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Why is Statikk Shiv on Varus a thing?

TheDycer··1 votes·1,819 views

Lately I have seen more Varus being played in bot lane in both my games and in streams/videos, and I didn't understand why people were building shiv early. I then decided to check a couple of websites and I see the same Essence Reaver into Statikk Shiv build. I just want to know why this is so popular?

The couple times I decided to pick Varus as ADC was into MF to shut her down early with the massive Ghostblade power spike he has. When I told someone that I find the most success with him was Ghostblade into Reaver I was told that build was trash because it has no passive attack speed. I still don't understand this because Ghostblade active gives you enough attack speed to win early engages if your Q doesn't just do it for you.

Finally, why build the Zeal item that just doesn't seem ideal? Runaan's Hurricane applies your blight stacks in AoE while giving you more stats for the same price and Phantom Dancer just gives more stats at the same price point. I really wouldn't use Phantom Dancer, but it is still better than Shiv in my opinion.

I personally love playing Varus, and if I can justify using him in a game (mid or bot), I pick him because I feel he is in a good spot if you know how to use him. I am just dumbfounded with the way most people are choosing to build him right now and somehow maintain a 50%+ win rate platinum.

I know I am Silver, but my core build for ADC Varus is Ghostblade, Greaves, Reaver, and Infinity Edge and I find that most effective. Optional items are Hurricane, Bloodthirster, Rage Blade, and the last whisper items. If I get Hurricane, I tend to build it before IE.

TL;DR: Why build Shiv on Varus when there are better choices to fill that slot?

9 Comments

xBushx2 votes

I would say it is due to the Upfront additional burst and the MS boost is nice too.

However, if you just go armor PEN AND dmg items, AS Runes. 1 Q will half health a squishy.

IMO Varus is extremely team comp oriented. He is best used in an artillery/siege comp. Since his Q is devastating. And his Ult is Amazing for Peel.

TheDycer1 votes

I agree with this and the Q burst is kind of the point. Make a carry unable to participate or save a tower because one spell has taken them out of it. In the rare occasion of being able to justify bot lane Varus, I use the build I do to try to snowball the game, or shut out the hard scaling enemy ADC and end the game as quickly and safely as possible.

Late game with a couple of pen items you can do 1k damage if you hit the mid laner or ADC from a good distance away. At that point it could be the best way to win because if you have a normal ADC build, there is a good chance they out damage you right now.

Doctor Jarvis2 votes

Because of the awesome wave clear (literally just one Q and an auto takes out most waves) and increased damage. Runaan's is COOL on Varus, but your ultimate is applying Blight stacks in an AoE anyway, and you should never be close enough for Phantom Dancer's passive to matter.

Succubús GF1 votes

I mean, imo, the people that told you it was trash, well, it isn't, but both items equally do their jobs and it's a matter of preference honestly

Alutrosity1 votes

Raw damage is what Varus excels at doing and statik shiv helps to increase his burst. Essence reaver allows him to spam his spells more often which means more blight stack procs. If you build runaans you lose the burst and with ghostblade's increased price cost, which you're probably going to sell anyway if the enemy gets too tanky, it becomes sort of a risky purchase.

TheDycer1 votes

I started doing the math, and stopped because well, it is hard to do it for every level and only calculating at level 18 vs. 18 disregards most of the game's interactions. Ghostblade allows for the earliest hard spike possible to try and carry a bad team and end it early before the enemy team can build up gold. Picking Ghostblade when you have a team that scales hard into the late game is not a great idea, but picking Varus as ADC in that situation is probably worse. You'd want Jhin, Ashe, Sivir and Twitch then.

Like someone else said, Runaan's is more of a cheese buy than anything else, but it allows for more consistent damage through auto attacks against teams were percent health matter because you won't always have the ult the spread Blight. Even then I view it has too much of an opportunity cost because you miss out a sustain item in that slot.

I guess it could be a problem with me not assigning the right value to critical chance and steady attack speed in that item slot, but if you try to scale like other ADCs, I just feel you get left behind.

Alutrosity1 votes

I guess it could be a problem with me not assigning the right value to critical chance and steady attack speed in that item slot, but if you try to scale like other ADCs, I just feel you get left behind.

The raw damage from IE, ER, and BT/DD is enough that one crit in conjunction with your blight stacks is enough to win the trade, typically by triggering the first three stacks with hail of arrows to eliminate their trading potential since it applies grievous wounds and ending it with a quick piercing arrow and they're pretty much dead. Very few champions hit as hard as Varus does with the exception of Draven or Quinn, so attack speed scaling isn't really an issue with him, especially if he kills a minion first before engaging.

khorney1 votes

it depends on what build ur doing . ghost blade isn't a adc build on him that's more of a caster varus build. adc varus is usually essence reaver static/or rapid fire cannon, runaans if and lord dom and sure u can ff boots for another item

Heatblazer4131 votes

I think it honestly depends what type of varus do you want to build you can build poke heavy or more of an attack speed traditional add build

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