Taric Build Guide by Xenotechie

Disclaimers

• You might have noticed a suspicious lack of items on the cheat sheet. That is to drive in the point that there is no true way to build Taric. I will elaborate further in the items section. I put some example builds in team 2 for the people who care about stats.
  
  
• This guide is based on the, unfortunately, expired Tanaren's Taric guide. I started out using it, but developed a modified version you will see here.
  
  
• Note that I am, by no means, a pro. I am not even level 30, being 24 at the time of writing this. That does not mean I am a noob, however, as I know a great deal about this champion, because I wouldn't otherwise be writing this, so don't downvote for not being level 30, but rather, for something that makes sense.
  
  
• For the love of god, don't full-on support before summoner level 15. Before that point, teams are just plain not able to use your utility effectively due to a lack of skill. Try a champion that can provide something besides utility. Shen is a good choice and the one I used.

-With those out of the way...

Introduction

Welcome to my Taric guide! This is my first guide on Mobafire, and I'll be covering Taric in his most common role, the support role. More specifically, I will mostly be covering the aggressive Taric playstyle. If you want another role for him, I would recommend CantaGalio's hybrid Taric guide for a solo top role, and Taric for Men for a mid AP caster role. As for jungle, I could't find any good guides, so have a video.

Special thanks go to JhoiJhoi for her templates, dividers and the generally awesome Making a guide uhh... guide, CantaGallo for templates that will be used in the matchup section, Bree aka LaCorpse for the beautiful banners, and FreestyleKneepad for being a noticable influence.

So, why am I writing this guide? I have quite a lot games played with Taric, more of them wins that losses, and I want to share the items and tactics I use with people, so they can hopefully improve. With that in mind, let's start.

Pros / Cons

Pros + One of the most reliable stuns in the game + High tankiness makes him a good aura carrier + Unmatched versatility for a support + Enables early 1st bloods because he's awesome + Not item dependent + In-built aura

Cons - Mana-hungry early game - Slightly falls off in late game - Aggressive play requires tons of coordination. - Fairly high cooldowns - His early burst leads to a lot of kill steals - Passive not really useful for a support

Runes

Taric is INCREDIBLY versatile in almost every aspect, and his runes are no exception. While a support Taric has quite a choice of effective runes, with my build, I focus on early game power with some late game effectiveness. You don't really need to get tanky runes with an aggressive Taric, because, as I will say many times throughout this guide, NOBODY WILL FOCUS TARIC IF GIVEN A CHOICE.. Exploit this, and you will be on your way to victory.

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: These significantly improve Taric's early game burst, enabling easier kills for your carry.
  
• Greater Seal of Replenishment: As mentioned before, Taric has significant mana problems early game, until Philosopher's Stone. Flat mana regen helps with that problem a lot and, once again, enables kills by allowing a more agressive playstyle.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: This slot is pretty open as far as Taric goes, so I take magic resist per level, as these help out significantly late-game.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Again, a very open slot. I personally prefer flat AP for that extra burst and heal early game, but that is up to personal preference.

Now, because of that flexibility I mentioned at the start of this chapter, Taric has quite a few alternate choices as far as runes go, even if you limit yourself to early damage:

• Greater Mark of Armor: Want to be a bit more passive and tanky? Get these in conjuction with gp10 seals/quints, and enjoy the safety.
  
• Greater Mark of Attack Speed: Don't like/want AP burst? Try this! Taric has quite high natural AD, but low attack speed, so take this if you want to assist in a kill with your autoattacks. This will also synergise with Gemcraft and Imbue.
  
• Greater Seal of Gold: Thanks to 9 of these, you will get around 500 gold in a game of standard length. That is nothing to scoff at, so consider using them if you think you can manage your mana early-game.
  
• Greater Glyph of Ability Power: If you think even more early burst is worth losing 24.3 magic resistance at level 18, go ahead.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: This lets you land your Dazzle even more easily. Whether you use this or AP runes is a thing of personal preference.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Gold: See above. Those give around 700 gold alone in an average game, so consider that.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Health: A viable option for more tanky, passive play.

Masteries

I take 0-9-21 for masteries, focusing on Taric's support aspect, and taking 9 points in defense for extra survivability. You can take 9 points in offense if you want even more early burst, but I prefer the defense tree. If you are using Exhaust, consider taking a point in Summoner's Wrath in favor of Veteran's Scars .

