Taric is a protector first and foremost, keeping his allies alive as long as possible. Guardian provides a strong shield and a quick boost of movement speed when you're next to an ally, or when you have Bastion on them.

Shield Bash is very useful for Taric and synergizes well with Guardian and Bastion. It increases your MR and armor, and you also gain bonus damage up to 2s after the shield has expired, enabling you to output more damage. Font of Life is a valid rune choice for survivability, providing an extra heal to any allies that hit targets CC'd by yourself. The heal scales with max HP, and the mark applies to any CC, including Dazzle and Zeke's Convergence aura.

Bone Plating generally speaks for itself, you are the target most of the time due to the survivability and cc your kit provides, along with being frontline in some games, and in poke matchups such as Morgana, Brand and Xerath, the damage reduction on extra abilities used on yourself is invaluable for surviving, as well as all the aoe damage in teamfights. One ability having reduced damage could be the difference between life or death. Second Wind is valuable vs poke comps as well, healing back damage you take over 10s, it allows you slightly more sustain in lane. Conditioning is generally for mid/late game scaling, offering you nothing in laning phase, so you must be confident vs the match up you're against.

Revitalize focuses more power into your shields and your heals, and during a teamfight, the 15% extra shielding on allies below 40% can change the course of the fight. You're building Redemption and Locket of the Iron Solari, which work with Revitalize, increasing their healing and shielding done as well.

Even though Taric is generally quite a tanky champion especially with the Resolve treeline, he is still a melee champion, and against poke match-ups, Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will helps increase his sustain. With his large mana costs, they also restore 10% of your missing mana, and also increase your mana cap permanently by 50 per biscuit consumed, or sold.

Cosmic Insight reduces the cooldown of everything in your set-up, and adds an extra 5% CDR to your max CDR, meaning you can have higher up time on your engage tools, disengage tools, items you buy, and summoners.

You generally want reduced cooldowns as much as possible, and works very well with Cosmic Insight, but attack speed is a potential pick up due to Bravado. The other two options depends what match up you're against. More AP? Take MR. More AD? Take armor. Want more survivability? Take HP.

-OR- -OR

Boots of Mobility > MOVEMENT SPEED These are the cheapest boots in the game, but often the most useful - especially on a support, and one that can engage at that. You can use the MS to ward easier come late game, and keep up with your team, or enter a fight at a clutch moment if your team decides to engage 3v4 etc. Mercury's Treads > TENACITY/AP RESIST If the enemy team has a lot of CC, or a lot of AP damage, you can trade Mobi's out for these. They offer +25 magic resist, along with reducing the effect of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds and immobilizes by 30%. Ninja Tabi's > ARMOR If the enemy team has a lot of physical damage threats, and you're the primary front line, or need some extra survivability, Ninja Tabi's are the way to go, offering 20 armor, and reducing incoming basic attacks by 12%.

Zeke's Convergence > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/MANA Zeke's is a fantastic item on Taric as it offers armor, magic resist, cooldown reduction and an extra 250 mana. When you cast Cosmic Radiance You ignite an aoe around you that slows enemies by 20% - meaning less chance to escape on your engage, while the ally that you have chosen to attach to, their attacks burns enemies for 30% bonus magic damage, increasing their damage output for quicker kills.

Redemption > CDR/HP+MANA REGEN/SUSTAIN Redemption offers an aoe heal in an area, add a sustain for all of his allies, and from range. It also offers HP and Mana regen, meaning you can stay in the fights longer, recall less, and you can help out even while dead. It also offers an extra 10% shielding power, which synergizes with your Starlight's Touch and Bastion.

Locket of the Iron Solari > SURVIVABILITY/SUSTAIN With Locket of the Iron Solari, you gain 30 armor and 60 magic resist, increasing your overall tankiness, while providing a shield to your allies upon use - using +20% of your maximum health, which Redemption and Knight's Vow both increase. If you activate this item as your Cosmic Radiance is about to fall off, you greatly increase the odds of your allies surviving longer in a fight.

Ardent Censer > UTILITY/SUSTAIN If you have a team comp that relies heavily on fast auto attacks such as Vayne, Kindred, Quinn etc. Ardent Censer is a great pickup to maximize your carries damage output while shielding/healing them, it also offers you a bit more burst, a small bonus to your movement speed, mana sustain and 10% CDR.

Knight's Vow > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/SUSTAIN You gain extra HP, 40 armor and 10% CDR with this item, not including the extra 20 armor and 15% bonus movement speed when your chosen ally is nearby. If your ally is nearby, you heal for 12% of all the damage they do (increasing your tankiness), and redirecting 12% of the damage they take, to yourself (increasing their survivability]. Usually a core item to take vs physical damage. You can increase your Bastion target's twofold with this item, or have one of each placed on your strongest allies, and frontline.

Frozen Heart > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/MANA A fantastic item if you're up vs a lot of quick hitting, physical damage champions. You gain 100 armor, 20% CDR and you reduce the attack speed of enemies by 15% within 1000 units. It can easily help shut down an ADC such as Vayne, hindering her attack speed, and protecting you longer.

Mikael's Crucible > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/UTILITY A good pick when facing an enemy team with hard CC that you need to Cleanse on allies, such as Impale, Death Sentence, Cocoon etc and grants bonus movement speed for 2s after successfully cleansing an ability. Increases your Mana and HP regeneration, while granting you 40 magic resist, and 20% shielding power - good synergy with Bastion.

