A Detailed Taric Discussion

TL:DR -

Pros I like the new character model's level of polish. I like that Riot wanted to update a character that was underplayed and outdated in mechanics. I like that Riot put a lot of thought into how to make Taric more appealing as a character.

Cons I miss Taric's shield. / Dislike the Marvel's Thor direction. It feels miss-matched. He looks like an aggressive super hero, but has even less offensive capabilities than when he carried a shield. I dislike that W/R still have basically the same function or use-scenario as each other. I dislike that Taric's offensive capabilities have been taken away. I dislike that they added delays to two of his abilities for artificial difficulty. It simply makes them unwieldy, which was a problem Taric already had before.

Solutions Make one of Taric's gems act like an Ori ball / Zillean Passive. Allow him to send it to an ally so they can still be a conduit of his other spells, (stun / heal). Turn the active component of into shatter. He can still give defense to an ally through the passive component, and choose to detonate it so he at least has 2 active abilities that can be used offensively. This will also make his ultimate feel a lot more special, as it's utility will finally be different from W. Turn the stun into a slow projectile, not a delayed spell.

Disclaimer: The reveal is less than a day old at this point. This discussion is purely made based on character concept and game design philosophies. Numbers and tweaking to determine if Taric is "weak or OP" won't be discussed, simply because we've yet to see him released off the PBE.

That said, wall of text incoming:

Taric - First impressions.

Frankly, I'm happy to see Taric finally get a rework. His model was old, and his play style was very basic. There were a lot of things about his original kit that felt clunky and unwieldy as a player. I'm happy to see him get some attention.

That said, I'm not 100% on board with the direction Riot decided to take him in. Sure, the story is much better. His model has a lot more polish. But there are just a few issues I have with his kit and one minor gripe about the artistic direction they went with.

First, I'll get the silly gripe out of the way: Why did they take away his shield? His title is The "Shield" of Valoran. I always felt like that was a core part of the fantasy of original Taric, was being a heavily armored Knight. He was basically a bread-and-butter paladin. Shield, mace, heavy armor, and buffs. Taking away his shield feels wrong to me. I'm also conflicted about how I feel with the floating crystals. I feel Taric got the Karma treatment. They took a traditional trope and tried to turn it into a super-hero model. I'm still sad about Karma losing her fans. Sorry for the butt-hurt, but I at least have the ability to realize that it's simply a personal preference. I personally dislike the super-hero look. It's a little too Marvel's Thor for me. I don't feel like it plays into the rest of League's art style, but I do recognize that the quality of the work is great. I just don't like the artistic direction.

Moving on to a more serious point, the change to his kit:

Comparatively, Taric was never a hard champion to play well. Really, the only difficulty he had was choosing who to stun and at what time. Riot has been making sweeping nerfs/reworks to champions with an on-demand, point and click CC. Probably the only ones left are Mao'Kai's and Pantheon's Ws, but they significantly nerfed the range and it also puts them in significant danger if misused.

Personally, I didn't mind that Taric's kit was simple, so much as that his abilities felt clunky, and not very useful. The heal was never really strong enough to be good, his ult was basically the same mechanic as his W, but with a buff afterwards, (stand on enemy, PBAoE). I could argue that his passive was also pretty boring, but I liked that it synergized so well with Sheen-procing items that it gave players a good way to start understanding that item more and how to get the most out of it. It felt like a skill that was meant to help teach players more about the game.

That said, Taric's new kit is much more interesting, to be sure. But I greatly dislike the design direction they went with it.

What do I mean by design direction?

Taric is a support. Most players would agree with that statement. He always has been, and always will be. But with his old kit, there were actually some cases where Taric could be a more flexible pick, like Tahm Kench. I believe it was in Season 3 that Taric had a short-lived run at being the most fabulous jungler in the game. His utility made up for the lack of gold a jungler usually has to put up with, and because of the rework to his passive, he could almost triple-dip stats by buying items like Frozen Heart. (Armor, Mana, and CDR = a happy Taric). Riot felt that this was unhealthy for the game, and it probably was at the time. Junglers who could avoid the burden of needing money to be strong were simply not healthy, like Jungle Nasus. That is a built-in handicap to the jungle that was being avoided.

