Taric is an awesome support champ. He brings a lot to the table and is very, very, very adaptable. There is almost no situation in which you are not doing something for your team. With CV and ward sweeping you bring so much map awareness. His ult may seem lackluster, it is amazing for pushing towers and adding damage to your AD carry. He is also naturally very durable - early game you need very few defensive items.

He will not get kills using this build and laning strat. If you are looking for an aggressive support, this guide is not a good choice for you. Your goal with this build is to control your lane, support your carry so they can farm, and bully the lane out of exp range. If you are very analytical and care more about affecting the battle through disruption and healing and map awareness, then this guide is for you.

Disclaimer: This is NOT a solo queue build. You are entirely dependent upon your carry and pretty dependent upon having a competent jungler and solo top lane. You will NOT find a group to take advantage of this in solo-queue.

Pros:
Extremely durable - needs very few defensive items early to mid game
Utility Oriented - ward sweeping, healing, stun disruption, AD boosting ult
Relatively easy micro - the bulk of learning to play Taric is adjusting your macro play

Cons:
Little to no real damage - you can do small burst with Shatter, but that's about it
No AP - you will be healing for the base heal - this can be mitigate by excellent map awareness and poisitioning
Mana Hungry at times: You can get low if you are spamming heals and stuns and your aura in a teamfight. Runes and items should help with that.

Here is where I deviate a little from the more standard builds.

Quints:
You might be scoffing here, but with your core item build, this + the greed mastery will make it so you don't even miss farming. At start you have 4/5 of the gp5 of a philo. Once you get your philo, you have almost x2 the default gp5 rate. Follow it up with a HoG and your income is set for life.

For Marks I really leave this up to you. You shouldn't be auto attacking a lot and should be saving mana early, so I find the AS reds to minimally useful. As we are not building a more offensively oriented Taric, I find Mag Pen to be lackluster as well.

Seals: Greater Seal of Knowledge or

If you find yourself missing mana from early mana regen items, then use the mp5 seals. This will keep you in lane longer, and will allow you to ult just a tad more as needed.

If you find yourself ok with mana, I recommend flat armor quints. This will give you added durability during the laning phase when you need it most. Helps with bullying the opposing team and exp denying them. Also its just more armor on top of Taric's W.

Glyphs: or

I prefer MR glyphs as this is the one area Taric does not naturally excel in. With his W skill and armor runes, you are set until at least level 9 or 10 on armor. Take flat MR runes if you are getting hurt a lot during the early phase, otherwise take MR per level to soak dmg late game.

I run 0/21/9:
In defense I fully build out the MR and Armor talents, simply amazing early game. More durability. I take Strength of Spirit for more mana efficiency as well as shrugging off early harassment damage (also just makes the regen from Philosopher's Stone stronger). I'll take one point in for a teensey dmg reduc. After that max out veterans scars, ardor and tenacity.

In utility I take the standard first and second tier support choices and for the last point I take (again, adds to your gp5 quints which really jump start your farmless income).

Core Build:



This should be what you start with. The regrowth pendant combined with the defensive talent will make it so you don't need to take heal first and you have some decent health sustain.

Philosopher's Stone

As SOON as you have gold for Philo you B and you get that. If needed you can stay in lane until you have enough for boots 1 as well. With philo, you aren't budging from lane and can indefinitely support your carry.



On your third B, get HoG for more health and gp5, start grabbing vision wards and if you can afford it, an oracles. At this point your carry should be pretty well farmed. If you are really dominating your lane you can start warding. If your whole team is pushing their lanes, ward the entrances and exits to the jungle on their side of the map, also, in general, refer to this link for ward placement: http://s1102.photobucket.com/albums/g441/AwwGasm/Summoners%20Rift/

After this you want to get an to further help your team in team fights. From there, it's pretty open. I personally do not ever get an AP item on Taric. I have found with this build you don't need it. You can build (for the movespeed activate) or you can finish your HoG into a , for cc heavy teams, or build another MR defensive item.

