"Fear not the man who does many moves, fear the man who does one move many times, who refuses to do other move out of pure spite " - Sun Tzu, a scary man Nice Darkk Mane reference
Something else important to consider is that his Q when fully charged increases blight damage by 50%, so after you ult someone stare them in the eyes and wait while you charge your one shot😁😁😁
Had someone in Plat going AP Varus a few weeks ago in ranked. He heavily inted in his mid lane but we were able to go into late game where he did the most damage out of both teams. The damage output is terrifying & is practically a hyper scaling nuke
Too bad that even with maxed-out build, you still can't one-shot with the Ult-Q combo, unless you're super ahead and the enemy is very squishy. Still fun tho
I was a Evelynn player and when I try to play Varus for the first time, I use the same built as Evelynn. It kind of worked but I had like 10 death for every game lol.
Finnaly you made a video about it, I have otped ap varus from bronze 3 to diamond and there a surprisingly low amount of ppl who actually believed that it worked
the strength in manamune on ap builds for champs that have hybrid scalings (take mid lane artilery mage kog maw for example) is that muramana does 4.2% max mana + 6%ad scaling dmg on abilities, with one completed mana item (excluding muramana) plus either manaflow band or biscuits you have over 2k mana super early and +25ish ad from muramana passive ad. so 3.6(6%ad scaling)+84(%mana scaling)=87.6 flat dmg on every ability (on champs that have higher ad scalings early/late you can just buy tear early and complete muramana for a spike when needed) (on kog his ad scaling is higher than ap on ult so pen plus muramana is broken due to low cd and flat dmg added from muramana)
I love how every "surprising item in his build" is exactly what I always thought you should build on AP varus. Nashor tooth is so good with the on-hit on W + 100 ap and AS to place stacks
I’ve seen AP Varus’ build Nashor’s for some time now though. The most surprising part about this build to me is Riftmaker. I wonder how much he gets out of the passive, and if Luden’s wouldn’t just be better in most games
@@mannyw_ I think the health and survivability is really the big difference. The damage is lower, sure, but after 3 items you are going to explode squishy champs anyway. Luden's is definitely the play though if you don't go Manamune because Varus does need SOMETHING for mana problems.
Disclaimer: I'm a D2 Varus player, and he's been one of my mains since his release. I wanted to add a couple of notes: 1- The one shot playstyle of AP Varus got amplified with a buff he received quite a while ago actually. During S11 he got a mini-rework where his W detonation damage goes up with Q charge time. That means previous when the 3 stack proc would be 15% max health, if you max charge Q it goes all the way to 22.5%. Naturally, with AP this is even stronger. As AP you can hit about 45% max health with an average mid-late game build, which goes all the way to almost 70% max health which combined with the W active can wipe out all of a person's HP. This is even more noticeable on tanks as AP Varus was always a tank killer since his conception. AP did get a buff this season, but it's a minsicule buff. 2- In addition to the damage going up, by proccing his stacks his cooldowns on Q, W and E partially reset with every stack proc. This allows AP Varus, which is heavily reliant on proccing with spells, to get a lot of damage in even if he doesn't one shot as he constantly rotates spells. 3- It's problematic for AP Varus to rely solely on R to stack up his blight stacks. Hence why Nashors Tooth is his best performing item (and is highlighted in the build). One can still do full AP after, with Rift/Crown, Rabadons, magic pen, etc.. but also still be very effective with auto attacks that are benefitted by his passive and his W on-hit damage which has a very high AP ratio right now. Nashors rush also significantly helps with the "weak early"- Varus should never have a weak early game, as that's one of the champs innate strengths. The impression of having a weak early comes from spending money on Manamune components and the item itself, which is a delayed spike that barely helps his damage as opposed to being close to building rabadons and have auto attacks do up to 300 more damage on-hit while massively buffing his R and W proc damage, or Zhonyas which makes him incredibly hard to kill, or other AP items that utilize his insane AP ratios. TL;DR: AP Varus one shots became viable after his minirework back in S10 that increases his W proc damage based on Q charge; AP Varus should aim to get Nashors Tooth then stack more AP asap and auto attack wherever possible to always dish out big bursts of damage in duels, skirmishes and teamfights; please skip Manamune on AP Varus, it's completely unnecessary and mathematically adds nothing to AP Varus playstyle or damage that an AP item can't add; Varus is and always will be an on-hit casting champion, i.e. he does both AAing and casting in equal measures- this applies to whatever build, even lethality feels inferior if you don't utilize autos and W stacks in the early to mid game; consider putting early points into Q then maxing W first after level 7, the early Q points are necessary for a decent early game, and with recent on hit W buffs speeding through its levels after level 6 leads to more favorable results for AP; if you're against AP Varus, merc treads are one way to prevent R>WQ snipes, and anathema counters the champ completely.
