Summoners!

Average Summoners

Nothing's going to top Flash and Ignite for aggro support summoners, and since taric thrives on agression and counteragression, there's rarely a situation that you Don't want Ignite..

Mage Supports, High Damage lanes

In lanes you either dont have the ability to bully early or when the game has high burst champions that can snowball like a Zed or Draven, Exhaust Will almost always wind up stronger than Ignite.

Runes!

Can we get an F in the chats for the reign of Klepto taric, long may he live in his beautiful abode on the mountain. thankfully my bat**** tastes in runes can continue to survive on due to season 12's lethal tempo rework.

Reccomended Runes for each tree are marked with a >, while lesser reccomended or not reccomended runes are marked with an X

> Precision

Precision offers some great choices for Taric alongside some that are arguably less than helpful. he has a standout keystone in Lethal, some value with Press the Attack, and the other two in the tree sure exist.

> Lethal Tempo

I dont know if this is a harder sell than Klepto was back in the day but I hope it isnt

Lethal is a huge sleeper rune for taric in a lot of ways, the easiest to explain is that Taric's CDR scales indirectly with attack speed. Due to Taric's Passive lowering cooldowns by 1 second for the next two autos after passive, the faster he can get those autos out, the faster his passive is consumed and the less downtime you have between spells. while other consistent combat runes like Conqeror or Grasp give you survivability and AP or health respectively, Conq does not give a good payload of stats comparatively for taric and grasp is much less helpful given the amount of time it takes to proc at the start of a fight. Lethal's attack speed stacks very quickly and reliably on Taric, and once it is fully stacked increases your healing and disruption output massively while giving you hefty trading power with the attack speed steroid. while there are lanes where you are not going to be capable of getting a fully stacked lethal on, if the enemy comp has a lot of champions you can freely auto attack then you will still get value out of it and the increased output it provides compared to any other rune.

> Press the Attack

Press the attack is a decent choice, and for stuations where you're not in extended fights but dont need the utility from glacial I do see the appeal in it. I almost never use it, but there's a reason lightrocket does considering how easily taric can apply it.

X Conqueror

On paper this would seem good too, considering taric stacks it easier than he does Lethal tempo, but the bonus omnivamp is effectively wasted on him, and the bonus stats amount to a negligible increase in healing or damage.

X Fleet Footwork

press q

> Presence of Mind

Presence of Mind is without a doubt the best rune that Taric can take. I don't care if you disagree with everything else in this guide, but if you take one thing away from it it's to run presence of mind. It completely solves Taric's early game mana problems given you play aggressively, and all around is such a perfect fit for his kit that nothing else can even hope to compare.

> Overheal

In a world where taric doesnt have mana issues, i think id definitely be interested in the rune. Taric does have situations where he's arguably healing himself ineffectively and getting some value out of it from that seems like a great tradeoff.

X Triumph

Press Q

> Legend: Tenacity

And now, we run into the main downside of Precision: there aren't really any other good runes for Taric in the middle of the precision tree. the best in my opinion is Legend tenacity, which despite the grind it needs to reach full power gives a good chunk of tenacity.

> Legend: Alacrity

Let's say youre in a game against Ezreal, Illaoi, Kha'Zix, Zed, and Janna. If there is truly NO crowd control that would hit you or be used on you at ALL on the enemy team, then alacrity provides minor value similar to lethal tempo. but if the enemy team even has the slightest bit of CC, alacrity pales in comparison to anything else you can get.

X Legend: Bloodline

press q

> Last Stand

You get suprisingly more use out of last stand than you'd think, since you wind up at fairly low health in fights hanging on by a thread with heals.

X Cut Down, Coup de Grace

Cut Down is actively useless on taric considering how consistently you're going to be wanting health, and Coup De Grace offers less damage in less situations than Last Stand ever will as taric.

>Resolve Secondary

Revolve has a fair bit of flexibility despite weaker options overall for taric, but you still have standouts like Revitalize and Unflinching.

> Demolish

You're playing an aggressive support, and ideally going to be able to pressure people out of lane and get early plates, giving demolish great value. Demolish scales pretty solidly too and on top of that you still get passive bonuses for hitting a tower so you're still capable to act and help the team wile proccing it.

