LoL Patch 12.9: Taliyah Rework Breakdown

The time has finally come, my rock girl appreciators! Taliyah's rework is live on the League of Legends client as of Patch 12.9. Riot have put a lot of time and effort into this rework update for Taliyah, so we're gonna break it down for you!

Basically, Riot went through a lot of experimentation with this rework. They tried shifting her numbers and kit in a few different directions, but they settled upon some amazing changes that are intended to push her towards the mid lane and keep her viable as a jungler. Unfortunately, this means that Support Taliyah is a little weaker but worry not - APC Taliyah is still alive and well! So what did Riot change exactly? Let's hop into it!

Taliyah 12.9 Mid-Scope Update Changes

Riot had a lot of work to do with this rework. Taliyah hasn't been viable as a mid laner for a very long time, but she used to be extremely oppressive. To avoid creating a monster, Riot opted to nerf a lot of her previous strengths. They basically decided to rebuild the champion from the ground up, so let's start with the changes to Taliyah's base stats!

Taliyah Base Stat Adjustments

As we can see here, these are mostly nerfs across the board. One point of interest might be how they decided to bring up her base mana by 45, this change will help out Taliyah in the mid lane a lot. She has had mana problems ever since they took away her AOE damage upon her Q. Speaking of which, they've brought that back along with some big quality of life changes to her passive.

Taliyah Passive Adjustments

So overall, this means you will feel a little slower in the early game. This is mostly impactful for Jungle, as wall-riding can be a huge help for early cheese ganks. It's worth noting for laners that Taliyah won't be able to return to lane quite as fast in the early game. The tradeoff here is that you get a lot more fall-off time on the passive as well as better scaling. These 2 changes might not seem big, but any experienced Taliyah player will immediately notice a huge difference.

Taliyah Q Rework

As previously mentioned, this rework went through a lot of different iterations within the past few weeks. It all started with this tweet from Riot August though, in which he indicated that they were bringing back Taliyah's AOE Q.

Even though Riot seemed indecisive at times with this rework, they decided to keep the AOE Q changes and expand further upon Taliyah's Q buff from Patch 11.18 which allowed for cooldown reduction when casting Threaded Volley (Q) while standing on worked ground. Now, they've taken that idea one step further - introducing the boulder.

Q - Threaded Volley

• Mana Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 to 60/65/70/75/80
  
• Cooldown: 7/6/5/4/3 seconds to 6.5/5.5/4.5/3.5/2.5 seconds
  
• 1-Rock Damage: 70/95/120/145/170 (+45% AP) to 38/61/84/107/130 (+50% AP)
  
• Damage Reduction from Subsequent Stone Shards: 50% to 60%
  
• 5-Rock Damage: 210/285/360/435/510 (+135% AP) to  98.8/158.6/218.4/278.2/338 (+130% AP)
  
• Damage Reduction from Subsequent Stone Shards Against Monsters: 25% to 60%

So, this all might look like a lot... but we're not done yet! Before we move on with the new effects, let's take a recap. Taliyah's Q mana cost will be greater early and lesser later. Her cooldown on Q will be reduced altogether. Her Q damage is taking a huge hit, which falls in line with Riot's intention to reduce her burst-oriented playstyle.

Taliyah Q Rework - New Effects

• Each Stone Shard now deals an additional 30 (+10% AP) damage against monsters
• Stone Shards now deal damage in a 175 radius area of effect (approximately 1.6 Teemos)
  
• Threaded Volley will now continue to cast while Taliyah is in Stasis
  
• Casting Q - Threaded Volley on Worked Ground now consumes the Worked Ground to fire a single Boulder that deals double damage [76/122/168/214/260 (+100% AP)] and slows all targets hit in a 225 AoE radius by 30/35/40/45/50% for 2 seconds
  
• Mana Cost on Worked Ground 1 to 20
  
• Minimum Cooldown on Worked Ground 1 second to 0.75 seconds
  
• Worked Ground Duration 25 seconds ⇒ 30 seconds
  
• Worked Ground Radius 300 ⇒ 400

So there it all is. Clearly, Riot have put a ton of time and effort into this rework. I can't remember the last time I read this many words in League of Legends, maybe it was Aphelios' release? If you want to see what this actually looks like, check out the video below!

• Taliyah Rework is HERE! All Changes in 3 minutes! (Vandiril)

Wait, did you guys think we were actually done with this article? There's still like 50 more changes! We aren't even half-way there yet!

