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Kit Rework Concept: Varus, the Arrow of Retribution

Umbral Regent·12/28/2019, 8:01:04 PM·5 votes·4,029 views

Hello Concepts & Creations. Since I'm for lack of any creative openers, I'm just going to go ahead and roughly copy The Djinn's formatting.

As the title implies, I'm going to be throwing out ideas for Varus, the Arrow of Retribution.

The rough goals I have with this update are as follows;

  • Maintain Varus' "set up and execute" playstyle.
  • Bring his gameplay closer to the agility shown in his color story, Dark Kin.
  • Restrict his execute damage and give him more agency elsewhere in his kit.
  • Incentivize on-hit hybrid builds without sacrificing his ability to focus on poke.

So, with those stated goals, let's move on to the kit itself.

Passive: Blighted Quiver

Varus' autoattacks deal bonus Magic Damage (scaling from levels 1-18, or at least with each Ultimate level) and apply Blight for 6 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. Varus' other abilities can detonate Blight, dealing Magic Damage with a similar level-scaling paradigm to the on-hit damage and the same %Max Health damage per stack bonus as is on live.

Reworked: Enemies with max stacks of Blight hit by Piercing Arrow take bonus Magic Damage based on their %Missing Health, scaling with Piercing Arrow charge.

Designer Notes: Moving Blighted Quiver into the Passive slot serves both to free up space to give Varus an active ability on his W while removing his ability to control the execute damage on Piercing Arrow. Ideally, the %Missing Health damage math would be tuned down to compensate for it being always present, and the scaling paradigm and numbers on the on-hit and detonation damage are also decent tuning levers.

Q: Piercing Arrow

First Cast: Varus starts to draw back his next shot, gradually increasing its range and damage. While preparing to shoot, Varus' movement speed is slowed by 20%. After 4 seconds, Piercing Arrow fails but refunds 50% of its mana cost.

Second Cast: Varus fires, dealing Physical damage scaling with how long he charged his arrow, dealing 15% reduced damage per additional target hit (minimum 33%), and its cooldown is partially reduced if it detonates Blight stacks on at least one Champion.

Designer Notes: Piercing Arrow is the one ability that I think should be kept wholesale, as it (along with the stacking/detonating mechanic on Blighted Quiver) defines his kit. Poke should remain a viable tool in Varus' arsenal, and outside of potential damage tuning, I can't imagine a Varus without his snipe.

W: Vengeful Rush

Passive: Varus gains 20% bonus attack speed for 5 seconds on non-Champion kills, or 40% bonus attack speed for 5 seconds on Champion takedowns.

Active: Varus leaps a short distance in a direction, and gains the 20% bonus attack speed from his passive. This leap can cross terrain.

Designer Notes: Moving Living Vengeance over to W and coupling it with a new active dash to give Varus a bit more mobility and playmaking tools in fights; whether that be an evasive dodge or an aggressive push, and the weaker benefit of the passive attack speed boost should also help it feel more of an aggressive tool, regardless of usage. Letting terrain-crossing be noted as a potential balance lever, but the goal is mostly a medium-short cooldown dash for increased decision-making on Varus' part.

E: Corrupt Volley

First Cast: Varus launches a volley of target-seeking arrows at the closest targets in the area (prioritizing Champions), dealing physical damage to all targets hit, and dealing reduced damage per additional arrow on the same target. Targets hit by the Corrupt Volley are afflicted by a Seed of Corruption for 3 seconds. (3 arrows at ranks 1-2, 4 at 3-4, 5 at 5)

Second Cast: Varus detonates Seeds of Corruption in all targets within range, dealing a small amount of additional damage, slowing affected targets, and applying Grievous Wounds to Champions, reducing healing effects by 40%.

Designer Notes: Reworking Hail of Arrows into a medium range damage-spread tool achieves a few things; giving a more direct tool for damage in teamfights, gives his kit a better lean into on-hit play (while also still allowing for some medium-range poke), and also gives a more conditional slowspell tool to help both uses of his Vengeful Rush - whether defensively (kiting and slowing enemies) or offensively (slowing enemies to prevent their escape).

One potential concern is the secondary damage burst from the Seeds of Corruption, which may or may not push things too far towards on-hit play depending on how it functions. In that respect, I would say that the intended functionality is that only the first cast triggers Spellblade or detonates Blight, while the second cast does not.

R: Chain of Corruption

Varus flings out a tendril that deals magic damage and immobilizes the first enemy Champion hit for 2 seconds. The corruption then spreads to nearby uninfected Champions. If it reaches them, they take the same damage and are immobilized. Immobilized units gain 3 Blight stacks over the duration.

Designer Notes: Similarly to Piercing Arrow, Chain of Corruption remains essentially untouched, as it's a fair and reliable ability in its own right that doesn't readily need changes. I had initially thought of adding a slowspell effect to targets in the area with Blight to allow the chained root to have a higher chance of succeeding, but given that I've opted to increase the direct control Varus has over his E slow, I felt that adding an extra conditional slow to his ult would be doing it overmuch.

