Taric top with the rework

Taric is a champion in which I saw few real flaws. He is the only champion with which I have never felt useless. And his old kit toplane is what I would call the most fun gameplay i have ever had. I liked how his quotes just made me laugh at times when he would randomly blurt the most metro things like "both stylish, and functional" - . But most of all I liked how he worked in both top lane and support. I would always build an iceborn gauntlet and a frozen heart on him no matter where I went, if i was top i kept building tank and i had the damage and survivability to stand in anyone's face and do good damage, if i was support i could still take support items with my 40% cdr and do damage while still having plenty of tankiness and utility. What I loved most about Taric was that where others saw a gay meme of a support, I actually saw the gem knight, his kit felt real to me, it made sense with his quotes and lore, and his quotes fit his lore and kit perfectly. I could build Gauntlet, frozen heart, and go full tank afterwards and be able to deal as much damage as a bruiser while being able to permastun a target, shred their armor, and heal for a ridiculous amount thanks to my passive's cdr. With the rework I saw a lot of complaining about the death of taric top, but as a dedicated fan of the ex-gem knight, now shield of valoran, I know from the botton of my gem of a heart i can make it work.

His passive still retains it's increased damage and cdr, I don't know the exact values but if it's enough to rotate his abilities, it will do fine, coupled with the attack speed it now gives I know the buildpath for toplane taric can definitely change.

His Q works on charges now but is an AoE heal, his sustain is definitely weaker now in a solo lane, but I see gank potential in it, Junglers lose out on a lot of gank opportunities because of having low health, Taric can change that game allowing for more risky ganks to occur.

His W has the same passive, meaning it may still be possible to start W and cloth armor and have ridiculout level 1 armor, but it has a new active which relies on having an ally nearby, making it worthless other than the armor it gives, it can be used in ganks but otherwise, Taric has much less trading potential early.

His E is still a stun, the difference is not only is it delayed now, it is also a skillshot, meaning Taric can't just tag his laner with it to walk up and get off free damage, but if the cooldown allows, he may be able to stunlock like before, though unlikely.

His ultimate has completely changed, before it was great for duels, now it is essentially a kayle ultimate that scales way harder once you leave lane and start teamfighting, this will still be useful in fights, but now has the added bonus of helping taric survive ganks, and teleporting to another lane to save an ally in trouble.

Comparing his old and new kits, I can conclude several points, the first one is, while before, he could cast a spell, autoattack, cast another, and repeat that cycle infinitely essentially permastunning while giving him unholy sustain, the fact that his W is without a doubt going to be impossible to spam, kills his permastun and permaheal mechanic. He loses a lot of damage in duels because of the loss of his ultimate's magic damage and stat boosts, and his W's damage, but with his increased attack speed from his passive, he essentially can abuse on hit effects better than his pre-rework state. Before he could fight any champion in the game and either win or stay at an infinite stalemate because both sides had too much sustain to die, now he can't do that, and probably will have to rely on more short skirmishes before bringing in a gank or using his ultimate to survive a risky all in for a kill. The old taric build looked like this It focused on having two core items, iceborn gauntlet and frozen heart, with spirit visage providing better healing and situational magic resist. Here are some possible builds the new taric will be able to take toplane With his passive giving crazy attack speed for two autoattacks after each spell cast, he'll be able to dish out a burst of high damage which, depending on how much the enemy takes, may either allow him to stay in for a kill, or disengage and wait for the next opportunity. Trinity force and iceborn gauntlet seem perfect to add because he relies on using abilities to deal damage, titanic hydra would be good in using the active ability on one of the autoattacks with empowered attack speed, and blade of the ruined king would get it some good damage while providing the active slow for either the all in or disengage. Guinsoo's rageblade seems workable because not only can he stack it on minions, but using his q and e give him enough fast autoattacks to fully stack it. He will still need to build tanky, and armor is still favorable on him, but these are the builds I think would work best on him. I will definitely test all of them out on the pbe and will post the results here, untill then. "Gems hold their edge." -