• Summoner's Insight : Lowers the cooldown of Flash, increases the duration of Clairvoyance. Rather self explanatory.
  
• Good Hands : Less time spent dead means more time to help yor team not get killed.
  
• Swiftness : Lets you land your stun more effectively.
  
• Greed : More gold? Of course! Even better, it leads into...
  
• Wealth : Absolutely essential to have at least a single point in this. Enables you to get an extra potion, or even a ward in some starting item combinations. You can swap a point in this for Awareness or something, tho.
  
• Awareness : Lets you keep up with your carries in terms of XP.
  
• Sage : While 40XP is not a lot by any stretch of the imagination, it is only one point, and it's better than an extra point in Awareness .
  
• Intelligence : Extra cooldown is always nice, especially on Taric.
  
• Mastermind : Lower summoner spell cooldowns mean more Flashing and more Clairvoyances and possibly more Exhausting.
  
• Hardiness : You already have high natural armor, but extra bulk is nice when dealing with an AD carry.
  
• Resistance : You have high natural armor, so fill up a hole in your resistances with this.
  
• Durability : 108 health at level 18 is nothig to scoff at. More importantly, hovewer, it leads into...
  
• Veteran's Scars : This is an absolutely fantastic early health boost. Nuff' said.

Now, I'll explain why I don't take some masteries:

• Expanded Mind : While it scales really well into the late game, at that point, you shouldn't have any mana problems. Meditation is really useful to Taric, but I don't take it because the point that go into this mastery can really go elsewhere.
  
• Improved Recall : You probably won't get in any situations where that 1 second will save you.
  
• Scout : I did some extra testing with this mastery and found out that 5% doesn't mean anything, and me seeing enemies because of it was me being an idiot.
  
• Runic Affinity : As a support, you shouldn't get the blue buff unless neither your jungler nor the AP carry needs it, which happens like once in every 100 games. As for red buff, you are a support, and a melee supoort at that, so it won't be of much use to you.
  
• Strength of Spirit : You don't need the HP regen.
  
• Tough Skin : If someone gets hit by minions in lane, it probably won't be you.

Feel free to modify these to the specifics of the enemy team, so, for example, take 3 points in Hardiness if you are dealing with an AD-based team or just believe you don't need the extra magic resistance.

Summoner Spells

I personally believe this spell is what Smite is to junglers. The utility provided by this spell is just amazing. I have some uses for it in the general tips section, and I expand on my opinion on this spell and it's uses in the following section.

Taric has no escapes. While you can live through tons of damage, you are not invincible. This is intended to fix that little problem, and also help you to secure some kills.

It can likely enable a kill or stop someone from getting one, but it costs you either the mobility of Flash or utility of Clairvoyance. Pick this if you can work without CV, or nobody on your team has Exhaust, as all teams should have at least a single person with Exhaust. The choice between this and Clairvoyance is so important, I decided to make a secttion of the guide about it.

Not bad at all, actually. You sacrifice some of the utility Flash has for a shorter cooldown and a fun psychological effect: people don't often pop said spell if chased by Ghost.

See Exhaust. Note that its heal reducement can be extremely useful if you have to deal with someone like Dr. Mundo later in the game. Still, while it is a viable option, you will probably never use it, due to practically every AD carry taking Ignite themeselves, so you don't have to.

Teleport: Gives you a different kind of mobility than Flash. Best used if you expect to leave lane often for various reasons, or you expect to win a lane quickly, so you can help push down the other lanes.

Have an mana-hungry AD carry? You should have probably picked Soraka... In all honesty tho, if the carry needs the mana, consider this, as you also want the mana too. Beware, this spell becomes almost completely useless late-game, and most of the time, it's just better to get a Mana Manipulator.

While awesome on hybrid Taric, sucks on support Taric. It improves you personally, but you are a bloody support, you aren't supposed to be the one doing the killing.

This is not a jungle guide. There is absolutely no reason to use Smite on anyone not a jungler, ESPECIALLY a support. What will you do with it, last hit cannon minions?

You are tanky, but you are not a full on tank. By the time you get back to your team, they will all be dead and their carry will complain in allchat that you denied him an ace, but that is about it.

In my opinion, incredibly redundant on Taric. Besides, your carry should have this, and if he doesn't, you already have a great burst heal anyway.

