Taric: Kit Rework Ideas

Taric has obviously become a neglected champion in the community. Not as a character, but more as playable champion. His kit is outdazzled by other tank supports who honestly do a much better job than he does overall, assuming players are on equal skill levels. His role as a champion is a little vague, as his abilities do not necessarily have the greatest synergy, especially when compared to champions like Leona, Thresh, Alistar, and Braum. These examples all have abilities that flow into one another, such as Braum using his W to jump to a teammate and then using E to protect them from projectiles, or Leona using her W, E, Q combo to snare, close in, stun, and deal AoE damage while remaining very tanky from the defensive bonuses. In addition, they can all be defined simply. Braum protects his allies by using himself as a shield. Leona jumps into the fray as a wall of CC. Alistar is a frontline tank who can both devastate the entire enemy team with CC or save his own team with CC and sustain. Thresh is able to both engage and disengage in nearly every situation. Taric has a heal, AoE damage, armor reduction, single target stun, and auras. It's difficult to define Taric simply without saying, "Oh, and he also does this and that." Taric does several things that don't necessarily flow well together, in my honest opinion. I personally find it rather difficult to sum Taric up in a sentence that isn't "he's a tank support." He protects his teammates? Yes, but nearly any champion can simply stand in the way to block a skillshot. His aura DOES give his teammates armor to help passively, but he doesn't have any mechanics that can effectively protect a teammate or his team, unlike other champions. He can heal them! However, his heal is outdone by almost every heal in the game: Sona heals more based on missing health and can shield her team, Soraka heals about every 2 seconds AND can heal her whole team for a massive amount across the map, Alistar can heal an entire team and minion wave for small amounts and a short cooldown as nearby enemies die, Kayle increases movespeed, Nidalee increases attack speed, Janna knocks enemies away while providing a large AoE heal. Taric's heal offers little aside from scaling off of a bit of his bonus health and being able to heal himself at the same time. He can stun! Yes. One target, with a fairly long cooldown. When against a team, Taric could stun the carry on the team, but it leaves a lot left. His stun severly lacks the skill and versatility that other supports have. Leona and Sona can potentially stun an entire team, or completely miss. Braum could have an entire enemy team stunned with proper synergy with his teammates. Thresh can choose to take a risk and go in, or leave an enemy be when he hooks them. Taric on the other hand, simply stuns whoever he pressed E on (unless walled or QSS/Crucible/Cleansed). No more, no less. He doesn't have to rely on his teammates to get the stun or even the player's skill. In addition, the gimmicky "does more damage when closer" offers little as a support. It seems to encourage Taric players to get up close, but what is the point when Taric is also being encourage to build tanky, not damage? His W and ult, in my opinion, are at an okay spot, but need a little more spice in order to give Taric a clearer identity. Being an armor tank who gives his team auras, can heal, deal AoE burst damage, and duel isn't the clearest way to define him. Especially when he is a support.

So my goal here is to give him a clearer role: a heroic knight who protects his teammates by empowering them and making enemies regret their assault. Yes, a long post, but those are my honest opinions about my favorite champion. I love Taric as a character, and I want his role in the game to be more significant. I like the fact that he is an armor champion, and is generally weaker against magic damage and poke team comps, so I also wanted to keep that the same.

Passive: Gemcraft Taric's basic attacks and abilities reduce the armor of enemies by 5/10/15/20 (+5% armor) for 1 second. After using an ability, Taric's next basic attack reduces his abilities' cooldown by 2 seconds.

This change to his passive is meant to make it more useful to his team, rather than to himself. Instead of his W shredding armor, constantly being in a fight will make him a threat to his enemies. As long as they are affected by an ability (such as being stunned), the debuff will remain until 1 second after the effects are over. This makes him much more useful as a teamfighter and to his ADC, and makes the enemy think twice before engaging on him.

Q: Imbue Active: Taric channels earthen energy to heal a target allied unit. If the target is a champion, the bonus armor they receive from Shatter is doubled for 4 seconds. As the magic flows through them, he is healed for the same amount. If Taric heals only himself, the heal will be 40% more effective, but he will not receive an armor bonus.

Heal: 60/90/120/150/180 (+30% AP) (+10% bonus health) Range: 750 Cost: 60/80/100/120/140 mana Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14

The base heal of Imbue is reduced to compensate for the fact that it would scale better off of bonus health. Remember when Soraka's heal used to give armor? I feel like it's only fitting that Taric's heal did, too, now that Soraka's old heal is gone. Instead of flat out armor, though, I felt it would be more appropriate to link it to his W. It benefits his teammates if Taric is building a lot of armor. I thought it would be best to make it so Taric wouldn't be able to give himself armor, because his bonus would stack upon itself and make his entire team a little too tanky. It results in Taric having to make a decision between strengthening his teammates or healing himself for a greater value.

