Early Impressions of Tahm Kench

[quote=MungoGeri]It looks like Riot has locked in the content for the upcoming patch, and that means the new champion, Tahm Kench, will be released. If you want basic info on him, check out these links: [URL=http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/champion-reveal/tahm-kench-river-king]The Official Tahm Kench Champion Reveal[/URL] [URL=http://www.newsoflegends.com/index.php/category/2-pbe-news/#1]News of Legends Upcoming Patch Summary[/URL] [h2]My Overall Review[/h2] I think Riot did an amazing job with this character. I highly recommend purchasing him right out of the gate and expect to see him used especially in team and competitive play. He truly is the "armored personnel carrier" that Riot wanted him to be. He's very strong in what he's supposed to be strong in (taking hits, saving teammates, taking enemies out of action, etc.) but also very weak in what he's supposed to be weak at (mobility when not carrying a teammate). He can be incredibly strong and yet there is plenty of counter play available. He can both solo lane and support well, and it wouldn't surprise me if some ways are found to make him an effective jungler. [h2]Suggestions for Laning Tahm Kench[/h2] I've played Tahm Kench a half dozen times on the PBE -- some as support and some as a laner. I'm going to focus here on solo laning with him. A lot of Tahm Kench's strength comes after he builds up 3 stacks of his passive, "An Acquired Taste." It's kind of like Braum's passive, except that only basic attacks and damaging abilities from Tahm Kench himself generates stacks. Once, you get 3 stacks on a target, then your ranged Q (Tongue Lash) can stun an enemy champion for 1.5 seconds and your W (Devour) can "eat" the enemy for 2-3 seconds. Now hopefully I can help you avoid a newbie mistake. It's common for people to think, "It's easy to get 3 stacks on an enemy. Just use your W to eat and spit a minion at an enemy for 1 stack, Q the enemy champion to slow them and apply the 2nd stack, and then run up and hit them with a basic attack for the 3rd stack. Done!" But, um, there's a problem with this. The whole point of trying to get 3 stacks on an enemy is so that you can Q and then W them -- but now both are on cooldown, so all you're doing is standing there while the enemy wails away on you. The best outcome is achieved by getting 3 stacks using just basic attacks so that you have your Q and W available to keep the enemy out of action. However, getting 3 stacks using just basic attacks can be difficult because Tahm doesn't have any gap closers, so he can be really easy to kite with a mobile champion. I found it important to build items to counter this disadvantage. When laning, I recommend building one of these two sets of items: [color=orange]Option #1:[/color] [[zephyr]] [[boots of swiftness - alacrity]] [[frozen mallet]] [color=orange]Option #2:[/color] [[trinity force]] [[mercury's treads - alacrity]] [[frozen mallet]] Both options are designed to give you some attack speed to help you build stacks on enemies quickly, movement speed and tenacity to help you catch up to your opponent, and the slow from the [[frozen mallet]] that will help you lock onto your enemy so they can't kite away from you. Also, the [[frozen mallet]] slow is an effective way to help you peel for a squishy teammate who is trying to do their own kiting. [color=green]Pros for Option #1:[/color] It has more attack speed, is 15 movement speed faster, has 25% slow reduction, has 10% cooldown reduction, and is 1050g cheaper. [color=green]Pros for Option #2:[/color] It has 250 more health and 25 more MR. It probably deals a little more damage, but probably not a lot more. Now, I say that you should build one of those sets of items, but I do not mean that they necessarily have to be your first three items. The game might dictate if you want to build some armor, MR, or other stats in the middle of those three items. However, I think you should work toward completing those three items as a part of your build at some point. The other three items in your build should be tank items, which will strengthen both the shield on E and the passive damage on Tahm's ultimate. Some items that many be particularly interesting to Tahm are: [[Spirit Visage]] - Not only useful for the health, MR, and CDR, but also because the passive increases the passive healing from Tahm's E. [[Frozen Heart]] - Since Tahm will likely be standing in the middle of the action, the aura should be affecting several enemies at once. The downside is that it has no health. [[Wit's End]] - Increases Tahm's attack speed and magic damage even further while providing some decent MR. Does not provide any health, however. [[righteous glory]] - provides health and a good way for tahm to initiate. For example, he can pick up a teammate (which gives him a speed boost) and then trigger [[righteous glory]]'s active to speed into the middle of an enemy team and drop off his teammate. [[sunfire cape]] - Tanky way to deal some general AOE damage. [[stalker's blade - cinderhulk]] or [[skirmisher's sabre - cinderhulk]] - A good way to get a damage aura while also gaining an extra 25% health on other items. [[zz'rot portal]] - Good way to get both armor and MR on the same item. Can be paired with other health focused items like [[righteous glory]] or [[warmog's armor]]. [[warmog's armor]] - Lots of health and health regen, of course. [h2]Playing Against Tahm Kench[/h2] When playing against Tahm Kench, the key is to pick on his lack of mobility. Mobile ranged characters should be a nightmare for him. In particular, I think [[teemo]] will be a hard counter to him. But even melee characters should do OK against him if they have some mobility. For example, if they can run in, get some hits in, and then jump/spin away after Tahm builds a couple of stacks on them, then they'll be fine. They just have to keep away until the stacks wear off and repeat the engagement. In a team fight, the main thing is to try to play keep away from Tahm while focusing on other characters. Try to avoid getting 3 stacks on you at all costs. Also, when your team does try to kill Tahm, save your stuns for when he's close to dying. His E shield is amazing -- almost doubling his effective health if done right. If you can hurt him a little bit and *then* stun/disable him and kill him before he can hit his E, that's far better than having to basically start over against a nearly max health shield.[/quote]

