Taliyah isn't as popular as she once was, but still sees some high level play due to her unique strengths. She's a heavy roaming champion that thrives when given the opportunity to leave mid and impact other lanes as early as level 6. She fits best into a team that brings hard crowd control into the side lanes to maximize her roams.

Skills

Passive: Rock Surfing: Taliyah gains movement speed near walls.

While Rock Surfing is canceled by entering combat, it is still great for getting back to lane faster after a recall and roaming, something any Taliyah player should expect to be a common occurrence. The passive is also triggered by moving near structures. The movement speed scales with level and is canceled upon using a basic ability.

Q: Threaded Volley: Taliyah throws a volley of missiles in a target direction, moving freely as she does. This works the ground below her. If Taliyah casts Threaded Volley on worked ground, she only throws one missile.

Threaded Volley is Taliyah's most frequently used skill. She fires five rocks consecutively in a target direction while she is free to perform any other action as normal. Using Threaded Volley leaves behind a circle of Worked Ground, which lasts 120 seconds (scales down with cooldown reduction). While standing on Worked Ground, Threaded Volley only throws one rock, but also refunds half of the ability's mana cost. Taliyah also moves 10 – 20% faster (scales with level) on Worked Ground. Like Thunderlord's Decree, Threaded Volley has a very small area of effect on each rock thrown.

W: Seismic Shove: Taliyah causes an area of ground to erupt and throws enemies within in a direction of her choosing.

Seismic Shove is Taliyah's only form of hard crowd control and very difficult to land. It is one of few vector cast abilities in the game, along with Viktor's Death Ray and Rumble's Equalizer. On top of having a rare casting type, Seismic Shove has a 1 second delay between cast and effect. Package those details with a tiny hitbox and you have a very situational ability. Looking at it from a different angle, it is one of the few area-of-effect ranged push/pull abilities that exist, a very powerful effect. Being able to choose the direction of the knockback also adds to its power.

E: Unraveled Earth: Taliyah creates a slowing minefield that explodes if enemies dash through it or are pushed/pulled through it.

The best case scenario for this skill is landing a Seismic Shove just before casting Unraveled Earth so that you get the maximum damage possible, consisting of the initial cast damage as well as the damage from pushing an enemy through four boulders. Taliyah benefits from teammates with the ability to knockback champions as she would no longer strictly need to set herself up with an unreliable skill.

R: Weaver's Wall: Taliyah creates a very long wall of rock and then can choose to surf on it.

This ability is where Taliyah's power comes from and also dictates her playstyle. Weaver's Wall is a fantastic roaming ability, doubling as a tool to cover massive stretches of ground and a tool to cut opponents off from their safety nets. At worst, Weaver's Wall is a slightly shorter ranged Twisted Fate ultimate. At best, Taliyah can trap an enemy team between her own team and the wall or even split off vital targets from their team and win teamfights before they even begin.

Skill Order

Taliyah is a champion that actually has a skill maxing order that changes slightly based on laning circumstances. Generally speaking, the best max order after the buffs/nerfs she's undergone is Q>E>W. If Seismic Shove (W) had its cooldown reduced by more than one second per level, it might be worth maxing second in fringe cases, but, as is, the extra damage from Unraveled Earth (E) is more valuable, even with the Lux-level mana cost issues

There are cases, however, where maxing E over Q is the correct decision. This generally occurs when laning against an opponent who relies heavily on dashes to harass you. Examples would be LeBlanc, Talon, Yasuo, Ekko, and, to some degree, Fizz. Laying an Unraveled Earth just as you get dashed on will do heavy damage as well as slow the opponent, setting up an easier Seismic Shove and Threaded Volley follow-up.

Runes

Marks: All Magic Penetration. Taliyah doesn't rely heavily on auto attack trading at any point in the game. She can also use her single-rock version of Threaded Volley to assist her in last hitting, so flat attack damage runes and hybrid penetration runes are both inferior to simple magic penetration.

Alternatives: I don't think any Marks come close to magic penetration in effectiveness in any situation.

