Talk:Varus/@comment-24486730-20141101124343/@comment-15244341-20141119210959

"Aside from the ones with higher burst, mobility, and self peels that do not involve Ulti length CDs."

I'll elaborate. I run commonly into Irelia, Kassadin, Talon, Ahri, Rengar, Shaco and Kha. These are champions that basically have a 100% kill garanteed on most ADCs if they get the jump on them. I agree that Vayne, Lucian, Corki and Graves have a much better chance of living through them with the same amount of peeling applied. However, with proper positioning (which I certainly don't have, but I'm getting there bit by bit), Varus has a range advantage on these people long enough for his frontline to discourage a suicide dive that might not work out. This is, of course, not something that works against some of these champions (namely Kha, Kassadin and Rengar) but those champions pretty much murder any non-Vayne ADC unless your team perfectly peels for you and your support exhausts most of their combo.

While Kog'Maw is overall the better champion against inmobile bruisers, his attack range is inconsistent. Ideal teamfights consisting of a 6-8 second 5v5 are not always common. If Kog had to use his range increase to fight in a skirmish that then evolved into a full fledged teamfight (easy with the top TP meta and roam-centered mid laners) then he is a short-ranged ADC with a lot of anti-bruiser tech but not a whole lot of escapes against those bruisers.

Yet, however, while not being the kite lord nor the tank-shredder, Varus gets both of these. Firstly, he has above average range. Then he offers two sources of crowd control, one in a persistent AoE and other as good as hard CC vs melees and potentially AoE. Finally he is an ADC with magical % max HP shredding, which while not the highest, it offers a good enough number to matter and force some tough choices from the tanks early game (armor or mr?). So he is neither the best kiter nor the best shredder, but he can do both while offering a distinctive strenght in his overall better sieging/poke potential. So while he is not "better than the best" he can do a good enough job if you are in need of any of his other strengths.

And at point, I believe it's a matter of taste and which support you are picking with Varus. While in a vacuum both Vayne and Kog are actually better at dealing with tanks, Vayne has the HUGE disadvantage of being extremely bad against both the best tanky top laners in the game. Ryze and Maokai simply don't care about Vayne at all. If Vayne is in range to autoattack either of them, she can be hit by both Rune Prison and Twisted Advance which not even stealthing saves you from, and the followup spells just mean that Vayne is dead. Those two, however, are actually mediocre against Varus. Simply because of his range advantage on their "initiation" tools. Finally, what (for me, at least) warrants picking Varus, is that you can deal using CC with two threats (for example: ult the bruiser, your supp peels+exhausts the assassin/dive oriented bruiser). Kog just needs a whole team babysitting him while he goes around demolishing health bars, which is fair but extremely hard in solo queue.

Actually, I believe weaker laners don't get destroyed now 2v2. But with how goddamn good all ADCs are since the item changes I've found that people have developed a taste for feeding their bottom lane. With the emphasis on strong early game junglers that put high amounts of map pressure since the start of S4, combined with the Teleport resurgence in top lane and reappearance of roaming and pushing mid-laners there is almost always one side camping the bottom lane. It's here that Varus provides with something Kog and Vayne don't: potentially huge snowballing and then strong mid game teamfight with AoE crowd control on top of poke.

Is he better than other ADCs? I don't think he is better than anyone at what they are designed for. I think Varus is more of a toolbox. He doesn't have the best tank shredding (Kog, Vayne), but he does have a tank shredding steroid. He doesn't have a strong on-demand steroid (Trist, MF), but his is a really strong one and pretty easy to keep up during teamfights. He doesn't have the best CC potential (Ashe), but he has some pretty good CC. He is a superb poker, but not the best (Ez). He can siege almost as well as the best, just not as well (Cait). He can't really dominate his lane as some do (Corki, Draven) but his laning fase is great. So I pick him into teams that want to siege and need a bit more of something (either CC, tank killing or poke).

Good discussion, BTW.