Hello I am Thibs and this is my Taliyah guild
I called this Guide Taliyah the URF Bender as a reference to Avatar: the Last Airbender and this guide is meant for Summoners Rift Normals and Ranked.

This Guide will cover the way I play Taliyah and why I play her this way.
I started playing Taliyah some time after she got released and when I picked her up I got to rank 7 Mastery fairly quickly.

I play her as a Highrisk High reward High damage midrange controle mage.
This will reflect in the guide

Quintessences: Fairly standard for any AP mid Champion.

Marks: Fairly standard for any AP mid Champion.

Seals: The Scaling health will allow you to transition into the mid and late game with hp as a defensive stat.

Glyphs: Will give you 15% Cooldown reduction @ level 18 bringing you to 35% CDR with the end build. Over capping it with a blue buff to 40%.

In this chapter I am skipping boots because it seems to be self evident.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter
This is your core item, this needs to get finished ASAP.
I see allot of Taliyah players go for Rod of Ages first.
And I can see the temptation why.
Rod of Ages gives allot of sustain and it is just a good item in general.
So why Rylai's Crystal Scepter over Rod of Ages?
It is very simple with Rylai's Crystal Scepter you will be able to kite people endlessly with your Q Threaded Volley or chase them down endlessly with your Q Threaded Volley. also this item will allow you to hit the E Unraveled Earth W Seismic Shove combo easily after you have slow them with a Barrage of Q Threaded Volley
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will put the Control in play Taliyah as a Control mage.
And to quote Taliyah her self: "Control, control, control..."

Abyssal Mask
General you want this item as your second item it will give you a fair amount of damage and the oh so much needed Magic resistance and Cooldown reduction.
But in some cases you want a Zhonya's Hourglass as second item.
For example if you are laning vs an AD Mid and Jungle.

Void Staff
In most cases this will be your third item it's very rare I don't build this as a third item

Zhonya's Hourglass
this will give you the CDR you need for the late game and also the protection as fourth item. Now I've stated that this is a viable second item pick up as well. but you should get it as first item if you are laning against a Zed or Talon.

Liandry's Torment
This would be your very last item.
This is the best item you can get if the game gets to a full build point.
The % damage will shred their frontline with ease because this item combos with your Rylai's Crystal Scepter.
Now Liandry's Torment is also a viable second pickup if they have a chunky team.
Like Top Jungle Support all tanks.
in that scenario Liandry's Torment would definitely be my second pickup.

Corrupting Potion
I like to pick this up because this build is very mana heavy and you will be using it constantly so its a very good early pick up.
especially because allot of jungler tend to not want to give the second or even third blue or any blue for that matter.

Farming with Taliyah is fairly straight forward.
You want to avoid Spaming the Q Threaded Volley to much for the purpose of farming because you will create to much Worked Ground.
Generally you want to use Q Threaded Volley for trading.
But for farming and safty purposses you want to have always atleast one patch of Worked Ground in lane.
While standing on Worked Ground you will have more Movement Speed and Q Threaded Volley
will only shoot one Stone Shard
To shove a wave you use a combination of Q Threaded Volley, E Unraveled Earth and W Seismic Shove to clear and entire wave.
It goes a little bit like this.
If you need to push your lane because no one is in your lane you move up to the Melee minions until you are almost on top of them. make sure you are not on any Worked Ground and make sure that they are grouped both the melee ones and the caster minions.
you start casting a Q Threaded Volley and immediately you follow up with a E Unraveled Earth this will clear all 6 minions in lane.
if it is a canon minion wave do the same but use W Seismic Shove to trigger the E Unraveled Earth, make sure you use the second cast of W Seismic Shove in a curtain direction to trigger more of the E Unraveled Earth stones on the ground.
but in general you want to avoid using your abilities to farm as much as possible seeing my build is fairly mana heavy.

