@Morello, Let's talk about Taric.

Rhastago·May 23, 2014·61 votes·5,921 views

Hello,

I am an avid fan, who has been waiting roughly 1 and half years for a visual update to our beloved gem knight.

(I've started playing roughly 2 years ago on the EUW servers)

Sadly, all I've seen were promises (made by IronStylus and GrumpyMonkey to name a few) that it was coming along soon with a kit update only to see my favorite champ (who represents my favorite fantasy, the Paladin) left in the dark, having pizza feet and feeling clunky as hell. (those cast time and each and every ability really make him FEEL really bad.)

Is there a chance for an update on his.. update?

I've been waiting for all this time but nothing, not even a glimpse is given.

Please, and his fans deserve a sneak peek into our fabulous Fabio gem knight.

Thank you.

34 Comments

RiotMorelloMay 23, 201412 votes

I don't think Taric's in the immediate priority, but we agree he's on the "ugh" list of badness. :) I'd have to ask artists on their thoughts of VU and how that relates to gameplay update.

In this case, we'd be waiting to add Gameplay until a VU, since we can easily piggyback on the new VFX and animations (which lets us release more reworks when we do this!)

GarentheonMay 23, 20146 votes

Wow. Being that they've mentioned starting him late last year, I thought he might be around the corner. Makes me sad

RiotMorelloMay 24, 20146 votes

We had to reprioritize this year with an actual strategy. Good to do, but I'll be honest - Riot's pretty bad (myself included) at managing expectations!

RhastagoMay 24, 20142 votes

Is Taric a part of this year's strategy? And yes, I am mashing F5 waiting for replies.

The Best Cat EUMay 24, 20142 votes

What you gona do with taric. obviously, no one gona use him after braum arrived. Taric need buff and visual upgrade for sure .

GarentheonMay 24, 20143 votes

Although I am disappointed by the delay of Taric and facing the reality that we'll probably get a lot less VUs this year than we thought ( 10 last year according to a Rioter), I do respect your honesty and the quality of these recent VUs.

VUs are the most exciting thing to me. I love them. They are turning 119 into something more than just a number.Turning quantity into quality. This is what keeps me playing the game. Every beginning of a PBE cycle I hope to see a VU announcement. If I has to pick a dream job, which I couldn't do until I started playing LOL, it would be working with the lovely people on the Relaunch Team. Yea, I'm pretty passionate about this stuff

CuixMay 24, 20147 votes

Well, when you make big announcements/statements and then go completely silent, people are gonna end up annoyed.

Godly6RMay 24, 20145 votes

Replay Feature coming soon™

LunæMay 26, 20141 votes

RIP Replays

ratcharmerMay 25, 20143 votes

^THIS.

SO MUCH THIS.

The pattern that has emerged over and over again with Riot is as follows:

Riot makes a very promising-sounding statement. Since the community has very little else to go on we read into it a lot.
6 months to a year pass, and all inquiries are met with extremely vague replies.
Riot then makes an announcement completely contradictory to the original statement that got our hopes up.

ZendrôMay 25, 20141 votes

Right? Honestly thought Taric (or Sion) would get VU after Twitch because I recall the idea of them being in the works springing up nearly a year ago by a red on the forums, but Rito pulled a Rito and fail to follow up on our hopes. (Because we've waited now were going to have to wait some more)

CuixMay 26, 20144 votes

A Rioter then comes to the forums and says, "See, this is why we don't announce things in advance. You guys get all mad at us!"

ratcharmerMay 30, 20143 votes

and Riot then uses that to justify their next 6-month long silent spell . . .

RhastagoMay 24, 20143 votes

I am still pressing F5 since 11 hours ago. Please be a gem and let us know at least if it's coming anytime soon.. :(

Also look at the amount of upvotes this has got! It means a lot to the community.

gfhdjIdfhgkIdfhzMay 24, 20143 votes

And I can assure you that a lot of other people are also constantly checking this thread now. Many people would like to see Taric getting a visual update or a rework, so it's a bit saddening that he seems to be somewhat low priority to Riot.

RhastagoMay 26, 20141 votes

Can we at least increase his model size in the meanwhile? Being a midget ain't that great for body blocking stuff for our squishy friends.

RhastagoMay 23, 20144 votes

That makes me quite sad to hear. As immortalibra said, he was hinted as being worked on for such a long time!..

To hear that he's still ways off is quite disappointing.

To reiterate how much Taric is out of the loop, I urge you to look at every support discussion\guide - no one even mentions Taric as a support!

He might be picked in ranked a bit, but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve the attention of the rework team.

At the very least, Morello, could we have any sort of firm time frame for this long waited update?

I will be thankful for any morsel of solid information headed this way.

Thank you!

Edit:

And of course, thank you so much for taking the time to reply. As Taric's #1 fan, it is awesome to hear from you.

CupcakeTrapMay 23, 201423 votes

Glad to hear he's on the list. I mained him for a while. I started playing him because I loved his "paladin" theme. I stopped playing him for a couple of reasons: he started feeling lackluster compared to other supports, and I started to agree with the general theory that he's "low-skillcap", which made playing him a lot feel like a waste. I think it was mostly the latter; I'm a Veigar main, so obviously a Champion being weak is not in itself a dealbreaker for me.

