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Recommended Items
Runes:
Spells:
Flash
Heal
Items
Ability Order
Rock Surfing (PASSIVE)
Taliyah Passive Ability
Hello, my handle is nMinus - I have been playing League of Legends since 2011, and have climbed to diamond multiple times on different accounts. I've peaked at high Diamond 3 several times and have had a decent amount of tournament experience (and success) against diamond and master teams as a mid laner over the years. In season seven, Taliyah was my primary mid laner on two accounts. |
Taliyah is a skillshot-oriented mage that uses her great wave control and strong roaming to be relevant at every stage of the game. She rewards good positioning and foresight with stellar sustained damage and kiting. The primary downsides of Taliyah are her lack of a combat ultimate and absence of in-combat mobility. While Weaver's Wall itself more than makes up for what she lacks, Taliyah becomes prey to more aggressive champions after early laning that can play around her telegraphed abilities. Mid to late-game success with Taliyah comes from using Weaver's Wall to secure important objectives and utilizing her basic abilities to kite out opponents in teamfights. |
Keystone Choice
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Sorcery
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While taking a glorified Deathfire Touch to slap your opponent with early-game stats may not sound appealing, it's still just the best option right now for Taliyah and many other mages. The fact that autoattacks will make use of the keystone as well makes it even more useful, since landing a single auto for harassment gives a ton of value now (and even more so with Taste of Blood selected in the secondary tree). Generally in lane, it will take roughly three to five seconds for Aery to return to you, which can be expedited by walking towards it as it travels. |
Manaflow Band fixes Taliyah's problem of large mana costs on her high-uptime basic abilities, most notably Threaded Volley. Note that because it is a mana refund, you still require sufficient mana to cast the free ability in the first place. The Ultimate Hat is largely unnecessary since Weaver's Wall isn't an ultimate that you can make immediate use of often. Taliyah is an extremely mana-hungry champion in the first place, making this a clear choice. |
While other mid laners will commonly opt for Transcendence to round out their build's cooldown reduction, Taliyah is not very gated by cooldowns. The immense value of Movement Speed with her kit makes Celerity a solid choice, and the bonus damage from movement speed is a small, albeit nice benefit to the rune. In addition, Celerity is also active from level 1 onwards, whereas Transcendence provides no benefit whatsoever until level 10. Immediate value vs long term payoff is a recurring theme when it comes to runes to take on champions like Taliyah, where winning the early game and snowballing the rest of your team can be extremely rewarding. |
Despite its non existent scaling, Scorch is still a strong general use rune. It plays more into the gameplan of early dominance with Summon Aery, and while twenty seconds sounds like a long cooldown, it will still be up for practically every trade in lane. The contenders in its slot, Waterwalking and Gathering Storm, are both weak by comparison and provide no benefit for the majority of the game, or require you to play outside of a standard playstyle to make use of them. Scorch, like Celerity, starts strong at level one and requires no time to pass or playstyle changes to be useful. |
Domination
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Unlike Sorcery’s Scorch that it shares a cooldown with, Taste of Blood has an AP ratio to work with and will remain relevant as the game progresses. The combination of several early game, stat-focused runes (led by the ever present Summon Aery) create strong early trading power. And even if it's just poking with a single Threaded Volley pellet, all three runes will proc providing extra damage and lane sustain that Taliyah could not achieve otherwise. The difference of laning with and without this rune in scrappy lanes like Orianna is extremely notable as well, and you can slowly outsustain an opposing laner lacking the mastery if trades are otherwise going even. Few other rune options allows you to break the rules like this, especially on a mage with no natural sustain in her kit and a long range ability to poke for activations. |
Despite Taliyah's AoE abilities only receiving a third of the benefit from Ravenous Hunter, it wins out as the second rune to take in the Domination tree. Like Taste of Blood, Ravenous Hunter gives Taliyah something that she didn't have before, which is another source of free additional healing. The out of combat movement speed from Relentless Hunter is another strong and a viable option, but I find it unnecessary in contrast with additional combat stats and lane sustain. Taliyah's roaming potential is already stellar, and usually by the time the bounty hunter rune is stacked, the time for roaming will be over and teamfights become the focal point of the game, where combat stats are king. |