No. Just plain bloody no. Even Smite can be used to secure Baron/Dragon, and this just unneccesarily pushes your lane.

Clairvoyance or Exhaust? Or, why is Clairvoyance a viable choice.

Warning: the section is a giant wall of text. Feel free to skip this section if you want to. Special thanks go out to astrolia for helping me out with this subject quite a lot.

First off, let us take a look at Exhaust, the ubiquitous support choice in the current metagame. This spell is really, really useful. It completely shuts down most damage coming from the poor champion that gets hit by it, AND has a slowing effect with it to boot. In fact, it is so useful, it is my opinion that every team should have at least one champion with it. Therefore, if no one picked it, ALWAYS USE EXHAUST. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Looking beyond the surface, it has a few tricks under it's sleeve. Smart players will avoid attacking any lane duos that have Exhaust for obvious reasons, unless they can completely secure they come out of the trade on top, often with their own Exhaust. This spell creates pressure, gives you a stronger zone alltogether, and can, and often will, secure a kill on the enemy carry / support. However, the strength of this spell starts falling off as the game progresses. Why does that happen is very hard to explain, and it is a combination of a lot of factors. Exhaust doesn't get any weaker, that's for sure, but the dynamics of the fights later on don't lend well at all to this spell. While it is still very useful (thus, you want an Exhaust on every team), it is not nearly as gamechanging as it was in the early game.

Now let's look at Clairvoyance. It gives you vision anywhere on the map for a short time. You might wonder: why would anyone want to do something that a simple ward can do, and it can do it for longer? Having this spell, contrary to popular belief, DOES NOT MEAN YOU GET TO SLACK OFF WITH WARDS. IT IS A SUPPLEMENT, NOT REPLACEMENT FOR WARDS AND GAME KNOWLEDGE. I cannot overestimate this enough. You just CAN'T use this spell effectively without having a sense where can you expect your enemies to be at a given moment. If you don't have a developed game sense, I would strongly recommend you take Exhaust. If you DO have one, well, you need to learn how to use it.

And how do you use it? When the game starts, grab your items, then drop a Clairvoyance slightly ahead of their respawn platform. This will allow you to detect any item-dependant cheese strategies, like level 3 dragons, as an example. This will also allow you to see what lanes are the enemy champions taking, and, if you are lucky and the enemy team decided on a level 1 invasion in the pre-game chat, you should be able to spot this too.

If the game proceeds along normally, drop a Clairvoyance where you think the enemy jungler will start. The reasoning behind this is that some champions have radically different early games depending on what buff do they start with. For example, if Lee Sin starts with red, you can expect him to go for a level 2 or 3 invasion, or a gank if someone overextends. If he starts with blue, though he will likely do a more standard jungle clear, then recall at level 4. Another thing is that the enemy jungler might get scared of an invasion, as this spell leaves a clearly visible eye (of doom), and CV is often a sign an invasion is coming. Therefore, this can potentially delay the enemy jungler. If they do invade, however, besides roaming around the edges of your jungle to spot invaders, you should also drop a CV where you suspect that the enemy player might be.

As the laning phase begins, the weakness of taking this over Exhaust shows. You WILL be at an disadvantage compared to a lane that has that spell. You will be forced to play extra carefully and might get zoned out. Well, that last thing would happed if you weren't Taric. The thing about him is that he's not too reliant on this spell for crowd control, as he already has the most reliable stun in the game. While having the colossal slow Exhaust provides is definitely a nice touch, you don't need it per se, unlike, say, Sona, who only has a small slow in the way of CC before level 6 and is really squishy, so she needs this spell to have a semblance of a safe lane.

At any rate, during this phase of the game, check on the enemy jungler periodically if your teammates don't need help with an enemy being annoying and trying to juke in bushes. There is a few really good reasons to do this and doing this will be the bulk of your Clairvoyance uses at this stage of the game. However, you do need to have a sense of where the enemy jungler will be at a certain time mark. The best way to find this out, besides experience, it to watch Stonewall's videos. If you know where a jungler should be at a given time and you drop your CV there it's a win-win for you. If you don't see him there, that means he is either up to some shenanigans in your jungle or a gank is incoming, or he just plain sucks. Knowing either of those is very exploitable. If you do see him, though, you know that he's there and create pressure... and that's where we get to the thing that makes Clairvoyance viable:

