Rough Draft Taya Guide

TAYA

Hello friends! I was originally going to do a full Taya video guide but I don't know that I'll ever get around to it so instead here's my vaguely organized pile of thoughts about her.

Let's look at her buttons:
-[LMB/M1] Razor Boomerang: Your basic attack, there's actually a lot to say about this one. It loses damage every time it hits something (-35% default), so hitting someone twice with it does a total of 20 damage (12+8). It's unshown on the tooltip for the skill, but it has a cooldown of about 0.7s which is about the length of time it takes for a boomerang to return to you. This means two things: You can fit other skills in between M1s, and your dps is pretty garbage compared to others if you're not double tapping targets or hitting more than one person (12 per hit, roughly 1 hit per second, so 12 dps. That's not scaring anyone.) Interestingly, she's the only champ that can hit more than one person at a time with her M1, which makes her uniquely suited to doing AoE damage. Minor notes for nerds: Has an 'out' state and an 'in' state. It flies outwards, flares, then switches to 'in' state and returns. The 'in' state doesn't trigger trances. There's a distance at the edge of your range where an enemy can be hit by the 'out' but not the 'in' because the state change happens a short period after it begins heading back towards you. You can see this on training dummies. Also if you bounce an M1 off the wall it doesn't change when it changes to 'in' state, that still happens after the flare which can make fighting guys with their backs against the wall rather awkward. Boomerangs don't lose damage until they hit something, so hitting someone with the return path still gets you 12 damage - moving to make this happen is valuable.

-[RMB/M2] X-Strike: Your big damage spike move. EXCELLENT for controlling the middle orb as it does a large spike of damage that few others can compete with. You HAVE to get used to hitting people in melee range with this skill by aiming about 45 degrees to the side because you're going to be doing that a lot and wasting time throwing it around a melee idiot sticking to your ass is going to get you killed. Has a minimum range. *Triggers trances on the return path too*. Pretty safe to chuck into reflects and Oldur's absorption shield because they don't tend to fly back towards you effectively. Can hit around corners, and killing people that way is hilarious. A very short cooldown, finding times to use it is important because it either chunks people or forces them to use buttons to avoid it. Throw it at your ally being tunnelled on, at the ranged DPS/healer who's busy with other things, etc. The fundamental combo is Wind Bomb into X-Strike but it's not limited to only being used that way. Hard to use in narrow areas.

-[Q] Wind Strike: Your 'get the hell off me' move. *Interrupts casting of spells, including active trances*. *Doesn't trigger trances*. With the wall slam rite it's respectable damage. Good for getting people the hell off you, and is also very good for splitting up enemy teams.
-[Sp] Haste: Your everything button, this button is so good. Removes slows and roots on use, so against some (like Shifu's with that Javelin root T1 rite) you want to use it to clear that. Also a damage button, it takes your usual M1 and increases the damage by 3 AND the damage reduction after hits is only 25% instead of 35%, making a double hit 15+12=27. There's time for just two M1s during haste. You gain such a large movespeed boost that you're able to avoid most punishment, especially since you can M1 while running during Haste.
-[E] Wind Bomb: Crazy range, can be thrown over walls, and interrupts casting the same way Wind Strike does. Sets up easy X-Strikes. Pretty good for peeling, if you're peeling guys off yourself make sure that you place it slightly away from you so they're pulled away. Great for setting up anything really.
-[R] Tornado: Amazing, you'll be using this button a whole lot. One of the few true saves in the game, and the only one not on a healer. The target can pick where they're dropped off by the Tornado by pointing their cursor where they want to exit. Can jump over walls if you're fairly close.

