@Riot Ideas for Varus reworks/Balance changes

SKIP TO REWORK IF YOU DONT CARE ABOUT SENTIMENTS Varus has been off the scene for some time now. His kit is just a little weird and I can see the want for the use of both basic attacks and abilities just so his blight stacks actually work. He was created to be an early game attack damage carry but without the ability to roam. Kind of doesn't make sense for his kit. He isn't even the best in lane compared to some other adc's that can out powerhouse him. His ult is nice and a good initiation but why does an adc have an initiation? Or a self-peel that just keeps them in place. Its decent and cool but not super effective vs another adc who has more damage. CC'ing with your ult a Cait or Graves is probably not going to win you the fight. He has terrible dueling potential compared to Vayne and Draven. Lets do a comparison to other adc's Varus is good early game with some decent poke and when he hits level 6 he can ult someone to secure a kill. The problem is he is immobile but he has some things to make up for that but, not compared to other champions already out there. He is outclassed in a lot of ways... *Poking / Ezreal/ Kog'maw/ Corki all have spammable pokes that are very effective With trinity force. These seem to out perform varus too because they are all magic damage champions. Corki and Ezreal both have escapes, but are very effective at long range too. Varus only saving grace is he can fire through multiple people with his Q poke. Kog'maw is a face melting beast! along with an armor and mr shredder tied to his q, he is a force to be reckoned with even when he is immobile. Varus dies in close range because he doesn't have good face melting abilities. His W yeah does percent damage but he doesn't ever build mr pen so it is mediocre later in the game. *Damage & Immobile- Kog'maw/ Draven / Jinx I've already discussed Koggies face melting abilities so I don't really need to go into that. Draven is another strong dueling immobile champion. Jinx is very strong however and has a root that that is extremely effective almost as much as Varus's ult. She also has a ranged execute similar to an usefulness of Varus's Q except that it is a global ult. Also a little bit wider to hit, but it is an ult. Jinx's main strength is her tower pushing, as she can melt towers with her attack speed ramped up gatling gun.

• Range/ Jinx/Kog'maw/Caitlynn/Tristana The basic attack range of Varus puts himself at a disadvantage because of his lack of mobility. The first two champions Jinx and Kog'maw are immobile but they but have range increasers. Caitlynn and Tristana have basic attack ranges very high naturally although Tristana got a nerf on her attack range its still significant in the late game. The latter two also have an escape. Varus's basic attack range is only 550 and he's an immobile champion. Bloodthirster was really good on Varus before it got nerfed because of his large ad scaling on his Q but now he does

All of Varus's attributes are outclassed and he's this weird hybrid damage carry that doesn't fit in anywhere. Lets do a little roleplaying a bit and think Varus* The person with the corruption bow that killed many noxians when he defended a temple of corruption. It is a pretty awesome story. I think Varus should be an AD sniper. where his kit revolves around that. He excels at staying behind your front line and sniping the carries All while doing decent damage when people come in close. Previously he kind of felt like more of a combo adc like Lucian without the mobility with his blight stack being set off as bonus damage when hitting other abilities. Instead of that (since I have no intention of running triforce on him) the following rework will make his blight stacks more like Targets on champions rather than a combo adc with long cooldowns.

REWORK

Passive : Just switch his W, or blighted quiver, to this spot.

Q-Piercing Arrow: I love this attack I think it should stay roughly the same except maybe a slight ad ratio increase(thanks to the Bloodthirster nerfs) and range increase to a max of 1400-1500 just because I like round numbers. I think for one however that the AD ratio should change depending on range similar to Nidalees though not as extreme so like half the damages at ranges within your auto attack range or something like that-for counterplay. the AD ratio as of now for max charge is 160% ad which is considerable high. But when you consider Dravens auto attack is 185% (auto +ratio) at max rank and can crit. It seems fairly reasonable. I would like the number to move around a bit but this could simply stay the same too. I want to see this ability do a lot of damage to one person and little damage to multiple people because that seems like what its used for at the moment, or clearing waves. To me this should be a bit more of a sniping ability than a wave clearing ability. How about we raise the ratio to 200% (don't freak out)(or 180%) but we increase the damage decrease it does when going through multiple units by quite a bit more. Maybe like 20-30% decrease per unit it goes through and a 50% decrease when going through champions down to a minimum of 20%. I'd like to see a reduction to minion damage too just so its not wave cleary. This will make it so that Varus scales better into the late game also. We would have to reduce the base damage by a bit too maybe. There might need to be an increase in the cooldown of Q at later ranks. We would have to see.

W-Infect the Blighted: Completely reworking this, This is my own idea that I came up with where it isn't a jump like how most people ask for an escape on Varus. Varus is good with his weaknesses and immobility we should increase his strengths not give him no weakness. This ability would be an active where you could activate it and Varus sticks his hand in the air for a brief moment and causes some sort of animation where blight stacks move very quickly around a target and reveal them for the blight stack duration, and also resets the duration. This ability can only be activated outside his auto-attack range( or maybe like 700-800 ish units away and farther). Now you can hit the target with the blight stack(s) for additional effects.. Maybe this ability could not have a mana cost just a really high cooldown and upgrading it gives you more mana back per blight stack and/or increases the amount of time a blight stack will stay on someone and decreasing the cooldown. All blight stacks no longer have the big debuff from farther than Varus's attack range when the first blight stack is hit with an ability. That way you don't just build hurricane shoot them all and then move back a bit to do massive amount of damage and gain all mana back. Q would act in a way where if you hit someone with a Q while they have this debuff, they take the max amount of damage no matter how many units you shoot through. Giving the idea that you can pick someone off with "Piercing Arrow". **Another small idea would be to make Varus invisible to people who have blight stacks on them when he is done charging his Q if they have a debuff on them from this ability. So for four seconds he is charging the arrow he would be invisible. Since mobility boots don't actually proc "as if in battle" when you are charging his Q maybe we would see different boots other than Berserkers or Lucidity on an adc. E would prevent healing from within the area of damage or something if it popped a blight stack. E wouldn't give you mana back however. This would mainly be a tool for those guys that heal a ton of damage. R would Stun the target instead of just rooting them... or something like that. You would have a lot of different options to you for what you want to do and you can change accordingly to the situation. I would love this as it would be a long range champion that doesn't just spam one ability... Varus is kind of already that type of champion where he shoots long range abilities but not very often with long cool downs and just snipes people.

E-Hail of Arrows: Remember how I said I would like to see Varus as a long range champion? Well I think they should change his E so it works kind of like his Q where he can charge it. For a little extra damage-but not much that's what his Q is for. Instead it would slightly increase the range from 900 to 1100 and increase the radius. I would love to see this ability feel more like a "Hail of Arrows" Also I would change it so the slow is only applied to those who are hit under it.

R-Chain of Corruption: Stay the same except maybe the farther away he hits champions with this the longer the root duration for the person that is hit. That way people who are close to him will have an advantage. Yet it would award him for taking sniper shots with long range ults.

Conclusion: If you want to get anything out of this its that I would like to see Varus as a sniping champion at long range. The Blighted Quiver to the passive slot should be a must because his passive as of now is slightly garbage. Another ability that would mainly be utility for his w would have to be put in place, and a charging E would be awesome. All the little specifics would be for RIOT to look at. In no way do I think that this rework would be perfect. Anyways hope you enjoyed my post and have a fun time in the new SEASON 5! :D Go ahead and comment below if you think any of these ideas would be cool or if you think that Varus just need a slight buff instead of a full rework.