Inspiration
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The free Stopwatch is almost always why you're in this tree in the first place, and is an invaluable tool against champions with high damage, telegraphed burst post level 6. The Stopwatch comes online at six minutes, which is generally the time that mid laners are unlocking their ultimate. Examples of champions you would want Perfect Timing against are Talon, Zed, and Fizz, where you can use the active to somewhat invalidate their ultimate's power spike. It also makes your likely Zhonya's Hourglass purchase come a bit faster by contributing 300 gold toward the recipe. In addition to helping against bursty AD champions, it is a once-use get out of jail free card against Zoe's Sleepy Trouble Bubble or any other singular, high-impact abilities that you can dodge with the active. |
Cosmic Insight is a good filler rune for the Inspiration tree, since nothing else available is high-impact enough for Taliyah. Future's Market is a somewhat acceptable alternative if you want to make sure you can hit one or two specific early-game back timings, but is largely unneeded due to Taliyah's solid base damage and champion stats. Magical Footwear is a trap rune for Taliyah despite its gold value, because you want to be building full boots before ten minutes most games anyway for the ever-invaluable movement speed. |
Flash
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Heal
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Barrier
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Exhaust
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Cleanse
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Rock Surfing is a straightforward passive that helps Taliyah with her standard gameplan of shoving in mid lane and roaming the map in the early-mid game. It also helps in the early game by allowing her to return to lane from recalls relatively quickly. Remember to hug the wall out of combat to get use out of this passive, and eventually you'll get in the habit of doing it automatically while pathing around the map. |
Threaded Volley is the crux of Taliyah's kiting playstyle. It's a linear skillshot ability that is locked into a direction when you first fire it, and each individual pellet's damage is an AOE when it impacts, meaning you can damage units next to each other or directly behind them. The first two pellets come out slowly, with the last three being relatively quick after each other. A mandatory skill to learn is getting used to moving during the cast, just like using The Culling. Consider your position, their position, and where you both want to move during the ability's duration in order to get more efficient placement with Threaded Volley. Don't always just aim it straight at them—sometimes it's better to move to the side and cast Threaded Volley at an angle to set yourself up for better future positioning. Other mechanics to keep in mind are that Flash also retains the original cast angle while repositioning you, and that the pellets will continue to fire even while Taliyah is crowd controlled (though stasis effects from Zhonya's Hourglass and Tempered Fate do stop them from firing). You can cast all your spells (and autoattack!) while Threaded Volley is going, giving Taliyah amazing DPS in early-level fights if the opposing laner can't get out of the casted angle. Single pellets on worked ground are fine to catch CS and harass, but it still places the skill on full cooldown (up to 9 seconds early game, which is a long time to have the ability available again). Don't waste too much mana trying to hit people that aren't quite in range either due to its high mana cost later on. With the preseason changes, it takes two autoattacks along with all five pellets to kill caster minions at level one, making Taliyah's pushing power on the first two waves noticeably weaker than before. You don't always want to just autopush lane with Threaded Volley. Be smart about the enemy jungler's route and what you gain or lose from the wave being pushed on either side during early laning. Mind the extremely common 3 minute jungle gank if you are continuing to push after the first two waves, and always remember that setting up a freeze is a potential option that can reward you more than shoving lane early game ever will. Worked ground is something you get used to. Overlap your worked ground circles as much as possible so they don't take up too much room in the lane. You'll learn to stay on worked ground idly for the bonus movement speed, then move to the edge of it when you need to use an empowered Threaded Volley. This habit also generates worked ground in the most efficient way with maximum overlap. Conveniently, worked ground will naturally draw you towards playing around the sides of mid lane, where Threaded Volley harassment is strongest. From the side of the lane, the angle allows you to farm the caster minions while threatening damage to the enemy laner. Threaded Volley has a hard time going through melee minions, especially at early levels, so odd angles are required for harassment against competent opponents. I personally play on unlocked camera and would highly recommend getting used to it. However, constantly pressing the spacebar to center your camera on your champion is a good tool to keep track of your champion in fights, along with being able to easily make small adjustments to your positioning due to how important Threaded Volley's angles are before and after you commit to casting the ability. |
