[Guide] Tank Taric > U


Overiew
I. Why Play Tank Taric?
II. Runes
III. Masteries
IV. Summoner Spells
V. Abilities
VI. Ability Build
VII. Item Build
VIII. How to play


I. Why Play Tank Taric?
When I started playing this game I played through every hero to find the hero I liked most. Taric was the hero I decided to play. Not many people were playing Taric when I started playing him. I realized later this is because Taric is not a hero that will get a huge number of kills. However, if played right he will get very few deaths and many assists and tower kills. My usual score is something like 2/2/20 with 4+ buildings destroyed. Taric may not get legendary killing sprees, but he wins games.

Many people swear by playing an attack damage or AP Taric over tank Taric. I disagree with them. Here is why; there are two reasons attack damage Taric sucks. First, he runs out of mana to easily. Taric's abilities are some of the best in the game but so what if he can't use them. The other reason is he is to squishy. Attack damage Taric must be in melee range. However, Taric is slow and a easy target.

There are also two reasons AP Taric sucks. One, his spells all scale bad with AP. The other is that to be most effective Taric must be in the middle of the fight so everyone can benefit from his aura and he can shatter multiple enemies. However, AP Taric is just as squishy as attack damage Taric. This just leads to him getting focused and dieing.

Therefor, the best Taric build is a tank/cooldown reduction hybrid build. This guild will teach you how to play using this style.


II. Runes
I like to use attack speed dodge and cooldown reduction runes on Taric. It is really important to shoot for 12% cooldown reduction. This allows the cooldown reduction cap of 40% to be easily reached with an additional 25% cooldown reduction from items and 3% cooldown reduction from talents. A typical rune layout will look like this:

9-Greater Mark of Alacrity(0.68% attack speed)
9-Greater Seal of Evasion(0.75% dodge)
5-Greater Glyph of Celerity(-0.9% cooldown reduction @ 18)
4-Greater Glyph of Focus(-0.65% cooldown reduction)
3-Greater Quintessence of Focus(-1.64% cooldown reduction)


III. Masteries
A 21/9/0 build works best on Taric. The points can be moved around a bit just make sure to pick up sorcery, demolisher, and improved rally. Here is an example of a typical Taric mastery setup:

Offense
3/3 Deadliness
1/3 Archmage's Savvy
4/4 Sorcery
4/4 Alacrity
1/1 Archaic Knowledge
3/3 Sunder
2/3 Brute Force
1/1 Demolisher
1/1 Improved Rally
1/1 Havoc

Defense
3/3 Resistance
1/3 Hardiness
4/4 Evasion
1/1 Nimbleness


IV. Summoner Spells
Promote: Promotes an allied minion into a Seigerider, a powerful unit with +ARMOR/DAMAGE AURA and TURRET DAMAGE REDUCTION this minion grows more powerful with the level of your champion.

With the demolisher talent promote also increases the promoted units armor by 20 reduces its cooldown by 15 seconds and gives you 15 bonus damage to turrets when promote in on cooldown. This spell makes Taric more useful in team fights and when pushing towers.

Rally: Summons a beacon with 200 + 25 x level Health for 15 secdonds which increases allied base physical damage by 30$ and heals for 15 + 1.5 x level per second.

The improved rally talent makes rally also increase base magical damage by 20% and makes it last an additional 5 seconds. Rally is a great choice for the same reasons above it helps in team situations and when pushing towers.

Pro Tip: Towers like to target rally so when placing it next to a tower set it back outside of the tower range. You will still get the buff and the tower wont instantly kill your rally.

I have tried other summoner spells with Taric I feel that Rally and Promote are by FAR(yes is deserves CAPS) the best. Using them in combination with Taric's ultimate can easily destroy towers and swing battles.


V. Abilities
Gemcraft -
Taric's attacks restore mana equal to 7.5% of the damage dealt.

This ability is pretty useless. No matter how much attack damage you stack you will never get enough mana from this ability to sustain Tarics spells. However, it can be used to restore small amounts of mana but don't go out of your way to be constantly hitting creeps. It is better to just last hit most of the time.

Imbue(Q) -
Cost: 70/85/100/115/130 mana
Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 seconds
Taric brings forth earthen energy to heal a nearby ally and himself for 70/120/170/220/270(+0.9*AP). If Taric heals only himself, the heal will be 40% more effective. Melee in the enemies decrease this spells coodown by 2 sec per hit.

This is one of the few direct heals in the game. It is pretty useful early on and I usually pick up one point of this at level 2. However, it does not scale well with AP this is one of the main reasons I feel an AP Taric build is not viable.

Pro Tip: You can click the ally frames in the upper left corner of the screen to heal them instead of trying to click on their character in a choatic battle.

Shatter(W) -
Cost: 50/60/70/80/90
Cooldown: 16 seconds
Passive: Taric gains 10 bonus armor and provides an aura that increases the armor of himself and nearby allies by 10/15/20/25/30.
Active: Taric deals 100/150/200/250/300(+0.5*AP) magic damage to nearby enemies and decreases their armors by 10/15/20/25/30 for 4 seconds. The aura portion of his passive is not in effect during this cooldown.

Shatter is the bread and butter of Taric farming just walk up to a group of creeps and use this ability. At level 5 it will hit hard enough that only one hit is needed to finish them off after a shatter.

Dazzle(E) -
Cost: 95 mana
Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10
Taric fires a sphere of prismatic light at an enemy dealing 0-80/160/240/320/400(+1.0*AP) magic damage(lower damage the further the target is) and stunning for .5-2 sec(longer stun the further the target is).

