r/taricmains

I usually play Bard, enchanters and the occasional mage supports. I feel like adding a tank into my champion pool but the thing is I don't like to play the engage supports. I figured I might give Taric another go since I used to play him for a bit before the rework and tried him out for a bit after the rework but it's been years since I've touched this champion. I'm super unfamiliar with how to build him. Like what's the skill order and item builds. I just need a general overview so I can tinker a bit with the champion build and play style. I tried Locket into Fimbulwinter (copying a build on OP.gg) yesterday for one normal game and it felt quite good. I did an E max (again copying OP.gg) but I felt like that wasn't optimal as my heals were piss poor. I would appreciate some pointers from the Taric mains so I can love this fabulous boy!

Disclaimer: I only play traditional ARAM and have no knowledge of the mayhem meta.

Listen I get it, Taric loves to get in the mix and auto attack, the dopamine bonk hits give our tank support the damage we've always wanted. It seems like a perfect match but I'm here to tell you that Heartsteel is a trap.

The opportunity cost is too high. There's just too many important stats you want on Taric that you're delaying that are far more functional. We all know we want a Tear of the Goddess stacking as soon as possible and to get Heartsteel, we're looking at 3400 gold.

So what important stats are we foregoing? Movement speed with boots. So important to be able to dodge, get in fights and keep in auto range for resets. Speaking of resets, we also lack cooldown.

Taric's passive reduces his cooldowns by a flat 1 second per auto, ability haste reduces all his abilities by a percentage. With 30 ability haste on your maxed out E goes from 12 seconds to 9.23. Let's say you get both autos after each ability reducing it by 6 seconds total. If you have ability haste, you'll likely have E up again, if you have Heartsteel you won't. Point is, that having both flat AND percentage cooldown reduction is VERY synergistic. More healing, more shielding, more CC, more empowered autos. You don't get to cycle through abilities with Heartsteel.

Lastly, you're foregoing resists. Besides the fact that he has armor scaling, resists in league have diminishing returns, meaning that first bit you buy percentage-wise has the largest impact (This is also true with ability haste). On top of that, every bit of shielding, and healing you do is more impactful when resists are applied.

All this to say investing in stats such as move speed, cooldown, and resists is FAR more impactful than the opportunity cost that Heartsteel provides.

Can Taric still be pickable even when the enemy picks champions like Karma, Lux, or Zyra into him?
Taric was the champion who helped me reach emerald ı was stuck in plat and he’s also my favorite champion in the game. However, I struggle a bit against poke supports, although I can still win those matchups depending on my adc Do you guys think Taric is unplayable against poke supports?