14/05/2011-The build is published!
27/06/2011-Big nerf, some changes. Also added some extra-information I was requested. I am late but there you have it.

Hello everyone, this is my second guide on MOBAfire (my first one didn't got any comments, neither good or bad for some reason, you can check it here) and I hope I can share my thoughts and experience (some might say too short) with you.

Anyway, I haven't found any Roaming Taric guide on MOBA (or at least it didn't have a nice score last time I checked) so I decided to make this guide about Taric. And, what I am gonna try to explain in it?

-Bases of Roaming: What is roaming. Why is it actually a positive boost to your team. What skills you should have/develope before roaming in ranked play. When you do want to roam and when you don't.

-Roaming Taric: This is the actual BIG part of the build. Runes, Masteries, Early Gameplay, and all that things you expect from a guide.

-Aura-Support Taric: Your role in late game when the roaming time is over.

-Warding: The key to map awareness. Why, when and where you put your wards.

NOTE

I would like to thank TheRainMan for his gameplays with roaming Taric (I will try to find and post them but I lost track of them). That was my inspiration and I can say that a big part of this build is his job.

This is the part that Mid-High ELO players could skip (and maybe most US players as I am in the EU servers and this is [k]mainly[/k] for the people there) because you probably know everything here.

What is Roaming

Well, this is hard to explain with words (and even harder when you are not writing in your own language) but I will try to be as clear as possible. The job of a roamer is a being a full-time ganker. You will be complementing your jungler doing that, while allowing a 3 solo lane set up. You will be travelling from lane to lane, helping if a lane is being pushed too hard or helping/setting up a gank. This is very important, as your main XP/Gold source will be your assists (you can also leak some XP from each lane so you don't fall behind in levels but still allow your team to farm and out-level your enemies) so you will have to play kinda agresive, but do it smart.

Some tips about this may be to stay in contact with your jungler and set up a gank together, getting an easy kill (laner+jungler+roamer vs laner + another laner if bot lane=easy kill) or not waiting EXCLUSIVE for a kill, it's okay if you just harm the enemy and making them use one of their summoner spells so they bluepills back, that's XP advantage for your team, and means you did your part.

Why is it actually a positive boost to your team

As I said before, having a roamer in your team allows you to have 3 solo lanes + a jungler (it is VERY important to have a jungler, if you want to aim this in normal, get a jungler or you're screw as your ganking potential curves down way too early) which means you will be getting ALL experience available in the map all the time, and pretty much assigning your gold to the right members of the team. Why you are not getting any gold and maybe less XP than the rest? Well, as a roamer you will be 99% of times a support (when you don't you will entirely rely on your ganks and kills to get XP which is too risky and something I don't recomend) and your main goal is to help your carries win the game, and you do so, by sacrificing your potential in order to boost theirs.

What skills you should have/develope before roaming in ranked play

Well, there are a few thing that you NEED to be a ranked roamer (and even a ranked player):

-Map awareness. Without this you better not really attempt roaming. As a supporter you HAVE to keep your team alive, and you don't NEED to be right next to them (or being Soraka) to do so. Ward the map, ward the lanes, keep track of the enemy jungler ( Clarivoyance is such a nice tool for this) and help the lanes/gank when NEEDED. Don't randomly gank a lane just because you are next to it, keep track of the whole game.

-Know what your team is able to do: There's no point in ganking a lane when your partner is too low HP and you should just cover the lane while they bluepill and come back, but don't be a chicken either, if you think you can get a kill with a reasonable small failing chance, go for it.

-Time your spells: You need to time your spells (specially your CC) with your team mates so you can get a long early-game stunt and pick up the kills.

-Try to get assists, leave the kills to the carries: This is really important, as you are a support, you barely need gold to keep your potencial flowing and your carries need it badly. With this in mind, also play safe. Don't let an easy kill to scape because of leaving it to your mates. If it is a sure kill for your mates, let them, if, by any chance, you might loose him/her, get it in time.

