Taliyah has officially been released. If you’re anything like me, you found this page by desperately searching “what does Taliyah do” while your ranked game loaded up. This article will tell you everything you need to know about Tailyah, and why you should consider playing the newest champion to hit the Rift.
What Lane Does Taliyah Play?
Taliyah is a mid laner throughout the champion spotlight video. She is a traditional mage who uses her abilities to reshape the earth with her mind. Taliyah can best use her excellent mobility in the mid lane, as it grants the most roaming potential.
Although Taliyah has tremendous roaming potential, she doesn’t have a dash or escape built into her kit. This may make her an easy target to gank if played in the top lane, but that shouldn’t rule out the possibility completely. It will likely come down to itemization.
She does have two crowd control spells, but it may not be enough to thrive in the support role. At first glance it seems she would struggle against engage supports who can close the gap.
Surely she will be attempted in the jungle role, but on paper it doesn’t seem like the clear speed is there. Jungle mains will try it regardless.
What Are Taliyah’s Abilities?
If you’re not actually in a loading screen for the final game of your promotion series, check out the champion spotlight above.
Passive – Rock Surfing: Taliyah gains extra move speed when moving along walls. This bonus drops when taking damage, or when she casts a spell.
Taliyah’s passive makes her roams a real threat during laning phase, makes getting back to lane a little easier, and potentially makes escaping the enemy team easier if you can avoid taking damage.
Threaded Volley (Q): Taliyah tears off rocks from the ground around her and fires them in a target direction.
Casting threaded volley turns the area around Taliyah into Worked Ground for a few minutes. Further threaded volley casts on worked ground refund half the spells mana cost, but only allow you to fire one single rock.
Worked ground gives her a small speed boost when she travels over it.
Seismic Shove (W): Delivers a knockup on first cast after a brief delay. Can be re-cast to toss victims in a targeted direction, kind of like Ziggs’ Satchel Charge.
Unraveled Earth (E): Scatters boulders out of the ground below her, damaging and slowing enemies they strike. After a few seconds the field erupts to deal a second wave of damage.
Enemies who dash through the field, or are thrown ontop of it (Alistar Headbutt, Azir wall, Vayne Condemn, etc) blow up any rocks they touch. Similar to Ziggs’ Hexplosive Minefield, but the rocks only blow up if the enemy champion is pushed onto them.
Weaver’s Wall (R): In Phreak’s words, “A gigantic wall of impassible terrain from halfway across the map”. The wall knocks aside enemies and blocks their movement. Taliyah can reactivate this spell to ride the wall until she takes damage, or issues a move command.
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She can also collapse the wall earlier than usual by hitting ‘R’ once again, like Jarvan IV’s Cataclysm. Enemies can see and hear the wall as it emerges, even through fog of war.
How Do You Play Taliyah?
Optimal play involves dancing around worked, and unworked earth to balance damage and mobility in lane.
Taliyah’s full combo for maximum damage is Unraveled Earth (E) -> Seismic Shove (W), to knock the enemy champion into your already casted Unraveled Earth, and then a full firing of Threaded Volley (Q) on unworked earth.
What Champions Synergize Well With Taliyah?
Champions that can take advantage of the ways that she can manipulate Summoner’s Rift make good teammates. Poppy can use Heroic Charge (E) to stun the primary enemy carry against Weaver’s Wall. Vayne and Bard can also stun enemy champions by making use of Weaver’s Wall.
