Hello, I am know as Ruchalus. I someone from Gold Division working my way to Platinum Division (done that as of 8/25/2014) and beyond. This build is often ridiculed by others before the match even starts. In team builder, people will often leave as soon as they see a Taric top lane. I'll get comments such as "Top Taric? That's cute", "Top Taric? NOOB!", *calls top first and picks Taric* "Top Taric? Go bot as support, I'm taking top" "Taric doesn't do damage, WTF?". People are so stuck in the meta, they're afraid of change. I like to try new things and this one turned out well. People think Alistar top is rough to lane against? Alistar is nothing when compared to fighting a Taric that knows what he's doing and also knows what he's capable of.

Do you hate laning against Fiora, Renekton, Pantheon or Riven? Well with this build, you'll just dominate the lane and laugh at them while you burst gems up their butts. One time I was challenged to a 1v1 against a Rengar, and I accepted. Around 5 seconds into the battle, he loses around 85% of his hp and runs stating "My god... YOU MONSTER!". Good times... This is my first build guide and hopefully I will update this as time goes on.

I do realize this guide is not the most well organized or visually appealing guide on Mobafire, but are you here to look at flowers or are you here to learn? Because I aim to teach people the ALMIGHTY POWER OF TARIC!!!

So sit back, relax and read on.

I always like to play the same song over and over again when playing champions, each one gets their own. This is the song I play over and over when I play as Taric top or support.
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If the enemy team has an Evelyn jungle, she's gonna be all over your *** as you're an easy target. She want's your gems! Make sure she doesn't get them! D: (But in all seriousness, don't push too much if they have an Evelyn jungle, you're slow enough as it is and her slow is a death sentence if the enemy top laner is still there)
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For Bloodstone Taric, I play this to get into the right mindset. This tells me I'm in MAN MODE Taric.
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Pros

+Great against AD reliant champs
+Godly level of tankiness
+Great Armor scaling
+Self Heal
+Crowd Control
+Strong Burst
+You can easily freeze the lane and deny farm when fighting an AD champion
+Excellent wave clearing with W and Frozen Gauntlet
+Any allied champions near you will gain bonus armor
+Gems


Cons

-Mana reliant early game
-Item Dependant
-Does not do so well against AP champs
-Can struggle against champions with built in true damage or armor penetration
-If you do poorly, you will be made the whipping boy for anything that goes wrong
-Slow movement speed
-No escape ability

Only more damage for your already awesome burst

This is a MUST to make up for your lack of built in escapes

Can't handle your mana too well just yet? Grab this to get a little mana boost if you're just getting used to top Taric. After you get used to managing your mana you will no longer need it.

Confident in your abilities? Get this to make sure they don't escape or if your support gets ignite or heal instead of exhaust.

I now use this instead of ignite as I feel it provides a safer laning phase and more map control for Taric. It actually saved my team multiple times in a ranked game once and it has many uses in terms of offense, defense and utility.

Gemcraft (Passive)
Your ticket to divinity, the rework of Taric's passive allows him to reduce the cooldown on all his abilities after each basic attack allowing for tons of burst. Not only that, but it also lets your basic attacks deal bonus damage depending on the amount of your armor. So when you're fighting, you HAVE to auto attack after each ability used for maximum damage output.

Imbue (Q)
Your saviour in the lane, but it can screw you over if you use it willy nilly as it can consume a lot of mana. Use it when you need it or when you're bursting and everything else is on cooldown. It gives you a little boost during fights and allows you to deal more damage with the next attack. Max this second.

Shatter (W)
Taric's bread and butter, you should get this at level one regardless of who you're laning against. It makes you an armor god! It will deal tons of damage as it's damage output scales with your armor count, so get that armor up! It will also allow you to get around 97 armor at the start of the match and around 170-220 armor at 6-8 mins into the game. Be careful when you use it though. When it is on cooldown, your opponent will see it as an opportunity to strike.

One VERY IMPORTANT thing to note about Shatter is that it reduces the armor of your enemies. If you have an ad jungler or in a team fight, this will only increase damage done by you and your ad reliant allies at the cost of your armor count. But should you max your cdr you'll have Shatter back up in no time at all.

Dazzle (E)
This will be your initiator and escape mechanism. If your opponent tries to go in for one CS, stun them then burst them down for trying. If they're pushed and they are trying to mop up your minions near their turret, stun them so they don't. DENY THEM FARM AND LAUGH!!! Just be careful with the latter option though as you'll be susceptible to ganks. Of course, if you do get ganked, just stun the jungler or whoever is the bigger threat and run like hell.

Radiance (R)
Thought your burst was great already? Well this only even adds more godly burst to your damage output. I will use this after I use Dazzle to initiate to bring out the most damage from my other abilities and the abilities of any nearby allies. Use this at the start of team fights to increase the damage of anyone on your team that is nearby or when you're damaging a turret in order to destroy it sooner.

Iceborn Gauntlet
This item provides many stats Taric needs to be viable as a top laner. It gives you a decent chunk of armor and 10% cooldown reduction. The spellblade passive is also very useful for farming or for battling your opponents and the AoE effect is especially useful with farming. And with Taric, you want to be sticky and not make it easy for anyone to get away from you, so the slow provided by this item is useful in doing just that over a regular basis. In my opinion, it is a MUST for Taric top. Once you get Sheen, you MUST auto attack after every spell used for max possible damage.