Seals: All Scaling Health. Being a relatively weak laner, Taliyah isn't looking to leverage the sort of advantage flat health runes would give her. The scaling versions match the values of the flat versions at level 6, which is when a lot of mid lane champions begin to come online.

Alternatives: Flat armor is a good option against a heavy attack damage team composition or a particularly annoying AD mid laner. Flat health can also work when against a laner with very high kill threat at early levels.

Glyphs: 6x Flat Cooldown Reduction, 3x Scaling Cooldown Reduction. This combination gives Taliyah 5% cooldown reduction at level 1 and 10% at level 18. She makes use of the cooldown reduction early on in last hitting and trying to push. Late game, Taliyah's build will generally have 30% cooldown reduction, so the 10% from runes will max it out.

Alternatives: Flat magic resist Glyphs can help her survive lane when necessary.

Quintessences: 2x Movement Speed, 1x Flat Ability Power. Taliyah will very rarely want to buy any item (beyond boots) that increases her movement speed, but she still has a lot to gain from increased movement speed due to her roaming nature. The one flat AP rune helps her last hit and push in the early game.

Alternatives: I think any combination of movement speed and ability power runes could work. There aren't any other stellar options.

Masteries

This is a pretty standard mage mastery page. You'll notice that I generally take more defensive masteries, such as Secret Stash over Assassin and Feast over Fresh Blood. These are definitely playstyle calls and can be tweaked to fit you.

Ferocity Tree

Sorcery – Increased ability damage over attack speed. Pretty straightforward for a mage.
Feast – Any of the three masteries at this tier can be good for Taliyah, but trading efficiently with Fresh Blood won't always be possible depending on your lane and Expose Weakness does nothing to help her laning, which can sometimes be exploited. I like taking Feast to shore up one of her weaknesses.
1 Vampirism / 4 Natural Talent – A single point in Vampirism is the difference between having some consistent sustain and zero consistent sustain. The first point is far more valuable than any subsequent ones, so the rest of the points go into the scaling AD and AP of Natural Talent.
Battle Trance – I choose Battle Trance over Double-Edged Sword here as it has no downside and I generally find myself in a number of extended engagements throughout the game, given the kite-heavy nature of Taliyah.

Cunning Tree

Savagery – While the movement speed bonus from Wanderer can be enticing, Taliyah has enough movement speed options elsewhere to justify taking Savagery to bolster her mediocre base attack damage.
Secret Stash – The extra sustain and small injections of mana from Secret Stash are generally more useful than Assassin, though Assassin can be great in a lane you can bully.
Meditation – Taliyah can have some serious mana issues, especially in the early game before much mana is purchased. Merciless is definitely better later in the game, but I think Taliyah's strengths lie mostly with her early game roaming. Meditation helps her be strong enough to start roaming as soon as possible.
Dangerous Game – Neither Greenfather's Gift nor Bandit offer enough value to push out the spectacle generator that is Dangerous Game. Dipping in and out of bushes to get the full value from Greenfather's Gift would be very awkward to do in the mid lane. Bandit doesn't offer enough reasonably-acquired gold to offset the life-or-death situations Dangerous Game can get you out of.
Precision – Taliyah can hit a near-optimal level of cooldown reduction without Intelligence and doesn't often build much magic penetration (or Abyssal Scepter) beyond Sorcerer's Shoes early in the game.

Thunderlord's Decree – The decision here is really between Deathfire Touch and Thunderlord's Decree. Taliyah can trigger Thunderlord's so easily that it is the obvious choice. If Thunderlord's gets changed to not trigger off of just three rocks from Threaded Volley, the situation may have to be reevaluated.

Summoner Spells

Flash is still too good not to take on almost every champion. Taliyah is not one of the exceptions. She has very little hard peel and relies heavily on good positioning, so Flash is a great safety net. Take it every game.


Even with the Ghost nerfs (speed increase ramps up over first 2 seconds), Ghost is still a decent choice for Taliyah. Considering most mid laners take Ghost as it is, the change shouldn't affect Taliyah much more than any other mage that takes it. Her ability to move around while casting Threaded Volley is one of the big advantages of Ghost on Taliyah. The new Ghost's power level is also nearly the same during roams, as you'll have time to burn off the 2 second ramp time during your travels.

