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Is Varus mechanically difficult or just badly designed?

Düff McWhalen··3 votes·4,254 views

Varus is a cool champion. I really like him. I notice however that I'm not able to utilize him effectively and was wondering what are some tricks to making him that 1v5 machine I've seen in so many videos?

The Blight mechanic is a bit hard to account for, as I feel like I need to be getting 3 stacks on my target or I won't be able to do my damage. Should I for instance not be so worried about getting all the stacks and just focus on my positioning?

Varus isn't very mobile, so I know positioning in lane and team fights is incredibly important for him, maybe I'm getting that wrong? He's jsut so easy to close the gap on even in team fights it seems.

I try to drop my ult onto the enemy when they are clustered 3 or more together, or when I'm 1v1 and can secure a kill. Is there some way I could be using it better? Primary targets I should be dropping it on?

He seems like he's be perfect for Press the Attack as a keystone given it lasts as long as his Blight stacks, but I can't ever stack them up fast enough without Hail of Blades or Lethal tempo and atk speed items to make it viable. Rune tips? Is attack speed just the only way he can perform well?

I've been building him full crit and IE. Is attack speed/on-hit better for him? In certain match ups?

I often have a hard time vs lanes with Zyra, Nami, Draven, or Miss Fortune, or some combination of these champs. What can I do as Varus to better deal with them if anything?

Thanks all!

15 Comments

Hayaishi26 votes

I would say he is overall a healthy design. However he has some things that could use work.

To answer your questions:

You should be more worried about your positioning than blight. With good positioning blight stacking will be easy once your lethal tempo kicks in plus with your ultimate locking down targets and applying blight simultaneously.

Depending on the enemy team comp you might wanna save your ult for whoever dives you or use it to lock down the entire teamfight. If you are against champions like Aatrox or Irelia for example that depend on mobility to impact fights saving your ultimate for when they try to enter the fight can turn around the fight. But generally it is better to save his ultimate for when it can spread, when the enemy is forced to either fight or completely retreat rather than just locking down a single enemy and watching the others spread out.

I don't think Pta is bad with him, it's just average. Mainly because Varus has no steroid until he kills an enemy, so early on, even mid game it is sometimes hard to take full advantage of it, that is why lethal tempo is used more as it can abuse Rageblade Phantom hit too.

Tbh, i think crit is garbage on him. Varus doesn't scale well with it, every single other marksman outscales him with crit, Jinx, Twitch, Trist are all better options for crit. I always play Bork/Rageblade/Zeal on him. IMO Rageblade is the only reason why Varus is playable right now. Crit has always been garbage on him.

I think Varus is one of the few marksmen who can lane evenly against Draven. Varus can outrade him if you don't over commit and abuse your range, you can also farm safely and your ultimate destroys him if you can land it. And you are right, Varus has problems against mages in bot lane, he has no mobility to dodge their spells, all of his are on high CD and E does 0 damage after level 5, he also has low HP compared to most marksmen and his range isn't high enough to avoid interaction in lane, however you can play around them with your ultimate and hoping your jungler identifies that Varus at level 6 can give him a free kill if he lands his ultimate on the squishy mage. You also gotta remember bot lane is decided mostly by the support. If you have a support that can help you trade Zyra/Brand etc then you will have an easier time, however if your support can't fight back and gets abused you will get abused as well even if you as Varus have a stronger early game than their ADC.

Varus has a relatively simple kit but he isn't brain dead as he seems. Playing him requires you to be patient, requires you to have great spacing to abuse his range because you have no mobility and his range isn't ridiculously high like Cait's. He isn't the most mechanically intensive marksman but he still requires a great deal of mechanics and game knowledge to actually use him well. It is very easy to feed on him and very easy to mess up and throw even if he is fed.

Done253 votes

Badly designed with poor numbers.

Saezio3 votes

You really need to get yourself a thresh main duo. He can help you with escapes and give you CC to stack some blight.

I can't really provide good Varus tips that a good tutorial video wouldn't explain a million times better, but one thing about varus that took me kinda long to think was that I needed to stack 3 blights before using R if I can, especially in lane to get very good damage because the R itself reapplies the blight. but better to just watch a video on the champ or a stream of some good varus player. Maybe stop by the reddit varus main sub?

ADC Yuumi2 votes

Varus

Varus...

