what actually lead to varus being an onhit adc now?

Arammus·Jan 31, 2018·1 votes·3,870 views

now dont get me wrong i love stuff like kogmaw, twitch, vayne all the people that have SOME sort of onhit. and i never liked poke adcs. but why does everyone play varus with rageblade runaans now? because of the fucking 26(+25%ap) magic dmg on his maxed w? thats a joke right?

now seriously i dont understand it. you could just buy wits end on ANY adc and the onhit would be better. or ardent cencer on the support.

please explain to me why varus is now an onhit adc.

9 Comments

Whisper87Jan 31, 20183 votes

Well his W passive is a part of it because of Guinsoo's. So the proc let's on hit effects proc twice right? So you are pretty much creating damage out of thin air. And yeah Wit's end is roughly similar in overall damage output when just looking at that on hit damage, but Guinsoo's stats also scale better than what is on Wit's End. The deal with on hit builds is that they typically scale pretty well, but they turn on faster. The one item power spike for a Kog or a Varus is better than the one item spike on say a Tristana or a Jinx.

**So to simplify it, what makes a character good with on hit is their ability to abuse the Guinsoo's bonus proc, and abusing attack speed. **

Now with Varus the issue is also that prioritizing attack speed early on just works well with his kit. Stacking up his passive gives him even MORE attack speed; so if you go Guinsoo's into Zerker Greaves and Hurricane, all of the sudden you are able get close to attack speed cap with just two items after you stack up the passive. His W also adds those charges so the faster you stack it up so you can pop it with a spell the better. Again this plays into the earlier spike than most auto-attacking builds have.

Think about the interaction. You've got an auto attacking ADC, which typically don't turn on until like three items. But then they build this really well rounded item in Guinsoo's that has both damage and attack speed, making it a good one item spike. Then you add in his W stacks being popped with spells, and somehow this auto attacking ADC also has good mid game burst because he can stack up and pop you so fast. Guinsoo's is also better than Wit's End as an early buy because in addition to the on hit damage, your abilities scale off the damage so it actually helps with his poke and wave clear.

To understand Varus specifically understand this: He scales decently with the on hit build and that build also allows him some coverage in the early and mid game, while stuff like Kog'Maw have a pretty big dip after the initial Guinsoo's buy. Think of him kind of like Ashe used to be. Scales pretty well, although not a hyper carry, like second tier. Has a kit that provides something else in the mid-early game to make up for it. For Ashe it's vision-CC-Poke, while for Varus it's poke-burst-and some CC.

It's just a well-rounded, safe build/pick. His kit is so well-rounded in fact that I'd say if he was literally 1% stronger he's OP.

Taliyah RocksJan 31, 20181 votes

My best is that it started last season with the Ardent Cancer meta. It was so strong, and with Varus' range, W on-hit damage + proc damage, meant that he could shred entire teams easily. Less shred than a Kog, but more burst than him with the W passive proc.

ArammusJan 31, 20181 votes

which i still dont get. to proc his w it requires you to hit q or e (or r?) which is VERY SLOW! and the range of them is meh. if the team doesnt cuddle, you'll never hit all 3 marked targets.

AnagsJan 31, 20181 votes

You can proc it with an instant q. That doesn't take very long. And his w is also on hit damage which when paired with other on hit ends up being pretty solid damage that is hard to itemize against. He also adds some cc to the team. He is on hit because his AD ratios and damage on his Q were nerfed and it's just better with the new runes.

This isn't even a new build. It was good in prior seasons as well.

Whisper87Jan 31, 20181 votes

It's not about the Hurricane. It's more about the Guinsoo's 1 item spike interaction with his kit. Let's put it this way. He has the option to burst in the early game because of his Q and E which have decent base damages, but at that same point he also has good sustained damage because of his attack speed boost and that early in the game the extra 20 on hit damage on max Guinsoo's from his W is actually relevant.

And popping three stacks of his W does enough damage on it's own that you don't need to charge up the Q. You just auto three times (very quickly) then instant Q and that will do like 75% or more of a squishy target's HP in like 2.5 seconds.

So at one item we have a ADC with decent poke, decent wave clear, decent burst, an OK hard CC, and they still have decent if not amazing scaling. Pretty damn strong. While other ADC tend to have pretty clear peaks and troughs to their power or pretty one dimensional play patterns, Varus is kind of good at everything. Not really good at any one thing, just pretty good at everything and a very smooth power curve throughout the game.

Mysticman89Jan 31, 20181 votes

Part of it is how his poke oriented build cut got back a lot with the much longer cd on his Q if he doesn't hit someone with w stacks.

As long as he does have a built in on-hit effect, he'll naturally be better with on-hit builds than any other adc that doesn't have a built in on-hit. Wits end might do more, but varus can (and does) build it himself, so it's wits damages+w damage. Plus, the w stack procs can pack a pretty big punch with the %max health damage, and if you're in auto range anyway it's not too hard to proc the stacks with an E usually.

Playing him crit seems like it'd be missing out on a lot of his kits potential, and lethality suffers from the Q situation I mentioned earlier (although people do still play lethality varus occasionally), so one basically is left with on-hit as the best choice if one is going to play varus.

Rayjay RedfangJan 31, 20181 votes

Poke varus was used due to lethality changes, once it got nerfed, on hit became popular again. Rageblade just synchs really well with his W passive, AP scaling. On hit is really good to kill tanks too.

Athenes LuluJan 31, 20181 votes

~~If I remember correctly, at some point his W got a little change so he now becomes more on-hit oriented more than being an AD caster.~~

At some point he got a little buff on his W interaction, which is what makes him supposedly on-hit oriented, so now it's more optimal to play him that way.

And of course, the lethality nerfs. When lethality was hot, he was good not just because he has the damage that works with lethality builds, but because he also had the safety to do his job without instagibbed.