Hello there everyone! Iam Rion -Z and I would like to welcome you here to my first guide on MobaFire. As you may have noticed, this guide is all about Taric as support. Taric is actually one of my favorite supports as he provides heals, stuns, an increased armor aura and a damage buff. Not to forget that his hair is just superb! :p

I have to say I would not play Taric now if i would not want to buy new champions 24/7.
I just bought him mostlikely for teh lulz and left him untouched. As I proceeded within the game I noticed that I really enjoy playing as support. So I looked around on the internet for some guides for Taric and I just got addicted to this dude. He is just one hell of a support if you know what you are doing.
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Psssst! Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

spaaaaaaace

Pros + // Immense Armor boost + // Great Stun + // Therefore easy harrass for your carry + // Decent AD Boost through Radiance + // Can secure kills + // Most amazing hair EVER

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Cons - // Imbue is quite bad without AP - // Therefore he's outhealed easily - // Mana hungry - // Low range on Shatter - // Only has Dazzle as CC - // You will say "Suck my gems!" alot after getting a kill on your own

As you can see i went for a 0/0/30 Mastery page. Maybe you are currently busy asking yourself: Why?

Let me explain this to you:
Because of the fact that we've gotten a rune page that provides us 9x Greater Seal of Armor and 9x Greater Mark of Armor we get approximately +21 armor.
Despite this we also get a massive armor boost by Shatter, Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen
So: 3 points in Hardiness ? No.

Despite this we also have 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist which gives us (at level 18) approximately +24,3 Magic Resist.
3 Points in Resistance ? No.
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To summerize it basically i do not see any good offers by the defense nor the offense mastery tree (just if you would want to play AP Taric), that for I have chosen to go for utility only and yet I did not have any problems with that.
I also think that the mastery page is pretty self explanotory since it gives you more mana per level, more gold per second, more starting gold, CDR, bonus expierience, slightly higher ward vision range, shorter respawn time,... Well, okay I guess that was enough of that wasn't it?

Basically this tree gives you everything you need as support.

• Greater Quintessence of Gold: // We are simply going to pick those because of the extra 3 gold you will get every 10 seconds. These will work great with philosopher's stone and Heart of Gold.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: // As there are no Magic Resist items contained in my full support build, we will simply pick those for at least about +24 Magic Resist at level 18.
  
• Greater Mark of Armor: // These were picked because of a nice armor boost you will get to hold of the enemy carries damage on yourself.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: // They got picked just because of the reason explained above.

// Flash is mostlikely THE summoner spell but it's also useful in its way for Taric as he has no built in gap closer. This will get you out of sticky situations or to get you to initiate a teamfight by Flash and Dazzle.

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// I personally favorite exhaust over Clairvoyance because Exhaust can save your carry or yourself or the whole team in many situations as it not only slows the movement speed. No, it also slows the attacker's attack speed and his attack damage. Great if your carry or you are in a fight and the enemy just deals too much damage. And of course exhaust can also be used to secure a kill by slowing the target.

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// This would be my second choice in the place of Exhaust as it provides you vision to any place on the map and it has a quite low cooldown. This is great for checking Baron Nashor or other Buff's if they are not warded or if you are not quite sure of the enemies presence in a bush or anywhere else.

• Gemcraft: // Gemcraft gains you mana back equal to 7.5% of the damage dealt by your melee attacks. I find this passive really useful as Taric is pretty mana hungry this is an effective way to replenish your mana. Only make sure your Carry is okay with that, sometimes hitting minions as support can mess up your carry's farm.
  
• Imbue (Q): // Even know Imbue is not as powerful as other heals in the game it also does what it is made for:
  It heals your allies in sticky situations and it also gains you hp when you heal your allies.
  Also you get CDR by autoattacking (same as with Gemcraft).
  
• Shatter (W): // This ability is pretty sick as it gains you bonus armor and an aura that provides your nearby allies with extra armor. When you activate this ability your armor will do AoE damage and your passive will be gone until Shatter is ready again.
  
• Dazzle (E): // This ability will stun the targeted enemy for up to 1.5 seconds. If you hit this in teamfights 1.5 secons can be the time for death or staying alive as 5 people will jump onto the stunned person (and believe me they always do that) it is very powerful. But Dazzle can also be used defensively when your ally is close to dying and you just stun the enemy. I just recommend you not to use it just for fun as your nearby teammate will be literally a pure Dr. Mundo > Sees stunned enemy > Does not care about the amount of turrets or enemies in the area > WANTS KILL!
  He will be like a misconfigured robot that runs straight into his own death.
• Radiance (R): // Radiance will do up to 350 AoE Magic Damage and will increase your AD and AP by 70 for the next 10 seconds. Your nearby allies will receive half of the bonus. In my eyes a very powerful tool it can be used if you need to destroy an enemy turret very quickly or if you're busy doing Baron Nashor or the Dragon.

• : // Because of the fact that we get 40% CDR when at full equip I thought it would be unnecessary to also buy Boots of ludicity for even more CDR. In my opinion it is more useful to be all over the map as support as it is the key to keep your team alive and to win the game. You will be from bottomlane to toplane in no time so that you are able to protect all of your allies and ward every single place of the map and remove enemy wards.
  
• : // Aegis of the Legion is aquite powerful support item as it gains your allies Armor, Magic Resist and a small amount of attack damage. Despite the aura explained above it also provides yourself Armor, Magic Resist and a small amount of Health.
  
• : // This item is one of my personal favorites. It has Armor, Health Regeneration and a decent amount of Health. But not only that, it offers a 20% chance to slow the movement and attack speed of the enemy currently attacking you by 35% for up to 3 seconds. That's not all, you can also activate this item to slow all surrounding enemies. this will make it easy for your team to secure kills or to kill the enemy by slowing their attack speed with this.
• : // A great item for escapes. It will give you and your allies surrounding you a massive speed boost, also great for initiating teamfights or to save your turrets.
  
• : // Frozen Heart will make Taric just unkillable and he will also slow down the enemies attack speed by 20% and it gains you CDR. A very good late game item, it will keep the enemy carry from destroying your team and with the other items your cooldowns are reduced by 40%.
  
• : // Oracle will be needed for removing enemy wards and to take them their map awareness. They can't time their Baron Nashor or Dragon nor do they know when and where your team will jump out of a bush to start a teamfight.

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The items mentioned above that are described furhter are your core build as supporting Taric. Throughout all my games as Taric
I found these core items as the most useful. You may have noticed that you only get 5 items. The last item slot is for sight wardsto keep your map awareness.

As you are the support you should not be that aggressive you should be overlooking the fight and watch out for opportunities to kill enemies by stunning them and let your team finish the job and you should also watch out for your allies health bar.
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The best tactic for Taric in a teamfight would be to either initiate by Radiance and Shatter or to let another teammate initiate and put the previous combo to use as it will gain your allies more AD and AP.

My Basic combo for a Teamfight would be Radiance > Shatter > Dazzle

As we have tons of CDR items we can safely use Shatter in this one as it has a quite low cooldown. But when doing this remember to keep your allies close to you to provide them the bonus of Radiance.

So now we have reached the end of the guide. I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)

If there are still questions to you or if you have some tips for improving my guide please leave a comment with constructive criticism as this is my first ever guide.
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Once again Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

See you on the next guide