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[Champion Rework] Taric, the Gem Knight

The5lacker·12/12/2014, 6:45:32 AM·7 votes·1,119 views

So Taric is...old. He's got a very old kit with some very old sensibilities that make him rather difficult to balance. When he's viable he's viable either due to very silly reasons (Mana stacking ftw) or a very particular meta that's sprung up that he counters. Aside from that, he's very...difficult to use effectively. He has a decent amount of utility but he's so short range and immobile that it's difficult for him to make good use of his kit, and his mana costs are purposefully restrictive due to his rather insane (but self-focused) sustain.

Taric could use a gameplay update. Not really a full-fledged rework, but more of a kit refocusing a-la Trundle or Viktor. But before we go into that, lets look at Taric's core identities, some of the other things he's got going on, and some of the things he needs.

Core Principles

  • Group hug heals: Taric is all about spreading the love.
  • Defensive auras: Taric is all about keeping his friends safe.
  • Restrictive mana costs and cooldowns: Taric's got too much health sustain to have it be easily accessable, and most of his other abilities tend to be both on the expensive side mana wise or have a lengthy cooldown.
  • Range: Taric's a very short-range, low mobility champion. But, like many short range champs, he's a decent juggernaut when he enters the fray and benefits from being surrounded by as many allies and enemies as possible.

Additional Quirks

  • Armor scaling: For some reason it was decided that Taric was to scale heavily on Armor. He has two damaging abilities that scale on it, as well as an armor reduction that scales on...armor. For some reason.
  • Abysmal scaling: Due to the occassional surge in popularity, Taric ended up more or less stripped of his AP scalings, at least to any meaningful degree. This is probably related to-
  • Massive self-buffs: Between his inherent Armor bonus from Shatter and his 70 AP/AD steroid from his Ult, Taric grants himself a rather excessive amount of free stats that he can't really take great advantage of.
  • Cooldown management: Taric reduces all of his cooldowns by a flat 2 seconds after ever cast, so long as he can hit something with his hammer, which I personally think is perfectly reasonable, if a little underwhelming at the moment.

New Ideas

  • Mana synergy: It's something Taric used to have, but I'm kinda perplexed that the Gem Knight doesn't get some sweet Mana synergy to play with. Gemcrafting used to be really fun...
  • Mana management: Additionally, Taric really needs some way of managing his Mana. His costs can be plenty high, but give him some way of playing around those costs so that both parties get to do something interesting, as opposed to Taric healing three times then recalling back to base for a pick-me-up.
  • Crystals: For being the "Gem Knight" Taric sure lacks a certain...crystalline flair to his abilities. Most of it's just light and green heal-y swirls. I don't want to just see some flashy lights, I wanna see guys smashed in the face with hunks of quartz!

So with all those in mind, I'd like to share my proposed Taric rework, bringing him up to speed with current champs and offering some more counterplay options both for himself and for his enemies.

  • Innate - Imbued Strike

  • Whenever Taric activates an ability in empowers his crystalline hammer, causing his next attack to deal bonus magic damage equal to 5% of his maximum mana, restore mana equal to 5% of his missing mana, and reduces his ability's cooldowns by 1 second. If Taric strikes an enemy champion, the damage and mana restored are doubled, and his cooldowns are reduced by 3 seconds instead.

  • Q - Restorative Burst

  • Active - Taric imbues targeted ally with a surge of vitality, restoring 80/120/160/200/240 (+40% AP) (+5% maximum Mana) health to the target and 40/60/80/100/120 (+20% AP) (+2.5% maximum Mana) health to all other allies in a small area. If Taric targets himself, nearby allies heal for 60/90/120/150/180 (+30% AP) (+3.75% maximum Mana) instead and if effects a wider area.

  • Cost: 80/90/100/110/120 Mana

  • Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 Seconds

  • Range: 800

  • Radius: 200 (300 when self-targeted)

  • W - Shielding Crystal

  • Active - Taric summons a pillar of crystal that blocks movement for 5 seconds. Allies within a radius around the pillar gain 20/25/30/35/40 Armor and Magic Resist, gaining bonus Armor and Magic Resist equal to 10.0/11.25/12.5/13.75/15.0% of Taric's bonus Armor and Magic Resist, respectively. Taric can reactivate the ability to shatter the crystal, allowing movement. Cost: 80 Mana

  • Cooldown: 22.0/20.5/19.0/17.5/16.0 Seconds

  • Range: 800

  • Collision Radius: 75

  • Aura Radius: 600

  • E - Dazzling Shard

  • Active - Taric fires a shard of enchanted crystal that explodes upon impacting an enemy, dealing 60/90/120/150/180 (+40% AP) (+5% maximum Mana) magic damage to enemies in an area. All enemies hit are slowed by 40/45/50/55/60% for 2 seconds, with the slow decaying over its duration, though the enemy directly hit is stunned for .75 seconds.

  • Cost: 80 Mana

  • Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 Seconds

  • Range: 800

  • Radius: 225

  • Ultimate - Prismatic Surge

  • Active - Taric slams his hammer into the ground, releasing a surge of energy that expands outwards, dealing 150/250/350 (+50% AP) magic damage to enemies around him and stunning them for 1.0/1.25/1.5 seconds. Allies within the area are healed for 150/250/350 (+50% AP) health.

  • Cost: 100 Mana

  • Cooldown: 150/135/120 Seconds

  • Radius: 500

EDIT (12/14/2014) : Reworked W and Ult to be more interactive. W now summons a terrain spire similar to Trundle's Pillar of Ice, Ult is now a point-blank AoE damage/heal.

4 Comments

Chickensuit012/13/2014, 12:17:25 PM3 votes

So the main problem with Taric's W is that it has a lot of hidden power, like pre-rework Sona. Now, this is something they tried to remove from Sona with her rework, with debateable success.

With you proposed rework, this hidden power becomes even more hidden, and extremely powerful (remember the old Runic Bulwark?). Instead, it should do something similar to the current W's active: A benefit that lasts a short duration at Taric's expense, e.g.

W - Gemcrafter's Blessing

Passive: Taric gains armor when this ability is available, increasing over 5 seconds, to a maximum of double the amount.

Active: Taric shatters his defensive gems, protecting nearby allies with a shield, and reducing the armor of surrounding opponents.

Passive Base Value: 5/7.5/10/12.5/15 Active Shield: 35/55/75/95/115 (+50% armor) Active Armor Shred: 20% Taric's armor Cooldown: 12 secs Cost: 50 mana

or similar...

The point would be to remove "hidden" stats that Taric gives to allies, while still retaining the protector ideal.

Elsewhere, Taric's passive is too frontloaded. It is basically his old and new passives put together. Though its fits, perhaps it is too Yasuo for its purpose.

The slow on E is ridiculous, given it is AOE. I know there should be some reward for a skillshot, but its basically a Sejuani ult with slightly less hard CC, possibly shorter range, and a much, much shorter cooldown.

Otherwise, it's a nice take, and is interesting thematically, but I think it still clings onto the old and "confused" concept Riot had when designing the champion. They are trying to "fix" this currently, but I'd be surprised if everyone was happy with the result.