Nothing official yet, just a quick guide for myself and those of you who might want to take a look at the items. Will make some short comments about it here adn there. Feel free to tell me via PM (better than in the thread because it might get out of my sight) if I should continue my work.

Thanks for leaving your feedback. Please understand that I don't want to invest too much time into formation yet before I don't know if such a guide has followers or not.

Formatting will be way better if there is some serious interest in such a guide, I promise

Update: I decided to really go for this guide. Not because of feedback but because I want to discuss this build with people anyways and I can put it down here for a good overview. Some feedback would be nice, still, though!

Core items: We usually start getting Trinity Force.

I start off with Sheen - More burst damage, more ap = more burst) and mana. The last sounds ridiculous and I agree that mana can on most champs balanced with a better mana householding, but it doesn't seem to be true for Taric. Just a mana baitch.

You can now finish your Level 2 boots. Tek Mercury Threads or Ninja Tabi. If the enemy has three or more hard disables (stun, snare, suppression, root) get Mercs. However, they don't reduce knockups and knockbacks. If your lane enemy is AD or the enemy is AD heavy (or ADC already fed hard) you can take Ninja Tabi, but keep in mind that during the natural MR (comparing to his armor) is quite an issue for the tankyness of Mr. T. In most cases just watch for the CC of the enemy team and your laning enemy.

Next is Phage or Zeal. I prefer Phage because it makes you more tanky and allows you to stick to your target easier once you got in melee range.

Finish off Trinity Force.

If you are having a bad start you might want to get Phage first for more tankyness.

Random guy Jerry: OMFG NOOB GUIDE TF on TARIC FFS A ****ING SUPP HE CANT USE THIS ITEM OMFG TROLOLOLOADKJADKJLASDASKJLASDKJL!!1
Jerry Nob! In my eyes Taric is one of the best TF user because he can every ****ing stat of it. Mana, AP, AD, MS, HP, AS (Also functions as CDR for Q ( Imbue!). The only think that falls off is the crit chance, but this is true for most bruisers and Taric got quite an AD steroid with his ult. Else: -> Sticking to target, MOAR BURST I AM ****ING TARIC FOR MEN!
Also, Trinity Force is (in Season 2) just extremly cost efficient. Have done no maths, but you get +20 AD, twice the MS bonus from zeal, 150% Sheen proc, +10% AS and much more for just 300g.

Next item is Wit's End. It is core for numerous reaons: It provices AS to make the CD on Q shorter, it adds a decent DPS, the AS works well with your bonus AD from ult and it gives Taric the resistance he needs vs magic damage. If you are vs AP at your lane you might want to get it before starting your Trinity Force.

Next items are a bit more free to choose:

AP still a problem? Grab a Hexdrinker. You can upgrade it to Maw of Malmortius later.

You want some CDR item.
Some options are Frozen Heart, Nashor's Tooth, Zeke's Herald and Shurelya's Battlesong.

Get Frozen Heart if you want to destroy their AD more (aka lots of AAs, someone (AD) fed (a teamcomp of Shen/Voli, Irelia and enemy ADC might be a good indicator). If you can't tank the enemy AD for whatever reason you should really consider it.

Shurelya's Battlesongprovides more general tankyness, the now-in-the-lategame-not-anymore-so-useful HP regen and the awesome active. Get this if you want more general tankyness or you need more mobility for your team. (Indicators: Your support didn't buy this for a reason (I can't see why he shouldn't) else it is IMHO always a good option if your team is way behind or loosing teamfights. It simply allows you to evacuate your entire team and to retreat, then to either delay fights for later on when your team has covered up in farm or just to outnumber the enemy).

Then there is the niche item Nashor's Tooth. Unlike the other items it provides more offense than defense. Why is this item quite decent on Taric? He benefits from the Ap, the AS synergizes with the rest of his build and it provides the best CDR boost in the entire game. Not to mention that this AS will boost the CDR on your Q ( Imbue) even further!
Usually I pick this one if I snowballed hard and want to carry even further (and I am able to tank very well).

Another option is Zeke's Herald. It doesn't cost much, and it seems weird for some guys to get it on a bruiser. However, it provides 15% CDR, 250 HP and the awesome aura. I suggest getting this if you want to support your ADC more, for example, if it is someone like Vayne, Tristana or Kog'Maw and you are in the lategame. Or if your ADC is going very well and you want to strengthen his power. However, watch out that your support doesn't get this item as well.

