What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy.
The New Taric Rework is out on the PBE, and I got a chance to mess around with him and
play a few games.
It’s a fairly different take on the champion with major changes to pretty much every single
ability.
And after playing it and breaking it down, I have to say that the design of this rework
is in fact really interesting to me, and the games were a lot of fun too!
If you guys enjoy the video don’t forget to hit that like button and if you don’t
feel free to hit that dislike, anyways let’s get started.
Now the reason why I say Taric’s rework is interesting design, is because, at least
the impression I get, is that they tried to make taric have about as healthy of a kit
as he possibly could.
His heal relies on a charge system to where it’s actually super weak if you don’t
have all 3 charges, meaning that the strong heal is on a cooldown of like 30 to 40 seconds.
His W creates a super interesting dynamic that doesn’t make any of his abilities stronger
or deal more damage, just makes them have larger ranges and easier to hit.
His stun is now a skillshot and has a delay on it.
And even his ultimate has a significant delay before activating.
With the Taric rework, you could tell that Riot really tried to make about as healthy
and balanced of a kit as you possibly could in terms of mechanics, which is pretty cool
to see.
Previously, Taric before the rework had a lot of problems, in the sense that he was
good in soloqueue, but bad in competitive play, because of design problems in his kit.
He was too one-dimensional to be useful in higher elo unless he was broken beyond belief
like he was in the past, but his kit was too unhealthy to actually be able to buff properly,
and the mechanics that he had previously in his kit were not that fair to the point where
if he was viable in competitive play, he becomes totally broken in soloqueue, and riot wants
champions to be viable in both soloqueue and in competitive play, and this taric rework
is likely to accomplish that quite well actually.
Regardless of how good or bad this taric rework is right now, it can be balanced with some
simple changes to numbers and mana costs, which it looks like was one of the main goals
for this rework, and I think that’s pretty sweet, and was an interesting direction to
take him for sure.
Now I tried him out in a bunch of different roles, and the most obvious place that he
will find success is going to be on support, because the mechanics with his W create a
dynamic that means that having an ally nearby gives you a lot more options and utility and
makes everything easier to land on multiple targets.
But I have to be honest, when I played Taric top I was actually quite impressed, in the
sense that with Taric top you are playing with such a handicap, since his W becomes
almost useless, it only serves to give a small shield to yourself.
But it proved to be pretty strong, and I’m not entirely sure, and a big part of it is
because sunfire cape and frozen fist are really strong items, but the fact that taric top
had a lot of potential leads me to believe that in the state that I played him in, Taric
potentially is really strong, and he’s doing a lot more damage then I expected.
His new passive gives him bonus damage and attack speed on 2 auto attacks after casting
a spell, and those 2 empowered auto attacks will lower the cooldown of his heal by 5 seconds
each.
However, his q is now a self target that activates on a radius, and it works on a charge system.
When you cast the heal, all available charges are consumed instantly and the heal’s power
scales with the charges, and honestly if you don’t have the full 3 charges the heal is
really weak, and it costs a lot more mana now as well, so his overall sustain is going
down a bit with the trade off that you can heal more than 2 targets on your team with
his heal now.
His W is definitely the most interesting part of his kit, in that when you cast it it provides
your ally with a shield, and creates this like kalista-esque link, and when you are
in range with your linked ally, all spells that you cast, will also cast from that ally
as well, so you get to double to radius of every ability, however his abilities do not
stack if landing twice on a target.
The shield is actually pretty cool, and gives him even more survivability to his allies
to go along with his heal.
As well, In making his stun a skillshot and have a delay, because of that you can now
make his stun area of effect, so in combo with an ally you can hit some really crazy
stuns, either just at long range with an ally who has mobility, or on a bunch of different
targets in a teamfight.
The stun mechanics combed with his W are really powerful, but also quite fair for the opponent
too since the delay is long enough to give them a fair chance to dodge or outplay you.
And his ultimate is a really interesting ability, in the sense that it has the potential to
be completely disgusting, or completely useless depending on how it’s used.
When I first saw the ability preview I didn’t realize it, but It’s like an area of effect
kayle ultimate, in the sense that it makes you and your allies invulnerable, but it doesn’t
restrict you from doing anything.
When I first saw it I thought the stasis was similar to bard’s ultimate, but nope it’s
like kayle’s and since it has the potential to hit all 5 members of your team, since remember
you do get that double radius, this is a seriously powerful ability that can shut out all types
of different characters.
The only saving grace is that it has a 2.5 second activation on delay, so a lot of times
you use it, and then die before it goes off, but when used properly this ability is insane.
Because of the mechanics of his w, Taric has become an incredibly versatile champion now.
Although he might have been quite linear before, he is now incredibly versatile, with all of
his options revolving around who you place that W on.
You can place it on your ad carry to kite and be defensive, or you can place it on an
intitator or an assassin and help out your front line a lot and dive or intitate with
them in a sense.
My main balance concern with the Taric rework is definitely going to be his ultimate, I
mean it is essentially just an area of effect kayle ultimate, with the factor that makes
it okay being that it is on a delay.
The delay definitely does hurt the ability a lot, since you can’t use it reactively,
you have to use it predictively, and it’s very telegraphed to your opponent, but it’s
still a crazy amount of survivability that gives you offensive power as well for like
diving in and initiating.
One thing I like a lot with the taric rework is that the only direct offensive power he
has is just his stun, there’s no more armor shred, or damage auras or anything to give
him surprise offensive power.
All of the rest of his abilities are utility focused, and even his stun is as well.
It’s likely that on the PBE he does maybe a bit too much damage, but his kit is really
awesome and it’s a lot more fun to play than the linear taric before the rework.
His Q costs a lot of mana and is only really good when you have all 3 charges, so his sustain
is definitely worse than before, it’s just better in teamfights.
I do think this taric is pretty strong though, because the utility his kit has now is a lot
more than before, and it’s incredibly useful utility, it’s not like some situational
or only sometimes useful stuff.
However, now with Taric there is so much more room to be outplayed.
His stun is a skillshot, his ultimate has a huge delay, and even his heal pretty much
has like a 30 or 40 second cooldown now since the heal amount at 1 charge especially is
completely insignificant compared to the amount at 3 charges.
So although I think he’s strong, his gameplay is a lot more healthy, and he is likely to
be balanced after some minor tweaks to maybe his damage values or maybe an increase in
mana costs or something.
And one thing’s for sure, he’s a lot more interesting to play!
And that just wraps up my thoughts, what do you think about the new taric rework?
Leave a comment, subscribe if you want, thanks for watching, and Ill see you guys next time.