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My Thoughts on Varus (Patch 7.1)

Tribbles Foxfolk·1/14/2017, 4:06:25 AM·3 votes·2,580 views

So. Let's open this with a question: How many of you actually remember that Varus is even a Champion in the game? If it wasn't for the fact he got a Heartseeker skin semi-recently, would you even remember he existed? Honestly, I wouldn't judge you at all if you answered no.

Varus is one of my favorite ADCs currently, alongside Vayne, Quinn, and Sivir. His kit is an interesting and unique mix of an AD Caster and an on-hit ADC, with some nice tank-shred on his W. But his mixed kit is also his biggest weakness, as he really lacks any unique identity. He just feels like the bastard offspring of multiple other Marksman-class Champions who have some part of his kit and do it better than he does. But, I want to do this in a descriptive break-down form like my previous "My Thoughts on..." thread (titled "My Feedback on Vayne), which threw Vayne into the spotlight when her Q was at its prime (70% AD ratio was just stupid). So, let's take this ability-by-ability and see if there's anything that can be salvaged.

Passive: Living Vengeance When Varus kills an enemy unit, he gains extra attack speed for 5 seconds. This bonus differs on whether the unit was a Champion or non-Champion. Minion or Monster Last-Hit: 20% (+25% bonus attack speed) bonus attack speed. Champion Kill or Assist: 40% (+50% bonus attack speed) bonus attack speed.

I don't think this passive is bad in its current form, but I also feel like it's just not good enough in the early game. At the same time, I also feel like this is a huge drain on his power budget and should probably be the initial target for any reworked abilities.

My suggestion: Rework it to make it more useful early on. I think it should just grant permanent extra attack speed that scales throughout the game. No triggers or anything, just bonus attack speed. Fairly simple and, theoretically, not too hard to balance.

Q: Piercing Arrow Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 Mana Range: Up to 925 Units Travel Speed: 1850 Units Cooldown: 16/14/12/10/8 seconds Minimum Damage: 10/46.7/83.3/120/156.7 (+100% AD) Physical Damage Maximum Damage: 15/70/125/180/235 (+160% AD) Physical Damage First Cast: Varus begins channeling for up to 4 seconds. Piercing Arrow's damage and range increases as he channels, maxing out after 2 seconds. While channeling, Varus cannot use his other abilities or use basic attacks, but he can still move, albeit slowed by 20%. If Varus reaches the end of the channel without casting Piercing Arrow, the spell is automatically cancelled, refunding half of its mana cost.

Second Cast: Varus fires the arrow in a direction, dealing Physical Damage to any enemy unit hit in its path. The Arrow's damage is reduced by 15% per enemy hit, down to a minimum of 33% damage.

This is one of Varus' best abilities, hands down. It has a fantastic scaling (up to 160% TOTAL AD!), a long range, and travels fast. Unfortunately, it's just not up to snuff these days. Its damage falls off too fast, it takes too long to charge up, has a really long cooldown, AND costs a lot of mana early on.

My suggestion: Take its minimum damage (round it off a bit so the scaling makes more sense) and make that the ability's damage, make it a faster cast (between 0.25s-1s, preferably), cost less mana (starting cost 50?), and make it pierce through 2 or 3 enemies instead of a whole row. This seems like an Ezreal Q, which it KINDA is, but it allows Varus to keep some amount of waveclear in his kit.

Alternatively, a strong AP scaling (thinking 60% at min. and 120% at max.) would be very nice.

W: Blighted Quiver Stack Duration: 6 seconds (All ranks) (Does not decay, all stacks fall off after 6 seconds) Cooldown: None (Passive Ability) Passive: Varus' basic attacks deal bonus Magic Damage equal to 10/14/18/22/26 (+25% AP) and inflicts Blight onto the target for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

Varus' abilities consume Blight, dealing 2/2.75/3.5/4.25/5% (+2% per 100 AP) of the target's maximum HP per stack of Blight. This damage is capped to 360 magic damage against monsters.