When you do want to roam and when you don't

Well, you can't just be like, okay, I'm going to roam no matter what. If you do that, you will get raped from time to time, and raped HARD. If the other team has very very strong laners, your team may not be able to handle a 2v1 lane. Lets say, your 2v1 laner is Nasus. If he has to face Janna+ Caitlyn he's gonna die, and he's gonna do it a lot. In the other hand, if you have Mordekaiser or Irelia for the 2v1 lane, you SHOULD be roaming, as they can handle the lane pretty easy, and get loads of gold to fill in their expensive builds.

Okay, now we know what roaming is but... why pick Taric? There are a lot of people who like Alistar (one of the best at this job I know that) or Maokai (I think he needs a bit of gold so he must have a hard time if things don't go as you wish).

There is a reason I'd say why Taric is one of the best at this: Dazzle, this is a 2 seconds stunt... at level 1! That's the difference. Most roamers need level 2 to get to their full ganking potencial but you can start bugging from minute 1. 2 seconds stunt won't mean a sure kill at level 1 but you will your objective to low HP, meaning they either will recall (XP debuff) or stay low HP (come back soon and finish the job). There are some exceptions like Sion, Xin Zao or Blitzcrank. If you manage a good timing with your stunts you can get a level 1 FB even in a mid-pushed lane.

When you get more into the game your ganking capabilities will be the same, but your allies will max their damage output (and if you did your job, it'll be enough to go through your de-farmed enemies) and you will boost your support capabilities.

I'm not saying Taric is THE BEST roamer. He's kinda situational. 2 Cleanese on the other team and you will have big troubles while Alistar can get through that with not many problems, but still he needs the lane not to be really pushed and he's more sensitive to Flash than you are. I just put this example but there are many others so you can see that roaming needs you to keep an eye on timing and Summoner CDs. There's not a perfect roaming champ, but you need to try to be the best roaming summoner.

-06/22/11-v1.0.0.120
The gold per 10 component of Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick, and Avarice Blade is now unique to itself

NERF. And a big one, now we can't stack HoG and Philo's to get gold so we changed our item build A LOT. This hit us hard, specially late game, but we can still do our job. Greater Quintessence of Gold are now more important than they were before.

This is a varied choice when it gets to Roaming Taric. I use:

-9x Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
-9x Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration
-9x Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction
-3x Greater Quintessence of Gold

I know the marks are not very good (tho it can help early game with your Shatter damage) but any other option isn't game-changing either.

Another viable choices are:

Marks

- Greater Mark of Attack Speed: This will help your passive to proc and can help late game to keep your Radiance up as long as possible (as I said, not game changing) as well as giving you that little bit of mana that SOMETIMES you MIGHT miss in a gank.

- Greater Mark of Scaling Ability Power: A bit of AP late game. Again, not game changing.

If you have any other suggestions, tell me, because I can't find anything more usefull than what I actually use.

Glyphs

- Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: More CDR lategame. I prefer to get flat CDR runes as I find that when I need to abuse my stunt is early game and also because as a roamer we tend to be de-leveled and flat runes are helpfull there. These are a great choice anyway.

Quintessences

- Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed: As you are moving between lanes all the time, you will find this boost very usefull. Remember, the faster you can change from one lane to another, the more unpredictable you will be, and either your ganks will be more deadly or all enemies will stay a bit back so they have a way out in case you gank them making their lasthit a nightmare.

- Greater Quintessence of Health: This used to be my main quints as HP is very usefull in early game ganking. But the nerf on gold/10 items make us need a gold boost. If you like this quints you can stick to them. They still work, but you'll miss gold late-game. You can mix this with gold quints if you feel you need the hp boost.

Well, I'll give an explanation of why I pick every single of my masteries as I want this to be an in-depth guide and I want to explain the hows and the whys of everything. If you want to skip this part I'll say that as a support champ you get almost nothing from the Offence tree, so I go 0/9/21 masteries, get the CDR and improved Clarivoyance from the Utility.

