Tahm Kench: Strategy and Tactics
Konduit covers key strategies and decision-making concepts to keep in mind when playing The River King.
Hi all, Konduit here - I'm back with another Tahm Kench strategy article; if you missed the first one (a tips and tricks post), you can check it out here.
Again, this is far from a full guide on how to play Tahm Kench; rather, it's a compilation of a few of the key tactics and decision-making challenges that I've encountered so far. Without further ado, here are 5 concepts/strategies that you should keep in mind while playing Tahm:
1. Abyssal Voyage has a wide variety of uses. A great analog to Tahm's ultimate is Rek'sai's Void Rush; more often than not, you'll be using the ability to get to and from objectives, speeding up transit across the map. Only occasionally will you use Abyssal Voyage to initiate a teamfight (teleporting in a big frontline tank or bruiser with engage); this move is somewhat risky, as your arrival destination is highly telegraphed. The opposing team has a great deal of time to distance themselves or ready cc to immediately deal with you. An important distinction to draw here with other globals is that Tahm brings no immediate hard crowd control upon teleporting in - Pantheon's global brings the threat of massive AoE damage, while TF can arrive with a gold card primed and ready. Abyssal Voyage itself doesn't bring the same level of threat, so if you're using it to engage, make sure you bring a teammate with a substantial, immediate impact on a fight: Amumu, Sejuani, Lissandra, Nautilus, Morgana etc. are examples of champions that make for great Voyage partners.
Again, though in the right circumstances you can use your ultimate in teamfights, you'll find that teleporting to objectives conveys a great deal of advantages as well. Abyssal Voyage allows yourself and a teammate to take a late trip back to base in preparation for an upcoming dragon fight - and still arrive on time and in position to fight. You can push bot lane with a teammate and show up in mid when the rest of your team is grouping. Just won a big teamfight? Voyage with your jungler over to start baron, saving precious seconds before the enemy team respawns and rushes to stop you.
The key with Tahm's ultimate, as with many other abilities in League of Legends, is to avoid getting caught in functional fixedness; don't tunnel on one specific usage of Abyssal Voyage - keep your mind open to its wide variety of applications in different scenarios. In my experience, it's a fantastic tool for speeding up travel across the map, an out-of-combat application. But I can just as easily see it being used to set up a flank mid-teamfight to apply pressure on the enemy ADC if the situation calls for it.
2. Save Tongue Lash to stun when given the chance. The impact of the Tongue Lash stun (when 3 stacks of your passive have been applied) is orders of magnitude greater than the usual slow. Whenever you get the opportunity to apply full stacks of An Aquired Taste, do so and THEN use Tongue Lash (though there are some exceptions, discussed later). For now, let's illustrate this rule by analyzing a play. Check out this video here.
At the beginning of the clip, Nautilus attempts to pick up a last hit on a minion with Dredge Line, inadvertantly pulling himself in towards us. Realizing that he's overextended, Caitlin and I look to punish the misplay; because Nautilus is right next to me, I know that I can patiently apply stacks of An Aquired Taste for a stun rather than a slow. With the help of a easily led trap by Caitlin (Nautilus's pathing away was predictable), I secure the first stun on Nautilus, chaining it into Devour (which cleanses my passive stacks), and then stack up An Aquired Taste again for another stun. Vayne joins the fight, but a well timed Exhaust (2 seconds), Tongue Lash stun (1.5 seconds), and Devour (2 seconds) essentially nullify her damage output on Caitlin for 5 and a half seconds. From there, it's striaghtforward cleanup.
The takeaway from this clip is to understand that being patient with Tongue Lash can yield greater dividends down the line (and in some cases is absolutely necessary!); had I used Tongue Lash early on Vayne, she would've had the chasing potential to finish off Caitlin. By saving the ability for the stun, Caitlin and I were able to put down enough safe DPS to force her to flash away defensively. Sometimes, you'll want to use Tongue Lash immediately (if the upfront damage is needed to secure a kill, as a pseudo-gapcloser, or if the slow is needed for emergency peel), so it's important to remember that stacking up to a stun is not always the correct play. It's a difficult decision-point to master, and the right move is always situational. For example, against Rek'sai (if her Tunnel ability is down), the 70% slow can be just as effective as a stun in most cases, due to Rek'sai's limited range of influence. But against Maokai, using a stun, even delayed, to shut down the tank's impactful abilities is often the right choice.
