It seems to me like they are trying to re-inforce his enchanter style.
If you look at the best Taric builds in "high elo" (plat+), you see that most Tarics that are successful are doing some combination of Face of the Mountain and Locket of the Iron Solari. Most people level up his E because of the increase in stun duration. This sort of build emphasizes the Warden aspect of his kit.
The downside of that build is that Starlight's Touch feels weak and Bastion feels irrelevant most of the time. What these changes do, essentially, is encourage you to level Q or W instead of E, since the stun duration doesn't go up anymore at all. If you level Q, you might be tempted to run a more enchanter-style build, as well, which is again re-inforced by the increased mana regen on early levels.
As a fellow Taric enthusiast, I am glad they are looking into this and I am happy, overall, about the direction. I have long advocated maxing Q first, and I'm hoping these changes make that even more viable. This might also make you think about using redemption earlier in your build, and stacking Ardent Censer on top of that. Depending on how these changes shake out, I could see Taric become a much better healer because of these small changes.
As it was, he really needed levels in E to make that ability useful; that is less true with these changes. The main takeaway is that E with one point is now as good as the rank 3 skill used to be, minus some damage (let's be honest, you don't care about that damage). That's a decent improvement. This is about making levels in Q and W more attractive by making levels in E less good.
I think. Someone else correct me if needed. Where's Fondling Gems at?
