Welcome everyone to an all-around guide to Taric, The Gem Knight.

First off, I would like to say that my experience ranges from the early leveling phase
(In fact, Taric was one of my first champions I played, because I simply loved his support
ability) to low-elo ranked play. I do, by no means, consider myself a professional player,
but I would say that I am fairly experienced when it comes to playing with Taric

This guide is supposed to give you a general introduction about Taric, with all his
pros and cons in different game situations. This guide is not here to teach you
how not to troll, i'm not going in-depth about summoner spells, because there are little
viable picks, and I consider my choice one of the strongest, Heal could replace CV,
but that is up to the player and the situation.

Taric of course does not always shine when playing. He is one of the strongest supports,
although not the best in all situations. Here are some pros and cons:

For runes, I have sorted out the most viable choices in my point of view:

For reds we have Greater Mark of Ability Power for ability power.
The reason I've chosen these as a rather strong pick for Taric is that his
Imbue scales rather well (0.6 per ability power), which corrects the flaw
of his initial heal-ability being rather weak in comparsion to Soraka or Sona
when it comes to healing your lane-mate.

Another Choice for red I would recommend if you're planning to play more aggressively,
for instance, would be Greater Mark of Replenishment for mana-regen, because especially
when you can't trigger your passive much (i.e. when your carry is pushing the lane a lot
and keeping the creeps killed himself) you will quickly run out of mana. These marks
will keep you going for quite a bit longer and makes the improper use of skills a bit
more forgiving.

For yellows, I chose Greater Seal of Replenishment, which is an excellent choice on the
factors above, meaning that if you have little chance to make use of your passive, or keep
the lane pushed, you can keep going for that extra imbue or dazzle that will probably
secure you a kill, or even rescue your carry from a gank.

Another very viable choice here would be Greater Seal of Armor, which gives you
armor to eat more of the nasty herr*** that you will encounter, especially against a laner
like Caitlyn or strong bursters like Vayne these can be a lifesaver.

On blues we once more have the chance of buffing our heals with
Greater Glyph of Ability Power, remember that Tarics ultimate Radiance scales for 0.6
damage per ability power aswell, making it a viable damage source in teamfights the more
ability power is put into this champion.

As an alternative you could either put Greater Glyph of Magic Resist or Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
into your slots to either eat more of the supporter's damage (which is very
viable if the enemy team has Sona or other high-magic damage herr***ers.

Personally I would, however, recommend buying magicresist per level blues to make sure
these are even more useful in the later teamfights that might arise.
Remember, the choice is to be made on different factors. Do you expect early
magic damage from support and possibly even the enemy jungler? Take flats,
if you have little to fear, make the gems shine on teamfights with per-level resist.

For Quintessences I would simply recommend Greater Quintessence of Gold
for some extra gold to buy wards, equipment or elixirs. Remember, you only last-hit creeps
when your AD-Carry is not in the lane and even then it is usually a hard job, because either
creeps are pushed to the enemy tower, making you an easy target, or creeps are standing
at your own tower, which makes it fairly hard to last-hit because of your poor damage-output
without the usage of Shatter.

For masteries I have chosen a 0/9/21 built, because Taric can be rather beefy, and should be,
because he will be in the front lines in teamfights, mostly because he has to get off the extra
burst from Radiance and trigger his passive Gemcraft to reduce the cooldown of his
Heals to a minimum.

I have decided to built him for utility first, beefy-ness second. Taking the extra health,
and health per level with me in defense and extra gold, ward range,
cooldown reduction and speed for utilty.

Taric has a variety of skills that bring utilty and damage, sometimes deciding the outcome
of a gank or saving another's life:



Gemcraft is Taric's passive. With this, dealt damage by Taric will return a part of it as
Mana, which can, obviously, be used for your spells. You always want to atleast try and
hit a few creeps here and there if you can, but remember not to steal last-hits from your
carry!



Imbue is Taric's heal ability. With this you can either Heal your ally and yourself for 100%
of healing, or cast it on Taric himself for 140% of the healing done normally.

Only use it on yourself if you REALLY need the burst of heal, otherwise, only use it if your
carry needs it, because it happens to be a very mana-hungry skill, and leave Taric out of Mana
in no time!

