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Recommended Items
Runes:
+10% Attack Speed
+10 Adaptive (6 AD or 10 AP)
+5 Armor
Spells:
Flash
Heal
Items
Ability Order
Living Vengeance (PASSIVE)
Varus Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Draven
For me, Draven is always a hard matchup. High poke and early damage. Prevent him from getting stacks if you can. Hard to trade with him. You might just farm up. The most important thing to do against him: DONT DIE. As long as you prevent him from getting kills you can outdamage him in late game.
Nami
Her bubbles that buff your auto attacks fit really well with your long ranged auto attacks. Also if Nami hits her Q, you have a safe chance to hit your ultimate after it. The sustain through her heal is pretty useful too.
Nami
Her bubbles that buff your auto attacks fit really well with your long ranged auto attacks. Also if Nami hits her Q, you have a safe chance to hit your ultimate after it. The sustain through her heal is pretty useful too.
I'm xTheUnlimited (EUW) and I've been playing League of Legends since 2011. I've mained ADC since the end of season 7 and I've developed a special liking for Varus. I'm living in Germany, so as you read you may notice that my English isn't perfect, but I'm working on it! This guide is my collected experience as a S7-S8 Plat ADC main playing against high Plat / low Diamond players. |
Varus is a pretty solid ADC since the start of season 8. I did play him a lot and was pretty successful with it. He's still a good ADC after a couple of patches and that's why I want to present him to you.
Pros
+ High auto attack range + Strong / Bully Lane + Good Damage all over in the game + Healing reduction + Mixed, On-Hit Damage + Destroys Tanks Varus has an auto attack range of 575 what is higher than the range of most of the other ADC's. Through that and through his poke his laning phase isn't bad at all. With his Hail of Arrows you can reduce the healing of the enemy. Throuhg his On-Hit based build he is dealing mixed damage and destroys tanks pretty easy. I also think he is dealing pretty solid damage all over the game. |
Cons
- Outscaled by Crit in Late - Susceptible to CC - Low Mobility - Lot of skill shots in his kit Even though he has lot of Pros, he surely has some Cons too. Because of his On-Hit based build he won't build any Crit items (most of the time) and gets outscaled by other Crit ADC's in late game. Also due to his low mobility he is very suspectible to any CC, even more when his summoners are down. Also you might need some practice on him, because almost every spell is a skillshot. |
Precision
|
Precision |
Lethal Tempo |
Triumph |
Legend: Alacrity |
Coup de Grace |
Sorcery
|
Sorcery |
Absolute focus |
Gathering Storm |
Row 1 | For the first Row I'd choose the extra attack speed to compensate the amount of attack speed you actually got from choosing Precision as your main rune tree. |
Row 2 | Here I'd choose the Bonus 6 AD to compensate the amount of AD you got from choosing Sorcery as your second tree. |
Row 3 | The last thing I choose is more armor. This also is a method to gain more sustain in lane and to stay healthier to keep my Absolute Focus buff. The other options in this row aren't really viable at all. |
Domination |
Resolve |
Inspiration |
Flash is a must have on every ADC. It gives you a good possibility to save yourself from ganks, assassins jumping on to you or just dangerous situations in general. Also you can re-position yourself in Teamfights with it. You can also use it in an offensive way to flash forward to get a kill. 300 seconds is a pretty high cooldown though, so you I would be really patient with the use of it and not try to waste it. But dont be too patient - If you need to use it, you need to use it. Heal is also core for almost every ADC. Again, you can use it in a defensive way to heal you up to not die from burst damage or other sources. Also you can save your support with it if he gets low, you can prevent him from dying with the use of this summoner spell. I rarely use it in an aggressive way, but you can do this. You simply just want the movement speed you get from it to chase an enemy. |
You start with Doran's Blade and one Health Potion. If the enemy has high poke you can also start defensive with a Doran's Shield.
