Hi, my name is Bizzleberry and I am a longtime League of Legends player, playing since before Season 1. Over the years I have achieved high ranking in solo queue, from Platinum in Season 1 (the highest at the time) to Challenger multiple times throughout the years. I used to stream in season 4-5 and stopped playing League for a year during season 6. I have now returned and am currently in Diamond on EUW as a support main. You can catch me on my stream or my Youtube channel. I try to explain what I am doing in most situations; feel free to ask any questions on stream or leave a comment on the guide!
Play Video Play Video

Taric has a pretty unique skill kit in which three of his abilities are used not just on himself but whoever he has Bastion applied to (within range). This enables him to protect, heal and CC from different areas of a team fight.

Taric Advantages

Able to spam heal with Starlight's Touch on CC'd targets, Epic Monsters or Towers, allowing your team to shake off minor poke and refresh your team by auto-attacking with Bravado .

Placing Bastion on a tank allows you to Dazzle the front line, an assassin to Dazzle the back line or your ADC to provide some extra protection for the back line.

A well timed ult Cosmic Radiance can change a team fight, especially if your team consists of a lot of squishies.

Just a beautiful man to look at?

Taric Disadvantages

Healing with Starlight's Touch is near impossible to use more than a couple of times due to early mana costs with lack of mana regen.

Being CC'd Early may disrupt the use of Cosmic Radiance and may lead to one of your carries dying early in a fight.

Dazzle is predictable and easy to dodge without the use of Flash.

Teammates may not use Dazzle correctly.

Resolve

Guardian provides you and your lane partner with a little extra sustain and movement speed. This helps in both running away from an enemy jungler and helping engage with Dazzle. Remember, just healing or shielding a target will be enough to give them the buff if they get hit, you don't just have to stand next to them!

Bone Plating provides you with extra tankiness when you decide to engage with Dazzle in the laning phase. Currently very strong in lane.

Chrysalis Provides you with extra hp during early stages of the laning phase, once again provides you with more sustain when you decide to engage and can have the potential to save you if you get ganked.

Revitalize goes well with your heals, shields (both skills and items) and Guardian. A must have rune.

Inspiration

Biscuit Delivery is the best option now since Manaflow Band on Taric is very hard to stack. Much needed to help provide mana and sustain in laning phase.

Magical Footwear is a solid option and will save you 300g in the medium-short term. However it is also viable to take Cosmic Insight to provide lower CD on your spells and items.

&

Flash is standard, you can use it to Flash + Dazzle at the last second to get a surprise stun in.

Ignite is usually taken on botlane to ensure your side secure a kill in the laning phase, which is the most snowbally part of the game. Recently got buffed further, making Exhaust even weaker during laning phase.

Bravado

Using Bravado, will separate you from being an average player to an high level player. Getting used to weaving in auto attacks with spells is not only good for DPS but also will help get your basic spells off cooldown faster, and every auto hit with Bravado on will give you 1 charge of your Q Starlight's Touch. This is the reason we build Tear of the Goddess as you will be chugging through mana while spamming all of your spells. This is particularly useful on objectives, such as turrets, Dragon and Baron as you will be able to spam heal multiple teammates and giving them all Ardent Censer buff.

Starlight's Touch

Starlight's Touch heal is relatively small, however due to Bravado you will be able to spam this multiple times throughout the game. It will not only place the heal on yourself but however else that has Bastion and the targets around them. Try to avoid using in lane as a sustain until you have tear as it will cost a lot of mana.

Bastion

Bastion gives you and your bastion target bonus armor. Any other spell you use will also be cast on your Bastion target, increasing heal, stun and aoe invulnerability potential. Bare in mind, it has a limited tether range and if the target is out of range or dies spells will no longer be cast on the target. However if you die and the Bastion target is still alive, spells that you have pre-cast will still follow through, such as Dazzle and Cosmic Radiance.

Bastion is a decent form of lane sustain for both you and your ally, due to its decent shield.

Dazzle

Dazzle a slow casting stun that can be dodged relatively easily. A tip is to pre-cast yourself with stun and then flash into the enemy, ensuring they cannot dodge the spell. This ability is very strong when combined with your Bastion target for multiple stun potential.