Most games I've been in are won by mid game so I don't tend to get a chance to build beyond Aegis a lot.

I grab Dazzle rank 1 99% of the time as I only use this when laning with a competent partner and team. The stun could net you an early first blood, help you bully, or prevent a gank/kill. Rank 2 I take imbue, and if you are playing right, you should only need to cast it on your carry. I take 1 point in shatter at level 3 for the armor aura bonus and as a very tiny bit of extra burst early game. After that I prioritize Imbue, then Shatter. Put a point into the ult whenever you can and finish up Dazzle last (you won't be wanting the damage so you can just put the one point in it at rank 1 as suggested.

Your role is to help your team. CV is amazing for that. CV their base between the fountain at their nexus a few seconds after the start to catch their lane assignment. Once it's up again, CV between their blue and wolves to catch the enemy jungler. Throughout the match you should be keeping tabs on their jungler by CVing in between their blue golem and wolves, as well as between red buff and double golems.

Flash. Use it. Till it gets yanked or changed. I used to run ghost, but I've found careful positioning and map awareness to mitigate the benefit. I'll flash to a low health teammate to heal if needed. Flash into key stuns. Flash out of bad spots. Flash, flash, flash. All day every day.

No matter how well you follow the build, this is what will make or break this role for Taric.

You want an AD carry preferably, if you have to take an AP carry, take one that has good auto attack harass (Brand is really good with Taric. At level 2 a Taric stun leads to Brand's combo). With an AD carry such as Ashe or Cait, you easily outrange the lane. Taric's early sturdiness allows him to bully people away from the carry. At level 2 with good positioning you can exp deny your lane. I played a game with my team the night before writing this guide.

You do NOT want to actively last hit. This whole build is based on passive regen and gp5. You want your carry to have all the last hits they can take. That being said, if a creep is low and your carry won't get the last hit, then you as Taric should not let that gold go to waste and go ahead and last hit it. Laning with an Ashe I was 0 cs 20+ minutes into the game - with the gp5, I still was able to get boots, philo and start building aegis. With a Cait, I was 15 minutes before getting a creep kill. Both games our carries dominated the other team's carry's CS. This made our carry so much beefier than theirs which makes pushing eiser.


CV will allow you to control your brush early as well before getting wards. Whenever possible you want Taric at the far end of your bush ready to stun anyone that even thinks about coming into yours. Your carry should be in range of you while last hitting to immediately get on them if they make a move. Also, always be tracking the enemy jungler.

In terms of pushing the lane stick with the basics:
Are there MIAS?
Do you know where the jungler is? (you should as Taric, its part of this build's job)
Can you force significant damage on the tower?

Prior to warding the first 2 are much more of a concern. After warding, the 3rd point is the most important.

Once you hit mid-game you will need to shift a bit into supporting team fights but also continuing to ward. It's a balance you will need to get used to. You need to know what your team can safely handle on their own and when they will need you. If you are being pushed back in your lanes and are fighting on your side of the river, make sure your jungle is warded, if you've pushed past it, ward their jungle.

When pushing towers don't forget Taric's ult. AD is raised for anyone nearby so you can really put the hurt to a turret.

This guide is really meant to be used as a true support style guide. As mentioned in the intro, this build is not for you if you want to get kills or be really aggressive. Also as this build stacks zero AP, you won't be seeing big heal numbers.

That being said, with proper ward placement you can mitigate a lot of damage just by having visibility in the fog of war. This will prevent teammates from walking into ambushes, force more teamfights to your advantage. This style lends itself toward damage prevention then healing.

The hardest thing to get used to is knowing how much warding and when to do it. If your carry is farmed and easily holding the lane, that is a good time to ward. As you are warding, pop an oracles and clear any wards the enemy has up. This blinds them and you swing the advantage even more so to your favor by having visibility where they don't.