Pick Exhaust when you're worried about getting jumped on by a close range champion like Fizz, Talon, or Ekko. Alternatively, if Ghost no longer feels like a good choice for you, this should be the next go-to summoner spell in line. Exhaust is now better than Ghost at surviving lane ganks and will always have very obvious and powerful applications at any point in the game.


Not a very common choice, but can be good if you're afraid of being killed by a champion that you can't reliably Exhaust, such as Syndra or Veigar. It's also important to note that Barrier can be used while under the effects of any crowd control other than suppression and has a lower cooldown than Exhaust.

Ignite is the aggressive alternative to Barrier or Exhaust. You should look to take it in matchups where you can more reliably set up your full skill combo in lane.

Cleanse is the most matchup specific summoner spell. It's good to bring along when facing champions like Varus, Lux, Xerath, or anyone else with a long duration snare or stun that will almost never be within Exhaust range. Keep in mind that Cleanse will not remove the effects of suppression abilities. This means Cleanse will have no effect on the ultimate abilities of Skarner, Malzahar, or Warwick.

Items

A level of unrest in the Taliyah build order was introduced with the downsizing of Rylai's Crystal Scepter. While Rylai's is still usually purchased, when it and other items are purchased can vary pretty widely. I'll first go over the build I most commonly use (credits to The Egg Roller and Drewmatth from the Taliyah Mains subreddit) and then touch on other builds and alternate items to consider buying and when to buy them. Keep in mind the runes and build I use are intertwined, especially in hitting the cooldown reduction cap.

Early Game

You'll nearly always want to start Doran's Ring and two Health Potions. Taliyah doesn't have the highest kill pressure, so Dark Seal is just less efficient than Doran's Ring, even considering it allows you to buy an extra potion. Pick up the Warding Totem as a trinket. On your first back, you should be looking to have at least 900 to 1100 gold for Lost Chapter (for the Morellonomicon build) or Catalyst of Aeons (straight to GLP-800). Any extra gold can be thrown at Boots or another Doran's Ring (an incredibly gold efficient item). Sorcerer's Shoes should be a high priority purchase. This build doesn't have a ton of damage in the first few items, making the magic penetration invaluable. Hextech GLP-800 is the first non-boots item I complete in the majority of my games. The sustain, tankiness, and strong active make for a quality first item. As a final note, feel free to rush Seeker's Armguard against threatening AD champions in lane, as Zhonya's is a good item for later in the build.

Mid Game

First, consider switching to the Oracle's Lens trinket at level 9. You'll spend a lot of time roaming in some matchups and the ability to disable wards makes this a lot easier. Now back to items.

After GLP-800, Rylai's is the next item to work towards in any build. I strongly suggest getting both the GLP-800 and Rylai's Crystal Scepter because having both grants you a large health pool and multiple sources of slowing, high value traits for helping newer Taliyah players set up their Seismic Shoves. The stats and slows make you a very difficult target to kill as well, an important distinction for a champion with little combat mobility and only one hard crowd control ability. For your third item, you can finish Morellonomicon and cash in for the large bump in cooldown reduction or work towards the pure damage boost from Rabadon's Deathcap. Morellonomicon will get you somewhere between 25% and 30% cooldown reduction (depending on level). This lowers the long cooldowns on your W and E and pushes your level 5 Threaded Volley cooldown to just above 2 seconds. Rabadon's Deathcap, however, will often be the difference between one shotting a squishier target and needing to chase them down, putting yourself at risk. It's very much a judgment call. If you expect to be stuck in lane longer than you might want to be, the Lost Chapter start into Morellonomicon third item can be a good way to build for this (credits to The Egg Roller from the Taliyah Mains subreddit for this build path). Skipping Lost Chapter and pushing for Rabadon's Deathcap (or Void Staff in the odd game) may be best in games where you have more freedom to move about and gank, as you'll do more damage in a shorter period of time in a time-sensitive gank scenario.

