If you're reading this, I love you. Welcome to my guide!

Introduction Closing Changelog

Pros and Cons Runes

Abilities Ability Rotation Items

Jungle Clearing Ganking Strategy

Back to Top

Hey, I'm L3gislacerator, a Diamond-tier summoner who started playing League in late Season 4. Support main by day, mid main by night. After almost a year of playing the game, I had still hardly ever played in the jungle. It was partly due to inexperience and intimidation, but also because I hadn't thought of a jungler that fit my playstyle well. A jungler that I could have fun with. That's when I had an idea, which is never a good thing. What if I tried something new and different? Risk failing horribly, but enjoying myself as I learned? What if I played Taric as a jungler? It was worth a shot. So I played and I played, game after game. I could not, and still can't, stay mad at anything when I play Taric. He's charismatic, exuberant, and most of all, outrageously fabulous. Now I'm not saying I'm an expert at jungling. I definitely continue to learn more about both Taric and the jungle in general after every game I play. However, from experience, I know that Taric can be devastating in the right hands. But enough about all that. I know the real question that's still on your mind. "Taric jungle?"

If you're not asking that, I'm surprised. That's what I thought to myself when I first considered it. "How? Why Taric? And why in the jungle?" Taric is a champion for people who want to have fun. Fun when winning, when losing, or when soloing a 10/0 ADC and leaving without a scratch. The thing is, when you play Taric, you're ALWAYS winning. You'll laugh at his his taunts, you'll smile at his charm, and you'll surprise yourself with the amount of things you can get away with when playing him. Nobody expects to go up against Taric, and even if they do, they still won't be prepared. Those who know how to play him and understand his strengths and weaknesses can perform just as well, if not better, than any other champion. Even before his rework, he was a force to be reckoned with. Now? He's on a whole 'nother tier. Taric shines against teams with a lot of attack damage by providing armor to both himself and his teammates. If you're up against two or more AP threats, he won't be at his prime, but he remains effective. Bless your soul if you go against a full AP team — you're the one who may get smashed. With a constant output of damage from his ability rotation, innate tankiness, and the fact that he's most fabulous dude on the rift, you should be asking yourself why you're not playing Taric.

Back to Top

Excels against attack damage Shuts down assassination and dive comps Able to initiate ganks from range Has natural supportive power Has surprising dueling potential with Sheen

Struggles against ability power Susceptible to kiting Mana hungry Takes time to scale Your team may will give you some bad looks

Back to Top



Resolve is chosen as the primary rune tree because it has everything a tank could want. While it sacrifices some early-game dueling power, it makes up for it with insane survivability and tanking power as the game goes on.

• Aftershock, with its extra defenses and burst damage, greatly strengthens your engages. It activates when you land CC, including Dazzle and Turbo Chemtank, on an enemy champion.
• Font of Life provides your allies with some sustain when you CC enemies for them.
• Conditioning gives you a decent amount of bulk and increases your mid-lategame power.
• Revitalize works wonders by upping all of your incoming and outgoing heals.

Precision as a secondary tree has some runes which let you thrive in the jungle and in duels.

• Presence of Mind makes successful ganks more rewarding. With a 20% maximum mana refund on takedowns, you won't have to recall as frequently as long as you stay active and aggressive. Its second effect, reducing your ultimate's cooldown by 10% on takedowns, makes snowballing easier since you can make audacious plays with Cosmic Radiance more often.
• Legend: Alacrity gives you an attack speed bonus of up to 18% based on your Legend stacks, allowing for quicker, more efficient jungle clears.
  

Adapted from Dexiron's fantastic jungle Taric guide, these runes specialize in sticking power and clear speed. Glacial Augment becomes your ace in ganks; not only does it slow, but with that slow you can easily follow up on enemies with your stun. Hextech Flashtraption opens the door for unique gank paths. Biscuit Delivery on top of a Hunter's Potion means you'll always have strong sustain at hand. Cosmic Insight reduces all kinds of cooldowns including Flash and Cosmic Radiance, the most powerful tools in your arsenal.


Back to Top

Taric infuses his next two basic attacks whenever he casts an ability. He doubles his attack speed for these two attacks, which deal bonus magic damage and reduce his base spells' cooldowns by 1 - 0.6 seconds. Starlight's Touch gains one charge per attack.