-[F] Companion Call: A very all-in ult. Your mount rushes to you from target point after a short delay, damaging enemies on the path and granting you a shield. While the shield holds you get up to 5 seconds of Haste basically, but you can only M1. Reduces or eliminates the cooldown of M1, letting you output just stupid amounts of DPS. I say it's an all-in ult because other champs have channeled ults that refund some of your energy if they're interrupted (Iva, Jade, Shifu, etc) while yours doesn't. If you break the line of sight with your mount before it arrives, no ult. If your shield breaks, ult over. If you're CCed for most of your ult, lol too bad. That said it's some tremendous damage if you hit your shit. Try to put your shit on cooldown before ulting since you're locked out of your regular abilities anyway, Wind Bomb especially helps set up effective ults. Oh and you can use your mounted speed boost with Z while ulting. I'm often inexplicably bad at getting a lot done while ulting but YMMV.

-[EX1] Spinning Boomerang: Good shit, but slightly awkward. Notably it has no damage reduction on hitting targets so if you throw it through multiple people it's real good. 40 total damage if you hit both ways, and with a greatly reduced cast time compared to the regular M2. Disappears completely if you trigger a trance with it on the way out. Pretty sure the return triggers trances as well. Can be squeezed in between M1s for extra damage.

-[EX2] Zephyr: Actually fantastic. You dash towards the cursor and then knock back enemies, with a little bonus damage over the regular version. The dash can't cross walls but it does cross over people, which is great for plenty of things like: slow turning channeled ults, punting melees away into empty space after dashing over them, flipping the tables on opponents in sudden death, etc. Can also let you interrupt casts that you'd be too far to interrupt with Q. Does a pretty great job of dividing up enemies to allow you to focus them better, like shoving healers around corners or what have you.

Things Taya Is Good At
-Orb Control: M2 does so much damage all at once that the only really comparable thing is Jade. 34 damage from M2 means you can just go M1 > M2 and it's yours.
-Saving Friends: Wind Bomb is flexible and long range, and can provide healers with cover from sticky tunnel vision melee idiots. Tornado is similarly great because after your enemies successfully strip your ally to zero outs and go for the punish you can whisk your ally to safety.
-Pressure: Lordy she can put out the hurt. It's more like periods of high damage rather than steady DPS or pure burst, but she does it well.
-AoE: The only champ with an M1 that can hit more than one person, she can just ravage clustered enemies.
-Trances: Q and E don't trigger trances and end them if they're active. Returning M1s don't trigger trances.
-Dividing the Enemy: Wind Bomb, and Q/EX2 can split up enemies.

Things Taya Sucks At
-Defense: You really do need to go do things, which requires you to spend your potential defensive cooldowns. This leaves you with fewer defensive options, and great as Haste is it's not the controlled travel and invincibility that many other champs get. Tornado is good but has a long cooldown and costs energy. If you fuck up you can die really easy, and you can't really sit back and wait for the enemies to force you to use your defensive cooldown a the way someone like Jade can.
-Healing: You have none baseline. You can talent into some and that's kinda okay but you're not self-sufficient the way that some champs are where they can heal themselves for 100+ if allowed to.
-CC: Wind Bomb has a 1.5s fading snare and that's about it. M2 and EX1 have stuns on them but they're short. You don't have any nasty CC or long duration things like petrify, incapacitate, or blind.

What Do I Do Though?
Control the orb. Throw the bread and butter E > M2 combo. Throw M2 at people that are occupied with other things. Haste to apply pressure but be aware of your outs. Use Wind Bomb to chase people down or protect friends, using your own best judgement. Tornado yourself or allies out of nasty situations. Use energy to ult if you think you can get a good one, otherwise hold a bar to Tornado and spam EXs.

