Welcome to Taric - A gentleman's guide to Dominance! Here you will find all you need to play Taric, our favorite aura/utility champion for the League's newest game type, Dominion!!

Your role will be to support your team with heals, cc, and auras throughout the entire game. You may not always place #1 on your team, but you will most likely be the reason you won!

In case you haven't seen Zemiazas's guide to Dominion teamwork, check it out here!

Guess I should start this out by saying...

WTF RIOT!?!? NEW MASTERIES??!?

I'll change them as soon as I figure them all out :D

11/21/11
Masteries updated for new trees. Minor tweaks in item section as well.

11/25/11
Changed summoner spells, and masteries to reflect those changes. See summoner spells section for details.

11/29/11
Wooo Taric buffs!! :D now shatter and radiance scale with AP better!

1/4/12
Change to VERY lategame item section due to surpassing 40% cdr (thanks to dykosyko for pointing this out)

4/11/12
Added zeke's herald to alternate item section! Remember that it gives CDR as well, so adjust accordingly! =P

Pros

Incredible support
Late game Tanky
Fairly easy to learn
Be appreciated by your teammates!

Cons

Doesn't deal much damage
Can't duel/be alone
Early game is fairly squishy

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration- No great choices here, but I go with Mpen marks for a bit of extra damage.
Greater Seal of Armor- Armor is important! These will help you win the first fight for the Windmill, or top capture point
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist- Helps Taric out with magic resist, which he would otherwise be lacking.
Greater Quintessence of Health- all-around useful quints. Feel free to replace them with CdR, Movespeed, etc.

The optimal build in my opinion is 0/9/21. Taric doesn't really do much damage, and so we avoid the first tree. The 9 points in defense will help your sustainability, and the 21 points in utility will give you plenty of goodies =D

The new mastery tree threw everyone a curveball, but I think I've figured out how to best adapt the new trees to Dominion Taric. Again, we'll stick with 0/9/21 as you are building as a tanky support. The 9 points in defense gets us Veteran's Scars , helping with the first fight at Windmill. The support tree gets us mana, mana regen, CdR, movespeed, experience gain, and summoner spell CdR. Everything we take in this tree helps Dominion Taric.

If you really feel that you need extra beefyness, an alternate build of 0/21/9 might be justifiable. You'll lose a lot of your utility overall, but will last longer in fights.

There are many good choices, but the spells I tend to take the most for Dominion Taric are Ghost and Exhaust.

- VERY useful in Dominion. Mobility is extremely important, and sometimes you just NEED to be places!

- Useful in many ways, and with the 21 points in utility the cooldown isn't too long. Helps you defend a capture point, making the tower deal more damage and regenerate. Also useful for diving an enemy turret, as it almost completely negates it's damage output.

EDIT: I no longer believe that Garrison is a viable choice. It simply isn't useful after the first 10 minutes of the game.

- You should be taking this summoner spell. Dominion generally sees 2-3 AD carries per team, as everyone wants to play them! Exhaust is incredibly useful in this game mode. Lock down the AD carry in a teamfight, escape in the jungle, keep an enemy from escaping... The possibilities are endless! This ability will keep you and your teammates alive.

Your items are all geared towards improving your team's damage and survivability and reducing your enemy's. Auras are ever-important, as Taric will rarely find himself alone. Also, you will be quite tanky, allowing yourself to stay alive and support longer.

To begin the game, simply purchase ionion boots of lucidity. These bad boys will give you a great boost to CdR, letting you throw your spells around like there's no tomorrow.

This handy shield does wonders at keeping both yourself and your team alive. Make sure that no one else on your team picks it up! That would be redundant and a waste of money for both of you =P

A VERY useful item for Taric. This provides health, health regen, mana regen, CdR, and a very useful active. Remember to use it! If this isn't your cup of tea, feel free to replace it with something from the optional items section!

This will give you all the magic resist you'll need, as well as health regen and a handy boost to movement speed.

I LOVE this item! CdR, a ton of armor, enough mana to last a lifetime, and an incredible passive! Your enemies will beg for mercy!!

A nice 6th item, gives many useful stats and some extra damage with its active.

After finishing this build, with masteries included, you will have 56% CdR. Now, that isn't very effective, is it?? NO! (the game caps you at 40% CdR, if you didn't know). Therefore, I would usually sell my ionian boots and buy some more suited for lategame Taric. Usually Mercury's Treads works pretty well. Another option would be to go for Mobility Boots. Most other options aren't too useful.

Though I suggest using the items above, feel free to exchange them for others! Remember, it is always best to shape your build to counter the enemy team. For instance, if the enemy team has ALL AD or DPS, you might want to grab Ninja Tabi or Thornmail

Other useful items on Taric include:
zeke's herald can give your team a much-needed attack speed boost! (as well as a nice healing aura)
Soul Shroud for some health and a nice passive
Mercury's Treads against an incredibly CC heavy team
Frozen Mallet for extra damage, health, and a nice slow.
Abyssal Mask will give you a boost to AP and a negative aura for nearby enemies
hextech sweeper is VERY useful against those pesky invisible champions like Evelynn, Twitch, or Shaco
Consider picking up Will of the Ancients if you have an AP heavy team.
Consider Randuin's Omen for extra beefyness!