The Final Two Slots

Void Staff is often a great buy as a fifth item. Most champions build at least a single magic resist item. Even aside from tank items, Maw of Malmortius is relatively common and I expect Edge of Night to see more play with the recent buffs to Lethality. Zhonya's Hourglass would be my sixth item in a standard game. It allows you to be far more aggressive with your Weaver's Wall plays, knowing that you can overshoot the mark a little and still survive until your team catches up. It also grants armor, which becomes more relevant as the enemy AD carry becomes a real threat late in the game.

Picking up the "other" item from earlier in the build (Rabadon's or Morellonomicon) in one of these slots may also be an option.

Alternate Item Choices

On the Morellonomicon build: "But wait, isn't that a pretty low damage build?" Yes, it is. This is my main build because of the types of champions that have become common in the other roles. High threat junglers such as Vi, Kha'zix, Rengar, and Lee Sin are all popular. Top lane duelists like Riven, Fiora, and Camille are all fairly common as well. Even Supports have had their teeth sharpened considerably with the rise of Malzahar, Miss Fortune, Zyra and other such champions. Due to this newfound threat coming from other roles on the team, I often feel like I can build more supportive and defensive items and look to function more as a control mage than as a burst mage.

Of course, there will always be games when you need to switch it up. I touched on Rabadon's already as a secondary build path and I'll speak on a few other items I think are possible buys, whether to pump up the damage or to cover a statistic or effect my general build doesn't cover, and how they might fit into a build order.

Liandry's Torment is another item that can reasonably replace Morellonomicon. It is best purchased against teams with multiple high-health low-to-medium magic resist champions to make best use of both the flat magic penetration and the percentage health damage passive. Liandry's Torment also has great synergy with the slowing items built early on Taliyah.

Abyssal Scepter brings a somewhat opposite effect to Liandry's Torment. The flat percentage magic damage increase is most valuable (in terms of equivalent flat magic penetration) against high magic resist targets. It also debuffs the target rather than buffing Taliyah, meaning that allied magic damage dealers benefit from this item as well. Finally, slotting Abyssal Scepter into your build both allows you to rush Negatron Cloak when you need to and can replace some of the cooldown reduction loss if not building Zhonya's Hourglass or Morellonomicon. Abyssal Scepter can slot into

If you do opt to remove Morellonomicon from your build, replacing Sorcerer's Shoes with Ionian Boots of Lucidity may also be a good choice. Doing this recoups some of the loss of cooldown reduction, decreases your summoner spell cooldowns, and saves you 200 gold. You may want to prioritize Liandry's Torment or Void Staff more highly as a result of the lost magic penetration, however.

Phases of the Game

Early Game

Starting in lane, Taliyah has a very strong Level 1 and Level 3. Hitting every rock from Threaded Volley early in lane trigger Thunderlord's Decree and give you a big early advantage, which you can attempt to transition into a kill at level 3 when you get your full combo. Look for a kill at levels 4-5 Try not to push the lane too much, as her skills cost a lot of mana and she is relatively susceptible to ganks. If your opponent is pushing the wave, make sure to be auto attacking as much as you can to conserve mana. If they're not pushing, it could mean a number of things, but it certainly means you can think about saving up mana to gank right when you hit level 6. If you can push your lane opponent in early on and back for either Lost Chapter (900 gold) or Catalyst of Aeons (1100 gold), you'll have a much easier time manipulating the wave and finding openings to use your ultimate to roam further into the early and mid game. Finally, don't feel discouraged from roaming pre-6 if you gain an upper hand in lane. Between Rock Surfing and the impact of Seismic Shove, Taliyah can gank very well before 6. Top lane will generally be easier to gank at this point, as you'd expect there to be less ward coverage and 2v1 is usually a less risky situation than 3v2 in the bot lane. It's best to push for this kind of play when you know your jungler is on the top side of your own jungle (or is coming to help you) as the threat of a countergank is always alive.

Mid Game / The Roam

I'll start this section with a clip I ripped from one of my own games. I took this clip in particular because there's both good and bad to touch on and learn from.

