[Champion] Taric

v1.0.0.109 - 2011-01-17

Fixed a bug with Radiance where it would cause performance issues while on

v1.0.0.103 - 2010-10-18

Imbue mana cost increased to 80/95/110/125/140 from 70/85/100/115/130
Imbue heal reduced to 60/100/140/180/220 from 70/110/150/190/230

v1.0.0.101 - 2010-09-21

Radiance now has a brief cooldown when activated with the goal of preventing quick cancellation after initiation

v1.0.0.100 - 2010-09-08

Imbue base heal reduced to 80/120/160/200/240 from 100/145/190/235/280
Imbue ability power ratio increased to 1.1 from 0.9

v1.0.0.98 - 2010-08-10

Imbue heal reduced to 100/145/190/235/280 from 100/150/200/250/300

v1.0.0.96 - Season 1 - 2010-07-13

Fixed a bug where Dazzle could stun for longer than 2 seconds

v1.0.0.86 - 2010-06-01

Dazzle minimum stun duration increased to 1.0 seconds from 0.5
Base damage increased to 58 from 56
Base damage per level increased to 3.5 from 3.3

v1.0.0.83 - 2010-04-27

Imbue cooldown reduced to 16/15/14/13/12 from 20/19/18/17/16
Imbue base heal amount increased to 100/150/200/250/300 from 70/120/170/220/270
Fixed a bug with Dazzle that was incorrectly calculating minimum damage
Radiance:
Radiance no longer heals surrounding allied units
Upkeep mana reduced to 4/7/10 from 10/15/20
Startup mana cost increased to 20 from 10

v1.0.0.74 - 2010-02-10

Fixed a bug with Radiance where it was providing too little damage

Passive: Gemcraft
Taric's autoattacks replenish his mana for 7.5% of the damage dealt.
This is a weird passive. You usually don't want to be spending your time autoattacking creeps as it'll push your lane, but if you do happen upon some last hits, it's some good mana regen. Just be warned that abusing this passive to its "full potential" promotes bad play!

Q:Imbue
Taric channels earthen energy to heal his target ally. As the magic flows through them he is healed for the same amount. If Taric heals only himself, the heal will be 40% more effective. His autoattacks decrease this spell's cooldown by 2 seconds each.
Taric's heal. It's unique for two reasons - if Taric heals an ally, he also recieves the same heal amount. If he heals himself, it's 1.4x effective. So it's a tradeoff, but it also allows both you and a lane partner to play more aggressively and know you'll have an effective heal. Just note that with Taric's small early mana pool, this skill can be quite taxing. The cooldown also decreases for autoattacking, but again - don't abuse it! There's untold horrors for pushing your lane constantly.

W: Shatter
(Passive): Taric gains bonus armor permanently.
(Passive Aura): Taric hardens crystals around him, providing additional bonus armor to himself and nearby allies.
(Active): Taric shatters the crystals surrounding him, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies and decreasing their armor for 4 seconds. The passive aura is not in effect during the cooldown.
This can be a little confusing. There's three effects to this. 1) Taric gains armor as you level up this skill permanently. That bonus armor cannot be taken off of you in any way.
2) Taric emits an aura that gives bonus armor to any champions in that radius, including himself.
3) Activating the skill is an AoE nuke that reduces the opponent's armor. This also removes the aura from part 2 until the skill comes off cooldown.
This is an incredibly versatile skill that is great against AD lanes. You can reduce the damage done to yourself and your allies or you can increase the damage done by AD characters by activating the nuke. At max level, it's an extra 60 armor. That's outrageous.

E: Dazzle
Taric emits a brilliant ball of prismatic light at an enemy from his gemmed shield, dealing magic damage (lower damage the farther the target is), and stunning them for 1 - 2 seconds (longer stun the farther the target is).
A simple targeted stun with decent range. It travels very slowly, which makes it easy to flash away, but it stuns longer as a tradeoff. Combined with Shatter, it's a great harrassment tool. While you may be tempted to level this skill, the damage is unreliable without AP items and the cooldown for Shatter won't be able to keep up as it is.

R: Radiance
Taric emits a brilliant light, healing himself each second and increasing his attack damage. Additionally, it grants half the attack damage bonus to nearby allied champions. The cost to sustain Radiance increases each second.
This skill is great for early to midgame teamfights and for pushing towers. The increased attack damage is a huge boon late game at well - 45 damage to your allies, 90 to yourself at max level. Again, though - this skill is incredibly mana intensive, so keeping it up for long periods of time isn't really viable unless you have a gigantic mana pool. Judging when to use this is something that comes with practice and good decision making, as it has a 20 second cooldown.