This is a nice ability that works well with his kit. A bit of extra magic damage in the early game helps with last-hitting, and the max %HP damage pops tanks like zits. However, this is also a poorly-scaling ability that only benefits from AP, forcing Varus to either build hybrid AD/AP, build AD and forgo tank-shredding damage, or build AP and lose his ratios on his Q and E. In addition, this ability does MAGIC DAMAGE, which pales horribly in comparison to Vayne's Silver Bolts, which does close to the same damage as TRUE DAMAGE, bypassing all resistances.

My suggestion: Add a small AD ratio onto this ability so it can scale better. This will also make hybrid Varus more viable. Or, if necessary, just completely revamp it. (Though I don't have any ideas for a total revamp)

E: Hail of Arrows Cost: 80 Mana (All ranks) Range: 925 Units Cooldown: 18/16/14/12/10 seconds Varus fires a hail of arrows towards a targeted area, dealing 65/100/135/170/205 (+60% bonus AD) Physical Damage on impact. This area lingers for 4 seconds, inflicting a 25%/30%/35%/40%/45% slow (lingers for 0.25s after leaving the AoE) and Grievous Wounds to any enemies inside.

So, this ability is good for 2 things and 2 things only: 1) Triggering Blight stacks, and 2) Executing low-HP enemies. Otherwise, it's pretty bad. It costs too much early, has way too high of a cooldown, and doesn't do enough damage to justify more than a value point.

My suggestion: The AD ratio should be total, not bonus. The mana cost needs to be reduced, at bare minimum scaling up to 80 at max rank. The cooldown needs to be reduced by at least 2 seconds per rank (16/14/12/10/8). Finally, an AP ratio would be very nice. I like the ability too much to want it reworked entirely, just some numbers buffs as a starting grounds.

R: Chain of Corruption Cost: 100 Mana (All ranks) Range: 1075 Units Travel Speed: 1850 Units Cooldown: 110/90/70 seconds Varus fires out a tendril of corruption, stopping on the first enemy champion hit. The champion hit takes 100/175/250 (+100% AP) Magic Damage, is rooted for 2 seconds, and has 3 stacks of Blight applied over the duration.

The tendril will seek out other champions to corrupt. After the first affected champion's Tendril wears off, all enemy champions within 600 Units suffer the exact same effects as the first. Their tendrils will also seek out new champions to infect, but each enemy champion cannot be infected more than once.

If a target dies or frees itself while under the effects of Chain of Corruption, the tendril will still attempt to seek out new targets.

This is a very powerful ability. It gives Varus some strong self-peel and can be an absolute NIGHTMARE in a teamfight, dealing solid magic damage and spreading to-be-popped Blight stacks around like REDACTED. However, this ability struggles due to the key fact that IT DOES NOT SCALE WITH AD. THIS IS A CONSTANT ISSUE WITH VARUS. Varus' entire kit has been a perfect breeding grounds for a Hybrid AD/AP Marksman, something we haven't seen yet outside of cheese builds.

My suggestion: AD RATIO. That's it. It needs an AD ratio.

Overall Thoughts: (AKA: Tl;dr)

Varus is a champion plagued by a lack of proper ratios and most of his kit seemingly ripped from other champions. His Q is basically Piltover Peacemaker except kinda worse, His W is Silver Bolts except worse, and his E is Make It Rain except somewhat better. But his passive and R are unique, at least.

This ripping-off of other, better, champions just makes Varus a bastard child of 3-4 champions. 4 if we want to count Varus' ult as a rip-off of Kennen's, 3 if we don't. He's like an impersonator of better champions; trying to do what those champions do except he can't do them as well.

His identity could be something unique; an AD/AP/On-Hit hybrid Marksman. That could be awesome! Instead, his identity is neutered by a lack of proper hybrid ratios, leaving him as a champion that seems to have been made from Riot's leftovers.

I still love him and I plan on buying every single one of his skins, because they're very cool. However, I want him to be an awesome champion too, not a gimmick or a bastard child.