As an AP varus main myself i was about to write all that you just did, you are literally hurting yourself by buying manamune on AP varus, your early game is so much better with nashor also i can't believe they didn't talk about the 2 core components of the AP varus which is the detonation DMG regarding the Q charge and the late game spell rotation when without ult which is 3 autos - spell - 3 autos spell - repeat. Also in terms of runes hail of blades it's hands down his best option because of the low CD of the rune and it's insane synergy with varus In terms of mythic while rift is not a bad option, in an optimal AP varus build you would go luddens for the mana and penetration or crown for safety Lastly I loved when they said varus is weak from behind when in my opinion it's not like that at all unless you go for manamune which if you build that from behind you might as well surrender I think he might have reached Master because he is a good player in general cause clearly is varus knowledge isn't very good ^^
Also I'm impressed with all your knowledge in AP varus, it's the first time I've seen anyone even mentioning all of that especially the way you level up skills which most people do wrong I've been teaching people how to play this champ for ages and you're the first one I've seen with as much knowledge as me on him, cheers, may your ult+Q combos always hit
@@goncasn8161 I don’t play AP Varus but I do love hybrid scaling champs. I’m curious as to whether you guys think that Riftmaker over Luden’s is the move. Luden’s gives 26mpen at full build with boots. Especially in the build featured here that includes manamune it seems like it’d be especially valuable.
@@mannyw_ in riftmaker vs Ludens I'll take the luddens but I never build manamune tho, riftmaker is better for team fighting early game but late game played properly you one shot everybody with luddens, you can try luddens instead of riftmaker in a build with manamune you're basically trading sustain for more DMG (especially because of the extra mana for the muramana passive) but I heavily advise against manamune on AP varus it's an actual trap it just makes your early weaker and delays your spike
I one trick AP varus, but I do it slightly differently. I use PTA and skip Manamune, going straight for nashor's into attack speed boots. It's not uncommon for my PTA to do upwards of 7k damage a game, as well as getting 2.5 attack speed thanks to his passive. It means you can do 700 mixed damage per auto and since you're full AP you can do 80% max hp damage easily. Since I skip the Magic pen boots I almost always need to forego Hourglass for a voidstaff third or fourth item, or a blighting jewel into Shadowflame right after riftmaker. Honestly AP varus has a massive power spike at 1100 gold. You get a recurve bow, and PTA lets you trade with autos easily. I've played with First Strike, Hail of Blades, and PTA on numerous occasions before and I find that I have the most success on PTA. PTA gives a massive amount of sustained damage, especially early game when you're against an engage champ that could pop your First Strike. I like to take W first to harass the laner off the wave and get level 2 first, then poke them down with autos while and finish them off with a W Q. Ghost works best for this early cheese. I like to start the fight and bait them into engaging in the minion wave. Most midlaners are very predictable and will try to fight you a majority of the time, overestimating their level 2 damage. Very few midlaners can fight PTA varus level 2 and win. Ignite works good, but I find that either ghost or exhaust works best into a high mobility/assassin midlane or jungle. Teleport also is a very good choice, but I tend to run Ghost to make sure I can kite and chase those slippery assassins. Late game with this build I can triple AA someone and W tap Q. If they have less than 3000 hp they will die. That being said, play whatever works and is fun for you. Experiment. AP varus is broken as hell, so it's an absolute blast. You can dumpster any overconfident Katarina or Akali with ease with enough practice. Just make sure to ban Zed. You'll most likely win the game if you play to scale but the laning phase will be absolute hell. Same with Leblanc and Fizz. Luckily Leblanc and Fizz have low pickrates.
One of my favourite mechanics in any game is % HP damage. So when I saw Varus' scaling way back some time in S3-5 when I actively played League, I knew I found something great. Never was good through. But I just knew this video would be amazing for that reason and I was right. The Tear didn't surprise me, as I still remembered how hungry for Mana Varus is. And then it was just waiting for Nashor's, as it is one of my favourite items in the game thanks to a Jungle Assassin I like to call Dirty D. Now I'm starting to long to play both of them and actually study the game.
I think one thing this build can take is either crown or protobelt as situational mythics. Crown can give you extra ap and huge damage reduction, its mythic passive granting even more ap and health which also helps more with survivability; then protobelt will compensate not having true damage with a shit ton of magic pen that you get from the item and its mythic bonus, while also being a more mobile option for this build. Both allowing to give varus that extra edge in 1v1 duels, just as much as riftmaker does but with small trade offs. Since unlike riftmaker, they don't have omnivamp.
Im also playing Varus only with ap and I assure it’s very strong, the early game isn’t the easiest but if you get through the game will be very enjoyable if there isn’t an infinity movement champ. The Video was very helpful to improve my build thank you for your efforts.
Manamune makes a lot of sense, a couple of seasons ago when hextech gunblade was still a thing ppl went that on varus, but they built the bilgewater cutlass first. The reason for this was so your adaptive force wouldn't turn into AP until you got hextech revolver I believe. Riftmaker also gives back that healing you got from hextech gunblade while also giving you more dmg.
