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Welcome to my guide on how to play Taliyah in both jungle and mid! 

Taliyah was designed to be a midlaner and has been a dominant pick in competitive play. Her Q received significant changes in 2018, with it no longer doing reduced damage to monsters and minions after the first hit but also losing its area of effect damage. This change, along with compensation buffs given to other parts of her kit, turned her into a powerful jungler. She had to be nerfed a lot to keep her jungling in check. However, she is still a strong champion in the jungle due to her fast clear and decent ganks and a good pick for the midlane due to her pushing power and roaming speed. 

3a. PATHING [JUNGLE]

3b. TRADING IN LANE [MID]

4. GANKS/ROAMING 

Ability descriptions are obtained from here: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Taliyah

Passive: Rock Surfing

Taliyah gains up to 20% − 45% (based on level) bonus movement speed by moving near terrain or structures, which builds up over 1 second and decays over 1 second upon moving out of range.
Entering combat or using an ability puts Rock Surfing on a 2 second cooldown that is continuously refreshed while remaining in combat.

Taliyah's passive is what facilitates her movement from lane to lane and within the jungle. It is important to stay close to terrain while moving out of combat in order to make the most out of it.

For Taliyah mid, when you are going from base to lane, it is best to stay on the side of the wall where your inner turret is located at (right side for blue side, left side for red side). That way, your passive will not be disabled since you will never be too far from terrain. 

Take advantage of your passive while chasing an enemy. By avoiding combat for 2 seconds, your passive will come back. Even if they are decently far away from you, your passive can help you get into the range of your abilities to catch them and finish them off. 

Q: Threaded Volley

TARGET RANGE: 1000
COST: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 MANA
COOLDOWN: 11 / 9 / 7 / 5 / 3

ACTIVE: Taliyah unleashes 5 Stone Shards in quick succession in the target direction over 1.5 seconds, dealing magic damage to the first target hit. Enemy champions hit by a Stone Shard take 50% damage from subsequent shards.

Taliyah can move during this period.
MINIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE:»70 / 95 / 120 / 145 / 170 (+ 45% AP)

Casting Threaded Volley creates an area of Worked Ground 450 units radius wide around Taliyahthat lasts 120 seconds. While on Worked Ground, Taliyah only hurls one Stone Shard upon casting Threaded Volley, reducing its mana cost to 1.

Taliyah's Q provides her with strong DPS in combat. Early on, its long cooldown makes jungle clears a bit rough, but as you put more points into Q, you should be able to have it up almost all the time. You will instantly pop camps thanks to your Q and your other abilities. 

Worked Ground is also not an issue for jungle clears, as she will be rotating across the map and 1 Q is usually enough to clear a camp (2 Q's early on may be necessary for some camps). If you are short of mana and have Runic Echoes's proc up, you can use Q on worked ground to hit a jungle creep and restore a big part of your mana bar while not investing much. Roaming in the jungle will also quickly restore your mana through passive regeneration. 

In lane, you should look for opportunities to harass with your Q. Since the projectile has a generous hitbox and is fairly fast, it is not easy for an enemy to dodge all 5 rocks. You can also use Q while on Worked Ground to land manaless harass or secure some last hits that might be difficult to obtain with only auto attacks, but keep in mind that Q will still go on its full cooldown. 

For waveclear, it is best to use Q on the melee minions. With enough points in Q and sufficient AP, you should be able to clear a melee minion with 2 rocks, so one Q should be able to kill two melee minions and leave the final one at half health.

Be careful with excessive usage of your Q in a lane (especially around your tower), as you might find yourself being sieged by multiple enemies but not have the full Q to clear the wave under your tower.  This also applies when you are sieging an enemy turret, as you do not want to find yourself having no more ground to work with (pun intended) when a teamfight breaks out. To minimize the area of Worked Ground, use  your full Q just on the outside edge of a piece of Worked Ground. 

Taliyah's Q shines when she is chasing or kiting an enemy, as she would be constantly moving and having access to full Q's. 

W: Seismic Shove

TARGET RANGE: 900
COST: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 MANA
COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12

ACTIVE: Taliyah marks the target location and selects a direction. After 1 second, the ground erupts, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit and  knocking them in the chosen direction for 1 second.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 (+ 40% AP)

Taliyah's W may take quite a bit of time to get used to, since it requires vector casting. If you use quick cast, you want to press W with your cursor hovering the spot you want to target, then immediately flick your mouse to the direction you want to knock the enemy towards. If you do not flick your mouse, then your W by default will knock the enemy away from you. The direction can seem to be a bit random if your cursor is extremely close to your model (in cases where you want to peel the enemy off). You don't want to peel the enemy into your escape path, so it's best if you spend some time practicing this ability.

