Introduction Top
Hello, my name is Andy, and i'm here to introduce you to one of my favorite off-the meta support champion, Taka. My highest rank was Gold tier Got Swagger and yes I'm absolutely awful at this game, its still fun though. This is my first time writing a guide. I am a support main, which loves to try supports outside of the meta picks, such as Kestrel, Skye, Taka and Ringo. Fair warning, do not try this in Ranked until you get familiar with the support kit.
Also to note, I do not like building damage as a roamer. So please understand that I don't use items like stormcrown.
Taka Support? Top
Most of the off meta picks, in my opinion, rely heavily on
. It provides peel and is a great tool for chasing. In the case for taka, you can peel for your carry by slowing their damage dealer and when you think your carries are safe, you can Kaku out of battle. On the other hand, you can kaku in and slow enemies with shiversteel in order for your laner to secure a kill. If used correctly, you can stick to your enemy carry and slow them for 6 seconds, which should be a guaranteed kill for your team, if they were to be alone. This can also be a great way to have their carry focus you in a team fight, while your team takes care of the other 2 enemy members.
Abilities Top
Passive: House Kamuha
"Every 5 seconds, Taka's next basic attack is replaced with a Mortal Strike. Mortal Strikes deal 40 (+25% weapon ratio) bonus damage and grant Taka a burst of move speed. Whenever Taka Mortal Strikes or uses an ability, he gains a stack of Ki, which speeds up his Mortal Strike timer by 0.9 secs and grants 25% cooldown speed. (5 Ki stacks max.)"
Taka's basic attack is replaced with mortal strike, which gives him bonus damage and a burst of speed. The burst of speed is what you want in teamfights, in scenarios like where you need to dodge Celeste's Stun, or when escaping enemies. The burst of attack speed is given when attacking anything, even creeps, Kraken, or Jungle minions.
Kaiten
"Taka flips over his target, cutting it with his switchblade. Taka is invulnerable to damage & debuffs while in mid-air."
A useful skill to dodge CC with, and an okay Gap closer. In my opinion, it would be better to try and close the gap with Taka's Ult instead of Kaiten.
Kaku
"Taka throws a smoke bomb at his feet, vanishing from enemy sight and gaining move speed. This illusion ends early if he strikes a target or he takes direct damage. Turrets and Flare Guns can still see Taka. This ability heals Taka while he is invisible."
Your ability to peel safely and escape relies on this skill. Become invisible to enemy champions and gain movement speed, and if that wasn't bad, Taka is healed for the duration of the stealth. Keep in mind, your enemies can get a flare to reveal you, but it only reveals you. The movement speed doesn't stop. Even if your enemies use a flare against you, you might just be able to run away, unless you didn't buy boots.
X-Retsu
"Taka bursts through his target, carving an X with his switchblades for lethal damage. The target suffers a mortal wound, reducing its healing by 50% and taking damage per second over the next 3 seconds. The wound's duration is refreshed whenever Taka mortal strikes this target. Grants bonus Ki stacks u[on use based on number of ability points in X-Retsu."
The ultimate gap closer, but thats not what it only does, it reduces the healing by 50%, so items like
become less effective. It gets better, as long as you keep mortal striking your target, the reduced healing can be applied for as long as you can stick to the carry. So if your faced with a team with double fountain buy (Koshka-Roam combo), enemy carries won't be as healthy as their tanks, potentially giving your team the time to burst them down.
Ironguard start/ Oakheart Start Top
First and foremost, I would like to start off and say that I do not like the contracts at all, by purchasing the contract, you need to make use of it to the fullest. The Contracts offer no stat boost, and does not lead into a T3 item, so if you have not used the passives to its fullest(e.g. getting kills with DB contract, saving team with Protector Contract) then you have spent 300 on nothing and delayed your core item build by a bit.
IronGuard Contract
Don't tank all the minions for your jungler like before, as you end up almost dead, or dead by your last camp, which makes you an easy target for attack. Tank only 2 minion camps and make you jungler tank the other two, since the healing heals both of you.
I do not recommend buying this contract at all, as the Treant heals your jungler for significantly more than what the contract can do. It is somewhat useful in lane, but it basically shows the enemy laner that your in the brush, which is the one thing you don't want them to know.
Protector Contract
The protector contract can be useful in many ways, shield your jungler so the enemy wont get the first kill, team fighting in early games, and even invading as well if you do have a melee jungler. You can even use this contract as a way to let your jungler tank jungle minions safely. However I do not recommend picking this up. Since the contracts do not lead into any T2 - T3 items, you have to somehow make up that 300 you used on the contract. Also even if your jungler does make it out safely against an invade, you are forced to forfeit a part of your jungle to the other team, which puts your jungler behind the enemy jungler.
ALSO KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN USING THIS CONTRACT The shield has to attach itself to your jungler, there are times where you can shield way too late, so please be caeful when using it in 3 v 3 teamfight.