The global presence it gives you. Imagine you were jungling, say, Maokai. You are merrily killing jungle creeps, then, suddely, red eye of doom. This means the enemy KNOWS you are there. This could possibly mean you will be invaded soon. This could mean, through some means, that they are up to whatever you wanted to do. You don't know what did they learn from this, but they learned something. That is kinda creepy. You can't just disregard them knowing where you are. And that will likely make you at least a bit anxious and make you play safer, which means tha you won't gank as much, and might even clear slower. As the game progresses and you see that red eye pop up everywhere, the entire team might get anxious. They KNOW where you are. They have an omnipotent support that sees your movements. This will probably subconciously force them to play safer or possibly make mistakes. This is juut plain psychology. This is the hidden power of Clairvoyance. However, to get this kind of effect, you really need to know where the enemy should be based on the circumstances. Nothing I said in this paragraph happens if you don't use this skill well.

At any rate, I got sidetracked. Let's get into the use of this spell in the mid and late game. You might thing: " Clairvoyance is useless now! The jungler isn't jungling, and this can't do anything for teamfights!". This is correct, but only on the surface. You see, teamfights at this stage, assuming the teams are evenly matched in skill and farm, completely depend on two things: positioning and surprise. This is where this spell starts to shine. You want to know where the enemies are at this stage of the game. That's what makes warding so essential in this game, but, no matter what you do, you can't have a ward everywhere you would want to. That's where this spell comes in, and it can potentially give you a lot of kills. This is the stage of the game where you want to track enemy movements, and that's the hardest part of the game to use this in, too. You really need to have a developed game sense to use this properly. If you do have this, however, besides the psychological effects I mentioned, you can improve both your team's positioning, ruin theirs, and destroy their surprise factor.

Now, you might wonder: "If you need such a developed game sense, why pick this? They way you put this, you should know where the enemy is anyway without vision." You can't always be correct about this. People are not robots: having a 50% correct prediction score should be ridiculously good, as humans are unpredictable, because they don't always do the ideal things they should do, and there is a lot of ways to approach a different situation. If you use Clairvoyance, it either confirms your doubts or narrows down the possibilities.

So, what should you pick? That is completely up to you. I told you my opinion on each of these. The question is: which one does fit you more? Do you want the brute killing power, or the map control? You can even take both, if you feel slightly insane, because Flash is ridiculously useful IMHO, even more so than both of these.

Skill Explanations

• Gemcraft: This is an absolutely WONDERFUL passive... when Taric is played as anything BUT support. Hovewer, that does not mean it is useless. Feel free to autoattack some cannon minions if you need some mana. You will push the lane a bit, but it might enable a kill, so I say it's worth it.
  
• Imbue (Q): It is a burst heal that heals you too. That is about it. It is not quite up to the level of Soraka's heal, but it comes close by having a lower cooldown AND the ability to lower said cooldown by attacking minions. Try to avoid using it on yourself, as the increase in healing gained by using it on yourself means a smaller overall amount healed than using it on an ally. Note that the cooldown on it lowers by autoattacking, so autoattack some cannon minions if one of you needs heals.
  
• Shatter (W): A really great ability for a support. It gives your allies up to 30 armor at ability level 5, and gives you passive armor equal to the amount the aura gives PLUS the aura, meaning up to 60 armor from this ability ALONE. When activated, it shreds the armor of your enemy, making them even easier to do horrible stuff to. What a lot of people don't realize is that using the active component of Shatter makes only your personal bonus go away, so the aura stays. Try to avoid using this if you are focused, but who in their right mind focuses Taric?
  
• Dazzle (E): The most reliable stun in the game. Has quite a long range, it's not a skillshot and always stuns for 1,5 seconds before tenacity. This is the key to your laning partner getting kills. That does not mean it should be EVER maxed first, as leveling it only increases the damage (which has range falloff) and lowers the cooldown a little bit. Getting it first, however, is a great idea. This skill is Taric's bread and butter, and because of that, it's getting its own section.
  
• Radiance (R): Your ultimate. Besides doing burst damage, gives an offensive aura. It has a relatively low cooldown, so feel free to use it often. It is best used to secure kills, quickly destoy covers, assist with dragon and baron and scare the enemy away. Yeah, it is quite an effective psychological warfare tool, because the enemy will assume you want to attack when you pop this. This is only allowed by the default 60 second cooldown this ability has, and you'll probably get it down to around 40 seconds by mid-game.