This spell has the odd property of doing no damage when cast from its max range(AKA the position Dazzle is usually cast from). Therefore, it is not worth it to invest more then 1 point into Dazzle.

Radiance(R) -
Cost: 10 initial mana cost, this doubles every second radiance is toggled on.
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Toggle: Taric emits brilliant light healing himself and nearby allies for 30/40/50(+0.2*AP) and increasing his base physical damage by 40/60/80%(half effect for nearby allies).

This is the spell that makes Taric overpowered. Radiance not only heals all allies every second it also increases the attack damage of your carries by 40%!!!!!!! WTF. One farmed Ashe is a pain. Imagine 1.4 farmed Asheii completely crushing the other team. Combine this with rally and your pushing a Ashe and a half for the price of one. Utter insanity right?

Anyways this skill also has some other uses then giving your carry god mode. It should be used when ever attacking towers as it increases the damage done to them by everyone on your team including creeps significantly.

Pro Tip: When running from enemy champions and your imbue is on cooldown don't be afraid to turn this spell on to heal you. It might give you just enough health to get away.


VI. Ability Selection
This is the best way to build abilities as Taric. Shatter must be maxed early otherwise it is impossible to make gold/kill anything as Taric.

1.Dazzle(E)
2.Imbue(Q)
3.Shatter(W)
4.Shatter(W)
5.Shatter(W)
6.Radiance(R)
7.Shatter(W)
8.Imbue(Q)
9.Shatter(W)
10.Imbue(Q)
11.Radiance(R)
12.Imbue(Q)
13.Imbue(Q)
14.Dazzle(E)
15.Dazzle(E)
16.Radiance(R)
17.Dazzle(E)
18.Dazzle(E)

VII. Item Build

1.Meki Pendant -390g
2.Health Pot -35g
3.Mana Pot -40g
4.Chalice of Harmory -500g
5.Mercury Treads -1200g or Ninja Tabi -850g (depending on the team you are playing agianst)
6.Stinger -900g
7.Soul Shroud -2325g

Above is the core item build for Taric. Once completed you will be at 40% cooldown reduction and have a good amount of health magic resist and armor(from shatter). The reason I get one health pot at the beginning instead of another mana pot is because if you get low it is more cost efficient to use a health pot instead of using a mana pot and imbue to heal up.

Once you complete the core items pick two of the following items to build depending on what you are playing:

Aegis of the Legion -1925g: If no one on your team is getitng one this is a great item for Taric.

Banshee Veil – 2715g: Get a Banshee Veil if you are facing a heavy CC or magic damage team.

Guardian Angel -2600g: If you find yourself getting focused in team battles this is a great item for Taric

Thornmail – 1600g: I love thornmail when facing a physical damage team. Its cheap, adds a lot of armor and makes the enemy carriers kill themselves on you.


VII. How to play Taric
Early Game(1-5)
When the game starts buy the starting items. Stay with your team if they are going to do dragon otherwise go to one of the side lanes. If you are with another hero with a stun go hide in the bushes and try for a a first blood. Otherwise just wait for the creeps to come and focus on last hitting. Once you hit level 3 start harassing with a Dazzle/Shatter combo on enemy heroes. This puts pressure on them and might land you a kill or two. Once you have 850g port back and buy a chalice and boots.

Mid Game(6-12)
Once you get your ultimate keep pressuring enemy heroes until one leaves the lane. At this point use promote and rally in combination with your ultimate to push the tower in your lane. Once you get your tower down switch to middle or bottom and push that tower. Once that one is down get the last tower. After the first three enemy towers are down just focus on jungling/defending your own towers. You can also help with ganks. I found it works pretty well to cast Dazzle, then turn on radiance and run up and shatter the enemy hero. The most important thing to remember in this phase is to not cross the river without your team. If you do you will get ganked and die.

Late Game(13-18)
The most important thing in this phase is to STAY WITH YOU TEAM. Taric is easy to gank so don't get caught alone. When team fighting use Dazzle on who ever your team is trying to kill. Turn on your ult and run up and shatter the enemy team. Also, remember to throw Imbues on who ever the opposing team is focusing. Also, remember to use rally and promote as they buff your entire team.

I have found that when fighting next to a tower if you drop rally and promote and use your ultimate your team can easily focus towers and drop them then proceed to kill the enemy force.

The last thing to remember when playing Taric late game is that if you score and ace make sure your team rushes the enemy base. At level 18 with Taric's ult you can easily push 2 towers and an inhibitor before the enemy re spawns. This is one of the greatest strengths of Taric. It basically means once your team wins a team fight the game is over.

Well thanks for reading my guide. If you have any comments or suggestions I'd love to hear them. I hope to see more Taric's out there in the future dominating towers and winning games.

Ive tried getting imbue before shatter. However, I find myself too gold starved. Also, I would rather do 300 AOE damage over 270 single target healing.

I have also tired utility. It is good however improved rally and demolisher are just too good to pass up. Once you get far enough to get improved rally I figure going all the way down for 5% more damage.

I will have to try wardens mail next time i play against a physical heavy team.

I have not tried a Tear on him. I usually find the mp5 from chalice stringer and soul shroud to be sufficient most of the time. However, tear is pretty cheap i might have to try it sometime.

Very good point. I'll add this when I update the guide

Ya if you are laning with a YI or Jax and they don't have exhaust I think Rally/exhaust is a viable summoner spell choice. Promote is a really good spell that one person on your team should have so if someone already has promote or your lane needs a slow exhaust is viable.

Thanks =)