Its passive causes autohits done to creeps to reduce the cooldown of Imbue by 1 second,
or 3 seconds if autohitting an enemy champion, which is to be considered when diving into teamfights. The more you hit, the more you can heal.

I put the first and second level into this skill at level 3 and 5, because higher levels
cost too much mana early on.



Shatter is a very useful spell to increase your and your allies armor, which makes the lane
more resilient towards physical her***. I'm getting this skill right after the first level
in Dazzle and max it ASAP, because it is one of the most viable spells.

What's worth mentioning is that the armor buff from dazzle remains on allies while it
is on cooldown, but not on yourself. Once Shatter is off-cooldown you will benefit from it
again aswell.



Dazzle is a powerful stun that is guaranteed to hit, because it has an auto-aim with a fairly
high range. You rarely want to use this when it doesn't count, because it is one HIGH-COST
spell for Taric. Perfect situations are Ganks, or when you and your lane-mate are heading for
a low-hp enemy to secure a kill.

In teamfights this spell can be used to initiate and either stun the champion with the highest
damage-output, as in, either their AP mid, or the AD carry. However, if you already have a
good initiator in your team, wait for the enemy carry to be in a good position to be bursted
down and stun him at once, so he is more likely to die instantly.

I put 1 level of Dazzle as my very first skillpoint, and max it last.



Radiance is a powerful spell which does both, buff your team with bonuses similiar to a
baron buff (I like to call it "Baron Lite"(tm)) and does a fair amount of damage in an area
around the caster. The skill has a rather low cooldown, thanks to the recent patches, so
you can use it to secure a kill on ganks, etc. without having to fear not having it ready
once a teamfight occurs.

Items are an important part of Taric, for him being an extra-beefy support who can take a lot
of hits before eventually going down. This makes aura items an extra-viable pick.

For the beginning I go with a Faerie Charm to pick up a little more mana-regen,
including 3 healpots to be able to survive lots of her*** and 3 wards to keep either the river
or the so called tri-bush warded long enough. Another viable choice would be 4 wards and
a single healpot if you want to keep in lane long enough to be able buying a Philosopher's Stone
and Boots on your first time B.

Your core build would be the following:

Philosopher's Stone for extra regen and gold per 5
Heart of Gold for extra health and gold per 5
Mobility Boots to allow yourself to roam

From there on, the consecutive Items should be:

Aegis of the Legion for being one of the best Support Items ingame
Shurelya's Battlesong for its active, mentioned later on
Randuin's Omen for being extra-beefy later on and its heavenly active.

Situational items that can be bought if the game goes super-lategame:

Zeke's Harbinger if your team is heavy on AD
Will of the Ancients if your team is heavy on AP
Frozen Heart if the enemy team is heavy on AD

Items that should always be bought as gold permits:

Oracle's Elixir for roaming and destroying wards, securing your team the map-control.
Sight Ward should ALWAYS be placed whenever time permits, make sure you always grab some!
Vision Ward should be placed on critical spots on the map like Baron and Dragon

On teamfights, Taric shines with his powerful cc, debuffs, and teambuffs.

An ideal sequence of item and skill-use could be the following, considering
we have reached end-game and have most of our items ready:

The teamfight starts, we wait for the AD- / AP-Carry to be in position for a Dazzle,
so the team can take care of him very quickly. We use Shurelya's Battlesong immediately after
we have stunned the enemy carry, either wait for an initiate, or use our beefyness
to initiate ourselfes, use both, our Radiance to deal damage and buff the team and
Randuin's Omen to hinder the enemy from positioning.

Sometimes it is viable to leave Shatter be, due to it giving you the armor buff while
it is not on cooldown. Once you use it, you leave yourself without the extra armor,
but those teammates in range will still benefit from it.

Imbue throughout the teamfight as cooldowns permit. A general order of healing should be:
Your Carries -> Bruisers -> Yourself -> "True" Tanks

I hope I could give you a general insight about Taric, The Gem Knight
and his playstyle. What's to remember is that you are there to support,
you don't want to feed the enemy carry by diving into "Do or Die" actions,
or even lose a lane due to the outcome of a gank.

Play safe, use Dazzle for when it counts, keep an eye on your mana,
especially early game and always remember: Ward, ward, ward!