[quote=RottedApples]totally didn't read much of this, i skimmed, sorry, but yeah i think he's going to be a really solid champion. I do think that ranged top laners will give him a hard time. Looking at some of the items i want to bring this up, Tahm has good ap scaling on his kit. I see where you are going with some of your items but i think [[Rod of ages]], [[Rylai's Crystal Scepter]], etc. will be far better on him since they will give him even more damage thanks to his ult passive. Now i haven't played tahm since i don't have PBE but based on some of the tahm i've seen thanks to watching wingsofdeath stream i can speculate with relative certainty on those items. [[Enchantment: Cinderhulk]] top lane does seem really good. From what wings said on stream his jungle clear isn't that great early but it might still be possible though, we will have to wait and see. [[Wit's end]] seemed pretty good, his aa's do benefit from the ult as well as his abilities which is nice, so some attack speed and mr shred may not go amiss, [[Frozen mallet]] would give him more damage since it has a ton of health on it and it would let him stick to people, but [[frozen mallet]] is always situational and a lot of people don't like it.[/quote]

[quote=MungoGeri][quote=RottedApples]totally didn't read much of this, i skimmed, sorry, but yeah i think he's going to be a really solid champion. I do think that ranged top laners will give him a hard time. Looking at some of the items i want to bring this up, Tahm has good ap scaling on his kit. I see where you are going with some of your items but i think [[Rod of ages]], [[Rylai's Crystal Scepter]], etc. will be far better on him since they will give him even more damage thanks to his ult passive.[/quote] I get what you're driving at. I picked up [[rod of ages]] myself a couple of times. However, I don't see how he has good AP scaling on his kit. Only two of his skills, Q and W, have any damage dependency on AP and they have long cooldowns compared to most spell caster skills. Let's say you get a 100 AP item of some sort and you have 40% cooldown reduction. He'll deal 70 damage per 4 seconds on his Q and 40-60 damage per 6 seconds on his W. That's a total of 27.5 damage/second. With a [[sunfire cape]], you'll deal 43 damage per second to all enemies around him, and you'll have armor to go with the health. (With the new AP items, [[rod of ages]] gives you 500 health at maximum, so the health gain is about the same). I just don't see how buying a couple of one off AP items will help. Now, if you were buying some multipliers like [[rabadon's deathcap]] and [[void staff]], that would be a different story. However, if you did that, you wouldn't be tanky enough for the job you need to do. [quote][[Wit's end]] seemed pretty good, his aa's do benefit from the ult as well as his abilities which is nice, so some attack speed and mr shred may not go amiss, [[Frozen mallet]] would give him more damage since it has a ton of health on it and it would let him stick to people, but [[frozen mallet]] is always situational and a lot of people don't like it.[/quote] The [[frozen mallet]] is less about the added damage and more about the health and the ability to stick to people. That's his primary problem -- people kiting him. Having [[frozen mallet]] lets him reduce the enemy mobility down to his level. Plus, it gives him a pre-stack peel he otherwise wouldn't have to protect his teammates. Contrary to your statement, I think it's an essential item on Tahm.[/quote]

[quote=NicknameMy]Or you play him in the jungle and get Sated Devourer, that would be another option that would mean that you only need 2 hits. Somehow, the arguments and counter arguments remind me on my Cho'Gath build :D. As a reminder, my Cho build is Attack Speed Marks, rest of runes depending on lane opponent, 4/23/3 masteries (attack speed / movement speed) Teleport, Ghost, Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage, Boots of Swiftness - Distortion, Zephyr, Situational ( Trinity Force, Randuin's, Wit's End, Banshee's Veil, etc...) I don't like Trinity Force on Tham Kench tho has he neither has high AD nor spamable spells. Cho at least has the highest AD. Also, Tham Kench's attack speed is rather meh.[/quote]

[quote=MungoGeri][quote=NicknameMy]Or you play him in the jungle and get Sated Devourer, that would be another option that would mean that you only need 2 hits. [/quote] There definitely seems potential for Tahm Kench to work in the jungle and Sated Devourer would be great on him (assuming it doesn't get nerfed all to hell by the following patch). But before you start dreaming of ultimate builds using Sated Devourer, keep in mind that you have to get there first. In my experience on the PBE, Sated Devourer Vayne is completely OP, but jungle Vayne? Not so much.[/quote]