Lowering cooldowns and extra damage? Am I dreaming?

The cooldown reducing part of Bravado is essential to Taric's offensive playstyle. It allows him to chain his abilities in a way that they're up very often, so much in fact that he can pull off an infinite rotation.

An important thing to note is that the damage on Bravado scales off of bonus armor, which means you will be doing more damage the tankier you get.

Ability casts not only increase your attack speed but also act as partial autoattack resets (partial because cast times, while small, are still there). First, autoattack someone, then use an ability immediately after the damage registers, then hit again. That second hit will arrive much faster than usual since the animation from the first was cut short.

Both of Bravado's attacks will apply on-hit effects. Do you know what this means? If you choose to pick up a Muramana or Titanic Hydra, your two bonks will each be imbued with their damage. This will often lead to you hearing "What the hell was that damage?", "How am I supposed to counter that?", and "Why am I so aroused?" For such a life-changing experience, responses like those are only natural.

PASSIVE: Taric stores a charge of Starlight's Touch periodically, up to a maximum of 1/2/3/4/5 stored at once. Starlight's Touch cannot be cast without charges. ACTIVE: Taric heals himself and all nearby allied champions, with the amount increasing with every stored charge at the time of cast.

A simple yet effective spell, Starlight's Touch is a nice heal on a charge system with the benefit of being AOE.

If you want to sustain yourself or an ally without wasting mana, wait for this spell to get to at least 2 charges before you do so. The mana cost does not change based on the number of charges it has stored.

Here's the thing about Starlight's Touch: due to Bravado, it has practically no cooldown. It regains one charge per swing, so you can use it offensively as a way to constantly refresh your passive and get off tons of strong hits, all while reducing the cooldowns of your other abilities. Maxing it will increase its mana cost and make you quickly run OOM as you do this, though, so leave it at two points and max it second for a nice balance between healing, damage, and cost.

PASSIVE: Taric and his Bastion-marked champion gain bonus armor. ACTIVE: Taric shields himself and the target allied champion for 2.5 seconds, blessing them with Bastion and causing his abilities to be replicated on them while both are near each other, though the effects do not stack.

Bastion is the special multi-part ability that makes Taric so unique. Because of it, he can be both a protector and a fighter at the same time. Buckle up - it's about to get weird.

First off is its passive, which gives Taric's Bastion-marked partner an armor buff that scales based on Taric's own armor. This is especially useful when put on squishy teammates who are prone to being bursted. Sorry, assassins.

Now onto the active components:

The simpler of the two effects is the shield. Activating Bastion will place a temporary shield on you and your targeted ally that scales based on maximum health. This is useful in general when fighting.

The second effect is its linking component. When you use Bastion on an ally, they become linked to you and continue to be as long as you are nearby. When this happens, your abilities are replicated on them. This opens up a lot more possibilities for how you use your other abilities:

• Starlight's Touch will also heal around your linked partner, allowing for very long range healing and twice as much AOE.
  
  
• Dazzle will fire off of your linked partner as well towards the cursor, so you can stun your opponent from different, unexpected angles.
  
  
• Cosmic Radiance will create another invulnerability field around your linked partner, opening up the potential for a very large team-wide ultimate.

Although this ability is very versatile, it is not as complicated as it may seem. Just remember: linking to an ally gives them armor, a shield, and ability replication.

Taric projects a beam of starlight towards the target location, erupting after a 1-second delay, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit and stunning them.

Dazzle is a short-range skillshot that stuns in an area in front of you. It moves with you during its channel so that you can position yourself in just the right way to land it.

You can use Flash with this ability to make some interesting plays. Use Flash AFTER you cast Dazzle, ideally right before the channel ends, to have a better chance of landing your stun since it gives the opponent much less time to react.

When you don't feel like being a daredevil, Dazzle works great as follow-up CC. You can use Bastion on an ally that is engaging and then use Dazzle once they make their way into a fight. This way you can stun from longer distances and, if your engager already locked a target in place, have a guaranteed chance to land it.












When you wish upon a star... you've got to be a bit patient. Fortunately, your wait is rewarded with an incredibly powerful effect. When used correctly, Cosmic Radiance is a game-changer.

Remember that Bastion replicates your abilities on your linked ally. The rule applies to your Cosmic Radiance as well, meaning it will be cast in the area around that teammate too! You can effectively double its area of influence so that everybody gets a chance at being in the spotlight.

