Bruiser Taric?
 

How do you do this? I've been poking at Taric (not that way) for a few days now, and I can't for the life of me get a decent build down, either for items or for skill order. What's a good starting point?

Max Shatter first, your heal second unless you feel you don't need it - then max the stun second. Point in stun at level 1 if you expect to have a jungle gank early or expect to BE ganked early, otherwise get it at 2.

Item selection: Wit's End, Trinity Force, Maw of Malmortius, and tanky stuff. Build according to needs of the game and your lane.

The problem you will run into most of the time is that a Taric solo top with farm is still a Taric late game. He doesn't really scale that well with gear, so you need to try and abuse your surprisingly strong 1v1 early game to snowball.

I play a lot of Pantheon. I'm used to 'falling off late game'.

that's actually false, Taric scales VERY well with 2 sets of item builds:

AP
Tanky AP

He scales decently with AP, but the OP asked about a bruiser build not a mage build. AP Taric is a lot weaker in laning as well, since he can't take proper advantage of his armor pen debuff and his trades will be weaker on the whole until he gets a bit of gear.

1.7 to 2.1 ap ratio (depending on how close you are when hitting E) for damage is decent but nothing to write home about. So I wouldn't call it 'scaling very well' personally, given his poor range.


Difference here being that Taric has no AD ratios, whereas Pantheon's Q and E scale nicely. Taric does have a pretty good AD steroid and he does have utility, so he's not useless, but his overall threat potential will drop as the game goes on. Even with an AP build, since he's a point blank range mage.

His skills seem to imply that going for more AD over AP would be more helpful (armor reduction on Shatter, more AD = more mana back from his passive, etc.)

Don't count his passive for much. It doesn't return much mana even with an AD build.

But AD bruiser Taric has much better sustained damage (and better options for survivability) than his AP build does, so there's always that to keep in mind.

I tried a hybrid build, but had trouble with mana. Does spell vamp proc on heals?

heh

i think you should stop talking about things you clearly know nothing about.

Because clearly, Taric's short range, long cooldowns and mediocre AP ratios mean I'm obviously wrong and he's a fantastic mage?

I think you only get to act snide after actually proving yourself correct, incidentally. If AP Taric was actually good it would be seen more than just in dominion and ARAM. Ball's in your court to prove that it's actually good, and without using 'lol you dont know what you're talking about' as your entire defence.