just look at nunu. He would be horrible out of the jungle.

Z3Sleeper1 votes

I don't need any more Yi + Taric duos with 75%+ winrates in my Grandmaster games thank you :)

Anaphiel1 votes

I agree entirely, but I have my doubts that Riot even cares. They now have a long history of directly nannying champions into the role they think they should be.

Kayle.... Once playable Top, Mid, Support, and Jungle. Now if you take her somewhere other than top you are trolling (as a (former) dedicated plat jungle Kayle OTP THIS HURTS!)

[cass-cry]

Morgana.... I was a midlaner once Guys! Lets nerf the ever loving biscuits out of my pool to prevent me from farming midlane, but lets never address my glitchy fridge sized infinity snare! Or the great wall of screw your CC that lasts a month and blocks purely physical spells CC as well!

Zac I had a Diamond ranked top player by the name of FlyingBaklava! Lets fix what isn't broken and get rid of his Q so that he stops that nonsense!

Skarner Lets make a gimmicky spire mechanic such that I can no longer lane at all! That's brilliant!

Graves You aren't an ADC anymore! Go away!

KogMaw You don't even belong ANYWHERE anymore. Mid Kog? Whats a Kog? We don't even give him the basic amount of attention required to make him functional in botlane!

There are tons of examples of "Supports" as well, that have had to be tuned incredibly low to ensure they dont murder people in the support role, unfortunately this also greatly hindered their mid/top performance (Although Lulu WAS broken as all hell in the right hands, admittedly). Trundle Brand Lulu

Riot is not fond of champions NOT being glued to one role. They usually all but MANDATE that people stay where they are told. Barking fun police.

PopcornBunni1 votes

On Skarner, I wonder if having his spires help is teasm's jungler, other than the +15g, would let him lane? Not sure if the Move Speed bff or the Mana regen or the attack speed or some combination would be the right balance, but it could add an interesting dynamic, even if the buff only applied to "allied campions with a jungle item," To have Skarner top or mid changing the way their own jg is able to clear and roam. Kind of like how Ornn offers entirely more items that don't' exist otherwise.

Anaphiel1 votes

I like the creativity inherent in this, but my initial thought is that allowing other junglers to use his spires would be a balance nightmare!

Besides, Riot doesn't tend to like map-wide effects regardless, that's why they did away with old Janna and Zilean passives. You should help your team by playing properly, not merely by existing!

The idea of having a Yi cavorting about with even more free attack speed/movespeed simply because of the stingy boi sitting top scares the hell out of me. No. The spires really high bonuses are part of the reason they have to keep the poor scorpion tuned so weak outside of said spire range. Those spire bonuses are no joke.

Flashes1 votes

{quoted}

I agree entirely, but I have my doubts that Riot even cares. They now have a long history of directly nannying champions into the role they think they should be.

Kayle.... Once playable Top, Mid, Support, and Jungle. Now if you take her somewhere other than top you are trolling (as a (former) dedicated plat jungle Kayle OTP THIS HURTS!)

[cass-cry]

Morgana.... I was a midlaner once Guys! Lets nerf the ever loving biscuits out of my pool to prevent me from farming midlane, but lets never address my glitchy fridge sized infinity snare! Or the great wall of screw your CC that lasts a month and blocks purely physical spells CC as well!

Zac I had a Diamond ranked top player by the name of FlyingBaklava! Lets fix what isn't broken and get rid of his Q so that he stops that nonsense!

Skarner Lets make a gimmicky spire mechanic such that I can no longer lane at all! That's brilliant!

Graves You aren't an ADC anymore! Go away!

KogMaw You don't even belong ANYWHERE anymore. Mid Kog? Whats a Kog? We don't even give him the basic amount of attention required to make him functional in botlane!

There are tons of examples of "Supports" as well, that have had to be tuned incredibly low to ensure they dont murder people in the support role, unfortunately this also greatly hindered their mid/top performance (Although Lulu WAS broken as all hell in the right hands, admittedly). Trundle Brand Lulu

Riot is not fond of champions NOT being glued to one role. They usually all but MANDATE that people stay where they are told. Barking fun police.

Kayle has a new thing going around where you go her support instead, but it's a really really small movement and relies so heavily on klepto with only specific ADCs that don't have a weakass early, like Lucian

Flashes1 votes

LMAO Who tf told you this?

The Majority of Marksmen are not viable in any lane other than botlane.

Exceptions such as Lucian or Vayne usually have a different gamechanging passive, like Vayne's Silver Bolts or Lucian's Lightslinger to help augment their damage levels to a point where they can remain relevant compared to other champions.

Their scaling is much higher as a result, which means they were handicapped by Riot to be reliant on duo lanes to have another player cover up the weakness that is a champion with a weak early game.

PopcornBunni1 votes

Ashe MissFortune have been played as support before

Ezreal Varus Corki Kaisa KogMaw Lucian Tristana Have all been mid and bot alike in the past. And not just like S1 when marksmen were midlaners.

Draven Vayne Jhin top

Graves Twitch Jungle

Quinn can somewhat reasonably be used in any position, though with mid being probaby her weakest

Caitlyn Jinx Kalista Sivir Xayah Are the only ones that seem to have a kit dependant on a lane partner, but it's far from the majority.