Cosmic Radiance

Cosmic Radiance After a long delay you and your Bastion target will be invulnerable for a short period of time, along with anyone near you or your Bastion target. One of the best team fight ultimates in the game, however due to its slow windup cast, requires you to anticipate a fight as you will more than likely need to cast it just before the fight breaks out, which gives the enemy a chance to quickly disengage. Everyone will be immune to damage but NOT crowd control.

Relic Shield

---

Relic Shield Basic support starting item and provides your ADC with a tiny amount of health regen throughout the laning phase. Do your best to last hit cannon minions due to the recent changes dramatically increasing the amount of gold cannon minions now give. Upgrade to Targon's Brace during the laning phase for more gold and health regen for midgame. Being able to upgrade to Targon's Brace allows you to complete the 500 gold quest quicker and gives you an extra ward to place down.

Tear of the Goddess

---

Tear of the Goddess provides you with unlimited spell use in the mid-game. Allows you to constantly spam heals at Baron, Drake and bashing towers. Very popular in the high-elo KR meta right now. Buy after your Targon's Brace.

Ardent Censer

---

Ardent Censer works well as your first core item as it synergies with your Redemption and Locket of the Iron Solari well. Provides sustain and extra magic damage on auto attacks. Particularly useful if you are an AD heavy team and have a jungler such as Graves or Twitch and/or have a hyper carry like Vayne.

Redemption

---

Redemption is currently one of the best support items in the game. It is a soft counter to poke comps, but is usually purchased early because of the versatility of the item. Provides a massive heal AoE heal, at a very long distance and can be used while dead. It can be a massive game changer when used in the centre of a teamfight, or can actually be used to kill off a straggler that is running away on 2% hp as it does do a tiny amount of damage! Needs to be purchased first or second on Taric, unless against a very heavy magic comp, then Locket of the Iron Solari could be better as you will be able to survive some burst.

Locket of the Iron Solari

---

Locket of the Iron Solariis an OK item to pick up if against mixed damage dealers, and scales with your maximum hp. However, remember that taking this will reduce your own personal tankiness but, could help your squishier teammates in a close call.

Zeke's Convergence

---

Zeke's Convergence can be a viable option against mixed damage dealers and also gives 10% CDR. Buy this item if you feel you are tanky enough to be able to stay in close range often, due to the massive aoe slow aura this item gives you.

Ninja Tabi

---

Ninja Tabi provides a lot of tankyness, especially as you will be dancing between your front and back line a lot. Very effective against lots of auto attack damage teams. Take Mercury's Treads if they have atleast one or two hard cc stun, as this is your greatest weakness and help get out of those sticky situations.

Frozen Heart

---

Frozen Heart decent in the late game against any auto attack heavy champions. Provides a huge chunk of cooldown reduction and requires nothing of the user, so takes something off your mind.

Randuin's Omen

---

Randuin's Omen Provides more self protection than Frozen Heart, but no addition cooldown reduction. Can stack will with Frozen Heart against full attack damage teams. The on use AoE solo is OK.

Play Video Play Video
Taric has a tough laning phase, more so since Manaflow Band was nerfed. Sustain as much as you can with your ADC and work with him with your Bastion to set up jungle ganks if required. Utilise Dazzle wait 0.5s then Flash for an instant stun or Bastion your jungler to allow for a more comfortable Dazzle hit.

Your aim is to have enough gold for Tear of the Goddess so you can easily heal sustain your team for the mid-game.

You will need to be constantly with a another player to fully utilise Bastion. If the enemy has nobody that can jump your ADC, it is sometimes better to instead Bastion your front line as it will be easier for your team to jump on with Dazzle.

Be always aware of being flanked or surprise engaged, as you will need to constantly evaluate when to use your ultimate Cosmic Radiance.

Ensure you are constantly resetting your spells with auto-hits with your passive Bravado, particularly at objectives that allow you to stand still and auto-hit. In team fights, sometimes you might choose to bash on the tank just pull out a Dazzle quicker. Constantly evaluate when to use what spells, and you will not be surprised by anything!

I also have an Unranked to Diamond series if you are interested in watching, where I only play support to climb to diamond.
Play Video
I hope you enjoyed the Taric guide. Below is a funny video that happened on my stream (www.twitch.tv/bizzleberry). Enjoy!
Play Video