Especially if you are way behind it is recommended to buy more tanky, so you don't get instant gibbed and got some presence in teamfights.
This is usually not so much of a problem with Taric, and even if it happens you can you a Warmog's Armoror in extreme cases (ergo: you cannot tank them at all) Guardian Angel or Thornmail (vs insanely fed AD which kills you in 2 seconds). It isn't the end of the world and unlike some other bruisers which just offer tankyness and damage Taric provides a lot of utitilty and protection for the team, so he is still very useful. It is also easy to recover from the tanky path and go back to damage items as a bruiser.

Other valuable items:

Aegies of the Legion - Bruisers can get it as it helps the whole team, but very often the supporter or the jungler gets this item, watch out for it first and ask around. Most bruisers prefer offense or hybrid items over this, though.

Spirit Visage - Didn't try it out, but might be worth a look. It provides some MR and CDR, is a midgame item (you should sell it for better items latergame). Actually, his passive gets always activated if you use your Imbue as you heal yourself as well.
Thinking about it, for just 300g you are getting the passive and bonus stats, which is in general rather sweet. I can see this being an useful early item after Wit's End if you are struggling vs magical damage.

Locket of the Iron Solari - Some supporters get this but I think on tanks Randuin's Omen is way better.

Soul Shroud - This is somewhat useful on Taric. However, thing is, if you are solo top nobody benefits from the aura except yourself. You could run this at the botlane if your partner is quite mana hungry as well, but just get the Mana Manipulator then and upgrade it later. It also provides quite some HP (compare this with a Frozen Mallet or Rylai's Crystal Sccepter. In general an underrated item in my opionion. Most champs benefit from CDR (most bruisers, tanks, supports, AP carries and certain AD caster-carries like Graves). If you get it, inform your team so you don't get everyone from 40% CDR to "50" % CDR which is not possible (40% is the hard cap).

Banshee's Veil if the enemy AP is stomping you. But you also can or maybe better - should - get Wit's End/ Hexdrinker ( Maw of Malmortius). It is also useful vs certain initiations such as Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow or Warwick's ultimate.

Another Magic Resist solution is Quicksilver Sash which will even get an AD upgrade in Season 3! It allows you to remove all disables on you. All. And debuffs. You can even remove Nocturne's Paranoia or Mordekaiser's Creeping Death with it. If the enemy is CC (= Crow Control, disables] heavy, get it.
Tip#1: If you are new to the item and don't think about this active so much try to get a short mindset if you are going into a fight. If you are prepared which skills might hit you are already putting your finger over the item hotkey this can drastically increase your reflexes.
Tip#2: Put your active items in the first slots in your inventory so you can reach the easier with your fingers.

Randuin's Omen give minor CDR, some HP, lots of armor and an amazing active. And passive. The CDR bonus is for me personally to small to count and I prefer Frozen Heart on Taric. But this item really helps if you want to get to the enemy ADC/squishies but you are getting (mostly) slowed and (partly) disabled. With the passive the enemy ADC is slowing himself while attacking you.

Chalice of Harmony - A possible option to solve the mana hungryness and still provides MR. I can see this as an early-mid game transition item. I won't both upgrading it to Athene's Unholy Grail, though, there are just better CDR options out there, AP is not useless but to me the other options seem to be more appealing. I suggest to tell sell it later on, you are just paying 270g for having this item in your inventory and this doesn't counts in mana pots you saved and the MR and additional mana helping you in emergency sitatuions.
Edit: I just had a game where I rushed this item vs a Poppy top. It was amazing. Get Imbue at rank 2, stun, W, AA, walk away, heal up. You don't need any heal or mana potions anymore.
TLDR; Endless harassment and sustain without spending gold on potions anymore.



Skill Sequence:
Starter sequence:
Start with Dazzle, then get a point at Shatter, then one in Imbue. Max Shatter first, after your ultimate Radiance of course.
Then it depends on the situation. Already pwning at your lane? Get some points in Dazzle to maximize your kill potential.
You are behind, even or unsure what to do? Get Imbue as failproof method.

I think Taric does well with in-between skilling. In general get Shatter. If you are in a tough lane and get poked hard (especially vs magic damage) and just want to farm/wait for a jungler gank maximize Imbue for sustain. You don't need to max your stun if you are doing well, just get 1 or 2 additional points in it.
I sometimes get a second point in Imbue early on. It helps a lot with sustain.

And:
Never-ever skill at Level 1.
At least not just because you finished loading. Anything can happen. Imagine you are a Vayne and skilled your Silver Bolts first. If you get ganked (invasion?), what do you think would have helped you more: Bonus damage or Crowd Control? Don't take a skill before you don't want (or need) to use it.


