Talk:Gragas/@comment-24944427-20140515110112/@comment-9048637-20140520183701

Oh dear.

"once your opponent gets a mikael and a couple of banshees, Taric no longer has a stun and becomes an aura machine that nobody cares about (you can give 500ad to your carry but if I cc them till they die they still dont benefit from it)"

There are... a lot of things wrong with this sentence. For a start, "aura machine that nobody cares about"? You do realize that his ult gives his allies nearly as much AD and AP as a full strength Baron buff, right? Yes, they have to be in range of it. 500 range is not particularly punishing and Taric is not an initiating support so he's not likely to be very far away from his damage-dealers most of the time. Yes, it only lasts 10 seconds. That's still longer than the average teamfight. And yes, it doesn't give health and mana regen. Big whoop. If only Taric had some other way to restore his allies' health, right? Oh wait. And on top of that, you get a persistent armour aura. That's not strong? Obviously, this is all invisible power, so maybe people 'don't care about it', like you say, but they really should. This kind of stuff makes a big difference.

Then there's the idea that Taric's CC is useless once his opponents get "a mikael and a couple of banshees". For one thing: Taric's CC is not why you pick him. It's nice, but it's only a single target stun. It won't compare to dedicated CC supports. You pick Taric because of the sheer variety of supporting power that he brings, particularly the aforementioned auras. But that aside: if the enemy team is buying Banshee's Veils just because of your support, what on earth are you complaining about? That's a big gold investment for them, and by no means core on most champions, even front-liners, particularly not when mages often get side-lined by assassins and bruisers, leaving many comps without significant sources of magic damage. But again, even if that weren't a pretty decent victory in of itself: as I said before, Taric is not an initiating support. He's not going to be leading the charge through the enemy front lines. So, chances are, their Banshee's Veils will already be popped by the time they get to him (or the carry he's protecting). And hell: even if, between BV and Mikael's the enemy divers still manage to absorb Taric's stun: so what? He can still shred their armour afterwards. He can still provide armour to his team (as well as AD and AP). He can still heal. And if you were relying on Taric for all your CC needs in the first place, your team comp has worse problems than "omg supp y u no leona".

But the most ridiculous thing about that statement is this: Taric is not an initiating support. Who is? Well, the very CC-focused supports you praise! Surely they're going to care far more about the enemy getting defences CC than Taric, who has just one spell in his kit that gets neutralised by it, and it's not even his ult. (Well, alright, Shatter can be blocked by BV too. But Taric can quite easily pop the spell shield with Dazzle first, and Shatter's debuff can't be removed with Mikael's. And even if you can ignore the debuff, for whatever reason, it's not as if Shatter is entirely useless, since it still provides the aura.) Gragas, on the other hand? The only reason to play him support is for his CC. Yes, alright, he has multiple forms of it, so he'll probably land some. But then he's useless. Your enemy have ignored far, far more of your potential than they have Taric's. So if "Mikael and BV" is an argument against Taric, it's much more of an argument against the likes of Gragas.

Anyway, thus concludes my defence of Taric. You'll notice, I'm sure that I haven't really mentioned Alistar. There are a couple of reasons for this: firstly, I'm not nearly so familiar with Alistar as Taric. Secondly, and more importantly, Alistar is in kind of a bad spot right now. He arguably is out-classed by many other supports (though I'd hesitate to include Gragas on that list). Riot have made clear their intention to rework him at some point. But a few points in defence of the cow: firstly, while he can initiate, it's not his strength. He's meant to be an unbreakable wall between you and his carry, not an initiation machine. (Again, other supports arguably still do that better; in particular, Braum honestly seems to be everything Alistar was always meant to be without any of Alistar's problematic aspects. But I digress.) Secondly: Alistar gets a 70 AD steroid during his max-rank ult. 70 AD! You're not telling me that can just be ignored, surely. (Oh hey, Taric gets the same by the way. Did I mention Taric is kind of awesome?) Is it ideally what you want on a support? No, I suppose not. But it does mean that Alistar's not nearly as bad as you're making out.

As for Gragas support in general: honestly, support is far from my main role. Maybe Gragas support does work. My friend who does play a lot of support assures me it's distinctly sub-par, but hey, maybe he's wrong. (He usually isn't, but it's a possibility.) What I do know is that, in the games I've played and watched, I've yet to notice a Gragas support carry his lane, let alone the game. I certainly don't see it outstripping his potential in the jungle or on top lane. So until I see otherwise, I'll remain sceptical, I'm afraid.