Welcome you fancy Taric players.

I am an support Player who was kinda forced to start playing top.
As a person who always **** on the meta, i try ALL the things you should not.

So if you play Taric top, at the moment 50% of your team will love you, 50% will hate you ( and probably start troll picking )

So if you play it, try to soothe your team members by flattering them a bit ( "Oh your *** locks fantastic!"

When i tried Taric top ( the old one ) i noticed his insane burst early.
After the reworked i was sad for a long time, because the burst i loved got drawn out.
Before patch 7.14 you had a notable downtime during early trade, where you had to wait for the cooldown to come back up again.

This meant there was a window for the opponent to punish you HARD. Smart enemies would use this, wreck you and there comes the flame.

After 7.14 Starlight's Touch got changed, you can now indefinetly chain abilites and have that insane early dmg ALL THE TIME ( or as long as you have mana).

Pro:

• High early damage
• Sustained heal/shield/stun
• MASSIVE late game impact
• Early does not matter that much
• Actually fits the heal/shield meta
• Armor turns into dmg

Cons:

• Until lvl 3, you get punished hard for missed stun
• Your need mana to deal damage, A LOT OF MANA
• Ranged top laners are hard
• Against ap, you need some item(s) to trade effectivly

Taric offers a lot for the team. Having him can turn mid-late game fights completely around. If you have a champion with dash/jump abilities your insane companion stun range allows for great catches. This can all be done as a support.

So why top lane?

The fact that you are a top laner means you can build ither items, so you can actually use the cooldown reduction on his spells taric offers.

• You can heal up your complete team with Starlight's Touch and Bastion one other ally not once, but constantly.
• The cooldown reduction make the heal feel like your playing URF.
• You can play aggressive yourself, not rely on others to engage and just support them with the stun

The support taric cant do that, because he needs his mana to save his adc if he gets jumped.

Couple of choices here:

Default:
I use this for basically all top lanes, because:

• The high armor helps you dmg and in early trades mitigates minion + aa dmg.
• Flat health increases your early heal ( that sucks at mana efficiency )
• Scaling MR helps you more after leaving your lane ( where you mostly first encounter ap champs )

You can change the following:

• Greater Quintessence of Health can be switched for Greater Quintessence of Scaling Health, but you will loose some pre-6 power
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist can be switched for Greater Glyph of Magic Resist but the early mitigation without ap items on the enemy is not as important ( in my experience )
• In good matchup, theoretically you can switch Greater Mark of Armor for Greater Mark of Attack Damage. This will help you lasthit and trade in early, manaless fights. BUT you scale of armor so well, i do not really see the benefit.
• Greater Seal of Armor is a fixed one. Dont switch it. Just dont.

Why no ap:
Ap runes enhance your heal + stun dmg. Early on, this can make you hurt. But your stun can be dodged and your extended dmg comes from your Bravado attacks in beetween your spells which scale of armor

Full Tank:

• Grasp of the Undying Great trading, but looses out in late especially because you heal yourself all the time anyway. Take against meele lane with high mobility.
• Courage of the Colossus Great for soacking engange dmg ( if your stun hits ). Better in mid-late than early. Take if you are the main engage tank.
• Stoneborn Pact This is incredible for your team in late team fights and the % health helps your tankiness too. Take if your team is missing a support/sustain.

Note: Feast can be switched for each of the other two.

The most important note on items is:

YOU ARE USELESS WITHOUT MANA.

So keeping this in mind lets begin.

Start with:

Doran's Shield Health Potion
or
Corrupting Potion

First back:

This really depends on your enemy. Against tanks/low dmg consider:
Tear of the Goddess It will allow you to stay longer and longer on lane and also trade more than twice
Glacial Shroud Against AD dmg heavy champs
Sheen If you are already ahead. This is risky if you fall behind afterwards its useless until build is finished
Spectre's Cowl Hate to do this, but it helps a lot against ap harrass and a little against ad harrass

First items

Iceborn Gauntlet Bread and butter. This allows you to chase and therefore control extended fights even without landing your stun
Spirit Visage Always build this! Even if the enemy has nearly no ap dmg. Then just build it later . Every other single stat on this item is valuabe for you.

Your inventory in mid game:
Iceborn Gauntlet Spirit Visage Tear of the Goddess Boots

Late game core:

This does not really exists. It all depends on your team

No other tank support/shield support
Locket of the Iron Solari
Ardent Censer

You are the engage
Turbo Chemtank
Dead Man's Plate

You are ahead:
Manamune This makes your Bravado slaps hurt really bad

You are even/behind:
Leave the tear, and go for
Knight's Vow

Basically thats it. All other tank items are very good on taric, due to his health/armor scalings. The only honarable notice would be Titanic Hydra as it allows for a better splitpush and increases your dmg. But i have never found a situation where a team oriented tanky item was not better suited for the job.

