Climbing Ranked Ladders: Taric's Outrageous Teamfight Potential with New Support Itemization
With new and changed support items, Taric's teamfighting potential has quietly skyrocketed.
With new and changed support items, Taric's teamfighting potential has quietly skyrocketed.
In Patch 6.22, choices for support itemization expanded through changes to Aegis of the Legion and its derivative items, and the addition of Redemption and Knight's Vow.
In particular, Redemption is generally seen as a must-buy for supports, given its universally beneficial stats and its long-range, possibly post-mortem, burst heal and nuke. With its bonuses to shielding and healing as well, Redemption has increased the popularity and success of support champions like Janna, Karma, Soraka, Sona, and Nami.
Overlooked, however, is Taric, even though the new itemization plays right into his kit, covering his weaknesses and amplifying his strengths, allowing him to disrupt his enemies and enable his team.
Taric shines in the mid- and late-game. His strengths include:
However, he has clear weaknesses that can be counterplayed:
New support itemization allows Taric to effectively combat these weaknesses. Namely:
Let's see how this build works together. In a teamfight, if Taric stays between his frontline and backline and designates a backline carry as his Knight's Vow partner:
Redemption's healing/shielding power buff applies to numerous aspects of Taric's kit:
Knight's Vow enables Taric to help peel for his carries, as it grants him 15% bonus movement speed when moving toward his designated partner.
Bastion and Dazzle can be used to keep the frontline healthy, find picks, and disengage from carries (as the stun can be used toward the backline to peel for carries, or away from the frontline to stun key enemies)
At a pivotal turning point, Taric can reset the fight on his team's terms.
This is an extremely potent ability combo, giving Taric's team high survivability at a critical point in teamfights.
This item build synergizes well with Taric's kit in that the shields from Locket and Face of the Mountain, as well as the heal (Starlight's Touch) and shield (Bastion) in his kit, enable Taric to use his ultimate, Cosmic Radiance, with ideal timing. Furthermore, Cosmic Radiance allows Taric to use Redemption with ideal timing. The 2.5-second activation times and protection durations for his items and abilities cover his weaknesses perfectly.
One caveat is that this is highly dependent on strong teamplay. Taric relies on proper grouping and positioning of his teammates; this is not a weakness, per se, but unnecessarily messy positioning will dramatically reduce the efficacy of Taric's abilities and items in this build. With proper use, however, this build and ability combo can easily swing teamfights heavily in his team's favor.
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