Randuin's Omen
Yet another core item in this build, this gives Taric 70 armor (which in turn increases his damage output), 500 hp as well as a slow. It is particularly useful against champions like Fiora, Aatrox, Jax, Vayne or Tryndamere as it will reduce their attack speed. As with the Iceborn Gauntlet, you will use this to make yourself sticky and hard to get away from. Try to also activate it during teamfights should your opponents be grouped up and you're in the middle of them.

Spirit Visage
The Spirit Visage is the last of the core items in this build. Again, this provides great stats Taric can put to good use. 400 health, 20 hp regeneration, 55 magic resist and 10% cooldown reduction. It will also make you heal yourself more with it's 20% heal boost. When you get 4000 hp with your Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage and Warmog's Armor, you can heal yourself for around 1000 hp. Can't go wrong with a 25% heal, can you?

Warmog's Armor
It is not listed as a core item as you can always swap it out with Sunfire Aegis if you want, but I like to grab this for the 1000 bonus hp combined with the massive health regeneration if provides. As you gain more hp, your Imbue gets stronger so this is a good item for making your heal more potent on yourself.

Frozen Heart
Another great choice for Taric as it can make you tougher than diamonds with it's 100 armor boost and it can also help you max your CDR when combined with a Spirit Visage and Iceborn Gauntlet. Since Taric is heavily reliant on his mana to do damage, the 400 bonus mana provided by this item will help you stay in the fight longer. Not only that but it is very useful when fighting against an auto attack reliant team as it will slow the attack speed of any enemy champion nearby within a 1000 unit range.

R.I.P. Atma's Impaler
I have never got around to testing this out on my build but what I do know is that it will work well with Taric. It gives you 45 more armor, 15% critical hit chance and bonus attack damage depending on the amount of health you have. The bonus attack damage provided by Atma's Impaler can make your Iceborn Gauntlet deal more damage.

**edit** So... this item is gone because not enough people were using it :c So just get another item I guess :P I'll update the item set in a bit. (2/3/2015)

For the first few levels, you will be vulnerable regardless of who you're laning against, so just get your Shatter and Cloth Armor at the start and hang in there until you get to level 3 or 4. The reason I get the attack damage masteries instead of mana masteries is to help with last hitting. LAST HITTING WITH TARIC EARLY ON REQUIRES PRACTICE!!! Until you can get more damage from your W or until you get your Iceborn Gauntlet. Last hitting minions can be a pain in the early levels as your basic attacks do little damage (for now...).

If you can, try to freeze lane near your turret but not within your turret range. Last thing you need is for your turret to take your much needed cs and push for you. This will allow you to farm freely without fear of ganks (unless they're real ballsy and come in from behind... giggity...). Just be sure to LAST HIT ONLY. If your opponent tries to come in for some CS, stun them with Dazzle and burst them as punishment and they should run away.

If you get a kill or if your jungler can cover for you, head back to base when you get around 800-1200 gold. You should get the Chain Vest first if you're against an AD opponent or a Negatron Cloak if you're against AP. And if you can, get a Sapphire Crystal and a few Mana Potion. Later on, aim for the Glacial Shroud, Warden's Mail and Sheen if you're against AD or if you're against AP, go for the Kindlegem, Spectre's Cowl and Sheen. Your finishing items for this phase should be Iceborn Gauntlet and Randuin's Omen or Spirit Visage and Iceborn Gauntlet.

The most important thing to remember in this phase is to FARM, FARM, FARM!!!

By now, you should have your Iceborn Gauntlet, Randuin's Omen and Spirit Visage. You will want to get some Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads depending on your enemy team. If they have champions like Vayne, Jax, Aatrox, Master Yi, Tryndamere or Fiora, go with the Ninja Tabi. If they have people with a lot of CC, blinds, slows, etc. such as Teemo, Taric, Ashe, go with Mercury's Treads. After you get your boots, get a Warmog's Armor for more health.

With the enemy's top turret down, you should roam with your team to provide some CC and burst to your team fights. You will often be the one initiating, so be careful of their AP champions as they tend to target you first because by then you will be seen as one of the biggest threats. Try to save Radiance for larger team fights or when your team is destroying a tower.

When in team fights, keep track of your health and the health of others. If you see your ADC or APC is low on health, heal them, even if you yourself are low on health (you'll get healed as well so it's all good). Try to Dazzle their ADC or APC first when initiating and burst them down. As soon as you stun someone, everyone on your team will target whoever was stunned, so stun your targets wisely.

This is a work in progress and I promise to add as many match ups as I can in the near future.

I'm cutting it a bit short for the time being as I have some papers that I should be writing right now, but I promise to add more in terms of detail and match ups as soon as I can. To be honest, I was considering to keep this build all to myself because I find he is just so powerful! But I decided to share it with everyone to prove that top lane Taric is just as viable as any other top laner. Just because he's weak to AP doesn't make him a bad top laner, every champion has their strengths and weaknesses. Until then, farewell.