This build tends to get fairly tanky by the end of the game, so you should be able to defend a point for a little while, at least. Just remember, you're no Alistar!! You need a team to support in order to be most successful.

Here, I will go over all of Taric's skills and how and when to use them.

A fairly lackluster passive. Your physical attacks will replenish a percent of the damage you deal. You can capitalize on this by hitting creeps if you're low on mana, but in a teamfight, you have better things to do than worry about this passive.

This is one of the better healing spells in the game. The range on this spell is quite huge, letting you assist allies through walls or generally far away from you. It heals both yourself and the target, so use it on an ally as much as possible. If you're alone and low on health, targeting yourself will increase the heal by 40%. This ability uses quite a lot of mana, so don't spam it indefinitely early on. Also, remember that attacking enemy champions with basic attacks will proc a 3 second CdR on this spell, as well as replenish some of your mana thanks to Gemcraft

A built in aura! Passively, it gives you an incredible 20 armor with the first point, and 60 by rank 5! Your allies will receive half as much as long as the spell isn't on cooldown! Activating it will damage all enemies in a pretty decent area around you, as well as lower their armor significantly. If you are under heavy fire, remember that activating this ability removes half of the armor it provides for you.

If you're right next to an enemy, the damage is actually pretty high. With the Taric update, it now always stuns for 1.5 seconds, regardless of distance. Use this skill to save allies from being attacked, stop runners, or shut down carries in a teamfight. Just remember that it can also target minions, so be careful when you're aiming for a Champion in a crowd!!

Taric's new and improved ultimate! This nifty skill will deal a bit of damage, but more importantly, it will give you a TON of AD and AP, as well as boost the AD and AP of your allies as well! The great thing is that with all the CdR you'll be building, you'll be able to use this skill almost every fight! Don't be afraid of saving it, so use it liberally! The aura it emits will greatly help your team in a fight, as well as making you capable of doing some serious damage!

Dominion is all about team work. There are a number of strategies out there, but it is always important to work closely with your team. Communication is key here. I'll now go over a general idea of what you should be doing the entire time you're playing Taric in Dominion.

Early Game

The current Dominion metagame suggests that one player captures and defends the "bottom" capture point, and the remaining four fight over the "top" capture point. As the game begins, run as fast as possible towards the top CP and help your team win the fight. This is important, as winning this fight will give your team map control, gold, experience, and begin damaging the enemy's nexus.

Mid Game

By now, you should have some aura items, specifically Aegis of the Legion. Stay with your team in both defending your points and capturing the enemy's points. You can use Garrison both offensively or defensively, depending on the situation. Try to stay alive, stun a bunch of people and generally support your team. As the mid game progresses you will become more tanky, and you will be able to soak up incredible amounts of punishment, especially from enemy AD carries.

Late game

After you've finished your build, you should still try to support your team as much as possible. Use radience as an aura-on-command, and bring your team to victory!

I hope you've enjoyed reading all about Taric- A Gentleman's Guide to Dominion!

Please leave your comments/suggestions/passing thoughts/ramblings, etc! I +rep for useful comments as well!

Ryconn said:

well i just picked up taric and have tried this build several times and while it is ok you really arnt a threat and cant really kill...i have taken the same masteries and runfrozen heart still along with items like wits end and abysall septer to actually do some damage and have a more powerful heal

Most supports don't do too much damage in the first place. However, in Dominion, you'll often find yourself skirmishing 1v1, 1v2, or 2v2. Basically, you can't always rely on your teammates making the best use of your supporting ability. My recommendation is that if you have terrible teammates, go ahead and build some AP or AD items. Your inherent tankyness will help you survive, and the damage you do will be fairly decent. Hope that helps!

dykosyko said:

this build passes 40% CdR

True! Actually, you only pass it after finishing Frozen Heart, which is pretty late in the game. In fact, most games will end before you have a chance to finish your Frozen Heart. However, if you find yourself in a very long game, I would recommend selling the Ionian Boots of Lucidity and picking up another pair of boots, perhaps Mercury's Treads. Hope that clears that up!

KrentistTheDentist said:

Good guide. I've recently started playing Taric on Dominion using similar builds and had a fair amount of success. I would, however, like to suggest a pair of good items I like after I have enough CDR and defensive items: Stark's Fervor and The Black Cleaver.

That might sound stupid, but it works really well. Combine those 2 items with your W and suddenly the entire enemy team has 55 less armor, and your target is missing a whopping 100! Take that, tanky DPS. The attack speed it gives you synergizes very well with your Q, and the damage it gives makes you less ignorable come late game.

Have you tried Frozen Mallet or even Rylai's on Taric? I've been meaning to. Seems like the added utility of a slow would be very beneficial to this support champ.

Suprisingly (and as you point out), Taric with a bit of damage is actually pretty viable in Dominion. The only problem is, for every offensive item you buy (Frozen Mallet/Black Cleaver/etc.) you sacrifice a good deal of your utility. In my opinion, it is best to let the carries do the damage.

As for Rylai's, I don't think that it is completely necessary. The slow isn't strong at all when used with AoE spells (taric's w and ult) and so you'd only be getting 15% slow. I'm not a fan of building heavy ap.

Stark's Fervor is an interesting idea, though. I'll have to try it out =P