Because it has such a large influence, timing Cosmic Radiance well is essential to being successful as Taric. Find that sweet spot, which is often right at the start of a fight when your enemies begin to unload the brunt of their damage. Use it too early and they'll just back off, but use it too late and you may already be dead. When the stars align, you can corner the other team into an unwinnable fight since everything they've used will have been for naught.




Back to Top

Taric's kit is a special one, similar to Ryze's in the sense that his abilities reset one another when used in the right order. Bravado reduces the cooldowns of your basic abilities whenever it is applied; without it, you're just a regular old tank, but with it, you can be a hard-hitting weapon of destruction. Starlight's Touch instantly resets after using both Bravado autoattacks. Due to this self-fulfilling cooldown refund, you can use it in between each of your Dazzle / Bastion casts to get everything back up sooner.

E

.

.

.

Q

.

.

.

W

.

.

.

Q

.

.

.

Q

By doing this, all of your basic abilities' cooldowns will reduce as efficiently as possible. Most importantly, a rank one Dazzle, which usually has a 17 second cooldown, can already be back up after 7 seconds. Sweet!

You might not always get the perfect combo off, but your damage racks up as long as you can keep autoattacking anyways. Taric's jungle clears past the first can be very quick provided you have enough mana, and his dueling potential is not to be underestimated.



Back to Top

Hunter's Machete This jungle item gives you lifesteal and attack speed against monsters, which Taric makes good use of since his main damage comes from autoattacks.

Refillable Potion This potion keeps you healthy during your first clear. Use both charges by the time you reach Red Buff so you can be at peak performance if you choose to gank. Upgrade this into a Hunter's Potion after getting your Stalker's Blade.

Warding Totem Vision is power, especially as a jungler. With this trinket, you can keep an eye on key areas to monitor enemy activity, gain information on the enemy jungler, protect your camps, and more.

Stalker's Blade: Cinderhulk Cinderhulk is a great first item for a tank jungler. Its passive deals decent gradual damage which plays a role in your jungle clear and in fights. The health will make you harder to kill, and the bonus health modifier makes you bulkier as the game goes on. Chilling Smite helps you stick to targets better since you have no mobility.

Hunter's Potion For only 250g, this potion offers a constant stream of health and mana sustain which allows you to stay in the jungle for as long as you want. Killing a camp grants one charge of it and recalling refills it entirely, so you will always be good on resources if you use it efficiently.

Boots Get yourself some boots early into the game. Movement speed is invaluable as it lets you travel the map quicker and have an easier time hitting Dazzle. Upgrade them based on your needs, typically to Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads since more defense is always a plus.

Iceborn Gauntlet For a frequent spellcaster like Taric, Sheen is an invaluable way of increasing your damage. The Gauntlet gives armor, which you scale well with, as well as mana and cooldown reduction, which lets you cast spells more often and for longer.

Muramana This is the most aggressive of these three damage options. Each of Bravado's autoattacks apply this item's bonus damage, so you can achieve tremendous damage against squishy targets. If you plan to go for it, get an early Tear of the Goddess, then use your spells as often as possible to get it stacking. For mana synergy, buy Iceborn Gauntlet alongside it. Finally, upgrade the Tear once it's near full stacks, and prepare to wreck havoc.

Titanic Hydra Health is a universally useful stat which makes the Hydra a reliable option. As you grow tankier, this item's damage scales as well. The passive cone attacks and the active autoattack reset make you deal extensive AOE damage.

Righteous Glory This item is a great tool for engaging. Activate it to lead the charge and rush at an enemy, then once the slow descends, your allies can follow up with ease. By packing Aftershock, you will be even better at doing so since the slow will activate your bonus defenses.

Locket of the Iron Solari The ultimate defense against burst. Activate this for a huge shield in an area, which can nullify your enemies' efforts to burst your team or assassinate one of your allies. As you build health, the shield will grow even stronger.

Spirit Visage The passive on this item increases all your incoming healing, so by having it you can get much more usage out of Starlight's Touch and consistently outlive your opponents in fights. On top of that, this item has a sizable amount of HP regen, bonus HP, and MR, which makes it a reliable choice magic damage.

