Welcome to my guide for Taric, in my opinion one of the more underrated supports in the game.

Taric is perhaps one of the tankiest supports in the game, his primary goal in the early game is support, disruption in the mid game, and wielding a number of supportive and disruptive auras in the late game.

Taric has a number of pros and cons that you will need to be aware of prior to learning to play the Gem knight.

Pros:

By his nature, and passive W, Taric will rarely need to build much in the way of armour.

He has a large amount of health at his disposal meaning that you will not need to invest into many items that provide HP, instead investing in damage reduction items.

His E can win you the lane in the laning phase, if you're teamed up with a competent ranged carry.

His E is a fantastic defensive weapon, allowing you to stun pursuing gankers, activate Shurelyas, and escape.

Cons

Taric is slow. Boy howdy this dude could really use a movespeed upgrade.

Being a tanky support / disruptor, Taric doesn't have a massive degree of damage at his disposal. His once off burst (R/W) is good enough that it can frighten people off if you're holding firm underneath a tower at medium health, but in a one on one you will be smashed.

Somewhat low MR by default.

Mana regen is shockingly low. Taric's passive is meant to be his source of mana return, but it's my experience that the mana return even when punching things in the face is too low.

Your success is dependant upon your teams success. Taric is very much a team focussed champion and if your team is doing poorly, you will reflect this. Your healing is weaker in comparison to Soraka, and you are not going to be able to heal through the burst damage of 2-3 dps on your carry. The best you can hope to do is disrupt them.

Ultimately, if the enemy team is competent and ignoring you in team fights (which they really should be..) there's not terribly much you can do about it. You should be initiating to take the enemy focus off your team and onto you, and once they start blowing cooldowns is when your team should be jumping in.

Rune choices are simple enough.

Magic Penetration Marks to give your little amount of burst (R/W) a bit of an extra push during team fights.

Flat armour Seals to let you take a bit of extra damage during the laning phase for when their jungler inevitably makes his way to your lane. This, combined with your E when they chase you towards your tower, can actually net you kills if you save your E from when they're trying to flee from the tower if they overextend.

Magic Resist per level glyphs. One of Taric's main weaknesses is that while he is naturally tanky to AD, he lacks a bit of MR.

GP/10 quints. Another downside to Taric is that by his role in this guide, he will rarely be getting killing blows on enemy champions, and rarely be killing monsters (unless your AD carry is incompetent). You'll be reliant on mainly assist gold, and clearing the ocassional lane in the mid to late game as the source of your gold.

Items is where my guide becomes a little diverse as no two games ever play out the same.

Laning Phase

If your carry and jungler are competent, and you've been able to net a few kills

Wait until you've amassed around 1200 gold, and head back to base. Make your first purchase a Heart of gold, as well as a set of boots1, and some wards. The HOG should make you significantly more difficult to kill, as well as providing a boost to your gold.

If your carry / jungler are incompetent, or your lane has been pushed back to the tower a number of times

Wait until you've amassed around 700 gold, head back and grab a Philosopher's stone as well as a ward or two. Once you've managed to build up enough gold (about 1200) invest in the HOG / Boots1 and some wards.

Mid Game

At this stage of the game, you should hopefully have your boots 1, your two gp/10 items, as well as have a decent bit of map coverage from wards. Your jungler should be actively roaming to gank, or you should be actively engaging in team fights. Your ultimate should be available for use, but you're low level enough that even with the extra hp from HOG, you can still be focussed down relatively easily.

Your new focus should be getting enough money to buy an Aegis, which is the first item that will boost your team by any significant degree. Now that you have this item, and your ultimate, your next goal should be attaining enough survivability to use them both.

From here your build should deviate based on the composition of the enemy. Are they mainly AD? build up your randuins for it's active. Are they building mainly MR? Build Banshees, then Randuins. Once there, build on to Shurelya's Reverie.

Late Game

Your new goal is to initiate - if you're offtanking as you should be it means you'll either be going in first to the enemy team, or second. Either way is fine. Once you've charged in, you should be activating all of your auras and letting your team start attacking. Lock the camera on yourself so you don't get lost in the fray. Activate Randuins when the enemy is all around you.

Laning Phase

Dazzle your target to stun them in place. Run up to them, and Shatter them. Watch your health, and your carries health. If you're the only one taking damage, use Imbue only on yourself for the extra health. If your carry has taken damage also, Imbue them, as you will also take some healing from it.

Mid game

As you're still squishy enough to warrant not solely intiating, your team should be moving in as a group still at this stage. If the enemy teams carry or support is out of position, or in stunning range, they should be your primary target. Remember, at this stage you're still a disruptor. While you should be using your stun to ensure that people can be burst down by your carries, you should save it for opponents with PBAoE ults (Galio, or Nunu) or people with disabling spells (Warwick). This will ensure that they've wasted a multiple minute cooldown spell for a very low return, and will help ensure your teams survivability.

Late Game

At this point you should have enough active survivability, that bursting you down while possible, will take a fair bit of commitment from the enemy team. That's why your focus now is to initiate team fights. Storm towards the enemy. Once you're in the center of them, activate Randuins, Radiance, and Shatter. The damage will be unimpressive, but the Auras will let your team know that it's time to go to work.

Find their supports, and their carries, and try to disable them. If you're getting low on health, find your own carry to focus on, heal them. If they're being focussed by the enemy carry, assassin, or anti-carry, stun them and focus on them. Despite your low damage, the enemy dps generally get's fidgetty when anyone focusses them and may force them to back off.

In closing and as previously mentioned, a well played Taric can carry a team to victory. By the end of the game you will be tanky enough to stride into the midst of the enemy team and lay down enough Auras from your ultimate, your items, and have enough survivability to walk out and help keep your team alive.

Your success, ultimately, will come from your team however. You are an enabler, you make your team more than they could otherwise be. You will keep them alive in dark times, you will keep pursuers from them. You will disrupt ganks, and help coordinate counterganks.