Defense

- Resistance : Some MR that really really helps with early game ganks. Very very good for what it costs.

- Hardiness : Same as before, Armor early game? 'Nuff said.

- Strength of Spirit : Decent HP regen early game, very very good late game. Will help you keep your health up and you won't be in the need of auto- Imbue yourself, so you'll have your spell ready to save your team mates (tho don't walk around like you are Sona or Soraka; you are an aura-support, not a healer, but you can always give a hand).

Utility

- Good Hands : You shouldn't be dieing a lot, but you will have to sacrifice from time to time for your carries to ace the enemy. Late game you will NOTICE this so I feel it's a must.

- Perseverence : Nothing else we can use. 6% boost to your life regen... You will never notice this (at least, I don't) but we need it for the good stuff.

- Awareness : You do have problems to keep your level okay, don't put more problems in your way. This is very usefull.

- Greed : Same as before. More gold for free? Yes please. It's not much, but it's one of those little boost you don't want to miss.

- Meditation : This is what keeps your mana up early game. Don't ever miss this or you may have mana issues early game. This masterie is imba in my opinion.

- Quickness : Another imba masterie. Free Movement Speed. Usefull for ganking early game, and you gain mobility late game.

- Blink of an Eye : More flashes means you can gank/avoid ganks easier. Nice add to our arsenal of tricks.

- Inteligence: CDR. It's free!

- Mystical Vision : This, paired up with the next masterie allows you to basically have a double vision anywhere you want. Scout buffs for your jungler, prevent ganks, dragon/baron awareness... With your masteries Clairvoyance has almost no CD. Be sure you spam it all the time, you will learn to do it without even thinking.

- Presence of the Master : This gives you more Flashs and more Clairvoyances which are essential ALL game long. So we will pick this and move onto other things.

Tho you can change things I feel this is the best masterie tree for Roaming Taric since we only miss improved buffs (let red for your AD melee and blue for your AP carry; get it only when your mage is someone like Vladimir as you will use the extra mana regen to keep your Radiance up as long as possible during a teamfight or when pushing).

When you roam with "The Gem's Night" you don't have much choice if you wanna perform your support-role well.

MY CHOICE

- Clairvoyance: You might have already guessed how much I love the map awareness that this spell gives your team. I would say that this is mandatory for our build as you need to:

-Check your paths when moving between lanes.
-Prevent ganks when team is pushing
-Counter-jungle effective
-Many others

This is one of the little cores of the build. Learn to use it, learn to spam it, learn to love it.

- Flash: This is a good all-around spell. I always keep one mobility spell when playing any champion (either Flash or Ghost) because in my opinion, they are very usefull for ganks/chases/scapes and all sort of things. Why Flash over Ghost? Well, first of all, we don't have any blinks like Kassadin or Ezreal and there is a reason why some champions are more effective gankers than others. Early game, this blink will allow you to position yourself well for a gank, or to finish up a running enemy. Early game, you want to pop your Dazzel at max range for the 2 seconds stunt; help your mate chew him up with a few auto-attacks (as much as you can use when he's running away) and if he's getting out of range, Flash+ Shatter=Free Kill!. Another reason we pick this is because we already have kinda INSANE movement speed, so we won't need more most the time, but we are gonna want our blink all along the game.

I'm not giving explanation on possible choices as I don't see them as viable. We already get all we can from items and skills so we only lack the unique impact of these two spells through all the game. Feel free to use others BUT that's on your own risk.

This is a pretty nice spell tho you might not like it at first. Why? Because your healing potential early game is kinda bad, and, as you are not babysiting a carry you may not have the chance to repeatedly heal them. You still have a tool for saving people who is about to die in a gank early game or to help push towers late game, when you will be able to spam this more and for higher amount of health.

I put a point in this at level 2 for saving allies when than ganked enemy tries to get a kill on a low-hp ally before they die or in case I have to take their HP up after a gank (stay in the lane for a minute or two healing so they can avoid recalling). I max this second as mid-game the healing potential will improve your team-fight impact.


