Taric Build Guide by Cyber Strength

Introduction

O, HAI! This is my (first ever) Taric build for bottom lane support. I usually use him to lane with Ezreal and Corki, since he is an offensive support, but he can be used successfully with almost every AD carry (See More). He is the best (imo) offensive support, because of his strong burst ( Shatter+ Radiance).

Pros / Cons

In my opinion, Taric has

PROs
+ Tank potential
+ CC (Stun)
+ Very good auras
+ Fabulous style

CONs
- Low MS early
- Very mana hungry, even late game
- Fairy long CDs

Builds

The first build is for teams with both heavy AP and AD damage - standard build,while the second is for teams with AD bruiser top and jungle and the third one is for playing against 2-3 APs. Although the listed items are the one I choose, 2-3 ITEMS ARE ALMOST EVERY TIME SITUATIONAL and I have listed all other viables below.

Masteries

My tank Support Masteries are 0/15/15. The point of these is to get Enlightenment , which is pretty much like Intelligence , except it is per level, which is important because Taric doesn't get that much CDR late game. Awareness doesn't really give that much experience when you calculate it, Greed and Summoner's Wrath are pretty much standart Support Masteries.

Runes

The Runes are also very typical for supports, but others can be put in 3 tiers:

• TIER 1
  - the best there are
• Any armor runes - very important for bottom lane
• Any MR runes - don't go full MR tho
• Gold per 10 runes - Quints are enough, and yes they do make a difference and are rather cheap so buy them if you consider playing as support seriously
• MS Quints? I have them on my Tank rune page and it's always fun to outrun the enemy carry, probably will work fine for you.
  
  
• TIER 2
  - If you already have those and don't want to buy new ones and if you don't play RANKED games as support
• Any flat mana or any mana regen runes - could be useful
• Cooldown reduction runes - same goes for them, although masteries are enough
• Health runes - if you don't have anything else, after all you must be tanky
  
  
• TIER 3
  - Any other runes, only not to keep you page empty..
• Every other kind, AD, AS.. literally everything (energy regen tho is absolutely useless, but then again, who buys them anyway??)

Summoner Spells

This is pretty straightforward:


Flash for those sticky situations or to Flash + Dazzle that cheeky Ezreal/ Corki when they're about to Arcane Shift/ Valkyrie.


Again, Exhaust is both defensive and aggressive ability, that you should use on the enemy ad carry.


Worth mentioning


Clairvoyance, as I have red, was a very good pick but his CD and ranged got nerfed and only a couple of people tend to take it now. It is useful for counter-jungling, but u guys must be premades for this to work.


I guess Clarity can be useful in the laning phase (if your laning with Ezreal/ Corki, etc.), but it's kinda useless after that, nothing but a wasted slot.

/ /
What your carry should take...


Teleport could be nice, rather on the solo top (if the lane is pushed he can actually farm teh minions).

Skill Sequence

The top priority on Taric is his aura on Shatter and secondarily is his Imbue, but of course the first point should go for the stun Dazzle - just in case you or your carry are in trouble (face checking and such). The second point is rather situational - if you or the carry are already missing some health, better take Imbue first, otherwise - Shatter.

Short Guide (Skill Usage)

Your role as an offensive support is to stay in the closest to the enemy ad carry brush and wait for him to get close enough for you to stun him and unleash your burst.Here I am "Dazzling" the enemy Graves

And this is the aftermath - he need to go back instant, without a lot damage to my carry ^.^


People might wonder about his passive, Gemcraft, now personally I like to Autoattack minions when we have forced the enemy carry to back, early on a single hit regenerates 5-10 mana so as mana-hungry as Taric is, I actually find this useful!

Cunning Ability Details - RID IT!

Gemcraft

- By "damage dealt" is meant, autoattacking, damage from abilities doesn't count.

Imbue

- Autoattacking enemy units reduces Imbue's cooldown, with a greater reduction given for attacking enemy champions.
- Taric may target and heal allied minions with Imbue. (QUIKCLY HEAL ZE BARON!!)

Shatter

- Shatter procs spell vamp and Rylai's slow similarly with all area of effect spells and abilities with diminished effect. (doesn't really help us but it's good to know)
- Shatter pops spell shield, meaning it will also damage Black Shield but the armor reduction is still applied.
- The nearby allied units don't lose the aura when activated, only Taric does!!

Dazzle

- Procs spell vamp, pops shields, nothing much

Radiance

- Radiance's ability power bonus is applied before its damage is dealt, increasing its own damage, meaning that without any percent increases to ability power, this adds 21/35/49 damage.

Boots

vs

I choose Mercury's Treads in two situations: if the enemy team has tons of magic damage or a lot of CC.

Otherwise, I pick Ninja Tabi , because honestly there are way much AD tops than APs, same goes for Junglers (pretty much only Nunu in there lol), so the chance of going versus 2-3 ADs is much bigger than 2-3 APs (NOT IN ELOHELL IT AIN'T, Morgana jugnle,ftw!!)

Items

Finally it has come to this! Now I can't help from noticing a lot of supports (not only Tarics) doing bad builds, no matter if they are doing the same build every single game, no matter of the enemy team or they just don't know what to build.
The items are divided for Armor, MR, Both and Non-defensive (Others).

BOTH

Aegis of the Legion is almost a must. It brings tankiness to your whole team (aura) and isn't that expensive either. If your carries deal good damage but are very squishy get this, if you have no ad jungler/top or if they don't wish to buy it.


Zeke's Herald gives your team great AD stats and some CDR for you (stacked with Shurelya's Reverie and your masteries (~8% at level 18) - 38%!! Which is near to the maximum (40%). Take this if you have tons of AD damage in your team or someone has already taken Aegis of the Legion.