Runes
Quints: 3x Flat HP or 3x MS
Marks: 9x MPen
Seals: 9x Flat Armor or 9x HP/level or 9x MP5/level
Glyphs: 9x Flat MR or 9x MR/level or 9x MP5/level

Another option is to take a Gold/10 quint or two, as you will be getting little farm.

Masteries
0/9/21 always. The reason for taking 21 Utility is to minimize the cooldown of Clairvoyance.

Summoner Spells
Clairvoyance/Flash or Clairvoyance/Ghost. Clairvoyance is hands down the best support spell. Flash and Ghost are for mobility. There are some rare cases where you'll want to take Exhaust, but good Clairvoyances will help win games.

Skill Order
EQWW
R>W>Q>E

E helps for Level 1 teamfights. After that, you want to take Q for lane sustainability. After that, take additional levels of Q only when necessary.

Items
+ Show Spoiler +

Playstyle
You're a manly, manly support. Go bottom and be manly. If a level 1 teamfight happens, E is great initiation. The most important thing is to be sure your lane partner can farm, and when you see the opportunity, go in for an E/W combo. If your lane partner contributes, it'll be some easy damage. Realize that your heal, while mana efficient, is rather costly and you won't be able to outlast other AD/Support lanes if you don't put any pressure on them. If your lane partner can hold the lane by himself, feel free to roam, especially if you started Boots. You can go annoy the middle lane with an E/W combo, and often that's enough for your solo to win the lane around levels 3-4. Other than that, keep warding and make sure your bottom lane partner gets farm.. During midgame, you can push down towers relatively quickly with some help, thanks to your R. Late game, your heals will definitely start to die off unless you've been building some AP, but you still provide a lot of utility between your ultimate, stun, and shatter. The most difficult part is playing the early game correctly - knowing when to start a skirmish, when to play aggressive, and where to be on the map.

Runes
Quints: 3x Flat AP or 3x Flat HP
Marks: 9x MPen
Seals: 9x Armor or 9x MP5/level or 9x HP/level
Glyphs: 9x MP5/level or 9x Flat AP or 9x Flat MR or 9x Flat CDR

An alternative runeset against AD lanes is

Quints: 3x Flat Armor
Marks: 9x Flat Armor
Seals: 9x Flat Armor
Glyphs: 9x Flat Armor

Masteries
0/21/9 or 0/9/21

If you feel that your lane matchup is going to need you to pump mana heavily outside of your natural regen, go with 0/9/21. Otherwise, 0/21/9 lets you farm without caring about what anyone does.

Summoner Spells
Viable options here are Exhaust, Ignite, Flash, and Ghost. Make sure at least one spell is an escape, though. You want one spell for utility in fights - Exhaust makes it nearly impossible to lose a 1v1, and Ignite gives you some extra damage and is obvious against healers. Teleport is also an option, if you feel like you're going to get outlasted in lane.

Skill Order
WEQW

W>E>Q>R
Only take Q when you need to! Although E has a great ratio, its base damage is very unreliable, so until you get some AP, leave it alone. It also has a shorter cooldown than W, so in lane you won't be using your main combo of EW until W is off cooldown.

Items
+ Show Spoiler +

Playstyle
Okay, let's look at Taric's AP ratios to understand where this playstyle comes from. E is a 1.0 ratio, W is a 0.5 ratio. Your damage will be decent, but not amazing unless you get lots of good farm. Luckily, Taric with the right runes and masteries is incredibly durable. Your Q is a 1.1 ratio, but it's 40% more effective healing yourself. Your Shatter gives you even more free armor. Between these two, you can shrug off almost any AD lane (some melee DPS matchups are still hard) and farm in peace. Don't be afraid to harrass your lane opponent using EW - It does good damage, and is often a free autottack or two after with their reduced armor.

