Taric Build Guide by Slappiz

Introduction

Welcome to my build for Taric. Taric is one of my favorite support for ranked games and he is my second most played champion in ranked for both season 1 and 2. This is a brief template of how I build him and I might add some more information/sections if it gets popular.

My IGN is Slappiz, I play on the European server Nordic East and I have been playing League of Legends since the beta.

My top rating for each season (solo que),

Pros / Cons

Pros

• Extremely tanky with health items.
• One of the best single CC in game ( Dazzle).
• Decent heal.
• Awesome debuff/buff.
• Strong burst damage.

• Damaged by his "long" cooldowns.
• Mana problems in the early stage of the game.

Skills

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• Gemcraft: Pretty lame passive, but comes in handy a few times during the laning phase. I usually hit a minion, preferably the tank minion if I find myself low on mana.
  
  
• Imbue: Decent heal, for a little extra sustain in lane. Overall it's kinda lame but the passive effect on this one synergies with Gemcraft quiet well. Make sure to hit your enemies during team fights to shorten your cooldown.
  
  
• Shatter: Really useful passive effect against strong physical poke champions like Caitlyn. The active effect is really powerful combined with a burst champion, Graves or Corki etc. Dazzle+ Shatter is an excellent exchange combo, but always make sure that your ADC is following you when you use it.
  
  
• Dazzle: Medium range stun, works perfectly with your item kit, Dazzle--> Radiance--> Shatter and is a really powerful combo. This spell is the reason why we take Quintessence of Movement Speed, Initiator and start with Boots of Speed, for always being able to secure the stun in lane. This is highly appreciated by your jungler, trust me :P
  
  
• Radiance: I love this ultimate, it has decent damage, low cooldown and gives you and your allies (50% of your buff) a massive buff for 10 seconds. Make sure to use this early in a team fight and always use Radiance before you use Shatter in your combo, for maximal damage.
  

Masteries

Offence

: Reduce the targets armor and magic resistance by 10. Combine this with your Shatter and you have pretty much allowed your AD carry to deal true damage for a short period of time.



Defense

: 6 extra magic resistance, simply because we need some extra resistance against early poke spells.

: 6 extra armor, adds some extra armor before we start taking skills in Shatter.

: 108 extra health at level 18, suits us perfectly since we are going to act as a soak end game.

: 30 extra health at level 1.

: reduce all damage by 1, pretty much a free point, put it wherever you want.

: 3% increased movement speed when above 70% health, we takes this for the exact same reasons as it was named for, initiating.



Utility

: 15 seconds reduced cooldown on Flash, comes in handy sometimes.

: 216 Mana at champion level 18, so we don't find our selves OOM in the middle of a team fight.

: +3 Mana Regen per 5 seconds, well needed since we got 0 mana regen from seals and we start with Boots of Speed

: Increase vision range of wards by 5%, we ward, a lot.

: Generates 2 gold every 10 seconds, we need this since we wont be getting a lot of minion kills.

: 40 extra gold from start, that's one Health Potion or Mana Potion.

Runes

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Best choice for us since we want to help our ADC to get kills. Makes all our offensive spells slightly more effective.

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These allow us to have a decent cash flow since we won't be getting any minion kills.

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Boosts your survivability against bursty mages and most AoE-effects are magic damage. Stronger mid/end game. We won't focus on building magic resistance so these are the best choice for us.

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These are the unique part of this build. I play Taric as an initiator and the extra movement speed allow us to secure our Dazzle stuns. By always starting with Boots of Speed we will have a high base movement speed and our lane will become very deadly if the enemy team pushes our lane.

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Summoner Spells

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Exhaust: Pretty much standard for the current meta, since most ADC use Heal. The additional effect from Summoner's Wrath also synergies really good with your active effect from Shatter, allowing you to almost shred all armor off your target.

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Flash: Pretty straightforward, mostly for survivability or for securing stuns on fleeing enemies.

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Clairvoyance: Good when counter warding and to keep track on the enemy jungler. Great spell, but I find Exhaust a lot more useful since I pretty much know all champions jungle routines atm. Good choice for new support players.

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Ignite: I never use this in ranked, but I've done a few normal games with a friend playing Sivir, and we have been totally demolishing the enemy bot lane with me going Exhaust+ Ignite. Stronk if you know what you are doing.

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Items

Core

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• Boots of Speed: Our first item, always. We need the extra movement speed for early game aggression
  
  
• Philosopher's Stone: Standard support item and it also solves our mana issues.
  
  
• Heart of Gold: Standard support item, adds a bunch of hp and makes us a lot more tanky in the lane phase. Builds into 2 useful items for Taric, Locket of the Iron Solari or Randuin's Omen

Item order: Boots of Speed + Health Potion + Mana Potion + Sight Ward--> Philosopher's Stone --> Heart of Gold

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• Mercury's Treads: Tenacity and magic resistance, boots our lack of magic resistance and some tenacity is always good for extra survivability.
  
  
• Aegis of the Legion: One of my favorite item for Taric, extremly good item for mid game, allowing you to act as a tank in small fights. Also boosts your teams defensive stats.
  
  
• Shurelya's Reverie: The activate is one of the most useful in the game, a must for all supports.
  
  
• Locket of the Iron Solari: Underused item, but it's a awesome item for tanky supports, the activate is mediocre but can save people from dying, rarely. 300hp is really nice on this relatively cheap item.

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• Frozen Heart: Great item against strong AD based enemy champions who rely on auto attacks and 20% cdr is really helpful for Taric.
  
  
• Guardian Angel: Good defensive stats but you won't this item as often, since you won't be the one your enemies focus on.
  
  
• Soul Shroud: High health item with a decent aura.
  
  
• Zeke's Herald: Great support item, nice aura and adds a few extra hit points to your health bar. Good choice if your team has more than one attack damaged based carry.
  
  
• Will of the Ancients: Not a fan of it for supports, but it sure does qualify as a decent support item.
  
  
• Banshee's Veil: Great item if you need some extra magic resistance, and the passive shield has it's moments.

Brief info: Laning Phase - End Game

• Lvl 1-3 : Our lame phase, sit back and enjoy your XP, and be ready if your jungler comes for a gank.
  
  
• Lvl 3-6 : Now we have Shatter and can start harassing with Dazzle+ Shatter combo, make sure that your ADC is able to reach your target when you use your combo, ALWAYS.
  
  
• Mid game, 6+: Now we have Radiance and will most likely be able to kill the target who you use your Dazzle+ Radiance+ Shatter combo on, assuming your ADC does his/her job.
  
  
• Late game: Taric gets really tanky with health items and can act like a soak in team fights. Stand in the middle of things, block those skill shots and keep your auto attacks going for shorter cooldown on Imbue. None will focus us but the reason why we should build tanky is to be able to act as a frontline for our team. Leading them through tower dives and to soak up poke damage etc.
  

Warding

This guide pretty much covers it all

I'll maybe add some personal pointers here in the future, but the linked guide is pretty awesome.