Taliyah can hold her own on level 1.
On level 1 you should try to punish any miss positioning with Q Threaded Volley to trigger Thunderlord's Decree

Taliyah's Level 2 is very situational depending who you are laning against.
In most cases it will be some mage without a dash in which case you want to pick W Seismic Shove at level 2 and avoid trades at all costs because at this point your damage will be meager at best.
But if you are laning against the likes of Yasuo and LeBlanc, you will pick E Unraveled Earth on level 2 and try and bait them to use there dashes.
So Sweeping Blade and Distortion will both trigger the explosions on your E Unraveled Earth.
Beware LeBlanc's Distortion only triggers E Unraveled Earth as she is dashing towards you, so you have to be fast to make this a favorable trade.

Taliyah's level 3 is one of the strongest I have seen.
You force them to any skill shot they have and you start moving up to them closer.
you use Q Threaded Volley if you are not standing on Worked Ground and when you are close enough to hit the E Unraveled Earth for its initial damage and slow them. you finish it off by casting W Seismic Shove in the path they are walking and use the second cast of W Seismic Shove to chose a direction to knock them to.
This will obviously be towards your E Unraveled Earth that is already on the ground to trigger the rock mines and do big damage.
they will mostlikly need to burn a flash but in most cases you Q Threaded Volley will be off cooldown and you just move more forward till you are of the Worked Ground and finish it of with a Ignite.
GG First blood.
It is very important for laning to be good at landing the W Seismic Shove's correctly to make them fear you and keep lane pressure.

Taliyah's Level 6 in lane is very weak her ult has no damage but it is a very useful spell.
As Taliyah at level 6 you want to be looking for any opportunity to roam and use your wall to gank the side lanes.
at the very least if you do it right you will burn a flash or two.

Because her ult doesn't do any damage her other abilities are scaled to do allot of it.
even to out trade lane opponents with damage ults.
there for in the early game Taliyah is a strong trader on levels 5,7, and 9.
avoid trades at level 6 and get kills and assists from other lanes by roaming.

Taliyah is very strong 1v1 laning and if you snowball hard enough you can kill almost anyone with on Q Threaded Volley E Unraveled Earth W Seismic Shove combo.
But in most cases you will want to group with your teammates.
As a control mage you want to stick close to your ADC and peel with your premaslows.
This is also why you want to prioritize on ganking botlane and getting them ahead.
Even though you have a highdamage out put the control you provide for your ADC will make him more confident in fighting and the two of you will shred they frontline like they are nothing.
in team fight you would prefer to use your W Seismic Shove to combo with E Unraveled Earth, but do not hesitate to use it as a peeling tool. if you can save someone by knocking the opponents away it is worth it. you can still use Q Threaded Volley and E Unraveled Earth afterwards to do some damage and/or zone them.
Taliyah is also good at flanking in split pushing situations and blocking the enemy team from helping.
The Ultimate does take some getting used to because it has a travel time and a different range on each rank, but if an opponent is split pushing and your team is rotating to deal with him.
Taliyah's R Weaver's Wall is prefect to 1.) flank them 2.) block off a escape route. and 3.) block the enemy team from collapsing on your team.

I categorize Matchups in 3 different categories for Taliyah.
2 of the 3 favor Taliyah.

The Categories:
1.) Champions without a Dashes or Direct Jumps
2.) Champions with a dashes
3.) Champions with a Direct Jumps

Categories 1 & 2 favor Taliyah.

Category 1 because you can use your W Seismic Shove to knock people into your E Unraveled Earth without them dashing away from it.

Category 2 because if they try to dash to you they will trigger E Unraveled Earth them self and you can then use W Seismic Shove to peel them off you or if the run way to knock them back closer to you.

Category 3 is not in your favor because they can get close to you with very little punishment.
With Direct Jumps in mean things along the line of Zed's Living Shadow, Talon's Cutthroat, Katarina's Shunpo, etc etc etc...
Against this Category you might want to Max the Q Threaded Volley first.

Pros:
-High Damage
-High Control
-Split Push Potential
-Good Kiting
-Good Chasing
-Strong Flanks

Cons:
-Mana Heavy
-Easy to Assassinate
-Easy to block of your team with Ultimate.

An example of a very good ult and agro play Play Video
2 examples of full games Play Video Play Video
And you are lucky you might find a live example