Take a solo lane. It's possible to make this build work in a duo lane, but your farm is going to come really slowly. You don't have the advantage of a huge burst like Annie, but you have constant, unrelenting harrass combined with mana regen mechanics from your passive, and a heal with a short cooldown. During laning, you'll be strong all through the first 6 levels. Some AP characters may give you a hard time, but you should be able to hold most lanes well enough to farm. Taric is by no means a phenomonal laner, and I personally only take him to a solo lane when I know I'll be matched up against an AD character. It will be difficult to outright kill your opponent without a gank, but you can harrass them out of lane slowly but surely. Don't be afraid to push if you have vision. If you can force the lane to their tower when you're level 6, you can really dent it with your ultimate. You should aim to force your opponent out of lane a little bit before you hit 6 to try to maximize this.

Once teamfights start, just pick a squishy target, combo them, retreat, heal where necessary and repeat. Whether to prioritize healing or going in for damage is reliant on how the game is going. If your Irelia can dive them 1v3, focus on keeping her alive with your massive heals, comboing people to support her. If the enemy's Caitlyn is tearing you up, chase her out of the fight and combo her so that she's too low to come back in. Be very careful, though - Taric is a melee mage, and if you're not careful, you'll get blown up very quickly. You can also threaten targets with your stun and chase them out of the fight - this is where exhaust comes in handy. Flash->Stun is incredibly strong for initiation if you catch the right person, and it'll be even more hilarious when you take off half of their life with the stun.

The last thing to realize is that your mana pool will be small unless you have something besides just Catalyst. As a result, you'll have to measure your mana pool quickly, and you may find yourself exhausted in long fights.

Runes
Quints: 3x Flat AP
Marks: 9x MPen
Seals: 9x Armor or 9x MP5/level or 9x HP/level
Glyphs: 9x MP5/level or 9x Flat AP

Squeeze as much AP into the runes as you can get away with. Depending on what lane you're playing against, you may have to swap out for some MP5 runes.

Masteries
9/0/21

In more passive support builds, you want 0/9/21 to be tanky and boss people around, but your real utility as an AP support is ridiculous early burst. 15% magic penetration is essential.

Summoner Spells
Clairvoyance/Flash always, unless you somehow convinced your jungler to pick up CV. In that case, take Ignite/Exhaust.

Skill Order
WEQW

W/E>E/W>Q>R
Only take Q when you need to! E has a shorter cooldown than W, so in lane you won't be using your main combo of EW until W is off cooldown. As such, level accordingly. Remember also that your mana pool is limited.

Items
+ Show Spoiler +

Playstyle
AP Taric is very abusive to bottom lanes. Compare Taric to other supports - at early levels, Soraka has a heal on a long CD. You can outburst her heals if you and your lane partner work together. Sona's heal/mana ratios are terrible, and with a lot of starting AP, you'll exhaust her mana pool before she does yours. Janna doesn't have a heal, and you have better burst with the early AP.

The point is, you want to play the lane aggressively if you're against a support/AD lane. AP Taric as a support works well if your lane partner hurts early. Good candidates are MF and Caitlyn. Corki and Ashe also work, but I prefer the first two. Your role is still the same as playing support in any other fashion. Just remember that once you get your Doran's Rings, you should be ahead of the other bottom lane, which will give you more gold to ward and build toward your deathcap. The goal is to try to get the Deathcap before the other team's carries start to build serious MR.

Runes
Quints: 3x Flat HP
Marks: 9x ArPen
Seals: 9x Armor
Glyphs: 9x Attack Speed

We gonna go nab ourselves some creep kills.

Masteries
21/0/9 if you can get away with it and have a good leash at blue.


Summoner Spells
Smite/Flash. Non-negotiable.


Skill Order
WQWE

W>E>R>Q

Shatter gives flat armor reduction. Max that first. Your ultimate is actually useful as an AD jungler, so you'll want to grab levels of that whenever you can. (In other builds, you can delay taking your ultimate until ~Level 11 and grab two levels in it, because that's when you shine. Not here. You need that ulti to increase your DEEPZ).

Items
+ Show Spoiler +

Playstyle
Standard route. Blue - Wolves - Wraiths - Red - Double Golem.

You're a jungler with a 650 range stun. Go gank people. You can also 1v1 a lot of champions later in the game, thanks to all your AD and self healing. Just make sure not to run out of mana. Go kill people.

v1.00 (19/07/2011) I made guide
v1.01 (20/07/2011) Added AP Taric build
v1.02 (08/08/2011) Added AP Taric (support) build
v1.03 (08/08/2011) Added AD Jungle Taric build, added "Notable Posts" section where Niton does all the work and I just go "yep", added "Important Pictures and Threads" section