If you use quick cast with indicators, you need to keep in mind that W will not work like other abilities. While you can press the ability (but not let go) and move your mouse to adjust the targeted area/direction, Taliyah's W will lock in the location your cursor was at when you first pressed W. Moving the mouse will only change the direction that W will knock the enemy towards. To cancel your ability and avoid firing it, right click on the ground. 

For normal cast, you will need to press W, left click on the ground that you want to target (but do not let go), move your mouse to the direction you want to knock the enemy towards, and let go your finger from your left mouse button. Right clicking the ground will cancel the ability. If you are not used to vector skillshots even after a lot of practice, feel free to use normal cast for this ability. It will be a lot easier, albeit a tiny bit slower. 

W can be used to peel enemies away or bring them into you. How you use it depends on the situation you are in. It may also be very difficult to land it due to its small hitbox and significant delay, so you need to use it wisely.

W can be combined with you E for a powerful combo (more on that when I talk about her E). 

In lane, punish enemy last hits by using W when they are standing still for a brief moment. They will have to choose between securing the last hit or dodging your W. 

You can also make landing W easier by using blue smite or your E to slow them down (although the W->E combo allows you to initiate from a farther range). 

Use W in the escape or chasing path of enemies, forcing them to either dodge it by walking into a suboptimal location or take the hit. 

You can knock enemies over terrain with your W. You can use this to knock the enemy jungler out of the Baron/Dragon pit when they try to dash over the Baron/Dragon pit's wall. 

E: Unraveled Earth

EFFECT RADIUS: 800
ANGLE: 80°
COST: 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 MANA
COOLDOWN: 16 / 14 / 12 / 10 / 8

ACTIVE: Taliyah scatters 18 boulders over the ground in a cone before her, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit.
MAGIC DAMAGE:»50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+ 40% AP)
The boulders then remain for 4 seconds,  slowing all enemies within the area by 20% (+ 4% per 100 AP). At the end of their duration, all remaining boulders explode, dealing Unraveled Earth's initial damage once more.
Enemies who  dash over or are  knocked through the boulders will detonate them instantly, each dealing magic damage reduced by 0% − 45% (based on boulder hit).
MINIMUM TRIGGER DAMAGE:»50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 (+ 30% AP)

Taliyah's E helps with her waveclear and gives her significant zoning power. The most obvious usage of this ability is to combine it with W for massive burst. As W knocks enemies towards a chosen direction, you can knock them into your E, triggering the boulders and dealing massive burst damage. The ability also works with allies who can pull or knock an enemy into the field, such as Blitzcrank, Thresh, and Alistar. In addition, it also poses a threat to champions who want to dash onto you. 

You can cast W on an enemy, and cast E as W is about to knock them up. The enemy will take the damage from E's initial cast, plus the damage from the exploding boulders.  (Your R can technically knock enemies into your E as well, but you will rarely, if ever, be using R for this purpose.)

Alternatively, you can walk closer to the enemy, cast E on them to slow them down, and knock them with your W. However, this will make your moves very telegraphed. 

In lane, you can move your cursor slightly to the left or right of the enemy when casting E, instead of having your cursor on top of them. Since E is (kind of) shaped like a triangle, casting your ability this way effectively increases its range. 

Your E (and Q as well) will often force the enemy to move in a certain direction, and you can take advantage of that and use W as they are trying to get away from your E field or Q projectiles. 

You can use this ability to block narrow paths, forcing the enemy to make a difficult decision on whether to stay back or dash through the field (taking a lot of damage in the process). 

Taliyah's E is NOT considered as a projectile. Abilities that block projectiles will not stop this ability! 

R: Weaver's Wall

TARGET RANGE: 3000 / 4500 / 6000
COST: 100 MANA

COOLDOWN: 180 / 150 / 120

ACTIVE: Taliyah  channels for 1 second before summoning a massive wall of spiraling rock that tears through the battlefield in the target direction, creating impassable terrain for 5 seconds and knocking aside allied and enemy champions it passes through as it emerges.