Seismic Shove uses the same vector casting as Viktor's Death Ray and Rumble's
Equalizer if you are familiar with those champions. The 1 second delay after casting is a long time, so you must predict movements with it to hit people. The most obvious application of the spell is to throw people towards you into your Unraveled Earth, which is the standard “combo” and will allow you to continue to chase with Threaded Volley after the initial burst. Remember that you can always throw Seismic Shove and have plenty of time to lay down Unraveled Earth during the delay if you see the knockback is going to hit. Don't just think of it as a spell with one purpose either—you can also use Seismic Shove to peel people off you or your teammates, and move additional people into the path of Threaded Volley. Against practically every melee laner, you'll be hitting your combo during their all-in by knocking them away from you in melee range through Unraveled Earth. Against ranged champions, or anyone running away, you will be fishing to shove them towards you instead. Late game, even if you get a catch with W, be careful who exactly you are throwing into your team if you are unable to immediately kill them. Also keep in mind that Seismic Shove is able to move enemies over thin walls. |
Outside of the combo with Seismic Shove, Unraveled Earth is good for waveclear and denying space. Ideally, use this at the start of committed fights to get the most damage out of it, as well as the slow in order to facilitate the rest of Taliyah's kit. Against mid laners like Lucian and Talon, it's an amazing ability to throw at them preemptively since dashing forwards is a core part to their trading pattern, but mind the long cooldown. Keep in mind that ANY displacement will trigger the E mines, including taking Thresh's Dark Passage, knockbacks from your own team (and of course Seismic Shove), and finally any dashes from enemy champions. Again, knocking a champion away from you with Seismic Shove across the minefield is a strong way to deter any would-be chasers and create space for yourself. Your standard waveclear pattern on a full wave is to Seismic Shove the melees (and cannon, if present) back into the ranged creeps while casting Unraveled Earth, and using your Threaded Volley on all the stacked creeps to clean it all up. Late game, you can omit the Seismic Shove since your other abilities will be enough to kill the frontline with damage to spare to kill the caster minions. |
Weaver's Wall is an extremely unique ultimate that serves as an enormous gapcloser and a way to near-guarantee map objectives for your team. It's immense utility is Taliyah's tradeoff for not having a combat ultimate. Getting consistent use out of it takes some premeditated effort to make plays across the map instead of just being content with farming mid lane all game. Press R again after casting the initial channel to ride Weaver's Wall as it forms (mashing R also works perfectly fine). Once you're riding the ultimate, use right click to immediately jump off the wall on either side closer to your cursor. Taking any damage will make you unable to ride the wall while initially channeling the ability, or will knock you off if you are already on it. Because of this, you generally can't use Weaver's Wall to escape combat and again must use it preemptively to make plays. As one would guess, Weaver's Wall is great for roaming in the early to mid-game. As far as its use, don't always feel like you have to completely wall off a lane. The majority of the time, you can just use it to get close to (and slightly behind) your gank target, instead of trying to wall a lane off and just getting an opposing Flash while your teammates wait for you to collapse the wall. If you are deciding to completely wall off a lane in an early game gank, make sure to overshoot the wall placement until you get used to the long delay. Blocking escape routes while chasing people down, or just using it to gap close near people in order to chase is another strong use for Weaver's Wall early-midgame. In terms of Baron and Dragon, blocking the two entrances from the opposing side while your team takes the objective is extremely powerful and should be something you consider anytime you have an advantage in those areas of the map. This becomes even more true as soon as your team has the damage to kill the baron during the duration of the wall. While the provided images can give you something of a base to start with, experiment with placing the wall in slightly different positions to accomplish different goals against the enemy team’s composition.