Rich back
You actually want to get a Vampiric Scepter and Boots at your first recall. You'll have a lot of early sustain in lane and some bonus AD. You can also buy a Recurve Bow in combination with Boots if you enough cash for it. |
Poor back
This can happen against lanes that have a lot of pressure towards your or if you get into a bad spot and get killed early. A wise choice here is a Cull. It will allow you to farm up and get back some gold over time. Also you have a little more sustain with it. |
This is the offensive decision out of these 3 Boots. You want to get Berserker's Greaves when you are ahead, wanna DPS a lot or just looking to reach the attack speed cap (2.5) faster. Notice that you dont really need these boots if you have a supporter that buys Ardent Censer. Not my favorite choice on Varus. I do not buy them really often. |
That is a defensive option. You want to buy Ninja Tabis when you are having a really hard lane and you need to block some damage from the other ADC or if they are having 2 or more AD assassins (like Zed and Rengar). Even though you are only blocking a little of the amount of damage they deal to you, that amount might keep you alive. |
Another defensive option. Varus does not have a high mobility, so a lot of CC is pretty much a nightmare for him. These boots might help you against a lot of CC (like Leona), because of the passive, which is reducing all CC effets towards you by 30%. These boots are a must-have against an enemy team that has a high amount of CC. |
Blade of the Ruined King is your first core item to complete. Even though you wont have the huge Powerspike you would have with Guinsoo's Rageblade as your first item, it's building path is way more comfortable. Also you'll get AD, lifesteal and some attack speed plus the passive, that will allow you to shredd tanks pretty easy. The active of it is pretty useful too. |
Guinsoo's Rageblade will allow you to deal a great amount of damage while you are also getting more attack speed with every attack (passive stacks up to 6 times). Since you are doing mixed damage you can use both stats from it, AP, AD, armor and magic penetration, very well. A must-have on him. It's really expensive tho and takes a bit to finish it, that's why you want it as your second item. |
Runaan's Hurricane is your third item to get on Varus. The really nice thing about Runaan's Hurricane is the passive. It allows you to spread your massive On-Hit damage on to a lot of enemies, so it gives you the chance to deal AOE-Damage. Also a great choice to build. You wont really use the Crit chance of it, except you are building Infinity Edge after it. |
Infinity Edge |
The Bloodthirster |
Wit's End |
Mortal Reminder |
Lord Dominik's Regards |
Frozen mallet |
Mercurial Scimitar |
Guardian Angel |
Maw of Malmortius |
As Guinsoo's Rageblade is still his first core item, I won't make some explanations on it, because I already did before. You build that, to stack up a lot of Ap and deal mostly Ap damage with your auto attacks. The Ap On-Hit build supports your Chain of Corruption and Blighted Quiver damage really well since they both scale on AP.
UPDATE Patch 8.18: I am not building the Ap On-Hit build any longer. The main reason for this is, that going for Guinsoo's Rageblade as your first item just takes too long to finally complete the item and to reach your first powerspike of the game. I still want to mention it though.
Nashor's Tooth |
Rabadon's Deathcap |
Void Staff |
Zhonya's Hourglass |
As for most ADC's, the most important damage factor are their auto attacks, and for Varus they are too. Even though, there is a useful rotation of your spells you should know about. It's pretty much the main thing on how to use his spells, to do the most DPS:
Most DPS Combo
You start of with 3 auto attacks. Then, your Guinsoo's Rageblade is half stacked, but your Blighted Quiver is fully stacked. Then you want to get your Piercing Arrow on to the enemy. Note, that you should not hold your Piercing Arrow for a long time there, because you would lose damage if you are running around for a couple of seconds charging your Piercing Arrow. So just give it a little charge. After that you can quickly follow with your Chain of Corruption to snare the enemy and keep him in his place. Note that Chain of Corruption will instantly give the enemy 3 Blighted Quiver stacks. You should use your Hail of Arrows now. After that you should sneak in 3 more auto attacks to stack your Blighted Quiver again. If you have it at 3 stacks again, you can use your Piercing Arrow again to get the extra damage from your Blighted Quiver stacks. Another good thing to know about him is, that a pretty nice combo is, to cast your Piercing Arrow at the enemy while your auto attack on to him is flying. So, your Piercing Arrow will arrive almost at the same time as your auto attack. This might needs some practice, but it isn't that hard to learn. |
|
In general Varus is a solid ADC in lane. He is to me kind of a poke-bully matchup towards other ADC's. Even though he has his own playstyle, a lot of how to play him in lane is decided by the support you will get:
Defensive Support
In case you will get a defensive support (example Janna), you will try to mostly farm up and maybe even pressure the enemy a bit through pushing the waves towards their tower and make them lose farm. You should also poke the enemy with your strong auto attacks. Not that it is important to play safe if you have a defensive support, because if you get killed you can fall out of game easy. |
Aggressive Support
If you get a more aggressive support, you will try to follow up on his engages. Note that you have no engage move and you can't just jump in like Tristana with her Rocket Jump. So you should just walk up, if you are already 6 you should also ult the enemy you want to catch, and try to DPS as much as possible. There will be more explained in the Combo section down below. |
Poke Support
The last case that could appear is, that you will get a poke support. Here as ADC it is mostly the same: You let them do their job. You farm up while they are trying to harrass the enemy ADC with their poke. You can also help them to poke with your Piercing Arrow and your Hail of Arrows. Important here is, that you shouldnt ignore safe CS for just poking the enemy ADC. |
In Lane, you should make use of your good auto attack range (575) and just bully the enemy ADC and Support with a couple of auto attacks. Your auto attacks deal strong damage from Lvl 2 on, because of your Blighted Quiver passive. You should also make use of your poke damage. So you can bully the enemy even harder if you fire a quick Hail of Arrows or Piercing Arrow after you auto attacked them, because it will use the stacks from Blighted Quiver to deal bonus damage.
