Hello people! I'm Khrysanthos, an NA Fabulous Taric main, and this is my first guide ever, so please don't hesitate to give me tips on how I can improve on this. Also, this guide is incomplete, and I'll update it every week/patch to make sure that your gems can be as Dazzling as mine are. I've played a WHOLE bunch of Taric everywhere you could think to play him and everything you could think to build on him, so I'm pretty experienced. This is just the standard build that I personally take in the support role on a daily basis. I hope you all enjoy!

This is an optional chapter which you can skip if you want.


I am not gay. If I was gay, that might be my only motivation for playing Taric. That's not it. It's because his playstyle is amazing. I just look at the mechanics of the stun and I think, "Wow! I wonder if this can synergize with Ezreal's Arcane Shift? Or maybe, Elise's Rappel?" It's just, fascinating for me to look at that and wonder how fabulous can this CC be?

I'm just making this up, it's his hair. It's his gems hard abs. It's his fabulousness. It's his outrageousness. LOOK AT THIS FACE AND TELL ME YOU AREN'T EITHER EXTREMELY JEALOUS OR EXTREMELY TURNED ON?!

DO YOU SEE THIS??!??!@?#?!@?#?@?$?%#!@
HE'S SO FUN TO PLAY, HE'S SO FUN TO SHOW TO PEOPLE, HE'S FUN TO LOOK AT, AND PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK ME WHEN WE GET INTO THE GAME "Uh, Taric? You have smite, you have the legacy Emerald skin, you seem fabulous, and you have a mastery 7 symbol floating above your head. Can I queue with you next game?" MY FACE LIGHTS UP AND I DELIGHT INTO THIS BUT I JUST SAY "k"


LOOKEE

PROS

+ Counters Attack Damage Champions easily
+ Does a lot of damage from armor
+ Viable in almost every bottom lane situation
+ Very flexible CC from Dazzle and damage from Bravado
+ He's fabulous
+ GEMS ARE TRULY OUTRAGEOUS
+ Teamwide ultimate
+ Early game lane pressure

CONS

- Countered by AP champions
- Not a ranged champion (melee support)
- Can be shredded by target builds (with Last Whisper for example)
- Will be called gay by team (It's happened more than maybe 50 times with my many games with him)

Here's what I run currently in support Taric:

9x Seal of Armor
9x Mark of Armor
9x Glyph of Magic Resist
3x Quintessence of Armor

I'll tell you why I do this. I want all of the armor that I can get on Taric, because his passive Bravado (your main source of damage), his Dazzle, and his Bastion all scale with his armor level. Truth be told, I didn't want to put Magic Resist into my runes for the longest time, so my rune page looked like this:

9x Seal of Armor
9x Mark of Armor
9x Glyph of Armor
3x Quintessence of Armor

Let me tell you something. If it were not for supports like Morgana and Lux on the opposing team, I would keep those runes. They are absolute HELL to deal with for the other AD Carry, they don't do any damage to you so you basically win any trades you participate in up to around level 8. But, since AP does exist, take the glyphs of MR. It makes being a tank so much easier when you don't have to hide from their LeBlanc.

Here's a list of brief explanations for why I chose each mastery on the Gem Lord himself.

Wanderer : You don't need to farm, and who doesn't want movement speed?
Secret Stash : It gives mana too. Mana = more Dazzle = more kills...I meant assists. More assists.
Meditation : Again, Mana = more Dazzle = more ki--more assists.
Bandit : Key mastery for supports. Duh.
Unyielding : RAAAAAH I HAVE ARMORRRRR YOU CAN NOT SCRATCH DIAAAAAAMONDS.
Tough Skin : You take less damage. Key for a tank.
Veteran's Scars : You don't need Runic Armor . I know it helps with shields and heals but it's more worth it when you have more health to use your already existing armor with.
Insight : When you have 15% less cooldown, you have Dazzle quicker. more Dazzle = more assists.
Legendary Guardian : Also a key mastery for supports, but this works wonders on especially Taric and Leona.
Courage of the Colossus : The new mastery. Whenever you CC someone, you get a shield. This mastery was MADE for Taric! USE THIS!


And that's that for the masteries. Take a break, my friend. You deserve it.

Bravado, Taric's Passive

Your best friend. Your buddy since Kindergarten.

"Taric infuses his next two basic attacks whenever he casts an ability. He swings faster with these two attacks, which deal 18 + (4 x level) (+15% of bonus armor) bonus magic damage and reduce his base spells' cooldowns by 1 - 0.6 seconds (scales down with CDR)."

In summary, every time you use any ability, you can auto attack an enemy not ONCE, but TWICE, twice as fast as your attack speed, for extra magic damage scaling with your ARMOR. And as an added bonus, your cooldown goes down on each ability with each strike. You want to use Bravado at all times. Whatever you're doing, make sure you are actively thinking about when you can use your Bravado. Let's give you a scenario in which you would use Bravado.

You're coming back to your lane from warding, and you stumble upon their ADC attacking your ADC. Woah. You're too far from them, but you use your Dazzle from your ADC and you stun the enemy. You walk up to them, and you HIT THEM TWICE. Dealing around half of their health. And your Dazzle cooldown is lower than it would have been if you had not used Bravado.


The Bravado combo is as follows:

E + AA + AA + Q + AA + AA + W + AA + AA + Q + AA + AA (repeat)

It looks long and complicated, but it's really not. Here's a breakdown of what's happening here.

You stun them with your E ( Dazzle) and you auto attack them twice, dealing extra damage and lowering your cooldowns. Then you heal yourself with Q ( Starlight's Touch), which then gives you two more auto attacks to use against them, dealing even more damage against them. Next, you cast your W ( Bastion), and auto attack them twice.

NOTE: YOU HAVE TO HOVER OVER AN ALLIED CHAMPION TO CAST Bastion. THIS CAN BE YOU OR SOMEONE THAT'S CLOSE BY, SO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR MOUSE READY.

Next, you use your Starlight's Touch again, healing for more and dealing two more auto attacks worth of damage. And by that time, your Dazzle is up again, so you rinse and repeat.

That has been the Beginner's Guide to Bravado and the Bravado Combo. I hope you enjoyed XD

This is a subject I should cover. It is a debatable subject for most, but not for me. I have a set in stone, never going to change (well...maybe) build order for yours truly, the Gem Lord himself, Taric.

I take Dazzle first.

Some people may ask me why not take my Q Starlight's Touch first? To them I say, "are you stupid? Or yes?" Starlight's Touch scales with AP. Something you probably should not build on a standard Taric support and expect to do well with. Also, it has an increased mana cost, so I would like to point out that this automatically means you will be maxing this LAST, as all of the other abilities have a constant mana cost at 60. (Excluding Cosmic Radiance, which has 100. But that's understandable.)

Why not take W Bastion first? It IS a shield, right? Correct. It is a shield. But you can also send abilities to your ADC. So it basically has half of its use at level 1.

I take Dazzle because of lane pressure. No one expects you to deal half of their ADC's health right at the first wave. And once you do, then you can get Bastion on your ADC and then completely wreck them with your two way moving CC. I don't take Starlight's Touch until level 4 (level 3 with jungle path) because I actually consider it really useless, except for Bravado damage. (That's why I take it third when clearing jungle, you need quicker damage from the quicker Starlight's Touch cooldown from Bravado.) You're a tank. Your ADC shouldn't be taking a lot of damage if you know what you're doing with your Dazzle.