@@owenssama5765 So Gunblade was removed at the end of 2020, while the 'new' runes were added in late 2018. This leaves 2 years where adaptive force were actually in the game through runes at least, although for the first year they were out you were given things like double adaptive force or 1 attack speed, 1 adaptive force depending on the runes you chose. On Patch 9.2 they added the option to choose which bonuses to get. Hope this clears it up :D
The one thing I would correct here: AD Varus also waits for his ult stacks, if the chance is given. Immediately popping it is not optimal, no matter how you build him, as even a pure AD build does a shitload of damage when fully stacked. You made it sound like this is an AP-Varus special, but it is not.
Fair enough, I think that AD varus is mostly about Q W damage and the stacks dont matter as much, where as if you use Q without stacks on AP varus it will basically do nothing haha. Where as AD varus can get away with using Q alone for poke. And as you say - it is good knowledge to have, these videos are for people who are both new to varus all the way to AD varus experts who want a new build to try. So its good to have the basics emphasised.
@@shadows_star Idk if you have ever played lethality poke varus, but the point is to press Q over and over to poke. Stacks most of the time from lane to mid game are irrelevant, they matter in fights and 1v1s.
@@shadows_star except pretty much no matter what AD Varus is never one shotting anyone. If I hit an ulti in the middle of the enemy team it is 100% worth it to instant Q and cash out on 1 stack for CDR than to wait and straight up lose a Q cast. The like 6% max health damage is not worth more than another Q.
Also remember that Varus ult procs blight stacks on hit. The ideal combo for Varus building anything is 3 autos into ult, into e or q while autoing between spells for blight stacks.
3 autos into ult is wasteful, since your ult creates blight stacks over time (and there's a max of 3) Waiting for the 3 ult stacks is a bit long (and doesn't make full use of the cc) so most of the time I do 1/2 auto + ult or ult + 1 auto, and proc (with wq if I think I can oneshot) Then yeah, if they're still alive I auto once or twice (+ the last blight from ult) and proc again
I play Varus a lot bot, and if I know I'm getting ahead that game (an early kill or two thanks to a gank or something), then I will probably buy dark seal regardless of what build I plan to do later on (regular AD, on hit, lethality, AP). Laning against 2 people while ahead means I get a lot of stacks really, really quickly - a really cheap investment to make snowballing even stronger. I just love how Varus is so stupidly flexible in terms of builds, depending on situation. I can't believe I forgot about Riftmaker though, and now I really want to try that!
Riftmaker sounds so troll on someone like Varus. Yeah sure you're in combat for a long time in a teamfight, but 99% of your damage will be done from long range at full HP making all that gold spent on omnivamp useless. Even if the idea is to be more useful beyond your innitial burst you would be so much better off going Ludens for the CDR to have your abilties up faster or even Night Harvester for the upfront damage on multiple targets. That being said this guy has probably 1000000x more time on Varus than me but his explanation for it doesn't convince me.
I definitely agree. Riftmaker is such a bad choice, my pick would be Ludens against poke or Everfrost for the disengage (and root that gives free w stacks).
Imo any ap mythic would work here, riftmaker is specifically good for making your damage last longer and also heal you as your burst combo is already 1 shotting people. Also it doesn't have mana which is actually a good thing because it would waste lots of gold on poke sustain that you don't need. I personally hate riftmaker but I do really like it here because of how it maximises damage over classic mage stats like mana
Building luden's increases the gold value from manamune and gives you a ton of magic pen to one shot people even harder but it leaves you with just the one shots. If you miss ulti on ludens the fight is probably doomed but riftmaker lets you stay useful even with ult down. For norms though I don't think anyone would disagree with ludens/everfrost being hilarious with how people just instantly disappear.
@@batcrow6224 Everfrost lets you be in the fight after ult by securing the 3 w stacks, so i'm having a hard time figuring out how Riftmaker would ever compare to Everfrost here. Especially when you consider that Riftmaker costs 400 gold more than Everfrost.
Riftmaker is AP Varus' best performing AP item. It turns you into a consistent DPS. 99% of your damage comes from blight stacks, which you need to auto to apply. Auto = threat of splash damage. Rift sustain mitigates that. You'll do the same damage on it compared to every other item, except you also have HP and omnivamp which are utility stats you actually use compared to Night Harvester's inferior burst (it's a really bad item in general), and Ludens/Liandries which requires a more spammy caster (something like Ori, Syndra, etc..). Crown is super solid though, rocketbelt has its uses and everfrost is inferior but still ok.
Hybrid varus bot is a thing the full build would be rift maker, Nasher tooth, manamane and rework hydra boot and six item are your choice with w cd reset when trigger stack, against any bruiser he can put up a fight as long as he trigger the stack and also with rift maker he heal a lot I forget to mention but as for the rune bot Take lethal tempo As you would be auto them in order to trigger w passive stack
I low key buy Horizon Focus last item on Lethality Varus. It double scales your damage by giving you just a lil AP for your W and R, plus it increases your Q E and R's damage innately by 10% since you're hitting them at high range.
