Talk:Taric/@comment-2112140-20140724070429/@comment-5955640-20140724123234

Taric is technically a hybrid support. He holds a defensive lane by providing an armor aura which mitigates the damage from most Marksman harass. He also heals both himself and his ally whenever he casts Imbue. He can however play offesensive. In times past Taric would stun somebody shatter on them and them use his ult to create a damage buff aura which was a good way to lead a team fight seeing as you could hurt or at least greatly improve an allies effectiveness.

Now however the stun and the ult do no damage and Taric has to auto attack and shatter on an opponent to do damage or really make someone vulernerable to damage because he now has armor shred and deals bonus auto attack damage based on his current amount of armor.

So technically speaking to support small zone carries (that is, carries that don't hold their lane successfully without support intervention) you have to play carefully. Rather than stun to kill the opposing marksman. Stun the enemy marksman when the enemy support has stunned your marksman. And then heal them.

Remember that after using an ability you can get 2 second cooldown reduction on all your spells for a basic attack, and that being melee you get the execute which heals you and your ally very easily as the bonus melee proc goes off. So the Relic Shield is pretty much the only choice you go with even though it's the only support item that doesn't have mana regen.

Keeping in mind that you create a natural aura of armor it might better to buy Magic resistance rather than armor first. If you are holding a defensive lane against a poke support and a marksman that deals a fair amount of magic damage you benefit alot from getting a Chalice. Turn it into Mikeals, get the heal summoner spell, and the Relic shield upgrades, and ontop of your heal you can sustain an ally into winning a duel.

You need armor, mana, and CDR though so Frozen heart or Iceborn Gauntlet is imperative and I hope you can discern which one helps out more in a given engage (iceborn gauntlet is very effective for keeping enemies from escaping after you stunned them but Frozen Heart is better if the enemy has a really strong auto attack speed or massive armor penetration).

Sunfire Cape or Randuins (if you selected Iceborn) are good choices but if you are really suffering from high enemy auto attack damage then you gotta throw on some Thornmail. Because the average marksman has 30 magic resistance throughout the game wearing something like Abyssal Scepter could be good on the hybrid damage marksman who does quite a lot of magic damage due to the scaling on casted spells. With Shatter you would make them extremely vunlnerable and with enough armor and CDR you could kill them single handely within reason. Locket of the Iron Solari is great as additional in battle armor and goes well with Face of the Mountain when preserving yourself or someone else in a teamfight. Given that it has magic resistance though it's only really good when you are suffering the might of powerful crowd control in team fights.

For boots the standard choice is mobility but I think you have more options. Personally you can't go wrong with Ninja Tabi on Taric because armor equals damage, Mercury Treads is more thoughtful and could come in handy more because you are mitigating magic damage while also letting CC effect you less letting you free yourself and do some clutch casts or continue a chase. If you are really facing fast opponents who mostly have slows Boots of Swiftness is your boots of choice.

Ideally you never want to run up to someone and stun them espescially if they are ranged. You could end up taking very unnescary damage. You want to be hard to hit until you are within range. If you could have someone else initate that would be best. You would have a stronger follow up.

Taric does suffer the kill lane problem where an enemy support just hard stuns the target or pulls them and they start taking damage. You have a really weak peel aside from stunning the opponent which doesn't secure your escape very well. It's an easy lane to hold assuming you aren't dealing with Annie or Leona though.

Other sustain supports like Soraka and Sona are easy to kill seeing as you shred what little armor they have and their lack of escape makes them very squishy but it's best to force the mana out of them and truly engage when their spells are on cooldown and the mana is drying up.

Against Braum it's sort of a manoff. You actually tank better than Braum but he of course blocks your stun easily. But being a melee champ with AOEs and armor shred you sort of have Braum boned in the long run as Braum builds health and armor while you build straight armor and gain the power to shred his utility. It's just making sure you and you ally don't get stunned all day in lane that's the problem. "Suggesting Cleanse or rushing Mikeal's Crucible would help alot in this regard."

Sivir and long range marksman will harass you too much with a simple auto attack for you to run up at them. Varus, Kog'maw, Ezreal, and Corki deal magic damage which as mentioned earlier Taric does not block with his aura. Morgana's Black shield can ruin your only form of initaiton and peel and basic you always have a magic damage output you can't really trade Morgana for damage as your bonus damage will be asborbed by the shield and mitigated by her spells and natural Spell Vamp.