This is your bread and butter spell. It gives you increased armor (stupid? well, you are avoiding buying armor items, and can focus on hp, which actually, pays you back) and an aura that increases your allies armor. It also hits for a small but still usefull amount of damage early game AND reduces all enemeis armor. This is HUGE. Your carry will just open your enemies like they were made out of butter. Still, you want to keep the aura on as long as possible so use this spell when the teamfight is about to end (specially if the enemy carry run away/died) and make your team burst everything they have.

I put a point into this at level 3 (very rare times I feel putting a point in this at 2 if my ganks don't make my allies HP go low) and max this ASAP as it helps you a lot to keep your survability up. We are moving all the time in a very thin line between usefullness and survability. Thanks to our low gold-income we need to rely on our spells and our brain to keep us alive.


Here it is. The reason why we are roaming, and the reason because we are so damn good at it. This gives you an imba stunt early game, and late game it gives your team a 2 secs carry free teamfight. Enough to take one or two enemies down if you all do your job. This is a huge skill through all the game. What's the bad part of it? It doesn't matter how many points you put into this. It will have THE SAME uses any level (indeed, I bet you can put a point in this, and get to level 18 with 4 points to add to your spells and you will still have no problem).

I put a point in this at level 1 because of its AMAZING ganking potential and then I just leave it there till I can't put points into anything else. One of the best stunts in the game, one of the worst scallings in the game.


This is your ultimate and this is why we play aura support. This spell gives your allies some HP/second and, more important, AD. This spell is great for team push because will make the towers to melt and will also help in teamfights (+90 damage on your carry? IMBA!). It is hard to maintain tho to it's weird mana cost. First couple seconds it's really cheap, but each second it will take more and more mana. Don't keep this up like an idiot, or you will loose your mana, and will be unable to do anything. If your caster doesn't need the blue buff ( Vladimir or Ryze are the ones that come to my mind) you can use it for a sustained use of Radiance. Not infinte but still will help you keep it up A LOT.

Put points in this whenever you can because it's a usefull aura to your arsenal.

As a supporter Taric is not a very item dependant champion, so you won't have problems with getting de-farmed. But anyway, we don't want to get to late game with our base stats. You are an aura support, and you will need to be in the middle of the fight, soaking damage if you can and trying to stay alive as long as possible so your auras will be up all the time you can buy.

Also, we need to move fast to support our team and help out with ganks through all the game and some regeneration so we can keep our spells flowing.

Starting Items

Sight Ward

This gives us movement speed and map awareness which are the core to an effective early game. Be sure tho, that your team KNOWS you are going to roam, because if they change their mind, in a lane, with no mana regen, you will be oom (out of mana) in a second and you will desperatly try to get some lasthits to keep your mana up. And you know what? You will fail if you are there with boots, a ward and Health Pot. So be sure you are gonna be roaming before buying anything.

Early-game Items

IMBA move, what's to hate about this? Before the last patch sometimes I slammed my head with the keyboard because I didn't know if Mercury's Treads were a better option but... TENACITY items! Oh yes, you know it baby. These new items are AWESOME, specially Eleisa's Miracle.

Philosopher's Stone
Pretty much like HoG, will give us gold and is neccesary to build our Eleisa's Miracle so get this ASAP so it gives you some gold before you build it into something else.


You want to grab this little thing soon too while still buying wards all the time. This will give you 3 things:

-Gold (we need this to keep our items flowing)
-HP (Paired up with improved armor from Shatter= high survability)
-Start your Randuin's Omen

Kage's Lucky Pick
Since our gold/10 items got nerfed we need another item to make our gold income high enough. I choose this as it's the last one usefull for us. It gives us some boost to heal. Not really great but will have to do untill I come up for a better idea.


