Taric the Gay's overall critique on the Taric Rework (After playing it)
I finally got around to playing Taric for a couple games. They were all bot games but I still got a decent feel for his kit. Overall I felt like he had more presence in the game but he was more of a nuisance than an actual threat. I feel like his kit still needs tweaking in the line of his cooldowns and mana costs. His passive is very strong for dueling but his mana costs gate him from having any offensive pressure whatsoever in the early game. So overall I feel like he has a stronger identity as a champion but he still isn't exactly where he needs to be. I will go through it all by ability.
Passive - Bravado Major improvement over gem craft. 2 empowered auto attacks are better than 1. And the cooldown reduction is back on other abilities but its better than before. And the attack speed boost is nice too. This ability comes into play best in the jungle where chasing down your target is not a common occurrence and Taric can just go to town smacking away at his target. Q - Starlight's Touch This has a very short cooldown when paired with Taric's passive. It is up every 2 seconds pretty much. So as a healer this heals WAY MORE than the old imbue did and you can cast it more often. Major improvement to Taric's sustain game. But spamming it can and will make you run out of mana in 20 seconds or less. The damage output from the passive is not worth the mana cost. While this is Taric's go to spell for proccing his passive it should not be used in an offensive fashion in 99% of the situations you find yourself in. Spamming this should be done in order to get the other abilities off cooldown as opposed to getting actual damage output. It doesn't heal minions which is kind of a let down but also something I expected to be removed. W - Bastion I will miss shatter for the wave clear. Without shatter Taric can no longer be a candidate for split pushing for his team come late game. This new bastion ability is 100% a utility "team player" ability. Unlike with Lulu or Karma, this cannot me cast on minions. That and the armor improvements just seemed weaker to me that with shatter. I was told that statistically this one gives more armor but it did not feel like it. But everything else is an improvement. Bastion's active effect gives a shield to both you and an ally and self casting it still shields you but no more than if you shielded your ally and yourself. But because this ability works in conjunction with the other abilities it gives Taric far better presence in the games. If your allies huddle up and position accordingly Taric can heal and immunize everyone on his team. And with proper positioning and timing Taric can now stun multiple targets. E - Dazzle It still stuns for the same amount of time but it is now a skillshot and it also can hit multiple targets and can be shot into the fog of war to hit targets. But because it is a skill shot it can be dodged and the delay on the stun makes the dodge very likely without proper positioning. This change raised the skill floor on Taric as a champion but also raised his overall potential. I like the change overall but it takes practice to get the hang out of it. R - Cosmic Radiance Being invulnerable for 3 seconds is no joke. But its not instantaneous so it requires accurate prediction on the part of Taric which also dramatically raises the skill floor on Taric as a champion. Too early and you leave your team open for retribution for the next 2 minutes. Too late and teammates can die. And position yourself or select the incorrect bastioned ally and not everyone gets the invulnerability. There is one trick to this though. You can have bastion on a back line ally when you originally cast this then midway through cosmic radiance swap to your frontliner and they will get the immediate effect of invulnerability without the telegraph showing up. Neat little trick I picked up in one of my games.
Taric as a support As a support this really made some strong improvements to his overall functionality to his team. His bastion shines brightest when paired alongside an ally in lane. But the fact that bastion has 10x the range of shatter when granting the armor aura is a major improvement. And Taric's heal also has a longer range so you no longer have to straddle your ADC to grant them your aura. The dual stun is a nice touch because it no longer means that champions like Morgana can completely shut him down with the press of a button. Sure they can stop the stun but they now have to choose whether to shield their ally or themselves while the unshielded one gets stunned and smacked around. And the ultimate is great for turret diving and preventing yourself from getting turret dived. With a passive kit Taric definitely supports any ADC who likes to lay back and farm all laning phase and fight from afar.
Taric as a solo laner (top or mid) Not good to be honest. He is a counter pick choice at best. His mana costs are high for the early levels and for such a low impact and easily dodged kit he really lacks presence in the early game. He will still be hard to shove out of lane but with the exception of certain matchups he's just a placeholder who is always on the defensive and never on the defensive. Pick him for when you want to counter pick a heavy AD opponent or if you have a snowbally jungler that needs someone to set up before their ganks like Kindred or Shyvana or Udyr. The down side to laning alone is that your only form of ranged CC and poke is very easy to dodge.
Taric in the jungle It definitely works. Its just not that strong. It is either slow in clears or it is mana dependent. Or both. He needs to start blue side to be able to get far in his first clear, but if he does he comes out fairly healthy making invasion junglers who play against him unable to kill him and waste their time. But counter jungling on the other hand will mess Taric up quite a bit as his slow clear speeds and mana costs gate him considerably and with a very predictable jungle route that makes it easy to counter jungle him. Taric will most likely build tanky opting for tracker's knife as his primary jungle item and stalker's blade as his situational option and will choose between either cinderhulk or runic echoes for his upgrade. His ganks are kind of subpar but functional pre-6. What he will be best at is counter ganking where you go in and thwart the enemy jungler from making successful ganks. Do this well and Taric will have a strong presence in game.
Taric overall His skill floor is certainly higher. Taric has always been a champion who needs precise timing to get the full impact of his kit but now you actually need to aim too. There are tougher champions that Taric of course but if you have a friend who is new to league and you need to recommend a champion for him, take Taric off the list. His sustain and utility is much better but his wave clear, clear times and mana usage are worse. He got a buff to his support role but a nerf to his solo laning. If Riot does what I think they will do which is nerf his passive and compensate him with some mana cost reductions then I think we will see his ability to solo lane improve
Taric's ideal teammates:
(Obviously) 
Taric's ideal teammates have mobility, preferably the kind that boosts up the whole team like with Sivir, Jayve and Karma. Mobile ADCs like Ezreal, Corki and Kalista make Taric's ability to land a stun much easier. Champions who rush the enemy team and burst down everything in sight (Olaf, Darius, Tryndamere) benefit greatly from Taric as his ultimate can prevent/delay their death and can set them up for kills with his stuns.
Taric's easiest matchups:
Pretty much anyone who roots themselves to cast one of their abilities is just asking to get their ballsack bedazzled. Anyone who does not have instant mobility but instead has a speed boost as their gap closer also give Taric an easy time. And then there are also the AD casters who deal a majority of their damage in the form of AD and who have limited or no ranged abilities to poke Taric down with have a tough time bringing Taric down.
Taric's hardest matchups:
Spell shields still give Taric a rough time. CC immunity or removal falls into the same category. Long ranged burst damage, namely the AP kind, give Taric something difficult to work with. AOE CC makes Taric's ultimate have a smaller impact. Walls and mass peel spells also give Taric difficulty.
