Vynertje's Support AMA and advice thread

[quote=Re4XN]What do you think about [[Taric]] in the current meta? He is one of my favourite supports, yet I find that it is not easy to play against certain matchups and people often criticize me for picking him. He is certainly a passive support with decent (-ish) sustain, but people often think he is useless because he doesn't provide the team with key abilities (e.g.: [[Leona]]'s [[Solar Flare]]...), not counting his "OP" point-and-click [[Dazzle]]; however, [[Taric]] provides support in the form of stats, he gives your entire team bonus armour with his [[Shatter]], he has a decent enough heal [[Imbue]] and he provides bonus AD/AP with his [[Radiance]]. He is also a decent enough tank if your team finds they need one. People often shove [[Taric]] aside because the only thing they see is [[Dazzle]] and the rest is thrown away. What's your opinion? EDIT: Also, can you give me a few tips on how to play against a [[Sivir]] or [[Morgana]] with him, I find it hard to bait their shields?...[/quote]

[quote=Out Of Pancakes]About the Edit: since [[dazzle]]'s projectile is so slow and predictable, unless your ADc has anything susceptible of being spell shielded or your opponent pressed the wrong button, it should be almost impossible to bait those spell shields as [[taric]] if your opponent is decent.[/quote]

[quote=VexRoth][quote=Re4XN] EDIT: Also, can you give me a few tips on how to play against a [[Sivir]] or [[Morgana]] with him, I find it hard to bait their shields?...[/quote] A) Wait for them to use it on something else B) Get bush control and either [[Dazzle]] or [[Flash]] + [[Dazzle]] from the bush OoP is dead-on with speed of the projectile making it a cinch to shield without some creativity on your or your laning partner's part. I generally just hold onto it for peel, unless I am 100% sure my laning partner is in a position to follow up on the stun, otherwise it just winds up being a waste of mana that generally earns you some harass in return.[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje][quote=Re4XN]What do you think about [[Taric]] in the current meta? He is one of my favourite supports, yet I find that it is not easy to play against certain matchups and people often criticize me for picking him. He is certainly a passive support with decent (-ish) sustain, but people often think he is useless because he doesn't provide the team with key abilities (e.g.: [[Leona]]'s [[Solar Flare]]...), not counting his "OP" point-and-click [[Dazzle]]; however, [[Taric]] provides support in the form of stats, he gives your entire team bonus armour with his [[Shatter]], he has a decent enough heal [[Imbue]] and he provides bonus AD/AP with his [[Radiance]]. He is also a decent enough tank if your team finds they need one. People often shove [[Taric]] aside because the only thing they see is [[Dazzle]] and the rest is thrown away. What's your opinion?[/quote] Well [[taric]] is somewhat overlooked in the regard that he isn't as useless as people make him to be. He's a kind of all-round support which means he doesn't really excel in any specific thing but overall has a decently rounded kit. The problem is, he has clear weaknesses: 1) He scales kinda poorly into late game as he doesn't have any reliable tools to peel with or to engage. Outside of laning phase and midgame, it is pretty much impossible to stun the enemy ADC unless you use flash due to the short range. The aura's are good but will not win or lose you a teamfight compared to the tools other supports have. So yeah, lategame he just becomes a tank which doesn't do much but stun some guy every ~10 seconds (that's a long time!). 2) The idea behind all-round champions should be that they don't have a lot of terrible matchups and be a good 'generic pick'. An example of a support that does match this criteria is [[lulu]]; she isn't a tier-1 pick because she doesn't excel at anything but she's still good because she has virtually no bad matchups. The problem with Taric is that he has very distinct good and bad matchups (good: Kalista or anyone being shut down by a point-and-click stun, bad: anything with spell shields or cleanses) which means you cannot just first pick him, whereas if you wait till you see all the enemy's picks there will very likely be someone that fits your composition better. Simply put; he can work, but there are generally better picks for every kind of thing Taric does. [quote=Out Of Pancakes]About the Edit: since [[dazzle]]'s projectile is so slow and predictable, unless your ADc has anything susceptible of being spell shielded or your opponent pressed the wrong button, it should be almost impossible to bait those spell shields as [[taric]] if your opponent is decent.[/quote] Yeah, though keep in mind that your stun cooldown should be lower than [[black shield]], especially if you max it. You can just walk up, bait the spellshield and try again once its down. You can also try to break it with your W if you can get in range. Even if they don't panic shield if you walk at them, you get a small timing window after using your stun on a spell shield from those cooldowns. If the enemy is good, you're fucked though because they'll just back off during that timing window. Nothing you can do against that as Taric is very one-dimensional in his gameplay and has little outplay potential in his kit. [quote=VexRoth][quote=Re4XN] EDIT: Also, can you give me a few tips on how to play against a [[Sivir]] or [[Morgana]] with him, I find it hard to bait their shields?...[/quote] A) Wait for them to use it on something else B) Get bush control and either [[Dazzle]] or [[Flash]] + [[Dazzle]] from the bush OoP is dead-on with speed of the projectile making it a cinch to shield without some creativity on your or your laning partner's part. I generally just hold onto it for peel, unless I am 100% sure my laning partner is in a position to follow up on the stun, otherwise it just winds up being a waste of mana that generally earns you some harass in return.[/quote] Yeah flash+E is a good way to get people off guard but a VERY risky move. Like, high risk/medium reward. There's so much that can go wrong. Either use the timing window as described above, or stick back and play reactively.[/quote]

[quote=Re4XN]Thanks for your advice :)[/quote]

[quote=Out Of Pancakes][quote=Vynertje] Yeah, though keep in mind that your stun cooldown should be lower than [[black shield]], especially if you max it. You can just walk up, bait the spellshield and try again once its down. You can also try to break it with your W if you can get in range. Even if they don't panic shield if you walk at them, you get a small timing window after using your stun on a spell shield from those cooldowns. [/quote] That's very true. But about that, I've tried keeping that in mind every time I go into this kind of matchups like [[thresh]]/[[blitzcrank]] into [[morgana]] or [[sivir]]: if I get their spellshield down, I can very very rarely abuse that by throwing another CC at them whenever my hook or flay comes of cooldown because it's all about opportunities. That said, my two exemples might be bad because they both have skillshots and not targeted CC. My point being that while you can theoratically abuse your shorter cooldown, it is in practice not very common. It's something to keep in mind but not to bank everything into.[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]Yo everyone, quick post to notify everyone that I'll be on holiday ([url=http://www.mobafire.com/profile/vynertje-171340/blog/personal-life-updates]details here[/url]) from the 12th of July till somewhere in August, so I won't be able to answer much questions regularly during those three or more weeks. I may be able to answer a couple of questions if I have Wi-Fi at some places, but it'll be limited. Anyway, if you have any questions (for example regarding possible changes on the upcoming 5.13 patch for supports) you should ask them while you still have the chance. Otherwise, you may have to wait 3+ more weeks at which point the advice may become irrelevant - I doubt I'll be keeping up with the meta on holiday ;) Anyway, hope all of you have nice holidays too![/quote]

[quote=TheSilverDust]What do you think of Tahm Kench, the upcoming champion, as a support?[/quote]

[quote=Vynertje]Feels like they tried to 1-up [[bard]] in terms of "creative champion mechanics" (read: weird stuff). Don't really feel like I'll like him; him being melee and having short range will likely mean that he'll have very little lane presence. His roams (especially when going together with the jungler) seem very good but if you're pressured 24/7 there's very little you can do to roam. Besides that, I cannot comment any further until I've played him, sorry.[/quote]

[quote=TheSilverDust]That's okay. Sorry if I asked a question about him when he's still not released. :P[/quote]