Dazzle, a.k.a. To Stun or not To Stun

This is easily Taric's most recognizable skill, and is easily the hardest skill to properly use as him. Timing Dazzle can sometimes mean the difference between you carry getting an ace and your team dying horribly. However, this skill is hardest to master in the laning phase. Stun at the right time and you can give your carry a kill at level 2 or deny first blood. Waste it, and watch as you can do nothing while their laners are murdering both of you.

I got screenshots of some common situations in the early game with the help of bots. I will explain them and try to give you an idea when Dazzle can secure a kill.

This would be great, what with the lone support, the element of surprise and all... if your AD carry was anywhere near you. While Taric has some burst, it is best used as an additive to your carry's damage. Besides, Nunu here is quite tanky. Even if there was a more squishy support/carry here, you just wouldn't have the damage to do this.



Now THIS is the ideal time to Dazzle. Even if Sivir didn't make the grave mistake of pushing without her support, and even if she had a support, you have either the element of surprise or a carry underestimating your zone. While surprise is not as important to Taric as, say, to Twitch or Leona, it is always good to have on your side. While bots might not care about you suddenly jumping out of the brush, humans do. They will understandably get spooked and likely forced to run away even if they could win the battle. At any rate, you can Flash, Dazzle, and give your carry a kill.



Taric is one of those champions you never towerdive, along with champions such as Shen or Rammus. If the enemy champion towerdives you, I hope I don't need to tell you you should stun him and let the tower do its work. Try to wait for the tower to target him, tho, if your carry is not around.



Sometimes, it is a good idea to re-enter the lane from the jungle. This can allow you to put down a ward at Dragon and possibly make something like this happen. Warwick here is pretty much baiting the enemy laners into leaving their safe zone. Well, he would if he wasn't a begginer bot, but that is besides the point. In his situation, depending on how strong the enemy laners and you two are, you can either break the chase or turn it into a counterattack OR turn it into a gank you have been coordinating with your carry. In this particular situation, it is best to break the chase, as Nunu and Sivir have fairly high health and are pretty close to their tower.



Don't ever overcommit to a kill. You might think you can burst down Nunu, or, really, anyone else enough to get a kill or force him out of the lane, but he is fairly close to the tower. For the sake of this guide, I did this to show what happens.



...yeah. For all you know, the carry could be very close to the tower without you seeing it, and, well, some champions are better at defending towerdiving than others. Even if Nunu here was a squishy support like Janna, I wouldn't recommend doing this, as a jungler could be waiting for you to make a mistake like that in the river bush.



A lone carry at such a low level might seem like an easy first blood, but it's not because of minions. You'd be surprised how much do the little buggers hurt at such a low level. If you are going for a really early kill, keep an eye on them. If you don't, it could be YOUR carry which gives out first blood. In this particular example, there are 5 fairly healthy minions ready to ruin my day if I even touched Ashe.



Now, this is a lot better situation. There are 4 fairly weak minions, and one of them is about to get killed by mine and give both me and Tristana a level. In a situation like this, you can Flash in, stun the carry and hopefully secure a kill. I know I did.



Now, besides these, there are a few general tips about stunning I cannot really make a picture for:

• Sometimes, you want to save your stun if you are ganking someone. If you have a good choke on the opposing champion, try to save your stun for when he starts getting away.
  
  
• There are supports that have the potential to turn around your Dazzle initiation and turn it into a kill for their carry. The most egregious of these are, without a doubt, Alistar and Blitzcrank. Be extra cautious when going in for a kill against these.
  
  
• In teamfights, you stun is probably not an initiation tool, because most team compositions have a proper tank, whose job you help with, not do, as will be explained in the mindset section. Here, you want to use Dazzle to prevent damage. Therefore, use it on AD carries just as they get in range of your squishies, or against AP carries just before they start their combo, but not a second later, as, by then, the AP carry did heavy damage and is useless, as their stuff is on cooldown.
  
  
• To do the above, it might be necessary to save your Dazzle if a member of the enemy team has a channeled, but powerful ability (see Absolute Zero, Death Lotus, Nether Grasp etc.). If you know a champion has an ability like that, save your stun until he/she uses it, or if the risks of taking damage from said ability are outweighed by the rewards using it will give, like securing a kill on a legendary carry.
  

