About the “Shield of Valoran”

One of the rarest supports to be found on the Rift is surely one of the oldest supports out there, as well as one of the most beloved. Now, he might not be the best pick in the current meta, but other than being a rare pocket pick he can truly turn the game around and help carry your team to victory if played the right way, against an adequate team composition.

For the last two seasons I have only once found myself playing against a Taric in lane so if you worry about mirror match-ups in normal games, you can be sure that the chances are next to none when picking Taric.

He was recently completely reworked and as of the latest patch (6.12) he is in a somewhat strange place. He is neither as easy as he once was (although he isn’t hard by any stretch of the imagination), nor is he overpowered/underpowered. He shouldn’t be played in every comp since he has a very particular set of skills.

I started playing Taric a couple of seasons ago when I first started being a support main. He had an extremely fun kit and was nearly unkillable. The enemy team never focuses you because by the time late game comes, you have around 400 armor and over 3k health, so you don’t have to worry about bad positioning in team fights, no matter how you position they will rarely attack you, meanwhile you would shred their armor, buff your teammates with your ultimate and, when needed, stun the enemy carry with a point and click stun.

He went great with a couple of AD Carries, and while in lane, with the right rune and mastery setup, he was one of the tankiest supports out there.

Now it’s a bit of a different story. Let’s take a look at his new kit:

Abilities

PASSIVE: Bravado

His passive is a simple one. After casting an ability, his next two basic attacks deal increased damage and reduce his cooldowns.

Q: Starlight’s Touch

Taric’s Q ability is still a heal albeit a different one. Now it stores charges, up to three. It takes 15s to get one charge and you heal yourself as well as an ally that your W ability is tethered to. (more on that below) Now this ability is nice since it is a heal and those are always great to have while laning but it’s really weak compared to Nami’s heal. After a couple of these when out of combat you can really feel the difference but in the long run it’s not something that is going to benefit you too greatly.

W: Bastion

This ability has a passive and an active component. Passively, it increases Taric’s armor as well as the armor of the teammate it’s tethered to. When you activate it, it gives you and your ally a shield for 2.5 seconds for a percent of their maximum health.

You will be using this ability only for tethering, changing the tether target and giving the active shield. It’s not a lot, but you should use it strategically. The shield also isn’t something to write home about but it can be a life-saver when needed.

E: Dazzle

This is your bread and butter. After a 1 second delay, Taric blasts his hammer in a straight direction and if an enemy is to be found at the end of it —they’re getting stunned for up to 1.75s. (the duration scales with level)

Now, first of all this ability is a skillshot, so you can miss it easily. The visual indicator also looks a bit longer than the ability actually is, so you should also have that in mind. It takes some time to get used to, especially if you’re used to the old Taric, but nothing too special.

Now for the catch. It can stun multiple targets! On top of that, not only does Taric get a beam that can stun but his tethered ally gets one as well. So in theory you have an even bigger chance to land that skillshot, and you can also use it in teamfights. Realistically, when the fight starts you usually can’t see much when all the ability effects start to stack up, (depending on the number of participants and the champions used) so having two stunning beams is something really beneficial.

R: Cosmic Radiance

After a 2.5s delay, a mysterious cosmic energy makes Taric and his tethered ally invulnerable for 2.5s. The amazing thing here is that any other ally that is inside the aura when the ability activates also gets affected, so in theory your whole team can be invulnerable for that duration.

Depending on what you’re going for, this is a miraculous ability. It is more than enough to change the direction your fight is going, and you can use it for diving your enemies and any other purpose. It has a longer cooldown, but with your passive and the Frozen Heart (20% cooldown reduction) it goes down a significant amount.

As for the order in which you level up your abilities, you can check the very in-depth statistics from the latest patch.