Taric Rework (Theories/Suggestions) * /r/leagueoflegends
Hi, my name is Tarik. My real name.
So let's make it very clear that I have tried to main Taric in the past, to no avail. I'm simply not good enough to carry with him. However I'd like to discuss him and his abilities considering that the next rework is going to be Taric, and I'd like to give you all my idea of what I think would make him a fun champion.
Let's first discuss his identity. He's supposed to be a tank with alot of team support. He has the capability to swing a team fight with his auras, AoE armor shred, and the bonus AD and AP from his ult. I like the way his Q works as well. Character wise he's all about gems, he likes looking fabulous, the end. Riot make it a point to not lose the characters identity when reworking their characters, and thus I believe he is going to remain largely the same, however with recent champions and the poppy rework, literally anything could happen. Like how graves became a jungler all of a sudden.
Moving on. His Current abilities are as follows:
---Passive: Sheen proc that scales off of (Armor) by 20%, reduces all cooldowns by 2 seconds on proc.
---Q: Heal myself alot, or Heal ally and myself a little less. Scales off of (AP and Bonus Health).
---W: Myself and nearby allies get (bonus armor) = 12% of my (armor). Activate: Lose armor, enemies lose armor as well.
---E: Single target ranged stun, Stun duration scales with rank, damage scales with (AP).
---Ult: AOE Slam, Scales off of (AP) He gains (30/50/70 AD) and (30/50/70 AP), allies around him gain half that. (10 second duration).
In my opinion the most fun part of his kit is his passive, when following a proper rotation you can really feel the impact in an extremely slow 1v1 duel. That being said, unless you are fighting a Malphite, duels generally wont look like that.
His Q is fine, but I think it should scale completely off of his HP.
W is where things start to get annoying. You see, the problem with Taric is you exists in general for one purpose only. To be an Aura Bot. The game play is boring to play, and boring to play against, even Soraka with Warmogs (and 3k HP) requires more mechanical skill. You can literally stand there as Taric with max rank W, Aegis, and press R and spend the rest of the time following your much more mobile teammates around as they chase kills just outside of your stun range, and you would have done your job.
Riot wants to eliminate boring gameplay (boring to play, and boring to play against), and make more active skill based gameplay. They are changing everything into skill shots now as an example.
Riot also cares about clarity. When you know your champion inside and out, and you know exactly how much damage you can do with your abilities, then you burst another champion only to see you didn't do enough damage, and you wonder why...
Then a stupid completely unaware Taric walks out of a bush somewhere like "Wut... I saved someone with my aura? cool" and proceeds to wander his bronze ass of to somewhere else, that is not fun. Funny, but not fun. And so I can't remember where, but I do believe Riot has stated that him being an Aura bot is one of the things they are going to change.
E is literally the most boring spell of all time. And your Ult isn't much better. (In terms of fun gameplay.)
Now I'm going to tell you what I would do if I was going to rework Taric.
Passive: Exactly as it is but with one change. After spell, next attack does 20% of Armor as Magic Damage, Reduces all Cooldowns by 2 Seconds. And also gives him 5%-12% Bonus Movespeed for 3 Seconds. (Scales with Champion Level)
(Taric can get kited a bit too easily, even after getting an Iceborn Gauntlet. I feel like this would give the extra Buff he needs to be able to chase people down and be a bit stickier in general. This speed is nothing compared to some character's stickiness CoughIcebornFioraCough.
The other thing you need to consider is that Taric can't always make use of his passive in the most optimal way, in fact he can do so very rarely.)
Q: Imbue His Heal should remain exactly as it is except that it should scale entirely off of HP. Remove the 30% AP Scaling and bump up the HP Scaling from 5% to 11-15% (Increasing with Rank)
(It may sound like a crazy number but really it's not. When you think about the cooldown of this ability, even when juggling ability cooldowns with your passive, there are many champions that can blow this healing out of the water. Like Nami or even Sona. I'm disregarding Soraka because that's her thing and she deserves to have the most healing if it costs her HP.)
W: Radiance
And this is where the rework really begins. Taric's armor is made of enchanted gems... Bla Bla lore. Taric like's having the attention because he's fabulous. I take inspiration from Vayne, Irelia and Galio here.
Passive: Increase Armor and Magic Resist by 2% per Rank. (2/4/6/8/10%)
[Glimmering Pride] Whenever any Enemy Champion within 1200 Units of Taric is facing Taric, he gains a stacking 2% Bonus Armor and Magic Resist and 10% Tenacity. (This does not scale with rank at all.) There is a small indicator above a champion if it is giving you [Glimmering Pride]. Both enemies and allies can see the indicator.