My 30-second framing pitch if I were redesigning him:

Toe-to-toe. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Taric's classic design is that the more aggressively he fights the more he gets to heal his allies. Visually, he is very heavily armored and looks like he's supposed to get up close and personal with the enemy. It's a problem if his stats/design are such that charging into the fray is usually a mistake.
Tank-threat. Every tank needs a threat, or else the enemy team will ignore them. Taric's threat: so long as I'm going toe-to-toe with you, I can keep my teammates alive.
"The Armor Champ"? Big decision to make: right now, armor is a huge part of his theme, making him naturally a situational pick against high-AD teams. This is good in that it gives him a niche, and bad in that it starts to sound like a "hard counter" gameplay design.
Paladin. LoL is a game that often borrows from classic tropes to swiftly and powerfully convey character concepts. Taric's inspiration is the paladin: a resilient warrior who inspires his allies.
Braum and Leona. As a defensive support-tank, we need to figure out what makes Taric different from Braum ("shield tank") and Leona ("aggressive lockdown tank"). The most obvious solution: link Taric's support moves (heals, buffs, debuffs) to getting into combat and sticking to a target.
Traditional Support? Taric is a traditional Support, with a high power-floor and a low power-ceiling: he doesn't scale well at all, but has a lot of base utility. Do we want to keep this? If so, he may need buffs given the S4 changes, which have given Supports more gold and made the ability to contribute with minimal gold less significant.

And here are a couple ideas:

Challenge. A "challenge" mechanic might fit his knightly "dueling" theme and add a meaningful gameplay decision. Provide a way for Taric to call out a given Champion as his nemesis. Then, reward him for sticking to that nemesis by, e.g., giving him more heals/buffs/debuffs.
Mana-hunger. Running out of mana is generally not a fun experience. However, strict mana costs help force Taric to use spells strategically in lane. This fits his role as a "paladin" rather than a "mage" or "cleric": his spells should be decision points, not core spammable abilities.

RhastagoMay 23, 20148 votes

You totally get it. Thank you for getting the point across in such an eloquent manner.

Making Taric live out his Paladin fantasy would be amazing and fill a huge void created in this game.

As of right now Taric is largely ignored.

DunalMay 23, 20143 votes

That's really disappointing.

J3 e c k e t tMay 24, 20141 votes

Please tell me nidalee is getting a visual update soon. Especially that pharaoh skin. It's just flat out unnatractive and a waste of RP.

GarentheonMay 24, 20145 votes

She already had a VU.

ChaosThiefMay 24, 20141 votes

When did you last see nidalee's old appearance..?

Penguin EclipseMay 25, 20141 votes

Some of her splash arts could use an update but her in game model doesn't need a VU.

I Main SwainMay 24, 20143 votes

"who represents my favorite fantasy, the Paladn"

glad you clarified your "favorite fantasy" O_O

i was thinking at first, "is ezreal perhaps involved in this...fantasy?"

RhastagoMay 24, 20143 votes

That doesn't conflict. ;)

ZendrôMay 24, 20143 votes

Please be trolling on the time frame pls Morello Q_Q

ChaosThiefMay 24, 20141 votes

Someone downvoted you even though you have a good intent... douches these days...

Then again nobody likes Leblanc , Nidalee , or Soraka at this point. I can see why.

Knight DevoutMay 23, 20142 votes

Upvoted! Taric is suffering the same issues as soraka.

Love The BombMay 24, 20142 votes

Yes, he could use a rework and a VU!

Emulous WombatMay 25, 20142 votes

I am deeply saddened by this news. I was looking forward to his rework for quite some time now, as many assumed he was high on the VU priority list. I take this news as a statement saying "Hey, wait another 2 years, and maybe we will talk about it again." I certainly hope I am wrong, but am devastated by this news.

OrisiMay 24, 20141 votes

I think with two main pieces of information; That Riot don't like Auras anymore, and Braum existing, Taric needs a new direction. Who's going to take a tanky armour-sharing aura over an as-needed armour/mr share who can also block projectiles and apply multiple potential stuns on-hit?

I'd love to see taric become the aggressive healer; Instead of sharing mana, his attacks proc a sizeable life-steal effect that heals his nearest/lowest ally instead of effecting his own health pool. Sort of like a sona heal, but procced from each auto-attack. It wouldn't need a massive range, just enough to have to properly peel him from the adc for kills to be really effective. With a relatively slow aa speed early game, the heals could be significant (say 20% of damage dealt) but would be slow enough and have a low enough range to mean he only offers that bonus if he can hug his adc. Make sure it only procs if he hits enemy champs, or has a minor cool down for how often it'll heal, however it'd need balancing, and you end up with a champ whose offering a new perspective on aggressive defence.

True Axis HeroMay 25, 20141 votes

I think one issue Taric has is how do you differentiate him from the other tanky supports while sticking to the heavily armored gem-knight theme.

NοnoJul 23, 20141 votes

Taric release date: 2009-08-19. It's been 5 years. Nearly 2 years ago you said you were working on his VU. Now, you say that you haven't yet started. Is that a joke? Better take care of competitive champs like Kah'zix or Lee Sin, because they are already fun to play.

I play since S2 and I'm really disappointed.