Pros + A magnificent 50% total armor scaling on his damage via Gemcraft and Shatter. + A fabulous 5% of max HP scaling on his Imbue granting the Gem Knight immense healing power! + The outrageous ability to spam all of your spells and stun-lock a target thanks to the global cdr of Gemcraft. + Scales heavily into the late game and provides buffs (auras) not only to himself, but to his allies (Armor via Shatter and AD + AP via Radiance). + Effectively the best tank in the league thanks to his innate tankiness through Shatter and his passive auras. + Can 1v1 any bruiser/assassin while building straight defensive stats and out-damaging them. Taric is the very best tank in the game as of patch 3.14. I'm not saying he's the best champion (even though he totally is), I'm saying that he's the best at what he does... tanking. He wins every 1v1 trade against bruisers/assassins (and many other champions). He scales greatly off of defensive stats (Armor and Max HP). He has outrageous innate tankiness, combined with very low cooldowns if Gemcraft is utilized correctly and unexpectedly high damage potential with the use of Gemcraft, Shatter and Radiance.

Cons - Has some mana issues early on, continuous trading may lead to being OOM. - Has no built-in escape. (Not that he needs one. Try ganking a Gem Knight, you'll see.) - Fairly low mobility. - Ezreal Taric doesn't have many weaknesses, but he does have slight mana issues early game. Using your Shatter, Dazzle and Imbue whilst trading early on can leave you OOM after two or three trades. The offset to this is that by the time of the second/third trade, your opponent should be dead if you successfully pulled off your combos and used ignite. He also lacks an escape mechanism such as a dash, but his sheer tankiness and crazy heal ( Imbue) allows him to withstand most unfavorable engages/ganks. Also, Ezreal.

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Gives you kill potential in lane, without ignite it can be very hard to get kills early on. This spell is an absolute must and you cannot lane without it. Greatly increases your dueling potential.

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Makes up for what you lack in mobility, allowing you to catch up to targets and Dazzle them or to retreat from an unfavorable event. I take this over Flash due to the fact that your dazzle already allows you to close gaps, and a Flash + Dazzle usually won't do too much unless your opponent was overextending or something. Ghost allows you to cover a much greater distance total, and catch up to enemies that have flashed in a second or two. It's also a better summoner spell to catch fleeing targets with lots of mobility ( Riven and Lee Sin... most assassins/bruisers actually.

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Allows you to completely cripple an opponent for 2.5 seconds and allows you to get in rage for a Dazzle followed by your full combo. Can also be used defensively.

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Allows you to close small gaps and jump over walls, such as baron pit. This is a slightly inferior alternative to Ghost.

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Helps you roam to other lanes and secure kills by revealing enemy locations. Also helps in checking objective status and checking the enemy jungler's position. Not very useful.

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Is completely useless as you have a bigger heal on a much, much lower cooldown ( Imbue). And you're tanky enough that you won't be needing the extra 100-350 HP heal from this spell.

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Is also utterly useless as you're the tank and are probably not going to be focused. And if you are... that's perfect, focusing a tank is how you lose games.

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Sucks cheap gems. You're extremely tanky and have a low CD mega-heal ( Imbue), you don't need a 90-455 HP shield.

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Is bad on Taric even if you go top. What are you going to do? Teleport to minions and backdoor an inhibitor with your 52-115 AD?

• Juggernaut is a great point to include along with anything granting bonus HP. The more HP you have, the more damage you can withstand and the more you heal with Imbue.
• Perseverance and Recovery are used to cancel out some early game damage/creep damage. For example if you're against a ranged laner, the HP5 helps cancel out autoattack harass.
• Second Wind is great as it allows you to pull off some great escapes when low on life with your Imbue and allows you to quickly regenerate health if you're very low.
• Legendary Guardian is a must, you need to rush in to battle and Dazzle your enemies, being stunned or slowed by Wither can get in the way... this helps with that.
• Meditation helps with your early game mana issues.
• Strength of Spirit scales quite well with Taric as his core item provides 300 mana.
• Runic Affinity grab this if you're heading mid, as this'll extend the blue buff duration significantly. This means more spamming and more killing.

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Greater Quintessence of Health This helps you out early game by providing you with extra tankiness to withstand more punishment. It doesn't seem like much HP but coupled with all of your armor, these 3 runes allow you to withstand ~10% more damage (I may be wrong, math is hard), and that's quite a lot.

greater mark of hybrid penetration

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greater mark of hybrid penetration Some penetration ! This allows you to dish out more spell damage and more autoattack damage. Very, very helpful for early game trades.