Varus is on the level of Vayne. They're hard to master, EXTREMELY hard to master; but with how simple their kit is and how much damage they throw into it because of the extreme simplicity of it they're overpowered.

Varus is kinda like Lucian in how he can support himself. If he kills someone, he gets attack speed. If he hits someone with an ability after attacking them, he deals bonus damage. And above all, all items work on him. I've seen in about 2 games this month a Varus who goes APC because of the lack of AP Champions on our team.

So to answer your question.

Imagine if Vayne was Kai'sa. Boom.

Build wise, you wanna change based on who you're up against. Like I said, some people play him AP because they have no mages. Be open to new builds and don't be scared to build a Nashor's Tooth.

But usually, I believe BoRK and Runnan's are must haves on him. Crit Varus sacrifices some potential damage in his abilities for his attacks. Try a Attack Speed Lethality Varus instead.

thefatlazycat4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tristana is Mine,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pLN0EeiU,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2019-05-11T18:08:34.592+0000)

Varus is on the level of Vayne. They're hard to master, EXTREMELY hard to master

lol

Daddy Ants1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tristana is Mine,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pLN0EeiU,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2019-05-11T18:08:34.592+0000)

Varus is on the level of Vayne. They're hard to master, EXTREMELY hard to master; but with how simple their kit is and how much damage they throw into it because of the extreme simplicity of it they're overpowered.

No.

I'd say Varus is middle of the pack difficulty wise as ADC.

I'd probably rate him similar to Kai'Sa or Jinx in difficulty.

From easiest to hardest I'd say

Tristana MF Ashe Sivir ----------> Varus and everyone else -----------------------> Vayne, Draven, Kalista

Luxanna Ahegao1 votes

draven is ez

Sir Saltarin1 votes

Varus is the adc that your winrate improves the least the more games you play him, that's what Riot Blaustoise data showed

Daddy Ants1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sir Saltarin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=pLN0EeiU,comment-id=000100010001,timestamp=2019-05-11T20:33:59.638+0000)

Varus is the adc that your winrate improves the least the more games you play him, that's what Riot Blaustoise data showed

That sounds like a pretty flat mastery curve then tbh.

I'd love to see Mastery curve graphs for all marksman side by side.

I mean actual bot lane marksmen, not Kindred/Graves/Quinn/Corki.

Sir Saltarin1 votes

Yes, it was exactly about mastery curves

He showed the most flat champs in that aspect and the only 2 ranged ones were Varus and Nami

The rest were Malphite Volibear Leona Shyvanna and someome else that I dont remember

Sir Saltarin2 votes

Varus is on the level of Vayne.

Yeah no, he's one of the easiest adcs man

Glaricion1 votes

Here are some entertaining videos featuring someone skilled w/ Varus.

Doesn't show the full games and the videos are rather old. That being said, shows a variety of builds off and in both good and bad situations at key moments.

(not sure about difficulty, Phreak keeps calling him one of the easiest champions, but he seems to require quite a bit of depth before ranked use to me)

BLIGHTBRINGER2 votes

He doesn't even play that champion anymore because he got frustrated with how hard it is to be successful with him, when there are so many other champions who excel at doing his job better...

##Executing:

  • Jhin Passive (even more with Rapid Firecannon)
  • Kaisa Passive (even more with Rageblade)
  • KogMaw R

##DPS:

  • Literally any Marksman apart from (Miss Fortune, Draven, Jhin)

##CC:

  • Ashe (I think Ashe is the only one that matches Varus' equal amount of CC)

##Mixed Damage:

  • Vayne W
  • Ezreal
  • Kaisa

##Poke:

  • Caitlyn
  • Ezreal
Meep Man1 votes

He's not poorly designed at all, but he isn't designed without flaws.

SanKakU1 votes

Varus is really a lot of fun but you have to understand that he doesn't scale with critical strikes like Xayah, Jhin, and others.

He can still build those things, but you're better off making AD, attack speed, and AP. So basically, Blade of the Ruined King will do far more than any critical strike + attack speed item. I haven't played him a lot lately, but I would recommend Ingenius Hunter to go with BotRK and some other stuff, perhaps Hextech Gunblade, Twin Shadows, Nashor's Tooth, he has a wide variety of viable items he can purchase. Buying the same thing every game is quite the disservice to the champion that has hybrid scaling IMO.

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