As an mid ap varus player a decent keystone is also hail of blades with secondary sorcery (manaflow and transcendence)so u dont need tear of goddess nor need to worry about r cd
As a Varus main on Wild Rift, I truly agree on Chime's point on waiting for the three stacks to appear before releasing Q because this is your main damage output be it ad or ap. Many will say that if you have Lethality on Varus you can just disregard the stacks and go for autos and abilities and yes that is true but it is better in my experience to stack the three before using using Q for it gives you more damage and distance from the enemy champion, meaning that you can actually charge the Q backwards. This is very helpful in many circumstances such as when a melee champion is going near you or you're getting greedy and trying to snipe the enemy champ before going back to tower or base; the burst that the stacks give can allow you to have a higher chance of oneshotting and not doing a follow up. And since we're on the topic of bursting, I also would like to add that when you are using Q try to charge it as long as you can, around half of the charge. Because doing this simple thing makes a huge difference; a difference in whether or not you can finish the enemy champion in that exact moment. Trust me, you have no idea how tilting it is to know that if you charged your Q a little longer you could have slained the enemy champion you were trying to kill. Lastly, as a person who also does AP Varus on Bot lane (no shit I just had a comeback two days ago 19/6/7 with all towers on our side destroyed, and the enemy team stealing our Elder and eating Baron) going for Nashor's first is the best option because just as Chime mentioned, the item gives you three things: AP, AS, AP damage ratio. In a sense, this actually gives you a powerspike early on, ability and champion wise. Also going for VS asap really complement this AP build. Because in my opinion VS's penetration damage and scaling with other AP items allows your W to have higher ability and AA damage this in turn sort of enables you to do your job as an ADC even though your AP. For me, the reason why AP Varus is OP is because not only does his scaling do "piercing" damage but also because it makes one or more of the enemy go with an MR build. Which is a permanent disadvantage when their Support is squishy or the Top utilizes on AD items. However, in most cases, AP Varus is almost always OP.
Love the content! I do think manamune into nashors has been popular with ap varus builds for awhile. I started playing varus two seasons ago and it was still a thing then. Cool to see it at gm level play
Fun fact, because charging the q to max raises the damage of the stacks by up to 50%, it is possible to achieve 100%+ max health damage (with void staff to actually have it happen) Couple that with the w active, which dealts damage AFTER the Q damage and at around 600 AP you can one shot more champions regardless of their build. It's great!
I play AP Varus for a very long time, i started playing him in season 6 when rageblade was so op and had almost 100% winrate in high plat. Nowadays i play him mid and adc but always AP, but my setup is litttle different. My build path is always the same Nashors-Crown-Sorcs-Rabadon. Crown is really big if you dont have R and want to kill someone because you can just walk up and AA a little, also assasins get mad. My runes are Press the attack-Presence of mind-alacrity-coup de grace taste of blood-ultimate hunter. Press the attack is rly op, and you dont rly need more damage after the R but without it you always lack damage so press the attack is perfect.
I have recently started using Varus but in the bot lane though instead of going the manamune I go Nashors tooth and my mythic is the crown for protection from assasins. Now going nashors on varus and maxing w first with lethal tempo gives you more or less the same dmg as other adc's in the early levels in flat on auto to auto trading if not more but it also gives you the huge burst from the combo of ult w q. As I can see the logic in the manamune as it does give you more ad dmg on the q e and well auto for people that prefer a cheaper build and faster mythic nashors into crown works just fine in the bot lane then you can go whatever you want either zhonyas for even more defence and self peel or deathcap for more damage.
I have tried this even before the video and even me, in like silver Elo, with no skill on Varus, was able to make this work... it is a good pick and I would recommend to try it out to everyone. It’s fun, op and you don’t need any understanding of midlane or varus to make it work
I played 5 games with this, won 4, and the big problem is that although you one-shot people, you are also very one-shootable. As a super immobile champion, it doesn't really matter if you are in the backline, any long ranged champion like Xerath and Zoe can melt you down, as well as assassins like Zed, Shaco and Fizz. I also tilted because of the EXTREMELY low speed he has in the early game, being unable to even buy boots. Because of that, I recommend using the chronometer rune instead of the boots one and building Zhonyas later in the game. It will even save you more gold. The ideal games are definitely the ones where the enemy team is full of tanky champions.
On wild rift (lol mobile) i played this build but there's something even more interesting, cancrling q would refund half of the mana cost and half the cd wich means that you could charge tears almost for free. It wasnt op as varus would still often get oneshoted early game but the damages late game were insane.
The reason he deals so mutch damage is because his q has a second part were it buffs on hit and blight damage by up to 50% based on channel time, so if he would deal like 30 % max health damage with 3 stacks and he charges full q, booom thats 45% max health gone. That is also why hitting e with 3 marks feels so weak and like it deals no damage at all.
