Hello! I've played Taliyah on and off since 2021 in Jungle and Mid. After returning to the game in 2025 after a 3 year break, I picked Taliyah up in Mid and climbed from Bronze to Plat in under 150 games that season. I'm mostly a casual player with my friend but I enjoy playing competitively as well.

Why Taliyah? She has insane roaming potential and has one of the highest skill expressions in Mid lane. If you can play Taliyah, chances are you will see a good improvement in your mechanical skill, quick mouse movements, trading and comboing. If you're someone who enjoys clean combos or turning the tides with a well-timed roam, Taliyah is right up your alley!

Pros

Strong mid game and late
High burst with Electrocute
Insane roaming potential, especially after level 9 with her Passive and Ult
High mechanical skill expression
Strong into melee comps or champs with a lot of dashes
Can be played on Mid, Jungle and Bot Lane reliably

Cons

Countered heavily by blinks
Tough matchups into many meta Mid laners
Medium-High skill floor
Non-Combat Ult and Passive (not necessarily a con, but for some people it is)
Low early damage compared to other champions
Somewhat team reliant
Mostly useless if too behind

Taliyah is extremely strong into melee champions, immobile champions and dash champions as said in the above section. You can get most champs off you and deny their engages fairly easily, such as Talon, Lee Sin or Aatrox. She pairs super well with CC supports or junglers, as they can give the setup for her W+E combo easily and lock down enemies even further. Rell, Pantheon, Sejuani, Thresh are all perfect examples of such champions.

Taliyah does poorly into team comps with multiple blinks, high range champions or with teams that have no clear frontline or engages. Champions like Zed, LeBlanc, Fiora or Xerath, who can bypass or ignore her E or simply outrange her.

Passive - Rock Surfing

Taliyah gains 10-40% movement speed near walls based on level.
Use your Passive to roam, get back to lane or rotate quickly to fights.
This ability is out of combat only, it ends whenever you cast an ability or take damage.
It has a readying time of around a second and lingers for 3 seconds after you leave a wall, so you can still take advantage of it after you get to a fight.

Q - Threaded Volley

Taliyah's main damaging ability. Long early cooldown but goes down to 2 seconds in the late game.
Taliyah can move and cast other abilities while using her Q, make sure to keep moving!
The Q is AoE, make sure to try hitting enemies near their melee minions with your splash damage.
Your Q will continue casting even after using Zhonya's Hourglass or recalling, you can base while farming the last few minions or keep hitting enemies while golden.
Her Q creates Worked Ground on the location it was cast on. Casting Q again on Worked Ground creates a boulder that hits for massive damage and slows for 20-40% with a larger AoE splash. Each boulder only costs 10 mana and reduces the Q cooldown to 1-2 seconds, keep spamming boulders in lane whenever you have the opportunity!
Boulders against jungle monsters does extra damage and stuns them, make sure to take a blue buff if time allows you!

W - Seismic Shove

The hardest ability in her kit. In lane, try to wait until your enemies are auto attacking minions or last hitting to use your W to combo them into E.
Practicte flicks in Practice Tool. After you get used to them it becomes second nature.
If you want to move while casting W, simply move decently far anywhere to avoid cancelling with your right click.
If you have trouble hitting your W by itself, slow with E first or use your boulder before W.

E - Unraveled Earth

Apply your E predictavely instead of reactively, if an Irelia wants to dash on you with a low health minion, E as she dashes onto the minion rather than after it.
Your E works on anything that counts as a displacement, even your ally Nautilus hooking someone through your E applies your stun.
Your stun can only apply on a target once, if you W them and they get stunned then they dash, the stun will not re-apply.
Your E does extra damage to jungle monsters!

R - Weaver's Wall

Your R is your primary map impact tool. If you're new and have trouble with it, just pressing R creates the wall. Pressing R again after casting makes you ride it, so double tap RR whenever you want to ride off for a roam.
If you get immobilized you get put off the wall, so watch out!
Hold your first R level up to avoid the out of combat lockout, as every time you take damage, you can't cast your ult for 3 seconds. Use this to escape a gank or a collapse!
You can use your R in other ways than just roaming, for example, in a Baron fight you can R to block off the enemy from escaping into their jungle, basically making it a large scale Cataclysm!

For laning, look to Q the first 3 melee minions as they're about to die. If your enemy is standing between them and their casters, you can get some free early poke. If the machup allows it, always look to Q your enemy when they're out of cover. Once you get level 3, you can look for a W+E+Q combo for a good burst and wave clear. As Tear of the Goddess is no longer compulsory on Taliyah, you can look to base for a Lost Chapter if possible. If not, you can settle for Boots or an Amplifying Tome.

Taliyah has a pretty adaptive playstyle, you should be looking to farm while looking for any short trades you're allowed to. Playing around your Worked Ground and boulder is very important because of this. Always look to start or end your trades with a boulder. For your movement, always try to use your Q at max range. Your Q has a fairly long range, so whenever your enemies move towards you to try trading back make sure to move back and match them, chase them if they're retreating.

Try to minimize your E usage before Lost Chapter. If you see your W is missing, just leave it and don't use your E. W into E is faster and catches them more off-guard. E into W is safer and easier to land but slower and telegraphs what you want to do to enemies. Always E into W if your enemy has a dash that can dodge your W like Sylas.

After your first item, pushing becomes substantially easier. You should look for plays on the map after you push and never sit idle. Invade with your jungler, get a good ward, rotate to objectives. Make the most out of your Passive and R.

This is around the time you will swap lanes with your Bot. By this time you should have an item completed, tier 2 boots and working towards your second item. When you're sidelaning you're more prone to getting collapsed, so make sure to push deep only with vision.

At this point, Taliyah is strong, you should be looking for teamfights with your team around objectives or numbers advantage plays around the map. Aim for at least 7 cs/m with a good average of 8. You should always be pushing a lane into looking for plays around the map at this time. Taliyah's waveclear also becomes substantially stronger with her items, making the plays above even more important.

In teamfights look to play front-to-back. Her primary strength is her ability to catch overstepping targets with her W and one shot them with her team and her ability to control zones with her E and disable certain champions from gap closing. Most of Taliyah's kit is utility based, so make sure to work together with your team to secure those wins!

By this time, everyone should have most their items complete or be full build. It is imperative that you don't get caught late. Your damage and utility can be the decider between most fights and your death can lose many fights or games by itself. Look to play with your jungle or support. Push out waves, then look for picks or rotate. Your teamfights stay the same, stay near the back and look for E and W. If the enemy have an assassin like Zed make sure he isn't flanking you or your team and always make sure to use your Zhonya's Hourglass if you're on the edge of death or get caught.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy Taliyah, as she's one of the most satisfying champions after learning her. If you want to improve, I suggest watching Odysseus/Odysseus131, Rank 1 Korea and Rank 1 EUW Taliyah OTP. His socials:
Twitch:https://www.twitch.tv/odysseus131
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/@Odysseus131

Throw another rock!