> Font of Life

I dont necessarily see too much wrong with font aside from taric not being the best at triggering the effect consistently, but i think demolish gives you much more in this row.

X Shield Bash

assuming level 18, with max items giving you around 4700 health given a bunch of heartsteel stacks, and 2500 mana from fimbulwinter and frozen heart, you're getting around bonus 150 damage from Bastion every 3-5 seconds depending on how much you get kited. fimbulwinter only adds another 50 or so maximum when you land e. why do that when you can just heal your allies around 200 health every time you land E or do extra damage to towers. hell, why do any of those when you can just run second wind?

X Conditioning

Conditioning, at 500 armor, will give you 15 bonus armor. it is barely anything. you want second wind.

> Second Wind

Even in lanes that you're stomping, second wind will help out. it's doran's shield but stronger, and dorans already gives you a lot of lane sustain. why would you not want this over the other options?

X Bone Plating

Bone plating is a situational pick, but weaker in solo lanes. If you didn't know, bone plating specifically only works against the champion who proc'd the ability. in lanes where you dont take damage from more than one person the way it lets you get a bit of survivability while you ramp is definitely good, but other options are more consistent.

> Overgrowth

Overgrowth would be good if it didnt exist with Revitalise, a rune that is actively the best possible pick on taric. if revitalise is nerfed or replaced, then overgrowth will take over as the dominant rune

> Revitalize

You're going to get good value out of revitalise basically every game due to the fact that it affects both Q and W, and gives you AND your target more survivability.

> Unflinching

Unflinching falls in the same category as Legend tenacity, which is it gives you a LOT of survivability due to the fact that it lets you get cc'd less. due to diminishing returns on tenacity since you're running legend Tenacity it isnt going to give you as much value as revitalise would overall, but if you know you're not going to be running Mercs you will still get use from it.

Basics for making an item build

Taric is fairly lucky in having a lot of flexibility, but he has a few quirks in build path that give you some things to watch out for. the first being that raw armor is often a trap. taric's early damage definitely scales well off of armor, and his ability to copy it to his bastion target is useful, but you get so much more value out of health due to adding to your own survivability and increasing your healing that you'd be better served by mr or even raw hp than stacking armor. there are certainly situations where you'd want to, but abyssal reducing a late game adc's magic resist by half is substantially more additional damage than another armor item.

In general, even with tarics strengths, you are a support at the end of the day. if you're able to dish out decent damage but your adc cant exist, all youve done is replace your carry with a mediocre, more kiteable melee one.

>Support Items

Riot has blessed us not just with more money, but with some great options to use. My personal ranking, from best to worst, is below.

> Bloodsong

Realistically, as useful as the others are, Bloodsong absolutely annihilates the competition. it's actively designed for taric, it gives you press the attack and sheen for completely free. the only champion who id argue can use bloodsong BETTER than taric is Senna who applies it just by pressing Q.

> Celestial Opposition

Celestial offers a LOT of early tankiness, which I feel taric loves. the literal only reason celestial isn't the primary reccomendation is that taric exists as a counter pick, and in any situation where he has the counter pick he will almost always get better value from bloodsong. Celestial shines when taric is the primary tank, but you don't want to be in those situations that often.

> Solstice Sleigh

Solstice is a great effect, with the main downside of it being too long of a cooldown to be great on taric. if it had half value and half duration, itd be up there with celestial for being almost as good as bloodsong.

> Dream Maker

with a similar story to Solstice, Dream maker simply offers its effect too rarely to compete.

> Zaz’Zak’s Realmspike

why would you choose this. bloodsong is right there for damage. bloodsong is right there for everything. when you were left without a caterer for your wedding, bloodsong personally came and cooked an incredible barbeque. when you forgot your phone back at the bar bloodsong had already grabbed it for you and hand delivered it. bloodsong is here for you. please, stop texting zaz'zak. he doesnt deserve your respect or love.

