Taric Utility Ratio Theorycrafting
So I've been playing Taric in the top lane quite a bit recently and I've enjoyed the surprising amount of damage he is able to do when you properly utilize his passive and Q spam. I have been building tear > IBG > muramana > armor tank items. This has given me the ability to fairly consistently use his passive to win trades and dominate extended fights against your typical top lane match-ups.
That being said, I feel like Taric's tanky fighter play-style is (intentionally) overshadowed by his support role, and while that is fine, I feel there could be a small change to Taric in the top lane that would allow for the mana/tank play-style to become an actual viable mid-late game niche for Taric.
What I propose is a utility ratio on Taric's stun that is tied to mana. For every 500 mana that Taric has, his stun duration on E goes up by .1. I did some quick math (correct me if I'm wrong here) and with IBG + a fully stacked Muramana, Taric will have 2820 mana at lvl 18. That means that with this change, the mana that Taric builds would add .5 seconds on to his stun. Now this number suggestion is not set in stone, and is just a rough idea to get my point across. Basically right now, if Taric is building as a tanky fighter, he is only building mana items to combat his insane mana costs when you use his abilities to actually fight. This change would give the fighter version of Taric a little extra oomph as the game goes on. If Taric REALLY wanted to extend the duration of his stun for team fight purposes, he could stack a ton of mana, but this would hurt other aspects of his kit (whether that be him sacrificing tank stats, or sacrificing support items), so I don't think this would be a negative interaction.
As support Taric does not stack mana (from what I've seen anyway) I don't feel like this change would do anything to put that role out of line, while giving his other solo roles a buff to push him into a more diverse play-style. One of the biggest problems fighter Taric has in my experience is sticking to people after his stun wears off. This change does not necessarily increase his sticking potential, but it does allow him to get more damage off during his threat period when he lands a stun
Anyway let me know what you guys think. Do you think this change would help Taric branch off into other lanes? Will it somehow break the champion and I am just missing it? Let me know!
TLDR: Solo lane fighter Taric could use a little reward for building mana. Moar mana = slightly longer stun. Discuss.