Dragon Blood Contract
Great for invading early game, but only against immobile carries IMO. Don't buy darkblood if you have something along the lines of Rona lane and Glaive jungle on the enemy team (I've seen it before). This contract is also good for team-fights as well. Unleashing the contract in a group of three, in my belief, marks all of them with the mark, allowing more damage to be dealt by your team.
Oakheart start
The reason why i build oakheart first is that this item branches off to so many items, I have a big list of options of my first item, however I like to prioritize shiversteel as the reasons I stated above. Starting with oakheart lets me get shiv faster.
Journey Boots
Journey boots allow you to chase your opponents fairly easily, having the fastest passive speed boost, and the passive 12 sec cooldown allows you to continually chase, until you get perma cc'ed.
Halcyon Chargers
Or else known as the stripper boots, Halcyon Chargers help you sustain your mana, so that you can cast abilities without being out of mana all the time.
War Treads
War Horn in a boot? It's a fricking steal. It does have the slowest passive boots speed, but the active sprint can help chase or escape.
Rest of the items Top
Fountain of renewal
Straight forward, heals allies, the beams need to be traveled to them in order to heal, can't heal allies if your out of range.
Crucible
Honestly I did not need to rely on this item as much as I needed to back couple versions back, but still useful regardless. Build into enemies that deal massive one hit damage(like ringo, Alpha, etc), build against characters who can CC, with the exception of Petal who can slow with frostburn.
Contraption
Gives vision and flares. Not only that, it now has defensive stats, and cool down reduction with recharge so it is more useful for tanky roamers that want the CDA without sacrificing their tankyness.
Atlas Pauldron
Significantly decreases the DPS of champions that rely on attack speed, like Saw and Krul, While having armor.
Clockwork
Gives more useful CDA, Max energy and recharge. Very helpful for spamming abilities without running low on mana, but wouldn't recommend stacking with contraption, (I think you cap max CDA if you do). After the 1.20 clockwork rework, it gets slightly better for you, as your skills would do a bit more damage, however not by much in my opinion. I still value clockwork as nothing more than an item that you get if you think you need your skills up even more faster, which I honestly
Early Game Top
Help your jungler clear out the minions for the first rotation, if it is a champion like skye who can clear the jungle alone, leave your jungler be, or else help clear the 2nd and 3rd rotation, if needed. Then, either go to lane and camp your enemy laner, or start putting up mines on the enemy jungle side. Remember to always have wards up on your side of the jungle, so that your jungler can farm safely. Having said this, I would not recommend going to lane until you get your shiversteel finished, unless you wish to snag a few kills of your own. Keep in mind, early game taka can still do a bit of damage regardless of whether you build damage or not.
Mid-Game Top
Mid-Game varies on how you want to play. I like to have my laner push in his lane and invade enemy jungle as a team, however you can also wait in the enemies tri brush and pick off anyone who comes nearby.
For anyone who doesn't know what a tri brush is, its a brush that leads into three paths. The one I like to camp is where catherine is hiding right now.
While you could teamfight, I wouldn't suggest it, as you aren't too tanky just yet, since by mid game, the items you have is most likely a shiv and a fountain or contraption, at best all three of them. However if you do see a good situation like where their carry is very low, do as you will.
Late Game Top
You should have 3 + items by now, at this stage of the game, you are deceptively tanky, especially with your ability to mitigate all damage briefly with Kaiten, you can jump in and back out whenever you please as long as you don't get perma cc'ed in the process. Make sure to flare potential flank positions to see if enemies are camping it for safety, and clear the mines they placed, so that you can get a proper sneak attack on them. What I like to do, is to buy a lot of flares and spam them in the enemy jungle to see where the mines are at and clear them once i wasted all of my flares. You can do it with the contraption too, however I like to use contraption to put my own mines down, and besides the charging time is too slow for it to be worth spamming.
After clearing the mines, try to find out where the enemies are and bomb rush their carry as a group, this strategy is especially great if your ahead. However if you are not, you might want to wait for a moment when their team is split and capitalize on that mistake. Kraken sniping is also a viable strategy, however if you are behind, you might want to just team fight when they are taking the kraken, instead of sniping it. If they allow it, hurry to the jungle shop and buy a minion candy before going in and try to keep the fight near where they are taking it, so that their tank takes free damage. My favorite strategy is to have the enemy team chase you while your team takes turrets. Even if you die, the turret gold will most likely offset your death and make it an advantage.
Conclusion Top
With his ability to stick to enemy carries like a gum, Taka support, if played right, is a nightmare to deal with, however can be pretty difficult to play perfectly and is easily outclassed by other supports. Why would you play him? To get back on that one guy who insta locks in solo queue(i'm just kidding). Play him at your own discretion nd thank you for taking the time to read through my first ever guide. I'll come back to this guide to do some more editing or explain more in depth if needed. If items change in value or is reworked significantly, I will update this guide once again.
On that note, let me know if you want other supports that will ruin your teams lives, or a guide of an actual support instead of off meta ones. I fiddled around with Vox, Skye, kestrel, ringo. Currently trying out to see if I can have Koshka on support.
Quick Comment (1) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.