>Core Items

> Mercury's Treads

More often than not Mercs are going to beat out your other shoe options. Plated Steelcaps are only solid if you wind up running both Legend: Tenacity and Unflinching, and taric is almost never served by Mobility Boots due to the fact that he wants in combat movement speed and that his strength in game comes from drawing enemies towards bot rather than leaving bot.

> Heartsteel

Unlike last season, since both the cost of heartsteel is lower and your gold gen has actually been increased, the economic downsides of heartsteel are largely gone for you. so you gain added damage, increased healing as the stacks add up, and tankiness. it's a hard bargain to pass up.

> Unending Despair

Even after the almost definitely incoming nerfs to unending despair, the innate value of it on taric cannot be overstated. he's an enchanter who is so built for the thick of a fight he will actively perform worse if he tries to leave the fight. on top of that, the stat profile is excellent for taric as well. almost never a situation where you dont take it.

>Solid Items

> Vigilant Wardstone

I PROMISE this isn't bait. Vigilant has gone from largely gold inefficent with a passive that offers not a lot of power for taric to offering great raw stats and the bonus wards. it's a great cheap purchase compared to last season.

> Knight's Vow

When in doubt, Knight's is your bread and butter defensive choice. it's lovely for sticking in fights and giving your carry and yourself extra survivability while giving a good stat spread for you.

> Ardent Censer

Ardent's an interesting item, because you'd imagine you get it for the team or your bastion target, but nope. It's for you. It's cheap, good stats, and Taric will pretty much always have the buff up. In addition, there is the bonus of his heal being able to give the entire team the buff. The specific downside of ardent is that it offers nothing for defensive power for you. You're going to remain super super squishy, and a dead taric cant buff anyone.

> Echoes of Helia

Echoes is an item that's basically purpose built for Taric. He consistently can apply the effect, always will appreciate the damage, and since he puts out lots of little heals rather than soraka or nami's one big heal, he gains much more value from it. the main downside is that it doesnt offer good tank stats for him or magic resist like it used to

> Winter's Approach

So its a tear item, that gives you bonus health based on mana, AND a solid shield on yourself when you use any cc??? Sounds great!! whats the downside? Not really anything, though more often than not i dont find myself building it as much as i normally would, preferring something like Knight's Vow. that said, dont turn your nose up at it, it's definitely worth the money.

> Frozen Heart

Thanks to Fimbulwinter, Frozen heart is now a health item too! It's a solid pickup for taric in general, he loves the CDR, mana, and armor, plus the attack speed slow and flat damage reduction goes a long way for him.

> Redemption

Redemption is a fantastic item overall and while I dont knock anyone who builds it on Taric nor do I think i'ts bad, it's not an item I build to often. The specific stats you want from it you can get better from a mikaels, and most of the time the advantages that redemption gives aren't going to be as useful on taric as they are on other supports. Even then, there are some situations where against a heavy AOE team you're going to want it, and in those situations it's definitely a good grab. I'll cover using the active with the ult section.

> Locket of the Iron Solari

Locket is going to serve you well in a lot of defensive situations, especially for cheap. Personally, I prefer to build a locket much later than early and only if it's specifically needed.

>Situational items

> Chemtech Putrifier and Thornmail

Only build these if your team needs healing reduction, and more specificially if there is nobody willing to build it. taric is a terrible applier of it in most situations since they changed putrifier to not apply on allies who are healed or shielded. Thornmail is only if you're getting targeted, otherwise putrifier is better. A quick bonus tip is that the damage from Echoes of helia does apply Putrifiers Healing reduction!

> Mikael's Blessing

If you need it, you know you need it. keep in mind it barely offers much in terms of defensive stats for yourself so you're going to be playing melee soraka with it which. which sucks.

>Less Ideal items

> Jak'Sho, The Protean

I mean yes, youre going to on paper be more tanky and do more damage like this, but in practice taric's armor damage scaling doesnt scale that well, and the situations where you're ahead enough to take it youd be better served by heartsteel.

> Randuin's Omen

If youre against a trynd top, a viego jungle, a yasuo mid, and a crit adc then it definitely does have value, but its incredibly expensive and in most fights the ad crit champions are unlikely to be targeting you first. you're much better served by knights vow.