Skill Sequences

Remember that versatility I mentioned earlier? Taric has 3 main skill orders that should be used depending on the enemy lane composition:


Shatter first:

This skill sequence should be used when you intend to play aggressively. I will explain what that means exactly in the early game section, but you want to max Shatter first for two reasons: early burst and early protection. Maxing Shatter first will allow you and your lane partner to tank a lot of damage from minions and champions, then proceed to either free farm, or Dazzle the enemy and proceed to get a kill or force the enemy out of lane.


Imbue first:


This skill order is more suited to a passive style of play. It allows you to outheal any harassment the enemy does both to you and your carry. I will detail on this style in the early game chapter too.

Shatter with a dash of Imbue:


This allows you to play a slightly less aggressive playstyle. I will explain it later, but, in short, your main goal is to force the enemy out, but not kill. The reason behind this sequence is that 2 points of Imbue scale really well, because the two points are enough to heal off most early harassment.

Items

And we finally get to the item section. It is time to explain the cheat sheet at the start. Props to FreestyleKneepad for making me realize this in his Veigar guide. The thing is, there is no true way to build ANY champion, and this is especially true for Taric. There is no set of items that will work in every situation. What you saw in the cheat sheet were only the very core items I will get almost every game. Note the almost. Even THOSE are not certain. The rest completely depend on the circumstances. You have to adapt to both your and the enemy team. With that in mind, let us start.




This is your standard set of starting items. The Vision Ward is for detecting enemy wards or enemies with invisibility. The two Sight Wards are for brush control and possibly dragon/jungle control if you don't use your Vision Ward for that. The Faerie Charm is for Taric's mana problems and it builds into Philosopher's Stone, and the potion is of your choice.

This is a slight modification on the previous, sacrificing a Vision Ward for extra survivability. Only use this if you don't expect your enemy to have wards or invisibility.

A start with 4 wards + a potion is a possibility, but I find that I mostly don't use more than 3 wards before my first recall.

A must have for all supports, especially Taric. Besides being a gp10 item, it gives Taric much needed mana regen. Get in on your first recall.

A must have on every champion in the game, without exception. It helps Taric to land stuns and get away when necesarry.

Your other gp10 item, also adding additional bulk to Taric, but more importantly building into a lot of his situational items.

The true form of your boots. I pick these because they add magic resistance, lower the duration of crowd control, allowing you to support better and not get killed and just seem most apropriate to Taric. The other viable boots for him are actually Boots of Swiftness, alowing him to land stuns easier, and can be used for an initiator Taric. At any rate, build them before or after Shurelya's Reverie, depending on your personal preference.

And finally, the true and only core item of this build. It gives very useful stat boosts to Taric, cooldown reduction included, and has a fantastic active, which a lot of people forget exists, me included. Please don't do that, it is a great chasing/running tool.

These things are core to ANY support, Taric included. In fact, they are so incredibly important, there is a warding explanation down at the mindset section. At any rate, choose which one you take depending on how actively your enemy is warding and whether your enemy has stealth champions.

As soon as you finish your core items (or even earlier, depending on the situation), EVERYTHING depends on the circumstances of the match.

Your item after Shurelya's Reverie should be an item that couters the enemy team, or more specifically, the damage the enemy team deals. For example, get an armor item against an AD heavy team, or a magic resistance item if their Veigar was left to free farm and is about to start making new body cavities in your teammates.

Your next item should be an item that benefits your team, for example, Abyssal Scepter if your AP carry is that Veigar from earlier, especially so if they are also AP heavy.

Your fifth item is a wildcard. You can pick something that further hinders the enemy, or something that helps yor team even more, or something that only helps you.

Leave the sixth slot open for wards.

As a rule of thumb, when you are getting items, these are your priorities in descending order of importance:

• You want the appropriate item effects. That means you should first pick items that have an effect that either helps your team or hinders the enemy.
  
• You want the appropriate resistances, especially if the item has an appropriate aura for your teammates.
  
• You want CDR. This should no be a main reason, but rather a side note, but it is always nice.
  
• You want AP. AP is nice, but it is pretty late for it, as you don't need the extra burst too much after the laning phase, and everything Taric has but Imbue only gets additional damage from AP.