Blue Side Baron
I also highly recommend that if you use smartcast for your abilities, to have another key binding for normal cast (I use Shift + QWER). This lets you quickly and easily view the range and area on high-impact abilities like Weaver's Wall before you commit to them. |
Threaded Volley is maxed first for the damage and waveclear it offers, along with greatly reducing the cooldown. Unraveled Earth second is the logical next step, as Seismic Shove serves well as a one-point wonder for most of the game (it gains very little strength with additional ranks). Take the point in Seismic Shove at level 3 instead of a second rank in Threaded Volley due to unlocking burst potential and allowing you to use to use it on either end of a three-minute gank— Taliyah's level 3 powerspike is one of the best parts of the champion's laning. If you're queued with a jungler and know you are getting a level 2 gank, taking Seismic Shove at level 2 purely to chain with CC is an option. Even in a level 1 invade or teamfight where CC is king, I would suggest taking Threaded Volley for the higher sustained damage output to secure kills over Seismic Shove. |
General
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Trinkets
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Doran’s Ring
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Lost Chapter
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Sorcerer's Shoes Newly buffed in the preseason update and already extremely strong on Taliyah before, Sorcerer's Shoes are an amazing early purchase since you get damage and movement speed in the same item. Finishing boots helps dodge opposing skillshots along with setting up and improving your own damage output, while also enabling faster roaming. Completing boots early on high-uptime, low mobility mages is a common trend for good reason. There isn't too much to say other than they're really good, especially on a champion like Taliyah with good base damages, and who doesn't care too much about having cooldown reduction capped early on. |
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Mercury's Treads & Ninja Tabi These should be bought as needed. You'll notice the decent drop in damage without your stacked magic penetration, even more so if you forgo building a Haunting Guise. However, there will be games where survivability is more important than having more damage, such as against snowballing champions like LeBlanc, Syndra, and Zoe. If you're having trouble in any AP matchups in general, then an early Mercury's Treads will help you a lot while you build towards your Morellonomicon. The magic resistance and movement speed will help you stay out of important abilities, and tenacity is an amazing stat to have against practically any team composition. Ninja Tabi shares the defensive niche, but its benefits apply against AD champions instead of mages. If you are playing with your team and all you need to do is deny a snowball from your opposing laner or jungler, a defensive boot purchase goes a long way. |
Morellonomicon
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Liandry's Torment
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Banshee's Veil
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Zhonya's Hourglass
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Rylai's Crystal Scepter
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Void Staff
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Rabadon's Deathcap
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Always be aware of champions that can throw an AoE ability at you to try and lasthit the minion while getting some free damage, and position accordingly. Again, looking for Seismic Shove when your opponent goes to commit for CS is the easiest way to land it in lane. Simply getting in chip damage with Threaded Volley also adds up if you can hit the opposing laner with the AOE through minions while farming, or use it to punish them for walking up without the cover of their minion wave. Using single pellet Qs to rack up chip damage is never bad as well, so long as you don't need the cooldown back immediately. The new rune additions also support getting hits in at least every 20 seconds to proc Scorch and Taste of Blood. Regarding lane positioning: You can stand in the minion wave to almost never get hit by skillshot CCs like Ahri's Charm and Xerath's Shocking Orb. However, doing so allows your opponent to waveclear and potentially harass with their AOE waveclear skills ( Orb of Deception and Arcanopulse / Eye of Destruction for example) without making compromises. Forcing the opposing mid laner to choose between pushing the wave and fishing for damage on you is a favorable position—you will either not be harassed, or you will cause them to lose wave control while looking for inconsistent damage. Abilities like Viktor's Death Ray and Lux's Lucent Singularity warp this concept due to their large effective area allowing them to harass the side of the lane while still efficiently farming, and require you to have the foresight to dodge out of the way early, or never be in position to be hit along with the minions they want to CS. I would recommend generally staying outside of the minion wave and managing your worked ground placement on the sides of the lane. This also allows you to get better angles to harass while farming with Threaded Volley, since unlike may common waveclear abilities it does not completely pass through the minion wave. Always try to keep in mind what side of the map the enemy jungler should be on, and where your friendly one is so that you can play towards the safer side (it's much easier to countergank if you are playing on the same side as your jungler). If you really want to, it's a perfectly legitimate strategy to push every wave you can and stay safe while waiting to make a play elsewhere. Jockeying for lane dominance and 1v1 kills works up until you play against better players than you. |