> Staff of Flowing Water

Staff of flowing water is essentially just AP Ardent, which works good for if you wind up with an AP mage as your carry or if you're going to be sticking with your midlaner more than your carry. the big issue is that in general, you dont especially like laning with most AP carries and you almost always get better value remaining a threat botlane with your adc.

WIP BELOW APOLOCHEESE

Passive: Bravado

---

After casting an ability, Taric's next two basic attacks within 4 seconds have double attack speed, each dealing 25+(4 per level) (+ 15% bonus armor) bonus magic damage, reduce his basic abilities Cooldowns by 1-2 Seconds (Increasing based off of ability haste), and granting a charge of Starlight's Touch.

Q: Starlight's Touch

---

Starlight's Touch works on a charge system, storing 1-5 charges depending on the ranks in it. when used, it heals everyone around him for 30+20% Ability Power+1% Max Health per charge, up to a cap of 150+100% Ability Power+5% Max Health

W: Bastion

---

Bastion marks an ally until a new ally is marked, and gives the ally and taric a shield based off of 7-11% of their respective max health for 2.5 seconds. Passively, Both taric and his bastion target gain armor equal to 9-13% of tarics armor, as well as allowing all of taric's abilities to be mirrored off of them. overlapping areas do not have increased effect.

E: Dazzle

---

after a one second delay, Dazzle stuns units in an area in front of him and his bastion target for 1.5 seconds, dealing damage equal to 90-250 + 50% bonus armor+50% Ability Power

R: Cosmic Radiance

---

After 2.5 seconds, all ally champions in the area around Taric and his Bastion are immune to damage for 2.5 seconds.

taric's ult is both the strongest and most useless ult in the game. it's entirely based around timing and general knowledge of how to read a fight, and what oppurtunites you get from it and if you should retreat or engage.

Ability max order

In almost every situation, the first order shown is going to be your best bet since you gain considerable survivability for yourself and your carry, and the mana costs are offset by tear. a quick FAQ about ability orders are going to be below if needed though.

>Why Do you Delay rank five Q?

While Rank 4 Starlight's Touch is a Huge powerspike, Rank 5 is actually a downgrade. Since during a rotation you'll never be at 5 charges, you'll never get full value from the upgrade, and while it no longer punishes you by increasing the mana cost for no reward, the level up point is better put elsewhere.

>Why Do you put two points into Q on E Max?

Simply put, Taric's Q at rank one is a really heavy waste. each proc of your passive gives you back an entire charge, so when you only have one charge to play with you're going to be wasting a proc no matter what, so because of that its always good to get two points into Starlight's Touch, even if you're not maxing it.

>Why Did you delay rank 2 ult for rank 4 Q on E Max?

This questions tricky to answer in one go, so I'm gonna have to break it down a bit:

Just like how some items can give champion's powerspikes, taric has a powerspike once his Q hits rank 4. Specifically, it lets him get full effect from his passive, and maxes out the healing he gets from a well done rotation. its a HUGE buff to him, and more important than ult.

Taric's Ult, while it is effective, doesn't actually gain much from further ranks in it, and only gets some cooldown reduction off on it. while its a fair amount of CDR, you're not going to be using ult off cooldown, especially not between level 11 and level 12.

What kind of playstyle does taric have?

Taric is an enchanter, but a really unique one who plays completely different than most other enchanters. in fact, the closest parallels ive found to his playstyle are in juggernauts like Mordekaiser or Illaoi. the effect taric can have on a game is immense, and his healing, crowd control and damage can often outperform any other support in the game. the big issue is that he's insanely kiteable, and more often than not winds up far more squishy than your average juggernaut or tank support would.

You keep saying rotations, what does that mean?

Great question, me! Spell rotations aren't a common thing in league, only really existing on champions like Ryze or Lucian, so its fine not to know what they are normally. Taric is a champion who, while he can be played fine without using his ability rotation properly, becomes INCREDIBLY powerful if you do it correctly. Plus, the rotation itself isn't hard at all!! your goal is to weave starlights touch between your bastion and dazzle casts, which if done right will have you constantly pumping out 4 charge heals, but also will allow you to have whatever ability you started with up again to restart the rotation!