Short intro to the spells:

Bravado Passive: It allows you to hit hard and fast twice after any spellcast. Also it reduces cooldowns by 1 sec per hit and increases your heal stack by 1.
This is your main dmg source. Its armor scaling isnt high, but it helps keep your dmg up from early buying Iceborn Gauntlet

Starlight's Touch Your annoying urf-style heal: The cooldown on this is joke. So is the amount of heal ( you would think ). But the stacking system allows for a pretty mana efficient heal if you wait OR hit the enemy often enough. It helps alot in lane to have 3 points in it early because you will stack it with your autos during trade. More on that later

Bastion Shield that scales of your max health and gives a lot of armor to your squishy team members. Also this is what makes taric awesome with a team, as it links you to another player and doubles ALL your spells. Use this as a mana efficient way to extend your Bravado attacks in lane.

Dazzle It is really hard to land it if the enemy is not braindead ( or cc'd ). Try to hit them the moment they want to lasthit or are blocked by terrain/minions.
If you play against high mobility champs ( Yasuo/ Riven) dont even try. Keep if for counter engaging.

Cosmic Radiance This is the reason you dont have to win early game. This ult a team fight turner. Good timing and use distinguishes you from the bad taric players. Use this to early tower dive, save your focused carries and persuade the enemy to step away instead of fight back.

This is what you normally do

Level 1+2:

I tend to not skill at all. If your enemy engages you, skill your Dazzle and use it to disengage. DONT FIGHT AT LEVEL 1.
If he gets early poke down skill your Starlight's Touch and heal back up ( dont spam use this though )
Depending on what you did on level 1, skill the other on lvl 2.
Now you can keep Bravado up with Starlight's Touch->aa->aa-> Dazzle->aa->aa-> Starlight's Touch.
At this point in the game you are nearly impossible to outrade by any meele champion, BUT
you can only trade twice. After that you are oom. And refering to earlier - useless.

Level 3-6:

Dont try to engage. Just dont. You are a late game asset that is almost everytime bigger then your enemy laner if you go even. Let him try to engage and get Dazzle(d) by your astonishing looks and *****slapped back behind his minions.
At level 6 you are a tough gank target. Without enough cc you should always get back to your tower due to Cosmic Radiance.

Level 7-whatever:

Asuming you went back and have your tear, you can now start to initiate trades with the enemy laner. Remeber that Starlight's Touch is terrible with one stack ( heal and manawise ), so try to only uses it with 3 stacks active or to continue Bravado'ing away.

All matchups talk about early laning up to level 8-9.

Easy

Rammus He does not have the damage to kill you. Just be aware of your mana and you can easily kill him.
Malphite Some early mr and you should be fine. If he ults you keep Bravado'ing and heal up again. If he goes full ap be aware of his burst ( especially if you are low from previous trade/gank)

Even

Riven Let her engage, then counter. Otherwise chill and farm.
Rumble Kinda tricky but if you keep your distance you should be able to go even in farm.
Camille You are fine as long as she is not ahead. On even gold, if she jumps you, youre damage/heal/shields will outtrade her. Only in late game will she be able to kill you.
Ekko same as camille. If he builds full ap, you need to get early mr, then you should be fine.

Hard

Yasuo A good yasou will harass you really hard. Buy armor, chill and farm as good as you can.
Ryze He can just free farm. If he catches you with his stun it hurts and you cant retaliate due to his range.
Gnar Only thing you have against him is your armor/tankiness. Actually if he goes mega, its your time to fight him :)
Renekton Same as yasuo.
Lucian Not that often on top, but if he is - stay under the tower. He can dodge your stun, which is your only chance to get close without loosing half your life initially.

Impossible

Darius You are ****ed. Dont even try to go near him. This guy can heal more than you in early game from his q ( which you cant really dodge ) and as soon as he hits 6 he can kill you before your ult pops...
Teemo Who doesnt hate this *****. Get all the things against poke ( Doran's Shield Corrupting Potion Spectre's Cowl and try to farm.

Again for all matchups. It does not matter who you fight, if you are oom - you are dead!

Now as Taric your goal is NOT to splitpush. Try to get to your team as early as possible. Use your tp to push other lane towers, dive the enemy under them with Cosmic Radiance.
Use your teammates cc to land a safe Dazzle and rip them apart.

Teamfight:

Whatever you do now, remember that you have a teammate that doubles your skills. Always try to stay in range for your Starlight's Touch Dazzle and Bastion to spam during fights. Your Cosmic Radiance is awesome, but you have to use it at the right moment.
If you are the main tank, dont just charge in. Remember: If you hit something, your shields and heals will never end ( expect your oom ), often it is of more value to keep your team alive than to zone out the enemy carries.

Split push:

Your split push is actually not that bad. Your tower dmg is nice due to your Bravado and the combination of Dazzle + Iceborn Gauntlet allows for some pushing speed.
But If you have to split remember you can only walk away from danger. Slowly.
Dont overstep and keep your distance from any cc if you cannot see the enemy team.