At the beginning, I'm at base and Talon is pushing the wave to my tower. I assume this means he's going to recall, as neither of us have before this point. I utilize Rock Surfing when I can on the way back to lane to save as much time as possible. While pushing the lane out, I look to the top and bottom lanes for possible roaming opportunities. I see that both top laners are returning from base and my jungler is on the top side of our jungle. Seeing this, top lane could have been a gank opportunity, but Camille is just too hard to pin down and kill for a trio of Jarvan, Rumble, and Taliyah. She can jump out of Jarvan's Cataclysm or over the Weaver's Wall, and we have little hard crowd control otherwise.

I look to bot lane instead. I see Tristana taking a lot of damage and getting pushed back, but Vel'koz is coming back to lane from base and I'm confident we burst Zyra without much threat. The first bit of bad play shows up here. After pushing the wave, I take a very risky path through the enemy jungle with no knowledge of where the enemy jungler (Master Yi) is. With the ridiculous mobility of Talon and Master Yi, I could've easily died for this. Luckily I didn't. When I get to the tribush, I waited a split second to see how the enemy bot lane would respond. If they started to respond, I would know it was warded and place the wall closer to their tower. It didn't seem to be warded, so I threw the wall down (to be honest, a little bit too far to the right as Miss Fortune almost made it over the wall without Flash) and went in for a relatively clean kill on Zyra. Miss Fortune made it out alive, but we got her Flash. I probably should've also thrown down a ping beforehand to try to get Tristana an assist or the kill.

My return to middle lane is ill-advised. Seeing how pushed in Rumble was top, I made a poor assumption that Talon was going to gank there in response to my roam to bot lane. With no wards in either side of the river, I had no idea where Talon was. On top of that, I knew my own jungler was not in position to assist me if I did get jumped on. Given the circumstances, I should have recalled in bottom lane and given up the small wave that was about to crash into mid lane tower.

Gank targets for Taliyah are often more obvious than for other champions. Terrain creation is a pretty rare skill and dangerous skill. If your target has no dashes or blinks in their ability kit, they're a great target as they'll have no way around the wall. If they do have some mobility, like the aforementioned Camille, your wall has to be used just for the movement and you may need to rely on the lane you're helping to bring some form or stun or large slow to guarantee a kill. Generally speaking, bot lane is the ideal place to gank for Taliyah. Weaver's Wall acts as a movement impairing ability for every person in the vicinity. Also, as in most cases, 2 is better than 1.

If you can use your ultimate on cooldown in meaningful ways, you should. This is your biggest way to impact the game and start a snowball effect.

Late Game

The main things you'll be doing in the late game are using your Weaver's Wall to create terrain traps (think a diagonal wall to create a cone with another wall), splitting up the enemy team with the wall, and generally being a slow-dealing nuisance.

With a heavy vision advantage, Taliyah can transition into a pick mage role, thanks to Seismic Shove. She has very high burst when she can land her full combo.

While not terribly common, you can even use Weaver's Wall in combination with a Lich Bane purchase to act as a budget Twisted Fate and split push. Regardless of the champion you're playing, I believe you should always be looking for creative opportunities to create an advantage.

Matchups

Rather than specific champions, I'll cover major traits of popular mid laners that can make them difficult or easy matchups for Taliyah.

Dash Heavy Champions (Leblanc, Fizz, Ekko, Yasuo, etc)

-Max E. This will often get you favorable trades or at least ward off an attack.
-Take Exhaust in place of Ghost. If you can catch them overdiving you, you can get an extremely favorable trade.
-Consider with an early Negatron Cloak or Seeker's Armguard (AP or AD) to smooth out your laning.
-Roam as much as you can. Even with precautions, these are still difficult matchups and you should look for advantages elsewhere on the map.

Immobile Burst or Poke Mages (Syndra, Veigar, Varus, Xerath)

-These champions will be much easier to hit your W+E combo on. They will outtrade you post-6, but you can kill them early if you catch them off guard. You can win most early trades pretty easily if you find good angles for Threaded Volley and use your Worked Ground movement speed buff to dodge their skillshots.
-You have huge roaming advantages over these champions. Abuse that where you can.
-The semi-tanky Taliyah build makes laning against these champions easier. Consider skipping Morellonomicon and its components early (and possibly completely). Get an early Negatron Cloak if the lane doesn't start well.