tbh ive been playing this game for a 10 years. since bruisers and tanks meta exists ive never had fun playing this game knowing that full tank malphite can destroy you. From now on since i saw this video and tryied this pick by my self, old time moments came back to my head. Ive never seen and played any champion that was capable of doing such things to a tank. Thanks for this video, ive tried ap varus earlier but it wasnt quite succesfull as it is now thanks to you. Cheers
I've been doing this except I start W and first item nashors, buying blasting wand first back (prioritising AP over Atk speed on first buy), this makes your autos with W passive deal decent damage and you don't lose out on any ap which makes you deal 100% maxhp dmg alot sooner in the game. I also go hail of blades and gathering storm
a few months ago i started playing almost the exact same build as here and it is alot of fun. however i prefer hail of blades especially in the early game it helps u fight off annoying laners by stacking ur passiv really fast. and i usually go for crown as a mythic to counter most assasins because they cant burst u and it gives you enough time to lock them down with ult and burst them. otherwise i tend to build exactly the same with muramana as my first item into nashors tooth. once ur muramana has been stacked and u got ur nashors your dmg is incredible
I've been maining Varus for a month or two, finding my perfect build and ended up with AP Varus. It felt like a secret OP pick. Now I see this video and I am baffled. Now my secret pick will not be secret anymore. I found Varus to be perfect for me, since i like Dark stuff. So Darkins were my choice, but both other darkins are too popular, so i chose Varus. Also i like bows and purple. That is why i play him.
@@TerrifyingTuba Yeah, now it will feel like i started to play cuz of this video. Sucks right? Sometimes these videos destroy these secret builds. Well, all I hope is that this video doesn't catch onto other players.
@@darxian6503 I think at least since AP varus has been a thing for years people won't just assume immediately you got it from here, but whatever. I mute everyone anyway
AP Varus has seen on and off play throughout the years even in pro. It is by far his hardest scaling build and was "the pick" next to Kaisa when ADCs were at their lowest.
@@amethonys2798 Well in my own experience i havent seen a single AP Varus in enemy team in my whole 12 years of LoL. It's really unpopular and hope it stays so.
varus W also applies %ap damage on auto attacks, its not significant but it does. And you can do a lot of damage without using the W active, the W active deals % missing hp magic damage per blight(W) stack, and the passive deals %max hp magic damage
Chime is so awesome. He basically goes to people and says, "Hey, I like what you are doing. Do you want to explain to me how you do it and get some free publicity?" As humans, we love talking about ourselves and sharing new stuff we found so it's a win-win for both Chime and the player.
I've been playing AP Varus since season 4 or so. A few tips for anybody wanting to get into him- As mentioned, Yasuo and Akali make it hard for him to do his job, but ANY champion with a lot of quick dashes is really difficult to go against. If you can't land a skillshot then you can't proc your W, which means that you really aren't doing what you need to be doing. With AD Varus it's still an issue, but since he can poke from so far away it's not a big deal if he misses 1 Q, but AP Varus needs to be close enough to apply stacks first, meaning if you miss then you very well could die after. Also he didn't really get much into it, but AP Varus is an absolute tank buster. You'd normally pick AP Varus as a counterpick the same time you'd pick Kog'Maw- the enemy has a LOT of health, and you're confident you can survive in fights long enough to melt them. Don't OTP him, because he depends not only on your comp, but on your enemy's comp as well.
If enemies consist of assassin like Akali, zed or very mobile champs... i always go crown as mythic. Build is Muramana>tier 1 boots> situational (if you are fed 15 mins go death cap, if not go mythic), tier 2 boots, void staff, GA or zhonyas depends on your playstyle. Also if there are more squishy go Dark Harvest keystone, if tanks go PTA, if mobile enemies Glacial/commet.
I play pure AP Varus mid, without manamune but with nashor's. His AP scalings are just too insane for me to like manamune hybrid over pure AP tbh, hail of blades + 3 autos + fast W Q means oneshot on anything that isn't a tank, it's so fucking dumb lmao.
for the problem of falling behind usually i end up split pushing with AP varus more often than not, you should be able to 1v1 given you have your ult and if multiple enemies come, slowing them with E and/or picking someone off is more than worth it i dont even run nashor's tooth, but now that i realize it, i should be running it more for this playstyle
When using ultimate you shouldn't wait for 3 stacks to appear on you should fire your q at ~2.5 stacks so that when the q is in the air they get the 3th stack otherwise they can move at the last second. Got domed by a fizz doing this.
Here’s another thing that wasn’t mention if you wanna maximize damage even more get three autos and use your ult cause your ult proc w passive and then u hit ‘em with the wQ
I unironically climbed with AP varus but I go a diff build. He is right, without ult u are sorta useless so where he made a build that relies on no ult, I made a build where u always have ult. Ult Hunter + Manamune > Night Harvest > Ap Boots > Horizon > Shadowflame > Axiom > Deathcap (Void if MR). Ult is on a 13 sec cooldown when u get 1 kill, lower with more kills. Absolute menacery
Once upon a Time in the beginning of season 12, varus was so fun in the mid lane. He had an ad lethal build with a 54% winrate for low elo. But then rito hit eclipse and varus on the same patch then the patch after. At least someone was able to play him mid still.