How do I play lane?

Taric Laning is based off of two core bot lane tactics: trading stance and retaliation trading.

>TrAIDing

TrAIDing is a small tactic you should try to do basically any time you see an enemy adc try to trade or poke at your adc, which is simply to just cast bastion or Starlight's Touch and auto a minion twice. seems simple, but a core thing to keep in mind is that your shield or heal is going to completely negate one auto attack early on unless it's a caitlyn headshot or a draven axe, while in return they draw minion aggro from having attacked you. consistently negating damage with bastion is key for whittling down lanes when you can't engage and when you are unable to punish mistakes or engages.

>Retaliation Trades

Retaliation trading is also an Adc tactic, but this one we're gonna take and use ourselves instead. The basics of the retaliation trade is that if your partner is engaged on, to engage on the enemy carry. Taric is the best champion in the Entire game at using this tactic, bar none. because of taric's heavy early damage and more importantly, bastions ability to cast spells off of both you and its target, you're able to not only all in the carry, but set up your own carry to survive and either burn down the support or move up to fight the carry. this strategy is the bread and butter of taric, and will win you games more than anything else.

Tl;Dr: use bastion practically off cooldown. when your carry is engaged on, Hard engage on the enemy carry.

What about post 6?

At this point, Three things will be happening: One, your carry will likely be if not fed then ahead. two, the enemy jungler and/or mid will be looking for a chance to come bot since you'll likely be pushed up as well . Three, you'll have ultimate.

This is the recipe for the bread and butter of taric, and probably the absolute best thing for climbing ranked. The Tiltv2. Whats that? Its simply having Taric Ult, Damage, and healing, and winning a 2v3-4, which is incredibly easier than it sounds, because of the power Taric has. Any time you see a jungle gank start coming or a roam from mid coming, make sure you communicate to your carry in some way that ult is up and that the goal is NOT to peel off of a gank, but to turn and burn someone down.the second they commit too hard for a gank, be it a big ultimate or flanking from behind, ult immediately turns the tide in your favor and they have to choose between a hard commit to burst down the carry as fast as possible, or disengage. if they choose to stay in, focus on getting as much heals off as you can, reguardless of target. if that means hitting minions instead of a champion just to get passive procs off faster, thats fine. the time spent trying to run to get cc off on someone or start doing damage is not worth the extra 300 health you can provide to a carry in those few seconds. after that point, you can either burst whoever is closest to you and the carry and peel off, or ideally just kill them all depending on how much they overextend.

If they dont give you any options to do this and are staying safe under tower, your next best bet is just to keep pushing in waves with your carry and watching for someone to leave. the second the support roams, the adc recalls and the supports holding the wave, or anything leaving just one person under the turret, you can dive incredibly easy. lead with an auto to draw aggro, then ult. if your adc cannot kill someone in the amount of time given by the turret shots you can tank there, then the lane is likely a hard win anyways.

Hi! Im Miriam, I'm a Taric main in high plat who plays a lot of Taric and a few other beefy boys. I've played him since before the rework and even more after, and have been a huge fan of finding the best way to get his gems off. I dont do too much overall, but I do some art streams from time to time as well as some league or other game streams on my twitch!! if you need to find me elsewhere, I'm Miriamundertale everywhere except for twitter, where I'm Miwiamundertale.

If you're hungry for more taric information, I heavily reccomend L3gislator's taric guide as one of the best guides on here by miles (Plus they actually understands taric's strength offensively unlike most tarics you'd see which is big!)

Right now things are still a bit of a WIP as i finish updating everything to the newest season, but the basics are all set up and I'd mainly like to expand on options and full written explanations next, then after that go further into polish.


Feel free to comment with additions and critiques, but keep in mind that anything other than absolute glowing praise is objectively wrong /s

1/11/2024 - updated quick summary of items, more in depth coming soon but good enough for the season start at least!

1/13/2024 - Updated main item summary! in the coming days runes should be finished up finally.

1/19/2024 - Mostly finished up abilities!