Abyssal Mask This item is a great pick on Taric against mages. Its passive, Eternity, rewards you for casting spells and attacking by regenerating your health and mana as you do so. The item's bonus health and magic resist add to your bulk, and its aura significantly boosts the damage of your allied mages.

Adaptive Helm Having trouble against spammy mages like Cassiopeia and Ryze who churn out most of their damage through a single spell? Wear this and you'll be hurting much less. If this doesn't apply to you, it's better to opt for another MR item.

Thornmail With several passives that cripple enemy autoattackers including damage reflection, reduced attack speed, and Grievous Wounds, this item is incredibly effective against physical damage threats. Get this if there's an enemy carry who fights mainly through autoattacks that you need to shut down.

Knight's Vow The bond this item creates is incredible for protecting an ally of choice. As long as you're near each other, a percentage of the damage they take is redirected to you, you heal for some of the damage they deal, and you gain bonus armor and movement speed. So much survivability for just a little teamwork! Besides that, it makes for a decent tank item on its own due to the armor and health it provides.

Gargoyle Stoneplate This item's active temporarily reduces your damage in exchange for multiplying your health, making you very difficult to kill for several seconds. It is best used when you're diving and don't want to get bursted.

Randuin's Omen This item provides heaps of armor and health, which are perfect for Taric's scaling. The active slow is an effective peeling tool against enemies who don't have much mobility, while the crit damage reduction makes you significantly tankier against strong ADCs and other crit-heavy champions like Yasuo.

Frozen Heart Offering all the armor you could ever want (yet with no health to back it up), this item is a good pick against teams that deal primarily physical damage. Its attack-speed reducing passive adds to its usefulness when facing several autoattack reliant champions.

Back to Top

Taric loves Blue Buff as much as he loves... well, himself. You should always start your clear on the side that it's on. The buff is important early on because it keeps Taric from running out of mana. His mana pool starts small and his combo-reliant playstyle will eat right through it. Having mana regen allows him to cast all the spells he needs for a healthy clear.

Ability Order for Jungle Clearing Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Unlock Starlight's Touch. It gives some much needed sustain and you can abuse its low cooldown to activate your passive very often. Unlock Dazzle. It does respectable base damage and will prevent a couple attacks from monsters when used on them. Unlock Bastion. It provides a helpful shield, and more importantly it opens up opportunities to gank through the magic of teamwork.

Jungle Routes

Quick Clear: Blue Buff > Wolves > Red Buff > Raptors Follow this route to get to your second buff quickly and reach level 3 as soon as possible. Right after finishing Red Buff you should attempt to gank or invade. If neither are possible, continue farming until you have enough gold to upgrade your jungle item. Full Clear: Blue Buff > Gromp > Wolves > Red Buff > Raptors > Krugs This path grants the most gold and experience at the expense of time. You can do this when you are not under pressure from the enemy jungler, meaning they lack a strong early game and do not pose an immediate threat to your laners or camps. Whichever clear you do, take the Rift Scuttler when it is available. It grants a significant amount of experience as well as vision control, so getting it and denying your enemies the same is always advantageous.

Back to Top

Taric's ganks are powerful because of Dazzle, his main way of initiating that can be used in a variety of ways. Keep in mind that it fires towards your cursor from both you and your Bastioned teammate, much like Lulu's Glitterlance, which lets you catch people with it from interesting angles. Simple geometry. Ganking up close is very straightforward. Run at the enemy and give them a Dazzle to the face. Remember to fire a stun from your ally too for a second beam and a larger chance to land it. Ganking from a distance works when you link to a teammate with Bastion and let them close the gap first, allowing you to stun farther away than usual from their position.

Taric does well at counterganking and capitalizing on (planned) baits by allies. If an enemy engages on your teammate, use your defensive spell on them then stun the aggressor. Once you've protected your ally, you can both move onto the offensive and turn the fight around. Cosmic Radiance makes tower diving easy. Activate it as you or your laner takes tower aggro in order to ignore its shots as well as enemy retaliation, ideally getting a kill and escaping alive.

Back to Top

Clearing and Ganking Defeating your fourth jungle camp will be what gets you to level 3, and it is at this point that you should look to gank. Make sure you're in good shape first - you should be if you've been using Bastion and Starlight's Touch efficiently during your clear.