Wave management is also highly important, more so than against ranged champions since you can zone a melee from reaching the minion wave with their autoattack. Freezing the wave outside your turret makes it difficult for melees to commit to killing you (they have to turret dive), while having the usual benefits of enabling favorable gank opportunities and protecting you from the enemy jungler. Many melee champion's gameplans (such as Kassadin) are to last hit with autos while trading/harassing with abilities, and if you freeze the wave in a favorable position, you can put them in a place where they are forced to use those harassment abilities to farm safely instead of chipping for a health lead. Individual characters start becoming scary at different times. For example, Yasuo is a threat from level 1 onwards, while Kassadin can only really commit to a fight after Riftwalk is skilled. If you try and commit to risky harass during an opposing power spike, you may very well find yourself dead with the enemy snowball quickly rolling. Several melee mid laners have long individual cooldowns for you to respect and play around once they are available, such as Zed's Living Shadow and Fizz's Playful / Trickster. When these abilities are down, the champion loses a lot of their threat in lane and once again gives you openings to play more proactively. Generally, the melee champion is much better at getting lane kills than you, so play around their gameplan of killing you early. Farm while waiting for them to misposition, overcommit, or waste an important cooldown. This is especially true after level 6, where opposing champions start gaining high-impact combat ultimates. These same ideas apply to ranged matchups as well, but against melee champions they are even more pronounced. In both this section and the previous one about ranged champions, think of it as a general outline of how laning should play out “on paper” instead of a definite guide. Different champions can change basic laning concepts and behaviours in unique ways, which is one of the beauties of playing such a complex game. |
Later on in the game due to camps respawning slowly, junglers will often be on the side of the map that they can farm on in order to not fall behind. Warding in the enemy jungle and knowledge of pathing from where they have recently ganked or cleared camps can help give you insight on where they want to go next. For example, a jungler that recently cleared his entire top side of the map will be reluctant to take a gank on the top laner that isn't guaranteed (if the gank fails he would be behind his jungling counterpart, assuming they were efficient with their time). Information wins games that flashy mechanical plays sometimes cannot, so always be attentive to your minimap and try to keep a mental tally of where the opposing team members are. A safe and basic ward for safety to practice would be a vision ward hugging the end of the lip of the ramp to blue side razorbacks. The placement is relatively finicky, since if it is too far up the ramp the ward won't provide any vision in the river. Lane bush wards are usable, but don't help much against jungle champions with mobility that prioritize flanking you in ganks. They are decent to Control Ward though if you are able to protect them, since it chokes out vision control to threaten roaming. Against champions that you know will attempt roams or fog of war cheese against you, you can place a vision ward in the middle of the lane, just outside their turret's range. This gives you constant vision of where they are when new minion waves arrive, and spots the back side exits to the lane to watch for roaming. Roams can still happen with this vision, but it means they have to path through the back side of their friendly jungle to accomplish it. As long as you have at least some smattering of vision to work around in the river, you can try and play towards a side and protect yourself from the opposing jungler while accumulating information. Extremely standard Control Ward placements would include the bush outside the the blue side razorbacks to secure roaming paths, along with the dot bush in river and potentially the lane bushes depending on the jungle matchup. Later on in the game with your steady flow of Control Wards, place them in places of contention in the jungle and around neutral objectives. Oracle Lens also plays into the vision denial gameplan in the midgame onward by securing you space in the jungle and river. Late game if you want to sweep out the enemy jungle or a neutral objective, try to do with with your team instead of running into a facecheck alone. Lastly and almost most importantly, don't be afraid to move up a Control Ward that's lasted a long time in a passive spot for a more aggressive placement that gives your team more valuable vision in comparison. Visuals for this entire section to make it easier to understand are coming soon™.