If you win the lane really hard keep in mind there is one rotation you can do to snowball a game: If you get your Bot lane tower you swap with Top. There you take the Top tower. Then you get together with your Jungler to kill the Herald. You use the Herald to destroy the Tier 1 Mid Tower.
You also should keep the poke-kill-sustain triangle in mind. If you dont know what it is, here is a quick explanation to it. It literally describes the 3 types of a Botlane and tells you, which one counters which one. So remember: Poke beats Kill, Kill beats Sustain and Sustain beats Poke. That's just a little reminder for you for the Champ select.
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Teamfights
As the game goes on you will stack items. So, in late game you will have a bunch of items and with that comes a lot of attack speed, since that is mainly what you are building for. You are one of the main damage dealers for your team so you should stay alive as long as possible while DPS-ing a lot. For that you should learn how to kite properly, since that is what you mainly do in Teamfights. In Teamfights you mainly try to kite everybody who wants to kill you. And since youre an ADC, there will allways be someone. Your Chain of Corruption will help you to keep enemies away from you, because it is a good opportunity to snare somebody and re-position.
Farming out of lane
As ADC I think it is pretty important to never stop farming. At the point you will stop to farm the game will go out of your hands. And you dont really want that. So, you should get the feeling for when your team needs you or not. In late game there is a lot of grouping and just shoving lanes in and out while 5 people are mid. You can use these spots to go to a side lane and keep your farm up and generate some gold you would not have gotten, if you stood mid. For that it is important to know when to go back to your team since the enemy can see you on the minimap, take advantage and fight your team in a 4v5 spot. |
I might give you a little information of what this section is about. Since Riot is planning to make a big patch and a small one by turns, there will be a lot of changes in the game coming up. This section is here to explain changes on Varus or changes, which directly effect Varus in his playstyle. I will also explain, how they effect Varus and how to react to these specific changes. Some Patches probably wont be mentioned in this section. That means, that this Patch didn't influence Varus playstyle in any (direct) way. This section will also just mention the last 3 important patches for Varus, simply because it would be too long if I would mention every patch.
Varus got nerfed directly. Fortunately it wasn't a damage nerf. Due to his long-range poke damage, Riot thought he had to be an easier target to kill. His Base Health got decreased by 50 from 549 to 499. As trade-off they increased his Health growth by 3, so he'll get that Health back with leveling up.
Preseason is here aaand Guinsoo's Rageblade got updated again. First of all it's cost got lowered from 3300 gold ⇒ 3100 gold. The On-hit damage is back at flat 15. It no longer grants bonus attack damage and AP per stack BUT now grants 6.5-15% (lv 1-18) total armor and magic penetration.
Since it's cost got lowered and the on-hit damage got switched back to flat 15, you'll reach your powerspike earlier and do more damage once you've completed the item. In my opinion they nerfed the scaling of this item and put it back to base values like armor and mr pen. These stats aren't bad for you, I mean you can use them. But percentage AD and AP per stack lead to more damage on Varus.
Also Celerity got changed. It now only grants a bonus of 8% for movespeed bonuses and the adaptive force got removed. Since that isn't a great choice anymore, because it wont lead to any extra damage, you should go with Absolute Focus instead. Rune trees lost their predeterminded buffs. In exchange to that, you can choose 3 little buffs by yourself. These are named and explained at the Runes section and at the beginning of the guide.
After the Guinsoo's Rageblade change in 8.23 his winrate decreased dramaticly (I think it was -2.1%). Looks like Riot reacted to that: They increased his Chain of Corruption damage on rank 1 and 2. It has still the same damage at rank 3 and the same scaling though.
Also his Blighted Quiver empowered damage got highered at later ranks. Not the best buffs - but buffs for him. I guess this will bring him back a bit.
All in all I would like to thank you first for reading till this point of the guide. I hope you like it ! If you have any questions and / or feedback just let me know in the comment section. I would really like to discuss or share my thoughts on Varus there :). I also wish you the best luck on mastering Varus and I hope I could help you with my guide.
Also I would like to specially thank Jovy for designing the Banners and the dividers and jhoijhoi for designing the Table of Contents and the "Back to the Top" picture.
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