I am zombehking, known as The Gem Knight on NA, and I fell in love with Taric from the start. I began playing around Season 2, but started playing support primarily around Season 4.

Taric was one of my favorites from the start. I liked being both tanky, and having a heal, as I felt that provided me with the right tools to support effectively. I know his kit was clunky and had some overtuned aspects (point-click stuns shouldn't ever be a thing).

When the Taric rework was announced, I was very excited. When I heard about the abilities, I was very impressed with how different, yet familiar, his QWE felt. It seemed like the logical progression for modernizing his kit, retaining the aspects that were core to their identity, while evolving them and shaping them to better fit where game was going.

And then I read what his ult did, and thought it was a joke. I couldn't believe they would just put an AOE Zhonya's on someone's kit, and it let you keep fighting. I was gobsmacked, in the best way possible.

However, once I actually got over the giddy new-toy feeling, I began to notice things that were off about the gameplay. It felt like, consistently, his healing was less than that of Soraka, Sona, Nami. His tankiness was less than Leona, Nautilus, Alistar. It seemed like his kit was better, but because his ult was so powerful and game-changing, the rest of his kit and stats had to be pulled back. To put it a different way, his power budget was loaded into ultimate, taking power out of everything else in the process.

I feel like if his ultimate was less impactful than it currently has the ability to be, the rest of his kit could be tightened up. I feel that I've made much better plays, with more counterplay opportunities and more interaction between Taric, his allies, and his enemies, by using his QWE. When his ultimate is used, it's either a) the enemies use all of their abilities on the team, and they have literally nothing they can do but wait for the timer to tick off, or b) the enemy just walks away, and Taric's ult might as well not have existed at all. This very binary set of circumstances is either frustrating for the enemy team, or the allied team, and is certainly always boring for all parties involved.

I understand the design concept behind his current ultimate. He is the Protector, and has the ultimate move to protect his allies without hindering them. My issue is that it doesn't translate well to fun, engaging gameplay. Applying shields or boosting defenses massively could allow for more interactive opportunities for the enemy, and make his ultimate less Win/Lose. There are new mechanics introduced that counter shields, countering a boost to MR or Armor is as easy as building for penetration, and not just ignoring damage entirely gives the enemy opportuntities to still fight against Taric's team without being entirely neutered in their attacks. If all 5 of the enemy team dump everything on one champion, that champion should be dead.

It's not a matter of people being frustrated their gameplay was poor or they made bad decisions. The ability to make a real, strategic decision was taken from them. Being left between doing nothing or wasting everything, what real choice do they have? It puts them into a place where they only get a lose/lose situation to choose from.

Now all of this is just my opinion, and I'm afraid that I may hold some biases that prevent me from looking at aspects of his kit as they should. Am I entirely off-base with this?