If the enemy team is smart, they will put wards everywhere and maybe they will try to gank you. Don't let them counter-gank you. Also, you will get some gold from the wards you destroy (very little, but you can manage to even get those to pay your oracle) and of course, you will have the eye so you can help your team when facing hatefull ***es like Evelynn, Twitch or Akali.

Mid Game

This will be the last item you will be getting before you go on your late game auras. It will help you if you get CC so you can keep your stunts/heals flowing. It also is really really cheap and is built from an item that gives you gold. 10/10 for this item.

Late Game

When you are done early game, you will want to start building your auras. Keep in mind that your "early" game build may be a bit longer than many people may think and you won't always get your mid-late game items. But if you get to your gold/10 items and your Eleisa's Miracle it's a good idea to start building any of this items you think you need. They are mainly items that have an AoE centered in yourself (Auras) both boosting your item or de-buffing enemy team.


This is a great item. It isn't really expensive and boosts your team stats for a small amount. This looks bad but it buffs many of them, so the improvement is actually very good. I tend to get this as my late-game item.


Mana, even more armor (if you need it), CDR and a GREAT passive. Get this if you have troubles with a feed AD carry. It will lower their potential a lot.


AP that will help your heal, MR (very important if you feel like you are taking a lot of damage as we don't get massive MR in our build) and a passive that will help your AP carry chew on those enemies covered with negatrons. If someone in your team is gonna get it, tell them that you will, so they make space for something more usefull.


HP, Armor, and AOE slow. It also is made out of your HoG so thumbs up to Randuin's. You get some more CC for your team (very usefull in teamfights) and the stats are really good.


I don't usually get this because the speedboost is pretty short and we build our Philosopher's Stone into something else but if you like this, give it a chance.


A handy item, it's not very expensive and gives you HP, CDR and a mana regen aura. I'm not a fun of this item, but it's an okay item to have. Not optimal for Taric as we get the HP from our HoG but it's handy.


Decent choice if you play a 2 AD Off-tanks team composition or even when you double AD-carry. I don't really like this item as it only buffs 2 people in the team most times but I have to say that it is usefull in certain situations.


Yes, this is a late-game choice. If you feel that you need more CDR and you have enough mobility you can swap your boots with these late in the game. You can pick this early game too but when roaming I don't recomend them.
Any suggestions will be tried and added if I find them usefull.

Well, some people think that the role of a support champion is mainly heal the carries to keep them alive. This isn't completly wrong as that's how some champs support ( Soraka, Sona and maybe even Karma) that's not the right way to understand it.

As a support you have to improve your teams effectiveness, and you have to do it good enough that the damage output of the team is higher than adding another dps. Is that even possible? Yes it is, if you have a beefy support champ, lets say... Taric, in the way of Ezreal skillshots you will keep your carry alive, if you boost your INSANELY fast carry with some extra AD, the damage output you get out of it is higher than a mix of 2 DPS with half of the farming that your actual DPS have.

Most of you already knew that, but I find that at lower elo (elo hell, you can't get out of it, and that sucks for the people who enjoy playing support like me), many players don't keep this in mind, I hope they give supporters a try.

Okay, we know what a support champ means. But... how are we gonna support our team with this build? Well, we are building Taric as an aura-support champ. We are gonna stay right in the middle of the fight, making our auras (both buffing and de-buffing) have as many people as possible in range.

Why this build?

You may think, okay, auras are nice but... why not get some more AP for better healing? Well, even when that's actually possible (I build some AP items when laning as my gold income is a tad bit higher), Taric already has TWO auras as skills AND his base stats make him beefy enough to cope with a non-sustained burst so if he gets focus to death, you'll buy your carries the time they need to score an ace. You did your job, you kept your allied carries alive to victory.

We are stacking auras to maximize our base capabilities. If you split the auras among many champs, (lets say, your Fiddlestcks gets an Abyssal Mask and your tank get an Aegis of the Legion) everytime one of them dies you are loosing potencial, and you are making one of your mates job harder, as they need to POSITION themselves in the place the aura is more effective, and that's not their job. They already have something to do, don't put more things on them. If you already have to place yourself in a good position for your Shatter and Radiance to provide a maximized effect on the team... why adding your buff some other benefits? That's what we have to think.