The Chalice of Harmony is one of my favorite items on Taric, especially with it's mana regen passive - say goodbye to the mana pots! Getting this early has also saved my skin from that insane LeBlanc combo. It provides enough MR for you to resist the AP carry + Tank AP damage, so it perfectly blends with Ninja Tabi on mostly AD teams. If the game takes more than 40 minutes I usually sell it to buy a better item,tho.

ARMOR

Randuin's Omen is maybe the best Armor item you can get not only because of the stats themselves but the slow, anti-carry passive is just what you need! The active is totally worth it too, so having 2 of these bad boys in your team is nothing but profit! Uses up Heart of Gold from your inventory (you should get gold mainly from assists by the time u buy this).




Sunfire Cape is a costly but good item for both healt and armor, although there isn't much damage left from the passive, especially when the enemies have about 50-70% Magic damage reduction from their MR...




Frozen Heart is a very good item by itself, with a crazy aura, but you might reconsider taking it if that Malphite, Nautilus, Ryze, etc. is building one, since the aura is NOT stackable! Nice CDR and mana tho..




Fed enemy Xin Zhao? or Ezreal? BOTH?! Get a Thornmail, combined with a nice chunk of Health, they will literally Feel your pain!

MAGIC RESIST

Force of Nature Classic..




Banshee's Veil - Enemy burst caster fed? Annoyed by dem Teemo Shrooms? Get this. Also gives nice stats.




Quicksilver Sash, it's a carry's item, (you should be tanky enough for the enemies to now waste their stuns on you) but if you feel like it it's not bad at all.



-Mastajdog, "You shall bow in the presence of the masta."




Lastly, Abyssal Scepter.. wew, it's getting complicated here... If both teams have double (or.. triple) APs and by any chance the tanky AP in your team has not and has no intention in taking it, you can! (The AP scales good with both your heal and burst, although you shouldn't be taking any kills)

Non-defensive (others)

Okay, okay.. Warmog's Armor is technically a defensive item, but I'd rather not take it since it must be stacked.




Locket of the Iron Solari.. now personally I don't get this item,(too low base armor and HP and the aura is not that good too), but imo the active is rather weak. Can't stop you from taking it,tho - if you're in to it, plus I've seen it in quite a few builds.




Soul Shroud, now we're talking! Grants a good amount of health and CDR, the aura is quity powerfull imo (especially if you have manaless/enerfy champions)


/

Not sure if someone actually tough about building Morello's Evil Tome or Executioner's Calling on the support, but I often get matched up with stone-headed carries that pay no attention to that fed Swain/ Dr. Mundo and build their "staple builds" so it has came to me to do it. Now Executioner's doesn't really help you with anything but the active, but is worth 1,3k gold (1000 less than Morello's). On the other hand Morello's is builded from Kage's Lucky Pick, which can supply you with a nice amount of gold while you finish the whole item. 75 AP and 20% CDR are there for ya' too.





Guardian Angel on Taric.. I think that if the enemy team is stupid enough to focus the tank support first in a fight, you should really be happy about that and watch their whole team get burned out by your carries, no matter if your dead..




If you have already built Ninja Tabi versus AD-heavy teams, then Eleisa's Miracle can grant you Tenacity, if they happen to have stuns too.. Cheap but offers nothing more..

Trolololo


Tried to keep it as short as possible, after all there must be some argumentation to cover my picks.. (no TL;DRs!!)

Your place in Teamfights

Your role in teamfights is simple:

• 1. Engage (if there is no better engager) with your stun (E), on the nearest damage dealer you can reach (for maximum efficiency use Shurelya's + E)
  
  
  
• 2. Get in the middle of their team and burst up your W and R in their faces!
• 3. Use any other actives (Omen, Iron Solari), try not to stack it with your teammates, if you happen to have two of those...
• 4.1. If you're winning chase down the low HP targets with your stun (E), that should be off cooldown by now.
• 4.2 If the carries get focused, heal them and start retreating using whatever possible is remaining to slow down your opponents and save your mates (Omen, Shurelya's, Dazzle).
  
  Note: Don't forget to heal your dying teammates, in case of Karthus/Morde ultimates, Ignite and such your Heal is one of the strongest in the game, after all.

More pics to come.. I hope

Qs and As

If you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them and then put them in this chapter.

• Q1:"The other support placed a ward in my brush, what do I do?"
• A1:You have 3 options here:
  1)Pink-ward the brush, destroying his ward. (You might have to go back and buy one)
  2)If this is happening in your brush, either tell your carry to push so you can go in their brush, or tell him to back to your tower and wait for the ward to run out (TIME IT!)
  3)If it's happening in their brush, similarly push to their tower or back to your brush.

More to come.. I hope

Warding

I think the warding spots are widely known and there is no need for me to copy the known-to-pain map with the typical ward placements, I can, however make a map of the wards I usually place during the different phases of the game, if really necessary..

What to expect?

Videos an pics, almost sure about that. Maybe some will request AP build.. I don't think I can bring something new to the table, I don't really play AP Taric that much. As for an AD build, don't think that one is really viable atm, although I may try it out and think of something, depends on you guys :)

End

This was my very first guide, hope you like it, you know the rating system already, I ain't explaining it to you, but I'd appreciate constructive criticism, instead of simple trolling and downvoting for no reason, so any help with the build will be appreciated - for the sake of a new competitive Tank support build!

-xxx Cyb3r

Update Log

01/09/2012 Started the build
03/09/2012 Finished and published the build
03/09/2012 Replaced all the previous link with ones from the wiki Thanks to BloodRaine and her "how to make a guide" guide, also mentioned by Shadow_Light. Also fixed some runes that i previously got wrong thanks to Dragon20217.
Added "Cunning Ability Details" section.