W: Shatter Passive: Taric reinforces his armor with gemstones, increasing his armor while Shatter is off cooldown. He also gains a 500-range aura, increasing his armor and allied champions' armor by 12% of his total armor. Active: Taric shatters his gemstones, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies within 200-range and scattering gems upon the ground for 8 seconds that slow enemies who walk on them. Upon activating Shatter, Taric gains 50% movement speed that decays over 2 seconds.

Armor: 10/15/20/25/30 Magic Damage: 40/80/120/160/200 (+20% armor) Slow: 20%/25%/30%/35%/40% Scatter Radius: 250 Cost: 50 mana Cooldown: 10

Now that the passive has the armor shredding mechanic, Shatter would remain very similar to how it is currently, with some extra buffs. Upon casting Shatter, a circle will be left on the ground, similar to Singed's adhesive, slowing enemies who walk on it. However, because of the passive, the area also reduces the armor of enemies as well. In addition, I added another mechanic that both and helps Taric's gameplay AND makes a bit of sense: gaining a short burst of movespeed upon shattering. Gems are heavy. Shattering them makes it lighter for Taric, therefore allowing him to run faster! :D As for gameplay purposes, it allows for Taric to reposition himself to block shots from enemies or increase his ability to escape in exchange for his armor bonus. This gives Taric some better peeling mechanics when facing multiple enemies, instead of a single target stun. However, an AoE slow will still not keep many mages from striking Taric and his ADC from afar.

E: Dazzle Active: Taric fires a prismatic sphere in a targeted direction. On impact with an enemy champion, the sphere explodes and all enemies within the explosion are stunned and take magic damage. The radius of the explosion increases if the enemy the closer the target is to Taric (up to 40%).

Magic Damage: 50/80/110/140/170/200 (40% AP) Range: 1000 Missile Speed: 1400 Stun Duration: 7.5/1/1.25/1.5/1.75 Cost: 75 mana Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14

So the concept of Dazzle is to incorporate the "more powerful when closer" idea into something that is more relevant. Amplifying damage wasn't particularly useful as a support, but having a Jayce-like effect for his Dazzle seems like it would be a lot more rewarding, while adding a lot of risk as well. The closer the enemy is when the ball hits them, the bigger the explosion, the more the stuns. The explosion's sizes would be about the same as Jayce's Q sizes, except with different sizes in between. I removed being able to stun minions and monsters, because walking up to a minion in lane and completely missing the enemy and hitting a minion shouldn't result in a big AoE stun. Of course, the range is increased because it is a skillshot. The ball will only explode if it hits something. Otherwise, it just disappears. If Taric misses his Dazzle, it will go on an incredibly long cooldown, and this time, he will have a much more severe consequence. His current Dazzle has a long cooldown AND an almost guaranteed stun. However, if he misses, he will suffer for it. If not, he could stun multiple enemies at once. Because it is significantly less effective at long range, it leaves Taric open to being poked, especially since Dazzle would remain a slow projectile.

R: Radiance Active: Taric dashes to a target ally champion and slams the ground with his hammer, dealing magic damage to enemies within range and slightly knocking them away from him. Taric can activate Radiance without targeting an ally champion. For the next 8 seconds, Taric emits an aura of light that increases his attack damage and ability power, while allies within 500-range gain half of those bonuses.

Damage: 150/250/350 (+30% Armor) Radius: 200 Self AD & AP Bonus: 30/50/70 Aura AD & AP Bonus: 15/25/35 Cost: 100 Mana Cooldown: 75

Taric's ult currently gives a strong, but very subtle boost to his team. This change makes it so that his ult offers more than just a bit of AoE burst and another aura. It gives him a new mechanic to protect his teammates and disengage. However, I reduced the duration of the aura to compensate for the new mobility. This allows Taric to both jump to the rescue of his teammates as well as to better position himself so that he can ensure that his teammates receive the auras, instead of how he currently is: having to sluggishly keep up with his team so they receive the buffs. The knockback from the ult could be compared to Thresh's flay, except they are always knocked AWAY from Taric. This can result in some plays in with a skillfully timed ult can completely turn the tides of an engage from their enemy tank. However, since Taric is ONLY able to jump to ally champions, he can't pull an Ali/Leona/Malphite/Xin Zhao/etc. with an engage. Neither can he performing crazy ward/minion jump plays or have easy escapes when allies aren't around. It would only encourage proper positioning with teammates and waiting for the opportune time to counter an engage, rather than jumping in himself.

So, these are my ideas for a new Taric kit. Like them, hate them, criticize them. These ideas were made with the intent to make him feel like a paladin who protects and strengthens his allies and punishes those who try to attack them. Please post your opinions and suggestions, and please avoid flaming. These are based off of my opinions on Taric's current state and they are what I feel would give Taric a clearer identity.