Got Counterjungled? As an unconventional jungler, being counterjungled once in awhile is something you have to accept. However, Taric's early game is actually pretty solid - you do respectable base damage with Dazzle and Bravado and, combined with the sustain from Starlight's Touch, you can spar with most invaders if they show up at your Red Buff if you play smart. With that being said, always be on the lookout for enemies in your jungle. Ask your teammates to ward your Red Buff at the start of the game, and buy yourself a Control Ward after your first back for further protection if necessary.

After the First Back

After you finish your first clear, you'll have enough gold to buy your Stalker's Blade. Buy a Hunter's Potion and Boots as well if you can afford them.

After you recall and get those items, look more actively for opportunities to gank. Don't waste your time if the gank seems risky or farfetched or else you may have a lot of catching up to do. If you successfully ganked a lane already and the enemy laner blew a summoner spell, ganking again when they don't expect it is an near-guaranteed kill with the power of Dazzle.

After each successive back afterwards, work your way up to a Stalker's Blade - Cinderhulk. By the time you purchase it, you should be able to better decide what build you want to go for. If your team needs a strong frontline, build tanky. If you're ahead and are capable of fighting the enemy carries, start investing in damage and mana.






Teamfighting

This point of the game is often where a lot of the fighting happens, so it is a perfect time for Taric to show off his teamfighting prowess.

In fights, you can be a frontliner and a diver. If you're left to pummel on an enemy, their health will be dropping quicker than their elo after you're done with them. A well timed Flash into Dazzle or, alternatively, a Dazzle off of a strong engager like Gnar or Sion makes for an excellent initiation for a fight. It allows your team to provide follow-up CC and likely score a kill. Look to stun key targets for your team, and if someone is chasing said target down, assist them in doing so by linking to them and using Dazzle.

Alternatively, you can adopt a defensive stance and stick near the backline. Bind to your most important carry with Bastion and protect them the best you can so that they can continue to live and deal tons of damage. Attack with Bravado whenever you get the chance so you can spam Starlight's Touch.


Objectives

Cosmic Radiance is great for taking objectives. Dragon and Baron pit are prime spots for one team collapsing on the other and you can use this to your advantage. Picture this: you and your teammates are in one of the pits killing the epic monster within when you suddenly get engaged on. Since all of your allies are in a confined space, your ultimate will surely bless most of your team and you can turn the battle around with them. Fight = won.

Your ultimate can also be used for some clutch steals. Most of the time, when a jungler jumps into Dragon or Baron pit to attempt a sneaky steal, they get stun-locked and bursted down before they can make any progress. As Taric, you can use your Cosmic Radiance just before you run into the pit so you can stay alive for just enough time to pull of a steal. Dazzle their jungler to prevent them contesting your Smite while you're at it.

To Victory! Your primary objective at this stage is to protect your team. While your fighting prowess remains great, you're still the Shield of Valoran, and you want to play to your strengths by keeping your carries alive. Your enchantments and stuns can be the difference between life and death, which at this stage is no laughing matter. Aim to make Cosmic Radiance fall onto your whole team during a fight if possible. Only hunt for kills if your target is isolated or a great engage was made by your team.

Embrace the Cosmos

Having Cosmic Radiance up your sleeve is an enormous responsibility and you should always keep that in mind. You may be holding the entire game in your hands. In teamfights where everyone has enough damage to kill each other in a mere few seconds, you can make the most out of every single one.

How do you counter Amumu's Curse of the Sad Mummy? Your ult.
How about Illaoi's Leap of Faith? Your ult.
Wukong's Cyclone? You get the picture.

If someone on your team is engaged on by enemies and everything is turning south, Cosmic Radiance can turn that misstep into an opportunity. May the catchees manage to stay alive long enough to gain invincibility, you'll render your enemies resourceless, in range of your team, and in the palm of your hands.

When all is said and done, make your way to their Nexus and get yourself that sweet, sweet 50 gold.






Back to Top

Thanks for reading my guide! I've poured my heart, soul, and many hours into it, and it's still ever evolving. Please provide feedback by voting and leave a comment if you have anything to say. Hopefully you've learned something along the way and understand how Taric can work in a place you wouldn't expect.



I encourage you to try it out for yourself. I bet you'll end up liking it.




Back to Top


12/30/16: Winner of Mobafire's S7 Guide Contest for Most Fabulous!


7/17/17: Who knew there were so many Taric lovers in the world? Thanks for 500k views and the all support since this guide started back in 2015.