User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Varus, the Arrow of Retribution/@comment-7709681-20150501144939/@comment-1330314-20150501152039

Yeah, this isn't an overhaul, but mainly because Varus is already a pretty healthy champion with an interesting theme and fun mechanics. His main problem is that his kit doesn't work with itself as well as it should, so I changed that a little. While this may perhaps be a buff overall, my intention is mainly to emphasize his current strengths and pare down his less interesting effects, so I also took away a lot of power, too: aside from taking away his autoattack steroids, I also reduced his range and movement speed, as well as some of his early game ult power, so he'd likely be a lot weaker in lane (his E would also be harder to use as a nuke).

Upon looking at the changes I gave to his E, I agree it's almost identical to /, though I think there's different gameplay behind both abilities: 's E is mostly a nuke that you'd want to save for its crowd control, whereas my version of Desecrated Ground is mainly a spot you're setting to out-trade people, which is also closer to its current functionality. My main intent with this is to have the ability damage enemies at the end of its use, rather than the beginning, because it's otherwise weird to lay it down at the start of a fight when it's one of the very few tools you have to access a nuke you build up by fighting.