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Greater Seal of Armor What Taric is based on, armor. The more you have, the more effective you are.

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Greater Glyph of Magic Resist This is to help you out with any magic damage coming your way. You could also replace these flat MR glyphs with MR/lvl glyphs.

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Greater Quintessence of Armor provides even more more armor right off the bat. It also provides you with 2 bonus armor from Shatter's 12% of total armor armor buff (total of 14 armor from the 3 quintessences and Shatter). Get these if the enemy team has a heavy AD composition for even more dominance, or if you want to crush your AD lane opponent even harder. Example: I would use these if my enemy laner was Zed with an enemy Shaco jungle.

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Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage really helps with early last hitting and trading. Get these if you find yourself missing a lot of creeps or want more early game trade dominance.

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Greater Mark of Armor for more armor if enemy team is AD heavy.

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Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist provides you with more magic resistance in the late game than flat MR runes. Get these if enemy laner and jungler deal physical damage.

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Gemcraft (Passive): This is what makes Taric the fabulous trader that he is. After every spell you cast, your next autoattack deals 30% of your armor as magic damage and reduces the cooldown of all your spells by 2 seconds. This allows you to deal crazy damage and spam your abilities in a very quick rotation.

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Imbue (Q): This is your versatile healing ability. It can be cast on yourself or on an ally. If it is cast on an ally, it heals said ally AND yourself. If you cast this heal on yourself alone, you are healed for 40% more. Oh, and did I mention that the heal amount scales with 5% of your maximum HP? Use this to save allies, yourself and/or win trades.

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Shatter (W): This is your bread and butter skill. It passively provides bonus armor to you and provides a passive aura that grants 12% of your total armor as an armor bonus for allies... AND YOURSELF. Yes, you get passive bonus armor AND 12% bonus armor based off of your maximum armor. Armor armor armor. Armor. This skill is maxed first for more bonus armor and for its damage burst. When activated, it deals aoe damage to surrounding enemies and lowers their armor for 4 seconds. Use this followed by an autoattack for some great damage. Keep in mind that whilst this ability is on cooldown, your own passive armor bonus is lost (But not the aura, the aura will always be active).

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Dazzle (E): This is your lockdown tool, what you use to prevent those puny assassins from fleeing into the shadows whilst you smash their heads in... with style, of course. The stun duration lasts from 1.2 to 1.6 seconds, lasting longer the closer the target is to you. Use this whilst trading to lock down an opponent and give yourself time to dish out some damage and execute your full combo. If everything goes successfully and you juggle your passive + abilities correctly, you should be able to almost "perma-stun" an enemy. This is also used to catch up to targets out of your reach and allow your team to cave in on enemies.

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Radiance (R): This is your ultimate ability. It deals aoe magic damage upon activation and grants you bonus AD and AP for 10 seconds (it also grants half of the bonuses to nearby allies as an aura for 10 seconds). Use this when going all in on an enemy or teamfighting to give yourself/your team a significant boost in damage.

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Level 1 trades: Shatter + AUTOATTACK or Dazzle + AUTOATTACK depending on what skill you started with. Do not take damage without dealing some back if possible. Do not try to engage your opponent, your level 1 1v1 is quite bad.

Level 2 trades: Shatter + AUTOATTACK / Dazzle + AUTOATTACK followed by Imbue + AUTOATTACK depending on what ability you started with level 1. You most likely still cannot engage an enemy, do not attempt to unless you know what you're doing.

Level 3-5 trades: Shatter + AUTOATTACK Dazzle + AUTOATTACK Imbue + AUTOATTACK if your opponent is within melee range of you. If not, you can close the distance with Dazzle + AUTOATTACK Shatter + AUTOATTACK Imbue + AUTOATTACK. You can now trade very effectively and you MAY be able to engage on your own, however it's still a slight risk. Squishy opponents should be at half HP or less if you executed this combo correctly.

Level 6+ trades: It's time for the Gem Knight to bruise that bruiser. Radiance AUTOATTACK Shatter AUTOATTACK Dazzle AUTOATTACK Imbue AUTOATTACK followed by ignite to assure a kill should demolish any fool who attempts to engage you. To close a gap and engage you would go Dazzle + AUTOATTACK Radiance + AUTOATTACK Shatter + AUTOATTACK Imbue + AUTOATTACK and if you have 40% cdr and are level 18 you can continue doing your full combo and use your stun every 3 seconds. Yes, a 1.5 second stun every 3 seconds.

