So, as I often do, I was randomly reading through the champion stats on the wiki... and had an idea. I've done it five games now, all comparable outcomes.
The True Power of Varus is only now becoming realized, as a hybrid champion.
Frightning3 votesThat's an AP Varus build, not hybrid (which would be something like nashor's+rageblade+gunblade). Only buffs W and ult damage, and without any AS, that's not going to amount to much. You won (congrats), but you could get far more out of that champion if you itemize him in an actually mathematically efficient manner.
Cats Are Food1 votesThat's the problem... with Luden's it IS mathematically efficient. (My first few runs I only added a Ludens and Deathcap to an AD build).
Incidentally, with his ratios and scaling, both AD or AP are efficient as far as math, as long as play style lines up. In this, he's like Ezreal - People play AD Ezreal because of his passive - Varus can do more damage with his ult and Blight than he can with his Q, however he loses the benefit of his passive.
So it's either:
Q+Passive or Ult+W
Both are equally lucrative.
Cats Are Food1 votesThe premise is changing from his innate passive, to his scaling passive, as far as a fundamental focus. His W then replaces his Q as his primary harass and damage dealing - though with Luden's his Q still hurts. This then actually utilizes his ultimate for both it's control, AND it's damage.
Stars Shaper1 votesYou should have built 
somewhere though so you can have some better W stacking.
Cats Are Food1 votesGoing to next time - I just hadn't thought about it this run - was the first absolutely solid idea of running him AP based, so wanted to see how high his scaling went.
Stars Shaper1 votesI tried it too long ago trying to go full AP and it really was painfully slow with his AA (it was even before the ulti change so that it stacked his W). I might give it a try too in the next future.
Veraska2 votesAram, doesn't count
Randomonium1 votesAP/hybrid Varus can work in certain situations but typically AD Varus will outperform both. Only time I'd consider a AP/hybrid build is if the enemy team had a ton of engage and in that case I'd probably go for the botrk build.
Cats Are Food1 votesAs a mage player, and a terrible ADC player (have been since 2009, just can't really do ADC play styles)... it works amazingly well so far lol.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesi knew that when i first played varus even without his most recent patches. people used to laugh at me on the forums. maybe it will get some light shone on it this time and people will stop hating on mid varus.
idiot4821 voteswhat year is this, 2017? ap varus is old and one of them niche things, like how people used to do ap xin, or ap naut, or ap sej, ap mumu, ap malp, it works, you can do it, it's possible.
Nick Da Chip1 votesAP varus' can be pretty terrifying. I've been playing him that way for about over a year now. I've found starting RoA into nashors is the most solid and safe way to run him since his damage starts to run low mid game unless you've gotten pretty fed, which isn't difficult because he does so much in the begining.
The nerfs definitely hurt his early game though. I see a lot of discussion about starting rageblade but I find I'm just so squishy if I go that route. It's probably just habit from picking up RoA so long. Anyways keep trying him out, you'll find him to be quite fun AP! Just don't let the toxic people get ya down. I was able to make it to platinum during the last preseason. Unfortunately many won't know how you are doing damage and start tilting the team because of it.
Melvear1 votesTried Hybrid Varus yesterday for the first time, and it was a blast. Part of it was because my team stacked heavily AD (Zed, Kha and another AD top laner) and nobody on the enemy team bothered to look at my build apparently, so I was destroying everyone by midgame. 
into followed by 
seems like a very effective build path, giving you enough damage during laning that you can farm with ease and trade somewhat well (it's no BFS power spike though). With the AP damage on structure it still sieges well and the attack speed is awesome to play with compared to the build I used to run (which was mostly caster Varus).
I couldn't get to full build since we ended the game but I would recommend anyone who likes Varus to give it a try.