Short skill usage explanation:
Gemcraft(passive): Doesn't work with Sheen proc or on-hits, unfortunally. I call it either a bug or a tooltip error.
Don't think you got enough mana just because of this passive. It is more useful on TF/jungle/top Taric than support Taric, however. But you got some quite expensive spells and your mana regen isn't that high either, so I think this passive isn't directly a buff to his mana householding but rather a compensation.

Imbue (Q): 40% more heal on yourself, but usually I decide to heal another guy as well with it to get the maximum out of my mana. Of course not when I am going to die.
Tip: CDR on AA. AS makes this skill more spammable.
Tip: If someone got ignited or has the Grivous Wounds debuff wait till it is over before you heal - if he isn't going to die. This makes a difference of 100% more healpower!
Tip: Use ALT + Q to heal yourself. Trust me, it really helps. Else sometimes things go on too fast that you cant press Q, then search for your champ, then missclicking three times and then you recognize you are dead already when you were just about to heal yourself. For self-healing, ALT + Q is just failproof!

Shatter (W): Armor shred and nuke.
Tip: When initiating or towerdiving, consider not to use it immediality. This allows you to soak damage more easily. In general, you want to shred the armor of the enemy squishies, but you are likely to hit other ppl with it anyways. I think especially with hypercarries like Vayne on your team it might be useful to use it just at the bruiser/tank and as many ppl as possible so your carry can do his work easier.
Tip: Allows epic Lv5 towerdices. Especially vs squishy targets you can dive at lv5 in cooperation with your jungler when they are at about half health (mroe or less).

Dazzle (E, Stun): 1.5 secs stun. Nuff said.
Tip: If you can use it from the closest distance (such as when you jungler is ganking and you cut the way off) to maximize the damage.
Tip: Quite huge range. It is not a skillshot, once you cast it it will hit. This is usually your tool to protect your ADC and dive to the enemy squishies.

Radiance] (R, ultimate):
Decent burst, huge AoE buff on cast location for AD and AP.
Tip: I personally think meanwhile I totally underestimated this skill, the buff part. The buff is huge (see further above), but I feel it provides more to the ADC than to the APC (1600g vs 860g). You may want to consider using this skill in the mid of your team instead of bursting the enmies down.
Tip: Can be used to get map objectives faster.

Laning harass combo
Top Lane: If you are versus melee this can work really well. Start off with your stun (closer range, but you don't want to get damaged by the enemy). Then throw in your Shatter. The you can also use your ultimate Radiance. Add 1-2 AAs. Walk away for free harassment damage, but this really drains your mana pool.
If your enemy is unable to counterharass or is too afraid to do so you won the lane as long you got mana. You poked him down all the time. Then you go in for the kill.
If they are able to counter harass or go in for harassment for while your stun is on cooldown, then you are doomed. Bad luck. They are not falling for it.

Summoner Spells
Ignite for bonus damage on the top lane.
Flash for being OP.
Exhaust is surely also viable if you want to run the more protective role in your team (hypercarries which are not Taric!).

Title of the guide
You may have wondered already. Actually, it just goes back to my game where I went 26 8 18 as Taric with the TF build.

Thanks for leaving your feedback!

Here are the pluses and cons of TF Taric:

Pros:

• You can't take him down in mid/late game. You can't.

• Decent amount of DPS damage. Actually, you will be quite surprised how much damage this gemknight can dish out.

• Spammable heals ( Imbue for everyone.

• Bruiser with 30-60 free armor and 30 armor shred through Shatter (Helps yourself for damage and mainly your ADC)

• Up to 70 AD for yourself ( Radiance, = 2x BF sword, about one more or less stacked Bloodthirster!1 think about it!) and half that much for your ADC. Your APC gets a 0.8k Blasting wand for free as well!

• Radiance Helps a lot with tower killing and taking objectives.

• Two till three minor, still decent bursts. Even without AP. ( Shatter, Dazzle, Radiance)

• He can peel extremly well for a bruiser ( Dazzle) (keeping people away from smashing your carries). And buffs ( Radiance) for your whole team. (ADC in trouble? Throw in a stun while you are smashing their squishies!) and in general very good at protecting teammates while doing great DPS through armor shred ( Shatter) and selfbuff ( Radiance).

• Unsure: Pushing: Gigasmash-minismash combo ( Radiance, Shatter) very often kills the entire wave. With some CDR you get to some CD of about 40 seconds or even lower (so you can safely use it). Actually, I am sometimes sneaking up into enemy territory use my dual combo and GTFO for free pushing and CS. However, he takes longer when he can't use his ult or doesn't want to.