Assassins (Zed, Talon)

-These will often be rough games. You need to find as much of an advantage as you can pre-6 as you'll have a hard time surviving after they get their ultimates, with only summoner spells or a Seismic Shove to save you.
-Even in roaming scenarios, assassins can often keep up with the out-of-combat movement speed from the lethality items and their high innate mobility. If possible, make sure you get to the spot and make yourself known first.

The Oddballs (Ahri, Kassadin, Twisted Fate)

-These are champions that start out immobile but become very mobile upon unlocking their ultimates or buying items like Lich Bane or Luden's Echo. This is another situation where you'll have a harder time after level 6 than before, but the ability to play around their ultimate cooldowns (or huge mana costs in Kassadin's case) gives you windows to fight or roam.
-Take Exhaust and max Q. These champions don't need to dash directly at you to get off all of their damage, so E isn't always as effective and is a massive mana drain. Be wary of the enemy taking Teleport (or being Twisted Fate) to match your roams.

Taliyah Support

Taliyah can function quite well in the support role, but mostly as a counterpick. She has questionable matchups against longer ranged supports with any sort of mobility or crowd control, like Karma or Thresh, as they can threaten you from just outside of your ideal range. An immediate divergence from the mid lane build and counter to my earlier advice is maxing W before E. The reduced cooldown on the shove is extremely valuable in a support role.

A big upside to playing Taliyah support is her gank deflection. Seismic Shove is a great tool for pushing the single largest threat (support or jungler) away from your AD carry. Weaver's Wall can also force some exotic (read as: bad) gank paths from enemy junglers or mid laners.

Taliyah pairs extremely well with any AD carry with hard crowd control. Ashe, Varus, and Kalista can all set Taliyah up for a guaranteed full combo, which will do big damage, even on a support's budget.

Focus on getting your Frostfang, Sightstone, and Rylai's Crystal Scepter first. Then you can transition into more of a support build with Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Locket of the Iron Solari. Rylai's and Locket are interchangeable as far as build path is concerned based on how the early game goes. Rylai's is great for controlling an extended laning phase whereas Locket might be the best teamfighting item in the game. Your last two slots should consist of either Redemption (a huge active on a decent pile of stats), Liandry's Torment (great for helping to burn down big tanks), or Abyssal Scepter (use to augment a heavy magic damage team) and a stack of Control Wards. I firmly believe having the upper hand in the vision game is worth far more than a sixth item on any support.

For general laning, look to find angles to land Threaded Volleys. Be conscious of where you're working ground, however, as bottom lane often feels much more cramped than middle lane does. Take the first few levels to get some idea of how the enemy bottom laner moves in to kill creeps. If you can suss out a pattern in the ebb and flow of their minion killing, you can get a good idea of where to place a Seismic Shove and start chunking away their health bars. Watch for any changes in their pattern after you land a successful combo, as they'll try to throw you off in the future.

As soon as you have Sightstone, you should begin standard warding. Make sure to use Rock Surfing to help you move around a little faster. Once you hit level 6 and unlock Weaver's Wall, you can gank mid lane with the wall, but should often seek jungle help when doing so, as you'll be underleveled in comparison to the champions you are ganking.

Tips and Tricks

-Like Bard, Taliyah can use her ultimate to cancel abilities such as Jhin's Curtain Call or Xerath's Rite of the Arcane from a long distance, though the cooldown on Weaver's Wall is quite a bit longer than either of those abilities, so avoid this when not completely necessary.

-You'll usually want to cast Seismic Shove slightly in the direction in which your target is moving. In chasedown situations where having your target take half a step back is just as good as landing your skill, you can place it further ahead of them.

-Learn to time the W – E combo so that you get both instances of damage from Unraveled Earth (initial damage and pushed-through-rocks damage). Not terribly difficult, but important all the same.

-Weaver's Wall can be used to catapult teammates or enemies over walls if they are nestled between a wall and the Weaver's Wall as it comes rolling through. Mostly a fun trick, but it has its shining moments.

Thanks for taking the time read this guide. I hope I've inspired a few new or previous Taliyah players to give her a shot. I'd love to answer questions or see any comments about the guide.

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