Welcome to the early game, where your focus is to stay in lane and shut down all chances of your enemy laner having an impact on the match. Here you'll want to farm minions until you hit level 3 (level 3 is when you can start doing some sexy combos, check out the Skills/Combos section for those). Your enemy will probably not be doing much damage to you considering your high amounts of armor, but still NEVER take free damage. Always trade some back. Do not spam your abilities as you will quickly run out of mana, if you're going to cast an ability you must make full use of it AND Gemcraft (AKA using the ability then autoattacking the enemy champion if possible to maximize value).

Once you reach level 3 (one point in each basic ability), you can start executing a few trade combos and eventually kill your enemy after two or three of them and Ignite. You will want to cast your abilities followed by an autoattack after each one whilst trading to utilize Gemcraft correctly. After a full combo you should have dealt significant damage to the enemy and not taken much yourself (plus regained health from Imbue, which is part of your trade combo to proc Gemcraft). Until level 3 do NOT engage an enemy, only defend yourself and trade back damage. I can't stress this enough, your level 1/2 engages are terrible in most situations. Try to Dazzle your enemy and execute your combo whilst he/she has minion aggro, as this will greatly amplify the damage dealt. If your enemy is inexperienced, you could attempt to not fight back on an engage and simply walk back into your minions, trying to lure your enemy into them and then once he/she has gotten minion aggro, do your combo. Try to avoid fighting whilst having minion aggro on yourself, as they do deal significant damage despite your armor.

Keep farming (do not use your abilities to farm, save all of your mana for trading and combos) until you reach level 6 when you can attempt to go all in for a kill if your opponent is not already dead (check the all-in combo in the Skills/Combos section). After one or two combos your enemy should be very low on HP, so try to zone him/her from his/her wave of minions by standing within his/her wave and keeping him/her from approaching your minions to farm. If he/she does get too close whilst low on HP, quickly land a Dazzle and hopefully get a kill.

Remember to keep the river warded using your trinket to prevent ganks, as Taric doesn't have much mobility and is quite easy to gank. However, I often get ganked and surprise the enemies with my high burst and survivability, often getting a kill or even two and surviving the gank. But don't attempt this if you haven't played Taric much with this build, you need to know his capabilities well before this will work. Also, don't be afraid to use your ultimate, it has a low cooldown and combined with Gemcraft's 2 second global CDR you'll have it again in no time.

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Welcome to the mid game, where your lane opponent should hopefully be far down a hole he can't climb back out of and you should have a big advantage/be fed/be farmed. Taric is surprisingly good at roaming, and his ganks provide surprising damage and a spammable stun. Try to destroy the enemy tower in your lane early on and then roam around if nothing else is possible. You should never be inactive. You could potentially stay in lane and farm but you are better off ganking lanes and getting you/your team fed. Your Dazzle is great for ganking as it allows your ally to catch up to the target and Radiance buffs the damage of you and all allies, raising kill potential. Be careful not to let your lane opponent free farm however, so always try to push the minion wave to the enemy tower and ruthlessly murder your opponent whenever possible before leaving lane to roam/go to base.

Not much else to say here, you should have a few items by now Iceborn Gauntlet and Sunfire Aegis so you should be able to tank heavily during fights. Try to force teamfights or group up with your team and ambush lone enemies. Basically try to get as many kills as possible followed by pushing and getting objectives. Forcing teamfights is great because Radiance provides a big edge to your team in teamfight scenarios (assuming your team isn't very behind) and it should win you most fights, along with your AOE armor debuff, armor buff for allies and spammable stun/heal.

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Welcome to the late game, where you're invincible and deal tons of damage. This is more or less the same as mid game, minus the paying attention to your enemy laner. You should be contesting objectives, forcing teamfights and finding out of position targets to Dazzle for your team (or yourself). Again, Radiance is extremely useful and should be used for every single teamfight you attend, it's cooldown should be extremely low late game with 2-3 points in, 40% cdr from items and Gemcraft's passive. Position yourself in front of your team and engage. You are most likely going to be the one who goes up into the enemy team and eats all of the skillshots/ultimates attempting to Dazzle a carry. Lock up high priority targets, buff your allies with Radiance and use Imbue on teammates near death. Remember to juggle your abilities and Gemcraft autoattacks as they deal significant damage in combination with the aoe damage from Iceborn Gauntlet. You can also use Radiance whilst pushing/taking objectives (and you should) to destroy towers faster or kill baron nashor.