I mean, AP Varus isnt really new. The best item for AP Varus was Hextech Gunblade at first, so you could be AD in the beginning and then swaped to AP, also it had lifesteal and spell vamp wich was a perfect combination. But nice to see somebody is still doing it, because i lost the mood after they deleted Hextech Gunblade
I play ap varus a lot at plat/dia elo. And for me manamune dont work. I start with doran ring and W for good AA dmg and also i use Hail of blades rune to easy stack those juicy W so i can trade at lvl 2 with E more “reliably” its easier to pop stacks with E then aiming with Q. And i rush 1st item Nashors tooth so AAs do a lot of dmg so does your spells and you hiting your powerspike (luden echo most times / crown ) earlier. Also with hail of blades build (and yes i take future market too) you rly dont need to rely on your ultimate.
I just saw this video and im actually an ap varus mid Main. But im Building some different Items and it Works so well. Just Hit Gold with a 80% win ratio and its going up. I really recommend playing with a Duo jgler for example with warwick.
The one thing I hate about going riftmaker is that it has no synergy with first strike, riftmaker takes 3 seconds to proc and first strike requires u to damage the target in the first 3 seconds
I've been playing this build since S11 as this has always been the best ap varus build and I can still remember a guy literally typing "you're cheating varus doesn't do that much DMG" because he only ones ad varus hahahah
okay hear me out, i've been using this since you upload it and it actually works. I'm a hardstuck silver 3 and finally peaked gold 1! I also did compared the dmg I get on practice tool and this build with the combo gets the highest
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nice
AP varus used to be way more OP.
But items changes :(
How a KILLSTEAL PANTHEON got BRONZE
Ironically AP Varus relys more auto attacks than lethality Varus
Ye, can still build AP Varus as you would AP Kayle- still do one shot shenanigans, but still have use outside of R cooldown.
Until you get level 6
Wait is that situational dramatic verbal irony
“Ironically” Lmao
Said :hellsdevil
"Fear not the man who does many moves, fear the man who does one move many times, who refuses to do other move out of pure spite "
- Sun Tzu, a scary man
Nice Darkk Mane reference
funny quote, reminds me of For Honor for some reason
@@yt-ox4bh light attack spam
Something else important to consider is that his Q when fully charged increases blight damage by 50%, so after you ult someone stare them in the eyes and wait while you charge your one shot😁😁😁
When you least expect it, Chime uploads some stupid off meta build everyone will love :D
love this series, keep doing what you do :D
And then Riot (being the party pooper as usual), nerfs it. They did it with Kayle, with Glacial Augment Senna, and many others. M
@@theberserkhealerbzkz4556 Sadge
Had someone in Plat going AP Varus a few weeks ago in ranked. He heavily inted in his mid lane but we were able to go into late game where he did the most damage out of both teams. The damage output is terrifying & is practically a hyper scaling nuke
What server? Could be me xD
I've been doing this for a while now in wild rift when i feel a bit like i want to troll a game, but it works 60% of the time
Same here 😂
This guy was late about it
bro ap varus is so fun in wr
isnt that pretty decent to climb with alr
Too bad that even with maxed-out build, you still can't one-shot with the Ult-Q combo, unless you're super ahead and the enemy is very squishy. Still fun tho
I was a Evelynn player and when I try to play Varus for the first time, I use the same built as Evelynn. It kind of worked but I had like 10 death for every game lol.
Stop dying that much. It throws games
@@noobjitsu1743 unless ur baus
@@moustachescarz agreed
I love how this off meta build is so good it became the meta
11:34 soraka using the passive aggressive emote and popping the blast cone while nunu is running for his life got me dyingg
Finnaly you made a video about it, I have otped ap varus from bronze 3 to diamond and there a surprisingly low amount of ppl who actually believed that it worked
I was legit spamming this build hoping to be the topic of this video then you release this lmfao
rip - you will get it next champ
the strength in manamune on ap builds for champs that have hybrid scalings (take mid lane artilery mage kog maw for example) is that muramana does 4.2% max mana + 6%ad scaling dmg on abilities, with one completed mana item (excluding muramana) plus either manaflow band or biscuits you have over 2k mana super early and +25ish ad from muramana passive ad. so 3.6(6%ad scaling)+84(%mana scaling)=87.6 flat dmg on every ability (on champs that have higher ad scalings early/late you can just buy tear early and complete muramana for a spike when needed) (on kog his ad scaling is higher than ap on ult so pen plus muramana is broken due to low cd and flat dmg added from muramana)
I love how every "surprising item in his build" is exactly what I always thought you should build on AP varus. Nashor tooth is so good with the on-hit on W + 100 ap and AS to place stacks
I’ve seen AP Varus’ build Nashor’s for some time now though. The most surprising part about this build to me is Riftmaker. I wonder how much he gets out of the passive, and if Luden’s wouldn’t just be better in most games
What poetic sound device did u think suited this sentence the best
@@mannyw_ I think the health and survivability is really the big difference. The damage is lower, sure, but after 3 items you are going to explode squishy champs anyway.
Luden's is definitely the play though if you don't go Manamune because Varus does need SOMETHING for mana problems.