Thanks for reading my long rambling. GLHF

6 Comments

Furor Nexis1/16/2017, 10:08:12 PM3 votes

Varus is probably one of the most flexible champions when it comes to build paths. In that sense he is also one of the most perfectly 'balanced' champions that exists in the game. Each path has a core strength and weakness to them. His one drawback is that he is a dreadfully 'feast or famine' champion, in the sense that once he starts snowballing there's not really much you can do to stop him. Also vice versa, as it's very hard to catch up when you're behind with him. However I disagree that he's in a weak state. His passive buff was exactly what Varus needed for a long time.

Let's take a look at his build paths.

AD Caster: Core strengths: Huge poke damage, fast cooldowns, insane mana stock. Core weaknesses: Barely any DPS to take advantage of the blight stack passive, immobile as hell, poor late-game scaling. Lethality changes also nerfed this build hard, however the incoming buffs to lethality may change this. Perfect for: Squishy comps / siege comps. Go to town on them and chunk them for half their HP with Piercing Arrow, or wait and poke them outside of their base.

Comments: Varus' AD Caster build became highly popular around the time Azir was dominating midlane, simply for Varus' ability to safely CS as well as outdamage Azir through sheer poke. i.e, he dominated Azir in what Azir was good for at the time for mid-lane dominance. While champions come and go, no other champion like Varus can deal massive damage when he has a fully finished full AD item. His constant CDR allows him to spam arrows one after the other with a manamune to back him up for his constant artillery barrage for his high cost spells.

ADC (Crit) Core strengths: DPS, fast cooldown, multi-blight placement. High attack speed (2.0 on average per champion kill) from just one AS item and Berserker's Greaves. Core weaknesses: Immobility, poor kiting potential due to the AS passive, being in auto-attack range, relies on the passive to be active for trades / teamfights. Perfect for: Standard teams. Two or more tanks gives massive kill potential thanks to the Blight passive.

Comments: Currently one of his more popular builds as of 7.1. The change in Varus' passive added multiplicative benefits on top of his passive attack speed per minion / champion kill. With just Berserker's Greaves and either Runaan's, Shiv or Phantom Dancer, Varus can easily break the 2.0 attack speed barrier very early into the game. With Essence Reaver and Infinity Edge, the triple crit means Varus get's all of the benefits from Warlords and turns him into a fantastic sustain duelist. He's able to trade better because of the 5 second attack speed passive buff, which is more than enough time to land 3 auto attacks to pop the blight on Varus' opponents. Multiple ways to land his blight stacks is also very beneficial. However because of the constantly fluctuating AS, orb walking is not the greatest due to his animation wind-ups. However given his higher than average range, this shouldn't be too much of a problem to deal with.

Hybrid Bruiser (On Hit) Core strengths: One-item powerspike, insane DPS, tower melting capabilities due to mix of AD and AP, beefiness, tank shredder. Core weaknesses: Relies on auto attacking the enemy to death. Perfect for: Full-AD comps. Your mixed damage will help shred through what your AD team mates can't.

Comments: As I stated earlier, Guinsoo's Rageblade gives Varus a very gold efficient one-item powerspike. Coupled with Nashor's, Void staff and either sorcerer's shoes or berserker's greaves, Varus can easily fill in the AP-less team you have in your composition. Because of his insane AP scaling, Varus can easily shut down both carries and tanks with little effort. However as this is an on-hit build, it requires you being in auto attack range to get the best benefits. The added benefits of this build is that if their enemy laner is a fed AP, you can easily swap out the Void staff for a Wit's End. This build also has the added bonus of being a bit more beefy, as it allows options for Randuin's for those cheeky critters, or a Spirit Visage if you favor the health over the armour.

Full Hybrid: Core strengths: Machine Gun Varus, what else could you ask for? Shreds everything from the squishiest carry to the sturdiest tanks. Core weaknesses: Anyone who uses a Frozen Mallet can shit on your day. You also need to be in AA range for this to be effective. Orb walking is also virtually impossible due to the fluctuating attack speed ratios. Perfect for: Whenever someone doesn't build anti-attack speed items. Fits into any composition.