Turret Ward
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Taliyah's kit naturally lends itself towards roaming in the early-mid game, primarily because Threaded Volley has far more uptime than most other mid lane waveclear tools at that point in the game. This allows you to easily get a shove advantage and leave the lane to try and make a play in the jungle or a side lane. Despite being a simple passive, Rock Surfing's extra movement speed greatly helps to facilitate successful roams along with letting you quickly come back from the middle of the river if circumstances change. Remember to be careful of an opposing jungler in the river if you are trying to cheese gank at extremely early levels (3-4), since they will often path there to clean up the scuttle crab after killing their standard jungle camps and ward for their team. Even if you aren't planning on leaving the lane, sitting in fog of war after shoving the wave in will create pressure on the map against bot laners that keep tabs on their minimap. After level 6, make sure not to tunnel too hard on your R placement when there is a threat of being jumped on in the river. The longer you wait to commit to the ultimate when ganking, the more time the opposing laners have to react to you being MIA, and to move farther back in the lane to avoid being trapped. An important point from earlier that I want to restate is that when you are roaming with Weaver's Wall, you don't always need to block an entire lane off. Most of the time it is much more valuable to use the ultimate a second or two earlier to just get up close to your target, since you need to commit to the time to get in the middle of the river to actually wall off a lane with rank 1 of the ability. Time is an extremely valuable resource, and not one you should be wasting if you can afford it. Even later on in the game, you can use Weaver's Wall to punish overextending enemies because of the huge range, and even just use it without riding it to create a wall that forces a Flash or a kill in a separate part of the map. |
At this point in the game, start using your ultimate to secure free turrets around the map with your team if you aren't using it to make picks. Taliyah's great early roaming potential also aids with picking up the ever-important side waves and getting waves pushing in other lanes, then walking back up with your team and threatening an objective. Just remember to try and be proactive on the map when you can, as other mages and AD carries will outshine Taliyah in the late game. Taliyah's strengths that you should play for are early in the game when she can impact the map and gain advantages everywhere for her team, not so much at 6 items. In any kind of skirmish, watch your positioning so that you don't get picked off by more mobile champions. This is especially true in the mid-game, where everyone has a couple items and can easily kill a Taliyah that makes even a few positional mistakes. Many lane matchups that start even or favorable become much less so once other champions start hitting their strides as well. |
Typically, your role in late-game teamfights is to just be a consistent damage dealer while staying alive. While one-shotting an enemy carry with Seismic Shove is the dream, most of the time against competent players you will have to go through the front line first. Liandry's Torment, Void Staff, and Rylai's Crystal Scepter are all great items for facilitating this gameplan while being common buys, making Taliyah even better for this role. Focus on kiting with Threaded Volley and using your W+E combo on anyone who overcommits or steps too close. Like any other immobile carry at this stage of the game, positioning is everything. Play around your ADC and facilitate his damage as much as you can, without standing too close to him and providing opportunities for enemy initiation. Using Weaver's Wall to almost guarantee inhibitor turrets (and aftwards, inhibitors) late-game is an insane utility that Taliyah is afforded, so make use of it. Remember to throw the ultimate out as the minion wave is approaching so that your team can immediately start attacking the turret while the wall is up. putting up the wall at the correct time also gives the enemy team less time to react and rotate to the play. As before, Weaver's Wall is still great for blocking off routes to Baron and Dragon while your team takes the neutral objective, especially at 6 items when your ADC should able to shred through the baron during the 8-second duration of the wall. |
Ahri You can take any summoner in this matchup, but keep in mind the enemy jungle pick to decide if you need Cleanse or not. Taliyah's sustained damage in the early stages of the lane is much higher than Ahri, who relies on getting one or two good trades before being able to commit to an early all-in attempt. Before level six, Taliyah should win fights as long as you aren't getting hit by Charm for free. Threaded Volley's uptime along with autoattacking is generally enough damage to win low-level trades, and if Seismic Shove lands before Spirit Rush is skilled it's a huge swing for the lane. After Ahri gets her ultimate, any whiffed Seismic Shove can easily lead to a successful all-in, even more so with Ignite available. Be careful with your abilities and positioning at this point, and later on in the match as well. It's not hard for Ahri to kill you after the early laning phase is over due to the chasing power of her ultimate and Taliyah's easily dodged CC. |