I have been going that build with Varus for weeks ever since I picked him up. I thought that was how he’s supposed to be played
Saaaame. All his abilities had ap scaling so I thought he must be ap
Disclaimer: I'm a D2 Varus player, and he's been one of my mains since his release. I wanted to add a couple of notes:
1- The one shot playstyle of AP Varus got amplified with a buff he received quite a while ago actually. During S11 he got a mini-rework where his W detonation damage goes up with Q charge time. That means previous when the 3 stack proc would be 15% max health, if you max charge Q it goes all the way to 22.5%. Naturally, with AP this is even stronger. As AP you can hit about 45% max health with an average mid-late game build, which goes all the way to almost 70% max health which combined with the W active can wipe out all of a person's HP. This is even more noticeable on tanks as AP Varus was always a tank killer since his conception. AP did get a buff this season, but it's a minsicule buff.
2- In addition to the damage going up, by proccing his stacks his cooldowns on Q, W and E partially reset with every stack proc. This allows AP Varus, which is heavily reliant on proccing with spells, to get a lot of damage in even if he doesn't one shot as he constantly rotates spells.
3- It's problematic for AP Varus to rely solely on R to stack up his blight stacks. Hence why Nashors Tooth is his best performing item (and is highlighted in the build). One can still do full AP after, with Rift/Crown, Rabadons, magic pen, etc.. but also still be very effective with auto attacks that are benefitted by his passive and his W on-hit damage which has a very high AP ratio right now. Nashors rush also significantly helps with the "weak early"- Varus should never have a weak early game, as that's one of the champs innate strengths. The impression of having a weak early comes from spending money on Manamune components and the item itself, which is a delayed spike that barely helps his damage as opposed to being close to building rabadons and have auto attacks do up to 300 more damage on-hit while massively buffing his R and W proc damage, or Zhonyas which makes him incredibly hard to kill, or other AP items that utilize his insane AP ratios.
TL;DR: AP Varus one shots became viable after his minirework back in S10 that increases his W proc damage based on Q charge; AP Varus should aim to get Nashors Tooth then stack more AP asap and auto attack wherever possible to always dish out big bursts of damage in duels, skirmishes and teamfights; please skip Manamune on AP Varus, it's completely unnecessary and mathematically adds nothing to AP Varus playstyle or damage that an AP item can't add; Varus is and always will be an on-hit casting champion, i.e. he does both AAing and casting in equal measures- this applies to whatever build, even lethality feels inferior if you don't utilize autos and W stacks in the early to mid game; consider putting early points into Q then maxing W first after level 7, the early Q points are necessary for a decent early game, and with recent on hit W buffs speeding through its levels after level 6 leads to more favorable results for AP; if you're against AP Varus, merc treads are one way to prevent R>WQ snipes, and anathema counters the champ completely.
Completely agree with you, tho your tldr is almost as long as the comment itself xD
As an AP varus main myself i was about to write all that you just did, you are literally hurting yourself by buying manamune on AP varus, your early game is so much better with nashor also i can't believe they didn't talk about the 2 core components of the AP varus which is the detonation DMG regarding the Q charge and the late game spell rotation when without ult which is 3 autos - spell - 3 autos spell - repeat.
Also in terms of runes hail of blades it's hands down his best option because of the low CD of the rune and it's insane synergy with varus
In terms of mythic while rift is not a bad option, in an optimal AP varus build you would go luddens for the mana and penetration or crown for safety
Lastly I loved when they said varus is weak from behind when in my opinion it's not like that at all unless you go for manamune which if you build that from behind you might as well surrender
I think he might have reached Master because he is a good player in general cause clearly is varus knowledge isn't very good ^^
Also I'm impressed with all your knowledge in AP varus, it's the first time I've seen anyone even mentioning all of that especially the way you level up skills which most people do wrong
I've been teaching people how to play this champ for ages and you're the first one I've seen with as much knowledge as me on him, cheers, may your ult+Q combos always hit
@@goncasn8161 I don’t play AP Varus but I do love hybrid scaling champs. I’m curious as to whether you guys think that Riftmaker over Luden’s is the move. Luden’s gives 26mpen at full build with boots. Especially in the build featured here that includes manamune it seems like it’d be especially valuable.
@@mannyw_ in riftmaker vs Ludens I'll take the luddens but I never build manamune tho, riftmaker is better for team fighting early game but late game played properly you one shot everybody with luddens, you can try luddens instead of riftmaker in a build with manamune you're basically trading sustain for more DMG (especially because of the extra mana for the muramana passive) but I heavily advise against manamune on AP varus it's an actual trap it just makes your early weaker and delays your spike
Finally a video about my old main from Season 5! Great to see someone getting successful with AP Varus.
I one trick AP varus, but I do it slightly differently. I use PTA and skip Manamune, going straight for nashor's into attack speed boots. It's not uncommon for my PTA to do upwards of 7k damage a game, as well as getting 2.5 attack speed thanks to his passive. It means you can do 700 mixed damage per auto and since you're full AP you can do 80% max hp damage easily. Since I skip the Magic pen boots I almost always need to forego Hourglass for a voidstaff third or fourth item, or a blighting jewel into Shadowflame right after riftmaker.
