How to make varus more competitive?

Highguard·10/28/2014, 6:15:01 PM·1 votes·1,093 views

I've asked a few high tier players why varus isn't more common in the pro scene, or even higher tiers of play, and I've gotten mixed responses like, "Has unneccesary ap scaling holding him back" or "slow damage scaling due to relying on landing abilities to trigger w passive" but the most common is the lack of a reliable escape. I really enjoy playing varus as is, but I can't help but agree that he needs some kind of rework to bring him into a competitive level of play what would you guys think he needs to be brought to par with other adcs like lucian or trist?

8 Comments

JustMyBassCannon10/28/2014, 6:41:14 PM3 votes

The biggest problem with Varus is not his AP ratios. His scaling with AD and AP is strong enough that you can justifiably build either way, and it gives him solid hybrid damage output.

The biggest problem with Varus is not his reliance on combos between attacks and spells to maximize Blight damage. It's a different combat pattern from other marksmen; so what?

The biggest problem with Varus is not his lack of escape. He was designed specifically around not having an escape, and he has a ton of utility (and damage potential) to make up for it.

The biggest problem with Varus is his passive, and his lack of a steroid that he can activate. His passive gives him a steroid that only activates when he kills a unit, except it's a steroid meant for killing units. It's a steroid that only barely helps with farming minions, and is unwieldy in a team fight. He doesn't have a combat steroid.

It also doesn't help that they wanted to make him the long-range Archer type marksman, but they gave him 575 range instead of 600 like Ashe.

Drukyul10/28/2014, 6:33:41 PM2 votes

Start with giving him his 5 movespeed back.

Solidair310/28/2014, 6:53:00 PM1 votes

5 ms and a better passive. The decrease of cd on his ult was a good start from riot though.

Khaky10/28/2014, 6:55:32 PM1 votes

Varus can't keep his ult if they give him an escape, Varus and Ashe are the two adcs that have team utility in the form of a hard engage with their ults which is the reason they don't come with built in escape or attack steroids.

67chrome10/28/2014, 7:39:12 PM1 votes

what would you guys think he needs to be brought to par with other adcs like lucian or trist?

Varus's issue doesn't seem to be with Varus himself, so much as with what the meta expects.

marksman are picked to kill things and scale with gold really well so they can kill things even harder.

Assassins, with their high mobility, clearly kill things pretty well and scale really well. Supports, with their mega-utility and team-fight prowess, don't.

Because balance Varus only gets amazing utility/CC, but it's just the opposite direction most marksman are excepted to specialize in.

Doesn't exactly mean bad - I've seen a ton of matches in worlds where 4:1 vs. 4:1 compositions just went into an awkward stalemate and didn't work because every champion in the 4-man squad was all mobility and no initiation potential to speak of, where a pick like Ashe or Varus could have given a significant edge to a 4-man team-fight squad in the event their initiator got stuck top lane.

Drunk Rummate10/28/2014, 6:19:36 PM1 votes

If he become more cooldown oriented and less auto attack reliant he would be viable. More like Jayce and less like Vayne. I don't think his auto attack passive is very cohesive with the rest of his kit.

Hayaishi10/28/2014, 10:43:16 PM1 votes

As some guy above me said.

Varus' problem is his steroid, it's complete trash, the bonus is trash and the duration sucks, you can keep the trigger passive on kill it even fits his lore only if it makes Varus overpowered for the duration, that's the only way it would work out otherwise his passive will keep being trash.

Also the he falls off late game because he's immobile with average range (575 range means jackshit late game) his Q is all his damage late game and it falls off hard, his E completely sucks, it has mediocre utility and does no damage after early game (honestly this ability should be buffed, either more utility or more damage, right now it's completely lackluster). His W although good, it's not worth taking a whole ability slot for it.

So only his Q and R are awesome (W is good btw, just not worth)

His cooldowns are ridiculously long, i mean Fizz's E has a 6.8 CD max rank and it has less CD than Varus'Q and E despite trollpole being such a powerful ability.

So what does that leave us? a unreliable champion with no niche and is outclassed, that takes practice to make the best out of him but you still feel unrewarded because you can't rely on your own ability with him.

(God i have near 1k Varus' game between this and last season and i still feel like i waste my time playing him sometimes)

SnowFall10/28/2014, 6:37:48 PM1 votes

The initial passive is the only thing that needs to be reworked. Also add something for W.