Keeping the same functionality as Live allows Varus to get a sure execute hit in on at least one Champion, while retaining his strong teamfight opener.

9 Comments

ModThe Djinn12/29/2019, 4:06:32 PM4 votes

So I don't especially like this, although I agree that in his gameplay Varus doesn't feel like the character we see in the story. I think part of the issue I have is that you've preserved a bit too much of his old playstyle, which means that the "new" gameplay doesn't have enough foundation -- it rests on an auto-target effect and a short dash, while the rest of his kit is still much more about the long-range poke. This leaves you with a kit that features split identities.

Blighted Quiver moving to the passive works. I think it was smart to retain this, as even in a more mobile, fast-attack Varus design this ability functions and is uniquely Varus. I'm not sure I like that you retained the execute though -- one of the important things about the current W is that you don't have to trigger Blight with the empowered Q, and can just use it to chunk people whenever you want. Here you've locked them into 3-stack Q hits, which actually heavily penalizes you for using other abilities, creating an awkward design where you can use other abilities to detonate Blight, but it feels bad to do so.

Piercing Arrow works, but the "hold and channel" design seems a bit odd to retain given your goal of hitting a fantasy closer to Varus's mobile, skirmishing combat from his story. Taking time out to slow yourself and stop attacking as a mid-combat trick doesn't mesh as well there. I honestly wonder if simply letting you charge for additional range and changing the damage to a flatter value might not be more in line with your goal here.

Vengeful Rush feels tacked on and awkwardly designed. It's clear you want a thoughtful utility dash, but attaching an offensive steroid to it means that the default use is just to pop it early for more power, which removes much of the thought behind it. You also haven't done much to move Varus into a range where you might need a dash to dodge, so the ability just kind of sits there not doing much. It doesn't play into his gameplay pattern, it doesn't fill a gap in his kit, and a single small dash with a minor bonus doesn't do much for a more mobile fantasy.

Corrupt Volley needs more explanation. What's the range? Is it an area around you or a target area? Why does it have a recast when you'll almost always want to use it instantly? Did you intentionally lose the zoning ability from Varus, which he often relies on to threaten hits with his R or Q effectively? Why did you cut down the number of impacted targets? This feels like a change for the sake of change, especially as you didn't actually say these apply on-hit, so I'm not sure why you'd lean into on-hit play here.

Chain of Corruption gets us back to the Piercing Arrow issue -- if you wanted to change Varus's gameplay to be more mobile and give more agency, why did you keep his two biggest tools for long-range poke and avoiding people gapclosing onto him? You've basically just created old Varus + mobility + being forced to use Q to proc stacks, which doesn't feel like a marked improvement.

Sephi5112/28/2019, 8:11:17 PM2 votes

Dont forget to gim him 7 jumps, stealth, movementspeed buffs, an R to escape any situation, full waveclear in a single q and 28 new passivs that allows him to buy ap , ad and tank items he can scale with.

Edit: oh wait, thats akali in a nutshell

ModUlanopo12/28/2019, 8:22:13 PM2 votes

I feel this would benefit from a primer in why Varus needs work. In what ways is he struggling? How do your changes address those weaknesses?

G0blinSlay3r12/28/2019, 8:37:46 PM2 votes

After reading up. i agree.

HideSide12/28/2019, 11:45:52 PM1 votes

I like him new W but dislike that he has restricted execution ability. What I liked on him is that he is the definition of the archer the sniper https://youtu.be/GfTGkrSSpZA but I think that he should have more consistent poke but not at the expense of ability to execute ppl. He still should have that movement "I SEE YOU!" but he needs to have lethality build for that but with that he feels useless compared to his classic adc playstyle until someone set up situation for him and thats what I would like to change. ( I am talking about situations where its not wise to get to opponent on ADC atutoattack range since he would not with through autoattacks with lethality build and has to resort to pokes or situation where he get helped). Well, those feeling are around half year old, I havent played him that much lately so I may be easily wrong and he may be good at pokes since there are tons of videos of varus doing 1/3 of someone health bar on lvl 4 but I never managed to succeed on that, so Im most likely just bad at him but I found to be good with ashe, carrying all 3 games I played so far ever since I got skin on her ( ye, when I play some champ with skin, it feels whole differently, even dmg I do) with such game control I could just dream about on varus ( when I managed to do something with varus I felt like "Ok, it worked... somehow..." but when I managed to do something with ashe I felt like "Omg, Im a GOD! I did it so PERFECTLY")

Caretaker Jack12/31/2019, 6:32:05 PM1 votes

This is a sticky situation and people appear torn over how to go about it...

Should Varus merely get the Ez treatment with updated visuals and minor changes? Or should he receive a complete overhaul like Urgot?

There appears to be no right answer. However, Varus is my 2nd most played and I can confidently say id be fine with either route as long as some kind of change happens.