The recent changes to Taric and the Season 3 jungle agree with each other really well, makeing Jungle Taric a terrible thing to behold. His skillset is quite hard to balance and innertly overpowered and only a few champions that can match the power of his raw stats and CC. This guide will teach you how to unbalance Taric with the right skillorder and itembuild so you can win with ease. Please note that this guide assumes that you already know a lot about LoL and Taric and I won't bother to go into details.

Auras - If you provide your team with bonus stats, that is like giving them a massive gold lead. Since your support can't buy them all, you will be forced to buy them. Just one aura item can provide each teammate with 1k global gold. Every team needs and Zeke's Herald.


Active Items - They act like additional skills that fill out gaps in your team's champion ability pool and if they cure a major weakness of your team, they will help you succeed like nothing else. For Taric specifically, and are fantastic help with initiation and positioning and attenuate many of his melée problems.

Your kit - Use it right. Do not spamm and rank your heal, it is made for emergencies and battles, not for sustain. Never save your ult and Shatter, smash things with it. Stun the right targets.

Summoner Spells: take and .

Masteries: go for , and . I leave the rest up to you. For a quicker jungle clear you can go 21 offense, for a more support oriented setup you can go 21 utility and you can also get even more out of defense.

Runes: take MS Quints and fill in flat Armor and CDR . Marks are AS . You want luck ? Take one Crit Mark: this occasional lucky crit can come in handy.

Ideally you want + +Defense on Taric and you can carry games. But when you face the truth of scratching a living in the jungle you will know that your item build has to be cheap and cost-effective if you want to win. So forget these big items - not because they are bad, but - because you will never afford them in a normal game.


As any jungler you will start with pots and Machete.


Also, anyone trying to jungle with taric would get early. But what about the jungle-item-upgrade ? While both and yield good results, I favour the stone because of the HPReg and the better upgrade options. So its up to you if you want to sit on a Razor or get a later. In case you use CDR Glyphs and have no defense I strongly recommend you do something for your MR early.


Now and are what I consider key to a successful jungle Taric build. Both give small AP/AS boosts that really increase your damage output, while also having great Movement speed and a huge amount of MR - all for almost no money and building from a Kage's Lucky Pick. I don't see a reason to get when you can get cheap Tenacity and HP from your spirit stone upgrade. + are an option to counter all-AD teams. are good, but I don't need them because my MS is already 425+ anyway. If you want even more MS, I would rather get a .


Now your greatest concern will soon be your lack of health and your long cooldowns. Get and/or asap, so you can buy a and a asap. Your upgrade options for the range from my all-out favourite Zeke's Herald to / / . Try to get your CDR capped quickly as it is your cheapest way to increase your performance. Should you need defense, think about another or a . For offense both and are great options.


Once your CDR is taken care of, get whatever your team needs most, sometimes an is needed, sometimes your team wants more AOE damage and you get or . Should you get fed and your team is ahead, feel free to get more AS with items like or an all-round damage package: . When in doubt, always buy tank items since you have quite some innert damage and you will be able to duel pretty much anything as long as you survive burst. An example for a late game build would be:


A final note on and . While both have good synergy with Taric (Armor, CDR foremost, Effects and Mana also usefull), they are really, really expensive. You can get an early and upgrade them in late game, but they are too expensive to belong into a core build and lack HP.

HH Gemcraft (Passive) AD, AS, APen: While building Mana will yield almost nothing compared to the amount of money invested, its a neat little damage boost throughout the game.
HH Imbue (Q) AS, CDR, AP: Having a heal is good. But if you overdo it, or rank it up, it will drain your mana and make you completely useless - or require extensive and extensive itemization. One rank is exactly what it takes to bring you savely to late game. Btw, its the next reason why smashing enemies is so incredibly profitable. The amount of healing this gives you in late game is insane. There is really no battle where you won't have it ready in the heat of battle, exactly when its needed most. And if an engagement prolongs - this will make sure you come out alife. Don't take it too early since it doesn't help you clear your jungle faster.
HH Shatter (W) AP, CDR, MPen -> AD/AS: A pretty good ability, but since the recent changes it is far from profitable to rank this up. The passive Armor boost will be down when it matters and the damage doesn't increase too heavily with later ranks. There isn't even a shorter CD that would help. In theory, more damage and Armor Reduction look great, but its almost always your stun that wins the engage, not this, so leave it to max. second.
HH Dazzle (E) CDR, AP, MPen: This is Taric's biggest weapon. Allthough it took a recent nerf to the stun duration at lower ranks it is still your biggest source of damage overall. Don't let yourself be deluded into thinking that you will never apply the full damage and it is useless to level up. That is wrong for a couple of reasons. First of all with massively lowered CD at high ranks, you can stun two or three times where you would normally only get off one stun. Secondly, the longer a target is stunned and vulnerable, the more AA and other skills will hit it. Thirdly and lastly, this is a phantastic defensive tool in that it allows for escapes on the one hand and for pure damage prevention (and maximum damage) in duels on the other hand.


HH Radiance (R) AP, CDR, MPen -> AS: Your ultimate's base damage is very high, because the AP aura is taken into account. Converting your Aura into gold would yield 4800/5304/11202 global gold if your entire team profits from it (!!! For you: 1200/2668/3734 g - For one ally without AP ratios: 500/834/1167 g !!!). Its a huge ult with a very short CD, just use it whenever you think it could make a difference.

Don't rank it up to early, because both Shatter and Dazzle can be really good. If you want to invade or solo blue, Dazzle will be your best friend. If your team helps you start wolves-blue or wraiths-red, get Shatter for more AOE damage and to enhance you and your team's AA.

Thanks for reading and credits to JhoiJhoi. Feel free to post your feedback.

(But before you post, think about this: Its a miniguide, so takes those 60 seconds to completely read it and your confusions might be gone.)