Taliyah can reactivate Weaver's Wall while channeling to  ride atop the wall at 1500 speed as it emerges. Taking damage or inputting a movement command in any direction will force her off the wall, which will continue along its path normally.
Reactivating Weaver's Wall destroys the wall instantly.

Taliyah's R is her most iconic ability. Although most often you would use this ability to roam/gank a lane far away and block off the enemy's escape path, it can be used in many other creative ways as well. You can block off enemy minions from a tower for a few seconds to buy time, you can block off enemies from their tower so that your team can take it down, you can deny access to neutral objectives... The possibilities are endless. In combat, you can separate the members on the enemy team, forcing uneven fights. 

However, do keep in mind that your wall will knock aside allies and block them as well, so be careful with your usage of it. You can use this to your advantage at times, knocking an immobile ally over terrain to aid their escape. 

Summoner Spells:
Jungle:

There is not much variety in your choices here. Flash and Smite are essential for every single game. 

Mid:

While Flash continues to be mandatory, your second summoner spell has greater flexibility. 

Ignite is generally a good pick and you should not go wrong with it. Great for securing kills in lane and in roams. It falls off in the late game, but it can help deal with champions such as Dr. Mundo, Volibear, and Tryndamere, especially if you did not itemize Morellonomicon. 

Other good choices include Heal (2v2 skirmishes with your jungler), Exhaust (vs assassins such as Zed and Katarina), Cleanse (vs champions with hard CC that is difficult to dodge or can cause your death)

Runes:
Jungle:

Domination Primary Path:

Electrocute is the best keystone for jungle Taliyah due to its burst damage for ganks, duels, skirmishes, and teamfights. 

Cheap Shot - The only good rune for Taliyah Jungle in Domination's first row. Your W, E, blue smite, and red buff all provide CC for your ganks. If you buy Rylai's Crystal Scepter, your Q will also proc its true damage. Taste of Blood does not help with ganks, and you have no access to Sudden Impact without your ultimate. 

Eyeball Collection - All three runes in the second row are viable, but Eyeball Collection is recommended due to its reliability. Permanent stats that impose no special conditions are very strong. 

Ravenous Hunter - The best rune for Taliyah in this row, due to the insane healing you can get from your Q. Since your Q deals single-target damage, you will heal a lot while farming camps and minions or while fighting enemy champions. Since Q no longer deals reduced damage to minions or monsters after the first hit, you can easily heal back up by farming a wave or some camps with it. 

Sorcery Secondary Path:

Celerity + Waterwalking - A powerful combo for junglers, as it gives more roaming power along with better control over the Scuttle Crab and Dragon/Baron. You will deal more damage to them thanks to this combo, and if you utilize the movespeed given by the secured Scuttle Crab, you will gain even more AP while doing Dragon/Baron.

Domination Primary Path:

Electrocute is still the recommended keystone here.

Although Summon Aery used to be a better keystone for Taliyah due to its strong poke, the damage nerfs along with the massively reduced cooldown to Electrocute made Electrocute a more appealing choice. Arcane Comet is also viable, but you cannot reliably land it unless you walk up close to use your E (since it has a slow). Using W will knock them out of the comet. 

Cheap Shot - It is difficult to trigger Cheap Shot consistently in lane and take advantage of its low cooldown, but it provides some decent damage. Taste of Blood gives you a safer lane and is certainly a viable choice, but it falls off heavily later on. 
Eyeball Collection - Reliable Stats.
Ravenous Hunter - Insane Healing.

Secondary Inspiration Path (Recommended):

Time Warp Tonic - Combine it with Corrupting Potion and The Dark Seal for a great amount of sustain and good movespeed. One of the best combos in the game. This rune is mandatory if you choose to go into Inspiration. 

Minion Dematerializer (Recommended second rune, but not mandatory) - A good rune to use along with Time Warp Tonic. Use these dematerializers on the melee minions to allow yourself to kill each melee minion with only two Q hits. You should be able to kill the caster minions with a W-E combo even without Minion Dematerializer.

Other Choices in Inspiration: 

Biscuit Delivery - Provides a lot of sustain in rough matchups. 

Magical Footwear - Taliyah would like to have boots early on (instead of at 10 minutes) in order to pressure the map, but it is nonetheless 300 free gold, so it is certainly a viable choice.

Perfect Timing - A free 600 gold item at 10 minutes and it makes Zhonya's Hourglass cheaper by 250 gold. The other choices would make her laning much stronger and provide immediate utility, but it is a good choice against champions such as Zed and Fizz. 