As an example I'm gonna describe your role in a common team-fight.

1-Tanks initiates and start to dissable carries.
2-Off-tank (if you have one) follows the tank and start soaking damage and doing damage
3-You jump in very short after your tanks, and activate your auras ( Randuin's Omen, Radiance) and start healing if someone needs it (maybe the off-tank took too much damage from, lets say, Veigar)
4-Carries come and start casting their burst/doing their DPS

You should also disable the carries with your Dazle and try to resist to that call from your W saying: press me! press me! I do damage!. Belive me, she's lieing and you will loose an important armor buff. Shatter is your finisher IF needed or a de-buff to help erasing heavy armored running foes.

Taric is an easy champ to learn, (all your support is pasive so you don't need any combo or anything like Zilean or Karma) but he's hard to master (you will have to time your stunts with your team so you can shut that Tryndamere down, for example). Anyway, he's very usefull and rewarding to your efforts.

Early Game Roaming

I have been requested this information so I'll add it here as I don't see a place where it fits more.

The early game team-play is VERY important as it will decide whether your team gets advantage or in the other hand gets behind the other team and prolly decide the whole game. So what we are going to do when the fight start?

1-Grab your items and CV the enemy team. This will give you some clues (mid-high elo can skip this as the variety of builds goes down as your elo goes up) on the enemy team as: is someone AFK? That Warwick is jungling without Smite? That Twisted Fate is AD or AP? This information is nice to have if you want to perform an early game gank or some counterjungling.

2-Assist your jungler. He starts at blue? You can help cover. He wants to counter-jungle? Go with him and help him. Your team is picking up a lvl 1 fight? Help them! (You are game-breaking at this point as you have the longest lvl 1 stunt spell in the game).

3-Early game gank. I start roaming since level 1 so it's important to pick the lane. For first gank attempt a weak early-game champ. The 2v1 lane isn't my priority 99% of the time as it's the hardest one to gank. I usually pick solo top or mid. If you can get a stunner in a 1v1 lane that means you are certain to get fb. Solo top Sion is your very best friend, but Anivia mid can also force your oponent out of the lane. Remember that a successfull gank doesn't mean a kill all the time. If your oponent midder wastes 2 summoner spells and blue-pills, you gave your mate a HUGE advantage. Keep it in mind.

Tip

If the enemy jungler is a very good counter-jungling champ (such us Shaco, Trundle or Nunu & Willump I tend to ward the most usual path for them to go to your jungle, so you can keep track of them and bug their counter-jungling and maybe even pick up a gank with your jungler.

DISCLAMER: I actually need to update this a bit since the hours of game have given me a better ward planing. Will update the map when I can

One of your many function as a roamer is "Warding". You need map awareness so you can support your team... EVEN WHEN YOU ARE NOT THERE! A good warding of your jungle and ganking places will give you a big advantage, because if your team has a tinny bit of brain, they will have time to go back to the tower when the jungler comes to gank them. You will also prevent your jungler to get counter-jungled and maybe EVEN killing your enemy.

Late game you also want to be aware of Baron/Dragon but please, don't put the ward inside their little "bases", you wanna see when enemy team is comming, and it's no that bad if you see their face (maybe you won't notice enemy team and they are out of sight when you look, that can happen), but please, put the ward in the river so you can cover more paths.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of good spots because I use SO MANY wards (like, half my gold?) that I can't remember all places, they just come to my mind randomly, and I try to be creative (remember, the best ward, is the unexpected one). If you remind me/tell me I'll try to keep the picture up date.

Well, I hope this guide has helped you and gave you an idea on how AWESOME Taric is. Any feedback will be taken in count. I'll try to keep this updated.

And always remember... You are a ****ing freak covered on gems, play super hero and have fun :)