Abyssal Mask > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/UTILITY If you have a lot of AP champions on your team, Abyssal Mask is a good pick up as it increases magic damage enemies take by 15% within 325 units. It increases your survivability vs AP champions on the enemy team. You also gain 10% CDR, increases your health, mana and you gain 55 magic resist. You also gain mana restoration and health restoration.

Righteous Glory > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/SUSTAIN/UTILITY Turbo Chemtank is good for a team with physical damage threats, and also helps your engage on the enemy team, which can be useful if you're the primary engager. You gain 75% movement speed for 4 seconds when moving towards enemies or enemy structures, once reaching them, you slow by 75% for 2 seconds. You also gain 30 armor, extra health and mana, health regeneration and CDR.

Level 1 you will want to be levelling your Dazzle as it's your primary engage, cc and disengage tool. You can set up an invade if your team is not afk in base - going through the midlane to the right brush, as you will not be seen by the enemy until it's too late.

You can also set up a brush cheese in lane, and engage straight away onto your opposing laners with Dazzle, minimum you should potentially be able to blow one of the enemies Flash.

When you're in laning phase, you can choose to be a dominant force,pushing and zoning the
enemy laners out of cs'ing, with the threat of a Flash Dazzle engage. You can also play safe if you're vs a heavy poke comp, absorbing damage with Bastion and healing back up with Starlight's Touch. Be careful of your high mana costs, you don't want to be caught mana down and unable to peel, using Starlight's Touch only at 2+ charges, and try not to get baited into overusing Bastion.

If you're laning vs a Morgana and/or a Sivir, you'll want to bait their Black Shield and Spell Shield before you make an all in, they're on relatively long cooldowns at the lower levels (26s and 22s), so you can take advantage of this. Baiting can be achieved by any means, moving in an aggressive way, or if your ADC has baited a spell such as Jhin's Deadly Flourish.

Level 2 you want to be skilling up Bastion, making your stun twice as dangerous to the enemies, and the shield allowing you to absorb more poke damage, and trade efficiently. Then it goes onto Starlight's Touch, keeping you and your ally healthy in lane, and allowing you to use Bravado to it's fullest potential.
You want Control Wards around your bottom brushes to be aware of any impeding ganks coming, and to deny the enemies any vision of where your jungler or you, may be.

Proccing your Runesteel Spaulders, you'll want to be focusing the cannon minions as priority, then melee minions, and lastly ranged.

Once you get your first back, hopefully with at least one or two kills under your belt, you want to be looking to buy Mobility Boots for the roaming potential, or your defensive options, depending on your matchup. You can set up kills for your midlaner and get them ahead, along with your ADC. It's much easier to set up coordinated ganks with your jungler, throwing out a double Dazzle with Bastion on your jungler.

If you can't roam, you want to be maximizing gold for your ADC, and this includes taking tower plates after kills. You can tower dive with your Cosmic Radiance, depending on an ADC such as Draven, or Tristana, with her easy escape.

Cosmic Radiance can take a bit of getting used to the timing, too late and you've wasted it alongside a death of your ally, and most likely a plethora of miss pings. Too early, and the enemy team can fall back and capitalize on your lack of invulnerability.


Outside of laning phase, you're going to want to be setting up a lot of wards around objectives, such as Baron Nashor and the drakes. If your team is ahead, and it is safe to do so, you can set up deep vision in the enemies jungle, allowing yourself and your team to get important picks, that allow you to take the previously mentioned objectives.

As tanky as Taric is, you mostly want to be around your team, and helping out your ADC to (hopefully) continue his lead - you are the team leader as Taric, you excel at teamfighting, round your allies up and teamfight! You can still set up kills for him, and you're a strong threat to think about for an enemy wanting to set up a gank, as it's very easy for the tides to turn in your favor with Cosmic Radiance and your strong heals.

Teamfights are what Taric excels at, with all the tools in his kit, it's easy to see why. First and foremost, you are a protector, a peeler, a healer. Stay with your ADC if you know he's going to get dove on, binding to them with Bastion, giving them a guaranteed Cosmic Radiance. If they have strong self peel like an Ezreal, or are mobile like a Lucian, you can throw your Bastion onto your frontline, potentially getting multiple enemies caught in your double Dazzle, and increasing their survivability. You want to stay alive as long as you can, ensuring the lives of your allies.

Proc your Cosmic Radiance at opportune times, as you're beginning an engage and the enemies cannot flee, or when you're being engaged on, to turn the fight around. Throw in a Locket of the Iron Solari shield as your ultimate is falling off, into a Redemption to heal your allies back to full after your shields have gone.

Your most efficient combo for reset your abilities are as follows

Dazzle > Bravado > Starlight's Touch > Bravado > Bastion > Bravado > Starlight's Touch

You can have a 5s CD Dazzle at max rank using this combo, providing your team with extra peel, and CC - along with extra healing and sustain.

The main thing to be aware of, is making sure your teams threats stay alive, while removing, or zoning, the enemy teams threats.

Control Ward's are a staple part of any support, both to deny your enemies vision, and to provide your team extra vision. You should make sure to buy one at least every time you back, preferably to have 2 on you at all times.

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Taric guide, to play him as well as the pro's.

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered more styles of supports, incase you want to branch out on supports such as enchanters ( Janna, Lulu etc!).

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