Comments: This build is steadily gaining popularity in Korea as of this post. It gives everything a Varus player could need in terms of DPS. Guinsoo's Runaan's and Blade of The Ruined King are the bread and butter of this build. You can also swap in different boots to match your needs. A gunblade or Infinity Edge will usually be your 4th item to boost your raw AD as well as being situational for what you need. More burst? Gunblade. Taking advantage of your crits? Infinity edge. In this build a Black Cleaver is more situational than a standard Last Whisper item as the mix of Runaan's and Guinsoo's active effects allows you to shred everything in sight.

Full AP: Core strengths: Auto 3 times and your enemy will disappear off the face of the planet. Bigger burst than a fed Veigar and absolutely devastating late game. Core weaknesses: Weak as fuck early, requires a hard frontline tank. Relying on your ultimate and auto attacks to deal insane burst damage. Perfect for: Hard engage comps.

Comments: Probably one of the most 'overpowered' builds on this list, it takes a while to ramp this baby up. When you have the items you need, you'll be practically unstoppable as long as you're given the ability to have things set up for you. A 500 minimum AP total single-handedly allows you to take nearly half your opponents HP off with 3 stacks of blight. See that tank over there? Yeah, that one with the 4300 HP? 3 autos, one ult, and you'll take at least 2/3rds of their total max HP off them. It's absolutely devastating, however it's a late game build and for that reason will be generally under-powered until you get your 4th item. It's also highly cost inefficient early, but pays off later into the game when you simply auto someone then nuke them as if they never existed. If you want to do well with this build, I'd recommend a kill-lane combo if bot. In mid it's different as a Rod of Ages rush pays for itself, giving you steadily more AP, Mana and HP over time.

Five different builds. If Varus was weak, I highly doubt his build paths would be so flexible. In the end, it's down to the user and their skill with him. While I'm no god with Varus, I can easily attest to the strengths and weaknesses of these builds, having tried them out multiple times. He's fine as he is right now. Not overpowered, not underpowered, but somewhere in the middle, as a balanced champion should be.

Any serious change to his abilities could severely put him on a pedestal where he will be the only marskman to pick from, or never played at all because of how underpowered he'd become. it's why Riot changed only his passive. it was the only thing they could do to his kit without drowning out his power, or making him broken as hell. Right now Varus is probably one of the only champions who is in that perfect 'zen' zone in regards to champion balance.

khorney1/14/2017, 4:37:10 AM2 votes

trust me varus is the only adc i like to use, he is weak well got nerfed when they changed fervor from on hit to the way it is now, he became weaker when they changed armor pent to lethlaity so with that bye bye caster varus. Then they "buffed" him if you call it that by adding attack speed who the hell cares its a useless thing that makes it seem like its good, why becuase youll run like 3 to 4 attack speed items anyway. Beserker greaves, runaans, and blade and rapid fire 80% of the time. So with that who cares about the buff to his useless passive. The best way to build him is runaans rage blade rapid fire ie or essence reve. the point is on hit is the only real way to build him becuase you gain burst and dps not just one or the other. But people will say varus is fine this and that listen i have hundreds of games on him and no he isnt fine, or they will be like his q poke is good umm no cait ez ashe all have better poke then he does well his ult they nerfed him on the marksmen update by nerfing his ult to do like 200 less base damage then it did before but wait you gain 3 stacks of w umm A there not instant B. youll put stacks on them faster then they will add via ult so yah worhtless thing. I post this on boards but people ssay he is fine whne he isnt.

Hige1/14/2017, 5:21:17 AM2 votes

I love Varus O.o he's my go to mid champion :P I do play him hybrid though... that said, I don't think he needs buffs or any kind of changes, he's probably the most balanced champion right now, his buff did wonders for him and in teamfights you go online super fast, even more so than Jinx I'd say