Why does Varus even have channel times on his abilities?

ABlueQuaker·Feb 22, 2015·7 votes·800 views

Completely Immobile.
Q channel slows his movement speed even more.
Must channel Q so it actually does meaningful damage.
E has a pretty long channel/cast time too for an AD Carry.
One or the other must be channeled to proc his W.
His AA animation also f%cking sucks.

I mean, I'd usually offset my lack of mobility by getting Trinity Force if the champion has enough spammable skills but a) his skills aren't that spammable AND b) the Q channel time really doesn't support the use of the spellblade proc.

Varus is one of the few AD Carries around that isn't rewarding to play at the moment. His lane phase is too vulnerable, his late game is outclassed by the likes of jinx and sivir, and his mid-game is no better than the likes of graves or corki or caitlyn or sivir who have a whole heap of mobility and defensive tools.

14 Comments

qetzelFeb 22, 20155 votes

The E is a cast time, not a channel. Almost every ability has the same standard cast time (a notable exception is Syndra's Q).

Varus's identity, however, is unclear. It's like he was made right before Riot changed their stance on Mobility and AD Carries.

Varus is the only adc that can really disrupt a team. His ultimate is incredibly powerful - when it is up, the enemy team cannot group. He has a nieche. He has a role to play. Try playing him in a siege comp - The Q is an incredibly powerful poking tool given its speed once you fire it and its penetration, and his W and ultimate are both fairy good disengage/counterengage tools. Pair him with a peeling support (Janna, Thresh) to keep him safe.

ABlueQuakerFeb 22, 20151 votes

You're picking apart his kit here though. If you compare his overall kit strength to other AD Carries that can fill that role, he's really quite outclassed.

His ult is really nothing compared to Kalista or Ashe's and his poke is no greater than the likes of Caitlyn, Corki or Sivir who have a more defined niche that they excel at.

If I were to go into a Ranked 5x5 game with a premade team and I wanted a Hard engage adc, I would go for Ashe or Kalista. If I wanted a poke comp I would go for caitlyn, corki or sivir so I could actually disengage if we got caught or capitalize on good poke.

EDIT: And I corrected myself on the channel vs. cast time. It's a pretty irrelevant thing to point out though, because you can't auto for the duration.

IcyPepperFeb 22, 20152 votes

Kalista Because balance.

skyfall619Feb 22, 20152 votes

he has potential to make kalista not be able to use her passive......we cant have our kalista not able to spam dashes now can we.......can we

KivolanFeb 22, 20152 votes

"Potential" being the key word. One does not simply land a skillshot on Kalista.

vC48YNoGbJFeb 22, 20152 votes

Varus' Q is really strong when fully charged and has huge range. I think he has a nice niche in poke teams, with his CC ultimate giving him at least one advantage over Corki.

ABlueQuakerFeb 22, 20151 votes

I'll take slightly lower yet more constant poke, mobility and a safe lane phase over a Varus Q.

vC48YNoGbJFeb 22, 20155 votes

I will too, if I wanna win. Just to add, I think Varus could definitely use a small boost, but zero charging time on his Q is not the way to go about it imo.

freeformlineFeb 22, 20152 votes

Varus is my bot lane marksman of choice, so I feel obliged to disagree with you on saying that he isn't rewarding to play. If even a clueless support main like me can regularly go 20/1/10 with him, he must have something going for him! Granted, I was playing a low-MMR normal game against people who can be outclassed by an upgraded trinket. I think the channel time on his Q is fair, given how simple his kit is to use. If he had no channel, he would be a little less interesting to play and would take even less skill to use him with basic proficiency. As it is now, he has quite a bit of kill potential in lane if you are good at landing his abilities, so long as you are careful about positioning and choosing your battles so you don't get killed. His abilities give him range, utility, and burst damage for excellent kiting, so I find it relatively easy to stay alive if I ward well and avoid risky fights. He's not a good choice for every team composition, but he's certainly workable if you have a complimentary team and you play intelligently.

On the specific subject of channeling his Q, the arrow at full charge is quite a strong ability, equal to two or three autoattacks of multi-target damage, not counting blight stacks (which may be consumed on several people). Allowing it to channel gives you the option of a quick activation to burst your target down with blight procs as well as a long-range, powerful snipe useful for picking off enemies with low health, especially if you recently applied any blight stacks to them. Giving it power that scales with channel time lets you adapt your play to the circumstances, helps distinguish between AD and AP Varuses (RIP DFG), and generally makes him a little more interesting and skillful to play, even if he isn't the strongest marksman in the game.

