Talk:Varus/@comment-5877442-20130507153402/@comment-9257013-20130508021148

I think you're underestimating Varus. The only thing that I feel like draws him back right now are his cooldowns. And exactly that, you fail to mention.

Consider the following:

1) His ultimate is basically a weird version of the Ashe ultimate. It might not slow in an AoE around your target, and it might be a smaller hitbox, but the potential to hit an ultimate and disable all 5 of their teammembers, makes this ability one of the best utility spells of all ranged characters (prove me wrong).

2) Varus has even more utility to offer: his E allows him to get more auto attacks in (up to two, which can also be procced with Q), while he also has a longer range than most carries. If you can get a free auto in and hit E on both their support and their carry, you're set for a really good trade because of this high range + AoE sustained slow combination.

3) Varus's blight favours him within the health stacking meta. Because you can proc 3x Blight up to 5 times in a teamfight, you're set to deal really good damage, even to tankier characters. Blight is magic damage, which is harder to stack, and gives your upfront nukers and bruiser-type characters that should be peeling for you, a little room to breathe.

4) The one thing I feel balances out this absurd amount of useful stats is his Q, which does not fit very well in the teamfighting meta, where AD carries shine and what you're basically picking your sustained damage character for, in the first place. Obviously this is useful against specific mechanics, for instance Draven axes, or to snowball the lane with a random Q, chunking that sona for 50% of her health. The flipside of the coin is that this ability requires charging for its full effectiveness. There are two arguments why this is not a useful mechanic. Consider the situation. If you are leveling Q and winning the trade without using Q (which should be the case, because auto's deal more damage when you're attacking each other), then you were going to win the trade with or without Q, which should never be the case. This leaves Q as an ability to turn trades that you already won in your favour, however, you are forced to level other abilities to get this done. Conclusion? E is the preferred choice. In my opinion after that W is most desirable for the mid-game levels of MagRes on bruisers and/or tanks, and just leaving Q at level 1 to proc the blight stacks.

I hope this sheds some new light on Varus and lets you reconsider him as an AD carry. I actually think he's one of the strongest AD carries around, but requires a slightly different playstyle and mindset.