And there are obviously other supports, especially tanks, that have trouble making a name for themselves outside feeding their adc -- Alistar Braum Blitzcrank Leona Nautilus

But this thread isn't about those characters.

Flashes1 votes

{quoted}

Ashe MissFortune have been played as support before

Ezreal Varus Corki Kaisa KogMaw Lucian Tristana Have all been mid and bot alike in the past. And not just like S1 when marksmen were midlaners.

Draven Vayne Jhin top

Graves Twitch Jungle

Quinn can somewhat reasonably be used in any position, though with mid being probaby her weakest

Caitlyn Jinx Kalista Sivir Xayah Are the only ones that seem to have a kit dependant on a lane partner, but it's far from the majority.

And there are obviously other supports, especially tanks, that have trouble making a name for themselves outside feeding their adc -- Alistar Braum Blitzcrank Leona Nautilus

But this thread isn't about those characters.

Ashe is not played as support except from very very low elo, where people think her slow and 90 sec stun is enough to justify being a support.

MF Support was viable for a SINGLE reason, which is specifically a Zyra counter, due to being able to kill her plants with a single AA. Riot has recently fixed this, so the only people playing MF support left are simply people who remember that one progame and don't know any context behind it.

Ezreal, Varus, Kai'sa, Kog'maw, and Tristana USED to be viable in past lanes. They are not anymore because Riot has shoehorned them into botlane. Each of these champions lacks either the instant mobility, the massive burst damage, or the roaming potential that every other mid laner has at the moment.

Draven and Vayne again have both innate characteristics in their kit that enables them to maintain viability in the top lane, although Draven's playsize isn't significant enough to really account for this. Vayne I agree with, again because she wins most matchups into tanks for free, and has a <20 second gank denial.

Graves isn't even an ADC anymore, and isn't played bot at all, because Riot has slowly changed his kit over the years into a Jungler thanks to the knockback on his autoattacks, making for the easiest kiting in the world, and some of the best cc in the game on a basic ability.

Twitch is played JG due to smurfing, and isn't significant in nearly any other circumstance. His ability to teamwipe and to permastealth is all he has going for him, and in most cases requires someone with significantly higher elo than other players to pull off, due to counterjungling knowledge, vision knowledge, and overextending knowledge all playing roles. Not to mention that in many cases, Twitch junglers will have a dedicated Lulu/(insert other enchanter here) to help them out in the late game.

Quinn is a joke and was forgotten by riot. She isn't an ADC either, with her sustained damage being significantly weaker than every single other marksman in the game thanks to her passive only activating on its own every 8 seconds, and her E and Q being burst abilities that also don't have the highest range. As a result, nearly no one plays her, and the onetricks that do only play her toplane where her out of combat movement is high enough to roam, justifying her choice top. If her out of movement speed was halved, I legitimately think the number of Quinn games in high elo would drop to less than 10 every month, because picking her would be considered trolling/inting.

EDIT: Quinn is so weak she can't actually be reasonably played in ANY position except for top, where she can abuse her range. She beings to fall off post 6 too due to having two build paths. One of which is Crit, which means she just has a lower DPS and range than most other ADCs, and the other being Lethality, which makes her fall off FAST against the ever present bruisers.

I also completely forgot addressing Corki. He has one of the weakest sustained damage kits out of all the ADCs thanks to his passive being near worthless for combat, his Q dealing significant damage in the first 6 minutes of the game then falling off until 40 minutes in, and his shred requiring closer range to activate than most ADCs attack ranges. His Ultimate is also extremely weak and is simply used to poke and activate sheen faster than other abilities, and while the poke damage adds up over time, whatever advantage he has over other ADCs in a 1v1 is lost in the botlane due to being unable to utilize his Ult on 2 people at once in most cases. Therefore he is now nearly exclusively played in the midlane, and the only time I had a corki in the botlane, he decided to int 15 minutes in because the jungler hadn't ganked our lane, and he died 3 times with 0 kills.

Also I haven't mentioned Jhin top because he simply ISN'T PLAYED THERE. Against bruisers, all it takes is a Phage. Against tanks, his raw AD fails against Armor stacking. Against other ADCs top like Draven or Vayne, he loses early 1v1s because he's reliant on Support engage to fire off his empowered autos in a timely matter.

Lucian I already stated was viable in other lanes due to his mobility + early damage from his passive.

Out of the 15 ADCs that you have stated are viable in other lanes, only 3 of them actually are regularly played as an ADC AND are viable in another lane/thejungle. Lucian, Draven, and Vayne all have innate damage steroids that allow them to do ok in other lanes, and I had already mentioned two of them. As for the "marksmen" viable in other lanes that are NOT viable as an ADC, that would include Quinn and Graves, who are ONLY viable in one area, and in Quinn's case, barely viable with her winrate sustained by the few one-tricks in high elo.

That's 3/13 ADCs out of the ones that were mentioned that were viable, and 3/15 overall marksmen champions who are viable in more than one lane.

Myrmiron1 votes

Now that's just wrong, champions being only playable in a certain role is Riot's wet dream.

Malix Farwin1 votes

They literally just released a champion that can only play 1 role.

PiVoRx1 votes

MasterYi So there a champions that can do multiple roles?

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