[5.0] Varus Guide - Varus, a flexible ADC

The biggest question each match is "Which build should i pick" for Varus, since you have a couple of options.

First of, look at your team. Do you have AP champs? No? => AP Varus, works great against long range enemies and teams with 2-3 tanks. No need for Giant Slayer .

If your team has AP then look at the enemy team. Are they close ranged? No?=> Go Lethality. If they have long range that means their champs are squishy and you will mostly be able to 1-2 shot them with arrows.

Another look on the enemy team to answer the following question: Does the enemy team has high burst/ won't you be able to constantly AA? No? => On-hit. Varus has one of the highest dps potentials in the game due to his [varus:passive] in combination with Blighted Quiver + Piercing Arrow to pop the blight. Overall on hit can work great against decent burst as well but crit would be better in other situations.

Good pairings:

Braum Really strong duo for the laning phase if you play on-hit or crit. He will block the dmg of the enemy adc, while simply shred the enemy adc. In later stages of the game he will be great at peeling for you. Similar to Braum works Shen , due to his Spirit's Refuge he can prevent dmg from you and with his Shadow Dash allows him to peel for you. After lvl 5 he can (theoretical) freely roam and still be on bot lane with his ult. Overall you can play pretty agressive with those 2, look for lots of trades, but you have to communicate with your partner.

Karma and Lux are awesome supports for you, with their poke and shielding for trades. They enable an really agressive play option, but it doesn't bother them if you play more defensive and scale. Important here is that the enemy minion wave shouldn't be bigger than yours, so both can land their skill shots. As soon as the enemy is low enough one of you can deliver the killing blow, especially with Lux at lvl 5.

Yuumi is super annoying if you play AP Varus or Lethality. She will help you to poke down enemies and late game you shred them to bits thanks to her additional stats from You And Me! . Play it save and scale with her.

Medium pairings:

Nautilus , Thresh , Pyke and Blitzcrank which disposition enemies for easy kills, can help you snowball, but else you are better off with enchant and poke supports. For these supports you want to keep the wave close to your side, so the hook is by far more devestating for the enemy since they can't easily flee under their tower.

Alistar , Amumu , Galio , Pantheon , Leona are basically same as the hook champs. You will play agressive, but you want to keep the wave at your side or neutal (middle of the lane) to make picks on the enemy. They usually dictate later in the game which picks your team tries to get to secure an objective. It feels pleasent to play with some since you have to focus less on the engages, but overall enchanters are better for you.

Janna , Soraka , Lulu and Nami are pretty good. They help you scale into the game while provide good peeling with their ults. Most enchanters are actually really agressive supports which can actively trade and poke the enemy down (especially Soraka, you can't lose a trade with Soraka since you regain lost Hp after hitting a Starcall . Goal is to always have more minions on your side and to get the push against the enemy.

Morgana has a decent poke, and some good cc, but otherwise there isn't much synergy between you two than perma cc one or multiple enemies.

Rather bad pairings:

Sona idk.. She doesn't offer much to work with. Yea she scales great, but so do other enchanters as well, so meh.

Brand , Teemo , Senna and this damn rock Malphite please no. Non of this besides senna is a support, so please stop picking them into this role and troll your adc. And for senna.. you have no synergy with her. Imo the only time Senna is good, is if you play a fastening Senna lane with an APC like Sera or Ori, or some tanks like Gragas or Leona.

WIP

Early game:

AP: For AP start lvl 1 with Blighted Quiver to match your enemy in first lvl waveclear. Try to survive the lane and farm save (since you have no AD-items the enemy ADC will most likely win short trades). If you can weave in an AA on them, do so and remember to use an spell afterwards to pop the blight stacks. As soon as you have Nashor's Tooth you stand a chance in trades against some champs. Else just keep farming save and scale into mid and lategame where your real powerspike comes.

Lethality: With this build you try to poke constantly with Piercing Arrow and hold your enemies away from your minions, so they can't lasthit or get exp. Don't engage in long trades, because Summon Aery is basically for poke while a lot of ADC pick Lethal Tempo and outdamage you then in few seconds. Due to your high range and poke rune they should barely be able to get close and stack LT which can get you ahead pretty quick and might end up in few kills during laning from which on you wanna go and snowball.

Note: On first base you wanna get a Serrated Dirk + Tear of the Goddess

Crit/OH/Hybrid: Try to look for trades against the enemy (3 AA + Piercing Arrow / Hail Of Arrows ) till you can all in them for a kill. Extended trades benefit you due to the Lethal Tempo keystone. Be careful with the enemy engage (example the enemy has a Leona if you dodge her [leona:3] + Solar Flare and kite backwards you win the fight). Apply a lot of pressure to the lane so you can roam to help your jungle, but check the map every few sec, so you don't get ganked by their jungle. In case you can't go for extended trades try to harras the enemies when they try to last hit (you actually should do this on any champ, but i specially wanted to mention this here) and use your abilities only if you can last hit yourself with them while also damage the enemy duo lane, to slowly poke them down.

Mid game:

AP: At this point in the game you become a big threat, because your combo will mostly take ppl down at 50% HP already, which means you will get focused by the enemy team. Always keep track if someone bought the Quicksilver Enchant . If you ult them and they use it, they won't build up Blighted Quiver stacks => you deal no damage, if you don't AA them and your entire CC/safety mechanism in your kit is gone.

Lethality: This is your peak in the game. You can decide the claim of many objectives with this build. If you hit few Piercing Arrow and the enemies are low HP, they can't contest Drakes/Shelly/Baron and you claim these for free, but if they still decide to contest them while already chunked out/outnumbered because someone recalled you take the objective + some free kill, nice. Try to win the game in this stage, because further on you get outscaled by other Crit ADC's.

Crit/OH/Hybrid:

At this point you already have some items and with this you are a force to be reconned with. Try to keep out of harms way (watch that you can't get flanked) for maximum dps in fights. One of your ultimates to pick of enemies can easily secure objectives which help you to snowball further into the game. Try on pushing your lead (if you have one) and pick off enemies (in any case, this helps a lot when you play from behind).

Late game:

AP: At this point you delete most enemies with your Blighted Quiver + Piercing Arrow combo. Secure objectives and never get cought. If you have elder usually 3 AA + your combo is enough to kill them with Elder buff.

Lethality: You basically are weaker than any crit ADC now. Try to poke them off of objectives. And secure them with your team to end ASAP.

Crit/OH/Hybrid: Similar to AP you are really strong right now. For crit you will with an Navori Quickblades build be able to constantly spam abilites while Infinity Edge will keep your AA at high DMG as well. while On-Hit will be a threat becasue of the high dps in combination with a defensive item so you won't die quickly yourself. Hybrid works similar in burst as AP so.. you will kill a lot of enemies quickly. Secure the game, make sure you don't get cought off-guard.

Provided recently by the WR community

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