But there are also players like Sirhcez who made Taric-top a thing. And honestly, I enjoyed following similar builds. And having a support champion in the top lane isn't a completely unheard of idea. Lulu, Tahm Kench, and Shen are all regularly seen in solo lanes. Nautilus has a very fluid role in league because he can exceed at so many different positions. Personally, I think this is a very healthy thing for the community. It's okay to have champions that excel in one role, but do fine in others. I think that is part of what makes League such a fun experience!

And that's why I am disappointed with what they did to Taric. They took away a lot of his offensive abilities. Sure, thematically they want him to be a defender, (though you wouldn't guess that by looking at him. Seriously, where is his shield?!), so I can understand why they want him to have more defensive abilities. But often, champions with only one offensive ability feel boring to play. (This is an opinion. I'm sure other players may enjoy it).

I liked his old W. It was clunky, and I wish they could have refined it to be more interesting. And I will even admit that the new W does a good job of adding an extra layer of depth to Taric's game play. However, I still feel like it has become less interesting than it's old form, simply due to the fact that it shares a mechanic with Mordekaiser's W. It's basically, "stand near an ally to make them stronger." The idea that we can aim spells off of them is kind of interesting, but I feel Lulu's shield-Q combo is basically the same thing. **It's nothing new, mechanically. And it is inferior to already existing mechanics. **

I'm also frustrated that in a way, the W / R are overlapping again, despite both of them being changed. Originally, the W/R combo felt like they were basically the same spell because you had to run into a group of people, and try to damage as many people as you could with both spells. Now they're both the opposite. Press W to take less damage. Press R to take less damage. It's still too much bleed-through, and now both spells are only defensive spells, which cripples Taric's ability to really be played in any other role than support. This hinders variety, and therefore fun.

I also greatly dislike the idea of delayed abilities. Both Taric's stun and ult now have a delay to them. Why? What does that accomplish? Taric's stun is already a skill-shot now, (surprise surprise), so it's already got a more interesting difficulty curve for players than the standard point-and-click that it was before. Granted, everyone knew that was going to be changed. Reliable ranged CC is something Riot seems to be regretting a lot these days. But why add a delay?

In my opinion, the only thing a delay does is make the skills harder to use effectively. And this isn't a good thing. If Taric's stun is the only offensive tool he has, then it will feel even worse when missing it. He has no other way to compensate in a fight. His only other abilities are to heal, and take less/no damage. Take into account the physical issues of lag and packet loss, and delayed abilities can be even more frustrating for players who already may have problems with signaling their abilities correctly.

I can understand his ultimate having a delay. It's basically somewhere between a Kindred Ult and a group-Kayle ult. I can easily see that this skill will be very strong in group competitive play. However, I still feel it is rather boring, considering it has a very similar function with his W.

How to tweak Taric to be a little better:

Again, I'm just a fan. I don't have any professional game design experience. But this is just something I feel would make Taric more acceptable.

Reinstate W as an offensive/defensive spell.

Maybe make it so one of Taric's gems fly to his ally when he clicks on them. It could have a cool down, so he can't keep switching targets. It could work similar to Zilean's new passive. And simply, while the gem floats around that ally, they can have all the same new mechanics of being a new conduit for Taric's spells. They can get increased damage reduction while it is on them, and cast heal/stun from them. And when Taric activates his W, it could shatter both gems, (himself and his ally), to have an extra offensive capability. He would still be a support, but he wouldn't be completely unable to win a fight if his stun missed. It would also allow him to possibly go to different roles, such as jungle/top because he'd have abilities to do damage with.

That would mean reworking the W from being a straight up damage reduction spell. But personally, I feel this is a good thing. That change would make his ultimate feel much more important

I would also tweak the idea of a delay on the stun. This could be changed to be a slow-moving projectile, so players would still have to try and lead the spell. But simply delaying the ability feels bad.

Thank you for reading. If you have any comments, I always enjoy constructive criticism.