Cassiopeia Her level 1 trading is still decent after the nerfs, but Threaded Volley has more range than both Noxious Blast and Twin Fang. Because of this range advantage along with the DPS-oriented nature of both champions, good spacing is particularly rewarded in this lane. Since Cassio often needs to run forward with Noxious Blast's movement speed bonus to start a fight in lane, landing Taliyah's abilities isn't particularly difficult. Even if she hits a max-range Noxious Blast on you in lane, you can deter her and even win the trade by using your abilities while kiting backwards, still out of Twin Fang's range. Just remember that casting most abilities and autoattacking will briefly lock you in a direction that a good Cassio can catch with Petrifying Gaze, and that you can still turn your back to her while Threaded Volley is firing its additional pellets. |
Jayce Level 1 Jayce is somewhat limited to his autoattacks and Shock Blast to last hit minions and work down the minion wave. After level 2, he has four abilities, and they all contribute damage towards his trading and allin potential. More so than almost any other champion, against Jayce you need to be mindful of the minion wave in order to play around when each champion will get level 2. Since his upfront burst is higher than yours, you need to be watching the ranges you are playing at and work for longer-term leads in health and mana. Even if one half of Jayce's kit is on cooldown, he can still threaten strong trades if you get too close due to him being an AD champion. This is a lane that can heavily snowball either way, since both champions are high damage, low mobility, and prioritize penetration in their builds. Jayce in lane plays like a hybrid of an ADC and a mage, and has no easy way to escape a well-placed Seismic Shove. |
Similarly to Lucian, dashing towards you with To The Skies! is a core part of his full trading pattern and makes Threaded Volley along with good kiting have a lot of value in fights. If Jayce elects for a Tear of the Goddess on his first recall over more damage, his damage will notably suffer and gives you a window of opportunity. A common Jayce tactic is to sit in fog of war on the raised section to the sides of the lane after shoving the wave (think of the path to blue buff), and fish for empowered Shock Blast harassment as the fresh minion wave hits. Take mental note of if you see Jayce in lane or not, and try to position accordingly to either be out of range when minions hit, or to have the minion wave intercepting for you. This tactic also threatens a roam if you don't have vision coverage. As long as Jayce isn't getting a health lead that he can convert into a pressure advantage or a kill, Taliyah has stronger overall roaming potential to impact the rest of the map with. |
Kassadin Kassadin's weak early laning is great on paper for Taliyah. The standard Kassadin play pattern early is to just Q the opposing laner as much as they can, making the enemy mid laner take minion aggro and trade into a spellshield if they contest Kassadin's autoattacks to farm, which is even stronger in the preseason with Summon Aery and Scorch. Taliyah often threatens Kassadin in the early laning phase because of her high damage and ranged autoattack to punish Kassadin for playing predictably. As a melee, if you can force Kassadin off the minion wave he will be forced to use his abilities to get farm instead of using them on your face, removing all of his potential early-game dominance. After the preseason changes, he can no longer last hit perfectly under turret with no preparation, making shoving him in early a much more viable option. Freezing the lane is still a potential strategy against him, completely removes your threat of roaming the map. If Kassadin gains any large leads in the early lane, the matchup gets rough since he'll have Riftwalk early and will be able to out-stat you in trades. |
After level 6, anytime Kassadin uses Riftwalk to get in your face, you can land your entire kit on him and threaten winning the all-in with Threaded Volley's ridiculous uptime. Later on in the game however, Kassadin will be a threat to Taliyah in fights where he can do a nice chunk to her health bar immediately and easily clean up fights. |
I’m planning on finishing the missing lane matchups once I have a more confident opinion on them in the new season, along with adding better visual aids. This guide wouldn't be possible without the help of:
Grumpy Trees for proofreading and editing lolwiki's page on Taliyah for detailed ability tooltips If you appreciated this guide or have any additional questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try my best to respond. If you want to see my sporadic and infrequent streams, I have a twitch channel embedded below. If the stream is on, it's usually soloqueue or mid lane coaching. |
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