AP Varus. It's actually a thing.

I've always built Varus as a sort of hybrid. He is the sole champion on whom I considered Guinsoo's Rageblade a core item. Nashor's pretty much doubles up his W's flat magic damage, gives him CDR so he can proc Blight more frequently. IE+Shiv are a nice mix of DPS and burst damage. His hybrid DPS and burst, plus utility, made for a fun playstyle.

Rageblade's going away, so I won't be surprised if the hybrid build gets too difficult to use.

And it's boring as hell.

Edit: No hate on you, I tried AP Varus once and really thought this was the most boring thing after classes xD

It's kind of a fun build, especially when you get three stacks of Blight on someone then launch your ult at them.

Totally decimating.

I've played Varus extensively as an AD, but occasionally as an AP as well. The two styles of play are almost impossible to tell apart. They both are effectively an auto attacker who gets bursts of damage from blight stacks. It's just that AD Varus tends to pull a bit more DPS because of crits. When playing AP Varus, I find that as long as I don't get blown up (a la LeBlanc) the enemy is gonna die. The ultimate has a great AP ratio on its own, but also procs blight stacks. If you throw a DFG on someone before popping stacks, you can almost nuke someone from full health.

If you prioritize the attack speed component of nashor's tooth, you still pull nice damage. Level 1 W amounts to about 15 damage with some base AP and makes up for not having the bonus AD damage. By the time you get Nashor's Tooth, you are still pulling as much damage as AD varus (thanks to the AP scaling and attack speed boost). You just can't harass with Q and E, they only serve to proc blight stacks.

There is very little as fun as picking up a last item Runaan's Hurricane (after Nashor's Tooth, DFG, Rabadon's, and Void Staff) and literally melting an entire team with aoe blight stack proccing.

That being said, his style will always be that of a Marksman (adc). He needs to auto attack to push lane, and his autos will crush an enemy laner.

Is wit's end worth building on him or are you better off getting an ap item instead? nashors, death cap, and wits end do roughly 160-200 magic damage per auto before mitigation if i remember correctly and get around 12% damage per blight stack (36% every time 3 are ignited). Is liandry's a good item because of the magic pen, hp, and burn damage or are void staff and dfg just way better?

I'd like to see Varus's Q and W switched to magic damage and ap scaling. That would make my day.

This is probably why people think Varus is in a bad spot

My bad you are correct Q and E. I think Varus would be an interesting stack mage caster. Move him from the adc role and put him as a ap mage role. I know I would like it :)