Taliyah W Rework

If you guys didn't know, Taliyah's W is called Seismic Shove. It's a really unique ability, because you have the ability to make a huge rock come out of the ground and knock up your opponent(s) in a direction of your choosing. It's notoriously difficult to hit and use properly, much like her ultimate. Previously, if you were unable to reliably land this ability - you couldn't play the champion. Now, Riot has taken some steps to reduce it's difficulty and improve it's reliability for all players - while removing it's damage component.

W - Seismic Shove

• Mana Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 to 40/30/20/10/0
  
• Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds to 14/12.5/11/9.5/8 seconds
  
• Knock Up Radius: 200 to 225
  
• Time Delay before Knock Up: 0.8 seconds to 0.75 seconds
  
• W - Seismic Shove no longer deals damage

Luckily, Riot didn't write 20 pages for this particular ability. They did make some pretty significant changes though, reducing that time delay before the knock-up ever so slightly. This change along with the large reduction in mana cost & cooldown reduction should make it a less punishing part of her kit to misuse.

Taliyah E Rework

As a Taliyah player, I find this change to be the most exciting part of her rework! In theory, Taliyah was always supposed to be an anti-mobility champion (like Vex). However, Riot really failed to make her kit effective for that purpose. Her E did damage you if you dashed into it, but it was more commonly used to blow champions up with the EW combo. If we're being realistic, most champs nowadays don't care about taking 300 damage to get right up in your face. As such, Riot have made E a much more effective ability to punish those annoying dashers.

E - Unraveled Earth

• Cooldown: 16/14/12/10/8 seconds to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds
  
• Damage on Initial Cast: 50/75/100/125/150 (+40% AP) to 60/105/150/195/240 (+60% AP)
  
• Slow Strength: 20% (+4% AP) to 20/22/24/26/28% (AP ratio removed)
  
• Boulder Detonation Damage: 50/60/70/80/90 (+30% AP) to 25/45/65/85/105 (+30% AP)
  
• Damage Reduction per Subsequent Boulder Hit: 15% to 25%
  
• Maximum Boulder Detonation Damage: 155/186/217/248/279 (+93% AP) to 62.5/112.5/162.5/212.5/262.5 (+75% AP)
  
• Delay Between Casting and Spawning First Row of Boulders: 0.1 seconds to 0 seconds
  
• Delay Between Spawning Rows of Boulders after the First Row: 0.1 seconds to 0.17 seconds
  
• Unraveled Earth now spawns 6 rows of boulders extending outwards from Taliyah with 4 boulders per row (previously spawned 4 rows of boulders with 6 boulders per row)
• Boulders - now stun enemies that dash through them for the duration of the dash + 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9/1 seconds. (Note: the max stun duration is 2 seconds and
  monsters are always stunned for the max duration).
•  Unraveled Earth no longer detonates to deal additional damage after 4 seconds

This is such an exciting change for Taliyah players. It should help her out greatly in many mid lane match-ups that she tends to struggle in. Now that you actually have a way to punish champions for jumping onto you, it should allow for greater limit testing and skill expression!

Taliyah R Rework

For this rework, Riot tried to give Taliyah players some more quality-of-life changes along with a nerf to make sure her midlane win-rate doesn't get out of control. Back when she was a S tier mid laner, a big part of her strength was her ability to roam. Obviously, her ult enables her to roam to other lanes quickly so Riot made sure to nerf the range on that. 

R - Weaver’s Wall

• Range: 3000/4500/6000 to 2500/4500/6500
  
• Dash Range when Jumping off Wall: 400 to 700
  
• Dash Speed when Jumping off Wall: 1000 to 120
• Moving Taliyah while she is riding the Weaver’s Wall now causes Taliyah to dash to the location clicked, up to the maximum dash range instead of dropping her perpendicular to the wall.
  
• Dashing when jumping off of the wall is now more forgiving when trying to dash through terrain
  
• Damage from enemy champions or structures now prevents Taliyah from casting R - Weaver’s Wall for 3 seconds
• Taking damage no longer knocks Taliyah off her wall

The biggest change here is the last one. Now that Taliyah can't get knocked off of her wall by simply taking damage, it'll be a much more reliable tool for escaping and engaging whenever needed. Riot also added an interesting mechanic with the dash, it should make Weaver's Wall a little more skill expressive than it is now. 

Taliyah Rework Rundown

Overall, Taliyah is going to be a much more unique champion that she previously was. Riot have put forth some very interesting changes that should help her to return to the mid lane. It will likely take a bit of experimentation to find out the best runes and builds for this new version of Taliyah, but we'll be sure to cover those at a later date.

• Make sure to check out our other guide content while you wait!

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