Secondary Sorcery Path (Viable but not recommended):

Manaflow Band - Taliyah has mana issues and this rune helps a lot.

Celerity - Worse on Taliyah since her Q changes, as Worked Ground no longer provides her with movespeed. It nonetheless helps her dodge more skillshots and roam slightly faster. 

Other Choices:

Scorch - The nerfs that halved its damage (but also halved its cooldown) made it far less attractive, but if you can consistently land abilities in lane, then it is still a good choice. 

Transcendence - Not recommended as CDR is not essential for Taliyah, but if you seriously want to hit 40% CDR anyway, then take this rune. 

Waterwalking - Good choice if you plan to roam a lot, possibly even before level 6. Best combined with Celerity. 

Sorcery Primary Path:

If you opt to take Summon Aery or Arcane Comet, that means you have to choose between Domination secondary (which gives you access to Ravenous Hunter) or Inspiration Secondary (which gives you access to Time Warp Tonic). Both of these runes are very strong on Taliyah, so giving up any of them is not ideal.

Manaflow Band 
Celerity 
Scorch

Other Choices:

Transcendence for 40% CDR, and Waterwalking for roaming in lieu of laning power. 

Inspiration Secondary Path (If you choose to start Corrupting Potion):

Time Warp Tonic

Minion Dematerializer

Other Choices:

You may take Biscuit Delivery instead of Minion Dematerializer for difficult matchups. Magical Footwear and Perfect Timing are not recommended, but you can still choose to take them if you feel like they are necessary. Regardless, Time Warp Tonic is mandatory if you start Corrupting Potion. 

Domination Secondary Path (If you choose to start Doran's Ring):

Eyeball Collection
Ravenous Hunter

Items
Jungle and Mid Taliyah's itemization share many similar points. Therefore, I will talk about them together.

Starting Items: 

Jungle - Hunter's Talisman and Refillable Potion.

Mid - Corrupting Potion, plus a Dark Seal once you back.

Doran's Ring + 2 Potions are a possible choice if you opt not to take Time Warp Tonic. 

You should always build according to the situation. There is no set build for either jungle or mid Taliyah.

Sorcerer's Shoes are recommended, but Mercury Treads or Ninja Tabi can be useful for harder matchups or if the enemy team is magic damage or physical damage heavy. I recommend finishing Tier 2 boots as soon as possible to facilitate your roams.

You will always need one mana item: Runic Echoes for jungle (Blue Smite is recommended to set up your combos, but Red Smite is good to mitigate burst damage from other powerful champions), Luden's Echo or Archangel's Staff for mid. Luden's Echo is recommended for its waveclear and early damage, but Archangel's Staff is a strong scaling item that provides some defenses with Seraph's Embrace's active.

While Runic Echoes provides less mana, you can easily sustain your mana back while in the jungle, through the bonus mana regen while in the jungle and river and the mana restoration with Runic Echoes's proc on jungle monsters. 

Defensive Items such as an early Seeker's Armguard (upgraded into Zhonya's Hourglass if necessary) and Banshee's Veil are great if the enemy can one shot you or if the enemy team is magic damage or physical damage heavy.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter is great against juggernauts such as Garen, Nasus, Darius, and Mordekaiser. It improves your kiting, allows you to hit more rocks from your Q, and allows Q to set up your W-E combo. 

Morellonomicon is a good item to increase your burst damage. It is a great buy versus champions with a lot of sustain, such as Dr. Mundo and Soraka. 

Void Staff is a great item in general, as it is effective against both squishies and tanks. In most games it is mandatory, and I usually build it as my third or fourth item. A second item Void Staff may be necessary if the enemies are stacking MR early on. 

Rabadon's Deathcap is good later on in the game, as it massively increases your burst potential. I recommend building Deathcap after you have sufficient Magic Penetration in your build, and I advise getting the item after you itemize some sort of defenses (Zhonya's Hourglass/Banshee's Veil). After all, you are very squishy and you may die if you get caught while not having a defensive item. A dead Taliyah deals no damage even if she has a Deathcap. 

Spellbinder may be a good replacement for boots after you cap out on your items. However, games are usually decided long before I reach 6 items.

Liandry's Torment, after its burn damage is buffed, may be a good choice into HP stackers. It is best when used with Rylai's Crystal Scepter.