much better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjEJMBBx0ns

character, charm, personality, mellow. old taric had it all, the perfect embodiment of who he was

new taric is a good argument for "show, don't tell"; he talks himself up way too much. old taric made you feel safe, new taric tells you that you should feel safe. not to mention new taric is just goofy and dumb. old taric was definitely campy, but he had charm to him, from his aloof tone and noted fascination with gems to being bedecked in them. unpolished, but it was nice.

there was no reason to get rid of all the stuff that made him stand out so much. new taric is just so completely uninspiring; the targon story is just a terribly weak way to connect him to the new lore. it feels like riot wanted to keep some part of him alien, so they had an outside entity play that part instead, but i've got absolutely zero interest in him being space-themed. and not to mention, his completely undeserved ego; he's been 'chosen' by this aforementioned entity, and despite having done nothing afterward, has let it go entirely to his head, and his voice-lines are filled with talk about how he's chosen, or how he climbed the mountain. so he kept the sort of one-dimensional nature, only now he's swapped from gems to targon stuff, and he went from pleasantly cheesy to being one of two characters i mute

tl;dr give me the old taric, the better taric.