With that out of my mind, here are some options:

You might wonder why am I putting this in this section. This item is a situational item, but it should be bought in the laning phase, unlike the rest of the items I am about to mention. The question in, when do you get this? When you are laning with a mana-hungry carry, that's when. It's pretty much a stronger Faerie Charm that is also an aura. Unfortunately, this delays your Philosopher's Stone, but it's worth it if the mana regen can help you secure a kill.

This is yet another mana regen item you should grab before Shurelya's Reverie... but it is more of a personal item. It's a portable Veigar passive, which also gives some mana regen on it's own, and it's very affordable... but it has the same problems as the rest of pre-Shur items: it delays your core. So, when you should take this? When you feel like you need it. I don't have any better explanations for this, it is up to you to decide do you need this. Do note, however, that Athene's Unholy Grail is not a really good item on Taric, as it's very unsupporty, and you delay support items if you take it first, while you don't really need it if you pick it up later.

Need more gold? Take this item! You can even replace Heart of Gold with it if you believe you could use the early burst. You will often want to sell this later, but sometimes, it is a good idea to build it into something. You can get this before shurelya's, so you can have 3 GP10 items at once, should you like to. This is best done if the game is not going in your favour.

One of the most cost effective items in the game. It is kinda like the bacon of LoL items, it makes everything better! The resistances give quite a lot of survivability and enable a lot of assists, all for a relatively low price. Best used against mixed AD/AP teams, but works on everything, really. In fact, the only reason this is not core is that tanks pick this up quite often, and it's aura is unique, meaning it doesn't stack. Make sure no one in your team is buying this before you start building it.

Builds from your Heart of Gold and it's the BEST item against an AD heavy team, in my honest opinion, especially against teams with Irelia or Twitch. It's active absolutely WRECKS AD carries, and allows your team to catch them if they try running, besides giving awesome stats to Taric.

This is the important, attack speed removing component of Randuin's Omen as a passive in an item. It also gives 20% CDR and TONS of armor, so you should take this instead of Randuin's Omen depending on your personal preference. Note, however, that you will reach the 40% CDR cap with this, Shurelya's Reverie and Intelligence .

The inverse of Randuin's Omen, it is of great help for an AD heavy team for a reasonably low price. Just watch how your AD teammates start wrecking through the opposition with this aura.

Besides being a direct counter to Karthus in item form, it's a decent mid game item, enabling a roaming deathball of champions killing everything in their path and regenerating back to full, with quite a nice active, and it also builds from your Heart of Gold. The stats given are not great, but the shield gives some extra effective HP to your teammates in every teamfight, so I take this when I can't really use anything else.

Kind of a niche item for Taric, but great in it: working against heavy AP with heavy AP. Your casters will thank you, and you will get some extra AP for heals and bursts, along with much needed magic resistance.

This item is intended for supporting AP heavy teams, and it does it job well. It is like Zeke's Herald for casters. The main problem is that you don't really need the 80AP, but as I said, it's always a nice bonus, and worth such an awesome effect.

You might wonder: Why would anyone sane pick this item on a support? Two reasons, really: it builds from Kage's Lucky Pick and has an active that scales off the enemy health. I normally don't build this for obvious reasons, but it is a viable choice if the enemy team is heavy on stacking HP.

Just as situational as the previous, but used for a different situation: when you're dealing with someone with tons of healing power, like Warwick or Dr. Mundo.

I really don't like this item, but it is a viable choice is some situations. This item gives some extra health and a mana regen+CDR aura. However, I believe that those things become rather useless by the time you get this. By mid-game, most champions have no mana problems, and most of them get some CDR by the time you get this, making this item pretty redundant. At any rate, it's pretty useless late-game, as by that time, most champions have maxed CDR, and nobody gives a **** about mana. However, most is not all. There are some with some builds that really use the effects of the aura. In short, use this in a rather specific niche of having a team with mana and CDR problems. It will likely happen like, once in 100 games, but when it does, Soul Shroud shines.

Pick these depending on personal preference if the enemy team got it in their head focusing you is a good idea and happens to have some CC. By the way, good job, mission accomplished! It's often a better idea to grab Quicksilver Sash if your only problem is CC, and Banshee's Veil if you want some Mres, but that is just my personal opinion.

While you are likely to jump into the heart of the teamfight and do some tanking/offtanking, thanks to your bulk, you are likely to get out alive. This makes you a good candidate for using [[Oracle's Elixir]%5