User blog comment:Wario1226/AD Top Taric: The Outrageous Bruiser/@comment-8506165-20130923141024

"rush a Manamune and ionian boots for mana and cooldown. you wont be spamming much, but its super helpful. After that, get triforce and a zepher. everything triforce has is super helpful, and zepher goes well with your heal and ult synergy."

Glass cannon Taric 4 items in, seems legit.

Taric top is actually pretty good although you're lacking a bit for kill potential. Basically you just want to end up as a mana tank so your W aura gives your team as much armor as possible and you can support your teammates in teamfights without being easy to take down, while still dealing reasonable damage due to Taric's outrageous passive.

Anyways, as for how I'd build him top... Tear, yes. Don't rush Manamune though. 1400 gold can be far better spent when your Tear's not charged, and Taric can charge it fairly quickly because he has three spells he can cast for no reason on the way to lane, so you don't need to upgrade it to charge it faster. Then depending on your lane opponent you want a defensive choice. Against AP you have several options - Spirit Visage, Wit's End, Mercury Treads (if they're not that great 25 MR may be enough). Or just flat health. Rod of Ages can work, weirdly. AP's not wasted even if you're going for AD because all your scalings are AP and the mana synergises with Muramana. Against AD... It's really gotta be Glacial Shroud early. Can build it into Iceborn or Frozen Heart.

Mercs are probably your best best for boots. Ionian boots are pointless if you're getting Frozen Heart and Spirit Visage. Even if you just get one, Taric doesn't particularly need max CDR. He is not.

So, in short... example full build for me would be RoA, Mercs, Frozen Heart, Manamune, Spirit Visage, Iceborn Gauntlet (not necessarily in that order). It lacks a little for health (only 1000 bonus) but you're pretty good for damage with a total of 2550 bonus mana, and you can spam your heal, enhanced by Spirit Visage to effectively give you more health. And you have a ton of resists. A more offensive build? Honestly, I'd probably keep it about the same but swap the Visage for a Wit's.

If you want ham-mode Taric with loads of kill potential go AP and get a Lich Bane. Even if you don't space out your abilities and just ult > pointblank stun > W > AA it gives you 930 + 290% AP damage (with Spellsword mastery), plus 2% of your max mana and 20% of your armor. And your heals just get ridiculous.