Haste Combos
Haste lasts long enough that you can M1 twice with some extra time in the middle. There's barely enough time to fit in an M2. You can also fit in Q, E, EX1 or EX2 easily. EX2 and your ult actually have such short casting times that you can fit them in alongside anything but an M2 really. Because of the nature of healable and permanent damage, going for dense chunks of damage in the duration of one Haste is valuable. Experiment yourself to find what you think are effective combinations.
 eg. M1 > EX1> M1 = (15+12) + (16+24) + (15+12) = 94

Matchups
As verbose as I've been I don't want to write a ton here.
-Ashka: Holy shit this matchup sucks 1v1. If you're ignited stay away until you're not ignited. You basically win this by very explicitly not fighting him alone, you beat his team and your team beats him.
-Pearl: This matchup also sucks, she can kite you forever. EX2 through bubbles as necessary. Don't trigger the trance, especially if she takes the bubble on trance rite. Don't attempt to walk through bubbles, it takes a million years and Haste doesn't help much.
-Freya/Croak/Shifu: If you whiff a defensive cooldown like Q or E while they're invulnerable expect to eat shit. Don't whiff.
-Others: Whatever. Don't trigger trances, kite, switch focus when they shield if possible.

BATTLERITES
TIER 1
-Cold Wind: SO GOOD. The most stable and reliable pick by far. Makes your Haste pressure strong as hell, helps you kite nerds, and vastly powers up you ult. That's right, while ulting all your attacks also slow with this rite. Pick if you need to kite melee idiots like Croak and Shifu, or protect an ally from the same.
-Cyclone: I love this one, but it's tricky to take full advantage of. If everything goes according to plan it nearly double the damage of Q and EX2, making your burst quite nasty. Knocking enemies into walls isn't always easy, so it can be unreliable. Pick if you just need damage and Cold Wind isn't amazing (eg. against Pearl or Lucie).
-Tail Wind: Maybe it has potential with more coordinated teams or in 3s? I've got zero experience with either. In my experience you're not often on top of your allies and when you want to Haste doesn't line up well with when they want movespeed. Could be strong with a buddy like if a Croak stealths and you Haste and go in together. Immobile champs will love you for it if you can manage to hit them with it (eg. Rook, Lucie).

TIER 2
-Bandit: Fine. Look at a round and see how many times you hit with your Q/EX2 and count that as 10 health a pop. It's something, and it's kind of like having +10-30 max hp in my experience. Helps more if your team has no healer. Taking this along with other healing rites can add up significantly.
-Cross Cut: My default pick. Better orb control, better punishes. If you like damage this is more damage. Take this or Vortex according to your preference, Bandit is more niche.
-Vortex: Good but not as crazy good as it may seem. An enemy just walking away from a Wind Bomb makes it something like half or 2/3 of the way to the edge by the time the slow wears off. With this they're at the centre instead. More valuable by far against champs that are going to dispel the slow.

TIER 3
-Breeze: I love this one. Haste is very strong, so more Haste is more better. Being able to use Haste > Tornado and have Haste afterwards is a long time where you're either so fast it's hard to fuck with you or straight up invulnerable. It's also nearly enough time for Haste to come back off cooldown. Makes it a truly great escape tool for allies as well. My default pick.
-Bird of Prey: A good amount of healing over a match as it counts X-Strikes on the centre orb. Look at your damage done with X-Strike in matches and think about how many you're hitting in a round. As I said before, this plus the other healing rites add up if you want to add to your survivability.
-Gathering Storm: Your basic combo is E > M2 and E's cooldown is longer than M2 so unless you're throwing a good number of M2s without a Wind Bomb setup it's not strong. Can be used to spam out more EX1s in a short period of time though. Niche in my opinion.

TIER 4
Pick whatever. I like the extra energy generation but it's all fine.

TIER 5
-Tracking: Lets you squeeze some extra duration out which is some extra M1s thrown. Good if you're likely to run through the duration of the ult without losing it to CC or damage.
-Pursuit: Lots of potential healing. The more reliable pick because it pretty easily represents quite a lot of healing, even if your ult isn't crazy successful. My default pick.

Rite Builds
-Let's Kill Nerds
Cyclone
Cross Cut
Breeze/Birds of Prey
whatever
whatever

-Playing it Safe
Cold Wind
Vortex
Breeze
Inspiration/On the Move
whatever

-Self Sufficient
Cold Wind
Bandit
Birds of Prey
Inspiration/On the Move
Pursuit