3. In many situations, it's better to use Devour reactively (as opposed to preemptively). Let's say that Twisted Fate teleports bot lane for a gank - you and your ADC are running for the hills. You might think that Devouring your ally preemptively and running to avoid the gold card stun is the right move, but in this case TF can simply gold card YOU, essentially stunning the both of you in place (you've consolidated both potential targets into just one!). The correct play in this scenario would actually be to let TF throw the gold card on your ally FIRST, and then Devour. Ideally (latency provided), you Devour your ally while the gold card is in the air, rendering him/her untargetable and the stun/damage null and void; but even cleansing the stun after it hits and running with your ally in tow is not a bad play (by the way, from TF's perspective, he should look to gold card YOU, as stunning a teammate would be negated by Devour). As a corollary, this means that you shouldn't use Devour unnecessarily or carelessly if you can help it (as putting it on cooldown leaves you and your ally heavily exposed).
In essence, the key concept here is to force your opponents to actually use the ability they're threatening you with, and then counter it with Devour. The movespeed gained from eating your ally is certainly helpful in many situations to get away preemptively, and in many circumstances this is the correct move; but when trying to avoid a particularly threatening ability in combat or when running away, keep this sequencing in mind: the enemy uses his ability FIRST, and THEN you Devour in response. Allow your teammate to bait out an ability, then react to it. Oftentimes, there's no need to play your hand until your opponent forces you to do so.
4. Your primary role in teamfights (generally) is to peel for a high-priority ally. Tahm Kench has some of the best peeling capabilities in the game. Your kit is highly conducive towards controlling the enemy frontline and keeping them off of your carries. Compared to other top lane tanks like Maokai, Gnar, or Shen, you're not a great diver - it's difficult for you to reach the enemy backline and pressure them heavily (especially since one of your main damage abilities makes whoever you eat untargetable!). It's certainly possible to do so (and situationally correct in fact), but Tahm shines as a peeler. Tahm excels at dealing with the 'diving' top lane tanks: stack up your passive, and get to stunning them. If your carry is getting too threatened, you can simply eat the enemy to neutralize them for 3 seconds (unmitigated by tenacity). Alternatively, you can eat your carry and reposition him/her in safer location to lay down damage.
It's critical to remember your role in teamfights; this goes for every champion in the game, but even more so for Tahm as he particularly excels at one area (peeling). If one of your teammates is snowballing and getting fed, make it your job to keep him/her alive - you're one of the best champions for this task. If the teamfights are even, use Devour to negate damage, pull an ally who's being threatened back to a safer position, and look for impactful stuns on the enemy frontline. By the way, an important tip to remember when using Devour is to...
5. Make use of ally Devour's long duration. This will require some coordination and faith with and from your teammates, as optimally using ally Devour often involves making use of its full duration. You'll have to resist the impulse to dump them out as soon as possible, and your teammate will need to trust in your decision making and not exit early either. But the result of this trusting dynamic is a 6 second mobile zhonyas, allowing your ally to relieve/drop aggro on himself, wait on and refresh cooldowns cooldowns, reposition, and exit ready to safely deal damage. Here's another quick clip for you to watch.
Myself, Khazix, and Morgana are taking down bot tower, already at low health. Tristana returns to lane, and all-ins Khazix. I use Devour, which not only protects Khazix from Tristana's autoattacks (stacking Explosive charge as well), but gives Morgana and I enough time to take down the tower. By this time, Explosive Charge's detonation damage has triggered - which Khazix has avoided by becoming untargetable - I spit him back out right on top of Tristana, and he cleans her up.
The clip shows one use of ally Devour (forcibly dropping aggro on one ally), but the ability's usage can be much more nuanced and strategic. Oftentimes when a bruiser is diving one of my team's carries, I'll use Devour to remove him/her from combat; I then begin stacking up An Acquired Taste, and only release my ally when I've achieved 3 stacks for a stun. My teammate then has 1.5 seconds of free DPS with refreshed cooldowns. Or, if my ally was at dangerously low health before I Devoured, I may hold them in indefinitely (i.e. for the full duration) until the rest of my team can kill whoever's diving! There's very little your enemies can do when their focus target dissapears from the map for that long - your teammates can pile on and really punish whoever's overextending for the kill.
When playing Tahm Kench, your decision-making with Devour and Abyssal Voyage is many times more important than mechanical dexterity on most other champions. Communication and coordination is important, so make sure your teammates are on board with your gameplan. As you get more experience and practice, you'll start to see situations repeat themselves and will be better able to make the correct calls with regards to usage of your abilities.
That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed the article. If you'd like to discuss anything League, have comments/feedback on this article, or just want to say hi, feel free to tweet me @k0nduit (with a zero instead of an 'o') and I'll get back to you.
Until next time.
konduit
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