• Free armor ( Shatter) helps with (usual) bot/top matchup and is helpful during jungling.

• Can dive towers as early as level 5 ( Shatter).

• More fun than AP Taric (personal opinion)

• Your damage output will be around 50:50 to 1:3 (judging from the endstats).

• Even if you are doing terribly in the early game you still got enough natural tankyness, utility and the awesome ability to change your build to something more supportive.

Cons:

• Probably less DPS than some others bruisers (but of course more than others as well) such as Jax, Irelia, maybe also Prolaf

• No gap closer - but in general you use your stun to dive to the enemy ADC (( Dazzle)OP range!)

• No gap closer means you can't escape well from more than one person

• Armor doesn't help that much in a lane vs AP damage.

Actually, that's it. Think of him as an Ashe bruiser; you don't get him for damage only, but also for the utility. Helps your team while still doing decent damage. As such he might be very well in a kiting team ( Ashe/ Karthus) or with a team which relies on their ADC to do damage and wants to protect it ( Vayne, Kog'Maw, Tristana, although Vayne already does a lot of damage in early midgame if she is allowed to attack constantly) - But this doesn't mean you can't run him in normals without such a team either (TBH I didn't even do this yet - just some thoughts).

Quickly an overview of the possible lanes:

• Top

• Jungle (if it goes well, which can easily happen because of his decent ganks, you can go this build, else you might want to get TF, MR item and then fulltank build)

• Mid isn't tested, but might work with this item build

• - Bottom WITH a support. Should be an aggro one. So far it seems to be a bit more like a hit or flip comp. You need to go super aggro else you get poked down. Go in all the time. (Needs more testing, but when running Taric/blitz bot it was either vs an Ezrael harassing us to death all the time while escaping grabs or instantgibbing carries). Send ADC with escape to top. Not recommended with randoms, though. Do at your own risk.

My guide will focus on solo top Taric, but I might add some shortguides for bot and jungle too!

Comparision with other taric builds roles:

Support Taric
Won't be discussed here. Totally different purpose. Enough guides out there, we don't need another one. They are good, take them.

AP Bruiser Taric
I went this for some time. Rod of Ages -> Abyssal Mask and such stuff. But I got the feeling that

1. 1.) During laning it seems you are ****ed up vs certain matchups if you can't scare them away enough your harassment (Stun, gigasmash, minismash, AA =(AutoAttack) = Dazzle, Radiance, Shatter, autoattack), walk away vs melee). If you can harass the enemy and he is too afraid of returning damage you basically already won the lane.

1. 2.) If you did well during laning or jungling it just seems you can't make any kills anymore. You do SOME burst damage, but I just felt that it isn't that much (although it is AOE) and then you are doomed for doing no damage at all while just hammering at your enemies with your AAs. Actually, after early and the early midgame it just seems you are not getting kills anymore which makes me wonder if you are doing enough damage then. (Info: Also, while you MIGHT be able to 1vs1 a lot of champs, the problem is it takes too long. If you are fighting a non-squishy usually all 4 other players will ganked you together by the time you got him to 20% HP).

This build provides better healing than Trinity Force Taric, though. Like Full AP Taric it is somehow a great feeling if you burst someone down, but Trinity Force Taric can do this to some extend as well and it is more funny seeing that you got some sustained DPS and having more influence (personal opinion).

Full AP Taric:
Didn't run this setup, but I fear you might be too squishy. You need to get in melee range to do your damage, and it can work vs one or if you are fed vs two enemies since you got your Dazzle, but I fail to see the teamfight potential. Or you need to know very exactly what you are doing.

Starting items, checklist:

• If enemy AD -> Cloth Armor to counter them, then 3 pots (wait 5g) and a ward to protect yourself at top. Ward is a personal preference since I hate it when I am doing totally well at top, maybe even doing very good and then a ****ing early gank screws everything up. Else you can get more pots.

• If enemy AP -> Boots, 3 hpots or 1 pot + 1 ward

• If AP top and you totally don't know if you can handle it -> you can also go Null-Magic Mantle for more resistances and then 2 pots vs magical damage. However, this makes you more prone to ganks.

• If unknown -> Go failproof with Boots.

OK, correction. I usually start with a Mana Potion. Refill both mana and heal potions, you will need them, even with the mana from Sheen. Actually, Mana Potions are almost more necessary than healing potions.