PartholonianFeb 22, 20152 votes

IMO, if Varus is going to be the Mordekaiser of ADCs in terms of mobility, he should also be in terms of nobody wanting to go face to face with him. Buff his W so that anyone who sticks around to get hit by it is going to get wrecked as bad, or worse, than Vayne third bolt (which is much easier to land because it comes from a champion who can chase you down and gapclose to do it).

Either that, or change itemization so that a Hurricane build is viable on on-hit ADCs in general and not just to make Kalista ludicrously ultra-mobile; then his ability to blight all the things could make up for his other disadvantages (like not as much up front damage from AAs compared to marksmen with a straight stats steroid like Tristana Jinx Sivir -- all of whom have AS as their primary steroid, so they benefit extra heavily from IE first).

The more I think about it, the more I think Varus is just a symptom; the decline of on-hit marksmen as a class (or subclass) is due to crit being OP. Varus MissFortune Teemo Twitch all have onhit effects that increase the damage of their autoattacks, which SEEMS like it could be the basis of a decent marksman build; but those onhit effects won't crit, so when crit is the only way to achieve competitive total damage output, only Twitch is even niche viable in competitive, and it's because of the crazy stuff he can do with stealth. Even Vayne is a rare pick now because she doesn't exploit crit as well as some others. Draven is viable in most ELOs because spinning axes CAN crit, but in competitive his feast or famine passive makes him unattractive -- pros will react by keeping him, specifically, down, which works really well on him because it denies his passive and he can't handle that.

Cut some flat AD off item 3031 to enforce a niche as a crit item; right now it has so much AD it's one of the most attractive items to AD casters too. Its passive is freaking strong and probably not adequately accounted for in its current price/stats; anyone who's not using it to the maximum should be buying something else and doing just as well with their other items as a pure autoattacker does with IE.

TLDR: Tristana : item 3031 :: Varus : ? Nothing, and that's the problem. Bring back item 3115 using marksmen, and item 3085 as something other than a way to cheese Kalista passive, and you'll bring back more variety to the marksman position, potentially including Varus .

ABlueQuakerFeb 22, 20151 votes

I would say the closest champions to him are Jinx (her R and Immobility Only), Ashe (her R, Immobility Only - W to a slight degree), Kalista (her R and Q Qnly), and Caitlyn (her Q Only). All of these champions have a purpose though: Jinx scales hard into the late game; Ashe can Hard Engage and hold her own through kiting with Auto-Attacks and Volley; Kalista has a similar niche though she relies on kiting with her Passive and E; Caitlyn is a baseline AD Carry with a relevant and safe Early, Mid and Late game because.

Varus's identity, however, is unclear. It's like he was made right before Riot changed their stance on Mobility and AD Carries.

straight4freeFeb 22, 20151 votes

I think he should gain MS when he pops blight stacks. That would give him everything he needs.

What Is SmiteFeb 22, 20151 votes

For Varus, whenever I do get the chance to play him on his free week, I usually rush a Botrk as my first item so that I can apply his W stacks quickly and then use a short-range Q (if they decide to all-in) or long-range Q to proc the marks

cFlameFeb 22, 20151 votes

I beg to disagree. Stop attracting attention to Varus, I don't want Riot to ruin what I love and we all know Riot won't fix things correctly. (See Veigar and Mordekaiser PBE, or Cassiopea and Skarner) If the only thing going for Varus is his Q and R, then maximize itemization for that. You probably won't take me seriously, but you don't know how good something is until you try it so read on: -Rush Essence Reaver This item is meant for Varus, it gives CDR, lifesteal and attack damage. The biggest problem with Varus is his cooldowns are absurd for a marksman, the second being his mana costs. Conveniently, the mana passive is gained by how much damage your auto attacks do, making Blight actually useful for once. -Yomuus Ghostblade Its actually very solid on Varus, it gives great burst, and an active allowing you to kite down bruisers or escape danger, which Varus really lacks. From here proceed to build crit and ad items of your own choice, never build Runaans Hurricane no matter how fed you get because it doesn't scale as well as you may think for Varus. At least Varus has options, I can't figure out whats the best build for Xerath.