Active: 550 Range AoE Taunt Centered on Taric for (0.7/0.9/1.1/1.3/1.5 Seconds) (Scales with Rank) (0.5 second cast time with some sort of cue)
When activating the ability, he loses the first part of his Passive Armor and MR for the next 5 Seconds. When activating the ability, [Glimmering Pride] Armor and MR bonus increases to (3%/3.5%/4%/4.5%/5%) for the next 5 Seconds. (Scaling with Rank.)
(So what does this mean. As long as he has 1 point in W he gains. 2% Armor and MR and 10% Tenacity per Enemy Champion facing him within range.
Each point in W will also provide him 2% increased Armor and MR passively. Still retains the concept of sacrificing his passive to use his active, however it rewards him if he lands a taunt on multiple people.
Playing against him you want to try and keep your character looking away from him as much as possible. This will mean that character who can cast abilities while looking away, such as Damage Over Time characters, Zed, Syndra, Orianna, Zilien or even ADC's if the turn away fast enough will be able to nullify his damage resistance to some degree.
In team fights he is no longer about being next to his allies and giving them auras, but instead about literally grabbing the attention of the enemy team, a more fitting objective for a tank. The more enemies that are worrying about him the stronger he becomes. However if he wastes his taunt on 2 or less people, then he becomes much easier to handle as he loses alot of his tankiness and no longer is a CC threat. More importantly you can ignore him and kill his team and deal with him later. There is nothing Taric hates more than being ignored. I feel like he would get along with Jhin.)
E: Dazzle AoE slow by 50% for 1.5 Seconds. AoE Near-Sighted for 1.5 Seconds if facing Taric. Does damage similar to that of the current E, but AoE of course.
The area of the AoE would function like this. Think of a Xerath Q. The longer you hold it down the further it goes. Well the name of spell is still Dazzle. He with his gems and glowy lights charges a light based attack. It starts as a cone the size of a Shyvana E in Dragon Form. The longer you charge it, the more focused the beam becomes, turning from a Shyvana Dragon E, into a Xerath Q. Holding on to it for too long returns half the Mana and Cooldown. All Targets Hit are slowed by 50% for 1.5, and Near-Sighted for 1.5 Seconds as well if they are facing him.
What is Near-Sighted? Graves W, Quinn Q, and Nocturn Ult. Except instead of making the rest of your screen black, it becomes extremely bright white.
R: Ultimate.
Well so far I believe I have turned Taric into a very interesting and fun character, but there is still one part of his identity that is not present in the kit. Which is the ability to make his team stronger, and the enemy team weaker. In the past (Currently actually) he provides his team with much needed Armor, MR (Aegis), AD and AP, and reduces enemy armor as well. He tips the playing field in his favor by giving his team stat advantages.
The problem was before that it created unfun and unclear gameplay. Even when he used his Ult, his allies only thought "Yay I'm stronger for these next 10 seconds."
What creates interesting gameplay is clutch moments, like when Thresh lands a hook, or Bard lands an ult. It's those moments that your team thinks "NOW, NOW IS THE MOMENT WHERE IT COUNTS", like when Sivir ults and your whole team shouts GO GO NOW! You never experienced that when Taric ults, because actions are what makes fun gameplay, not stats. However... As I said previously, with Jhin, Illaoi, Poppy, I have no idea what cool and over the top ultimate Riot will think of. But if they want to keep Taric's identity of making him the guy that affects the numbers without just being a buff bot, this is what I have in mind.
[Pure Light] Taric smashes the ground... Bla Bla AoE Damage Scaling with AP. And all Allies within 1200 units gain the following buff for 5 Seconds. (A floating Gem above the character indicates they have the buff.)
[Transcending Reality] Your next ability will deal all of it's damage as True Damage.
Now I know what you're thinking. :) GTFO of here. But hear me out for a second. Assuming that this ability will have a reasonable cooldown, (much like Zilien's ult with his W), Taric will be able to have this ability up once every 2 minutes ONLY if he makes full use of his passive.
This right here guys is what Taric needs for him to become exciting to play, and fearful to play against. That moment when you hear your Taric smash the ground, is the moment when you instantly think "NOW". It's the ability that levels the playing field against tanks if he is with his team, and is the ability that will turn him into a team-fighting monster.
It also requires coordination so your teammates done accidentally blow it on a low damage spell, or use their high damage spells and Ultimates too early.
The only problem with this ability as I see it is that it requires no skill to execute, and once again simply rewards his team for being near him, as opposed to playing into one of his mechanics.
I am open to suggestions, and of course, I'm sure Riot will make his ultimate something far more interesting and out of the box, but for now, I would be happy to see Taric's W and E changed to what I have made above.
Thanks for your patience. I posted on Reddit as Well.