Honestly AP varus has a massive power spike at 1100 gold. You get a recurve bow, and PTA lets you trade with autos easily. I've played with First Strike, Hail of Blades, and PTA on numerous occasions before and I find that I have the most success on PTA. PTA gives a massive amount of sustained damage, especially early game when you're against an engage champ that could pop your First Strike. I like to take W first to harass the laner off the wave and get level 2 first, then poke them down with autos while and finish them off with a W Q. Ghost works best for this early cheese. I like to start the fight and bait them into engaging in the minion wave. Most midlaners are very predictable and will try to fight you a majority of the time, overestimating their level 2 damage. Very few midlaners can fight PTA varus level 2 and win. Ignite works good, but I find that either ghost or exhaust works best into a high mobility/assassin midlane or jungle. Teleport also is a very good choice, but I tend to run Ghost to make sure I can kite and chase those slippery assassins.
Late game with this build I can triple AA someone and W tap Q. If they have less than 3000 hp they will die.
That being said, play whatever works and is fun for you. Experiment. AP varus is broken as hell, so it's an absolute blast. You can dumpster any overconfident Katarina or Akali with ease with enough practice.
Just make sure to ban Zed. You'll most likely win the game if you play to scale but the laning phase will be absolute hell. Same with Leblanc and Fizz. Luckily Leblanc and Fizz have low pickrates.
One of my favourite mechanics in any game is % HP damage. So when I saw Varus' scaling way back some time in S3-5 when I actively played League, I knew I found something great. Never was good through. But I just knew this video would be amazing for that reason and I was right. The Tear didn't surprise me, as I still remembered how hungry for Mana Varus is. And then it was just waiting for Nashor's, as it is one of my favourite items in the game thanks to a Jungle Assassin I like to call Dirty D. Now I'm starting to long to play both of them and actually study the game.
I think one thing this build can take is either crown or protobelt as situational mythics. Crown can give you extra ap and huge damage reduction, its mythic passive granting even more ap and health which also helps more with survivability; then protobelt will compensate not having true damage with a shit ton of magic pen that you get from the item and its mythic bonus, while also being a more mobile option for this build. Both allowing to give varus that extra edge in 1v1 duels, just as much as riftmaker does but with small trade offs. Since unlike riftmaker, they don't have omnivamp.
Im also playing Varus only with ap and I assure it’s very strong, the early game isn’t the easiest but if you get through the game will be very enjoyable if there isn’t an infinity movement champ. The Video was very helpful to improve my build thank you for your efforts.
Manamune makes a lot of sense, a couple of seasons ago when hextech gunblade was still a thing ppl went that on varus, but they built the bilgewater cutlass first.
The reason for this was so your adaptive force wouldn't turn into AP until you got hextech revolver I believe. Riftmaker also gives back that healing you got from hextech gunblade while also giving you more dmg.
ah, sweet gunblade times, those were the days
Correct me if im wrong but when gunblade was a thing, adaptative force wasnt in the game
@@owenssama5765 So Gunblade was removed at the end of 2020, while the 'new' runes were added in late 2018. This leaves 2 years where adaptive force were actually in the game through runes at least, although for the first year they were out you were given things like double adaptive force or 1 attack speed, 1 adaptive force depending on the runes you chose. On Patch 9.2 they added the option to choose which bonuses to get.
Hope this clears it up :D
The one thing I would correct here: AD Varus also waits for his ult stacks, if the chance is given. Immediately popping it is not optimal, no matter how you build him, as even a pure AD build does a shitload of damage when fully stacked. You made it sound like this is an AP-Varus special, but it is not.
Fair enough, I think that AD varus is mostly about Q W damage and the stacks dont matter as much, where as if you use Q without stacks on AP varus it will basically do nothing haha. Where as AD varus can get away with using Q alone for poke.
And as you say - it is good knowledge to have, these videos are for people who are both new to varus all the way to AD varus experts who want a new build to try. So its good to have the basics emphasised.
@@HappyChimeNoises Nah. AD varus can't ignore his stacks unless he's got like twenty kills and is going to oneshto them regardless
@@shadows_star Idk if you have ever played lethality poke varus, but the point is to press Q over and over to poke. Stacks most of the time from lane to mid game are irrelevant, they matter in fights and 1v1s.
@@shadows_star except pretty much no matter what AD Varus is never one shotting anyone. If I hit an ulti in the middle of the enemy team it is 100% worth it to instant Q and cash out on 1 stack for CDR than to wait and straight up lose a Q cast.
The like 6% max health damage is not worth more than another Q.
Also remember that Varus ult procs blight stacks on hit. The ideal combo for Varus building anything is 3 autos into ult, into e or q while autoing between spells for blight stacks.
3 autos into ult is wasteful, since your ult creates blight stacks over time (and there's a max of 3)
Waiting for the 3 ult stacks is a bit long (and doesn't make full use of the cc) so most of the time I do 1/2 auto + ult or ult + 1 auto, and proc (with wq if I think I can oneshot)
Then yeah, if they're still alive I auto once or twice (+ the last blight from ult) and proc again
I always love it when Darkk Mane is a few years ahead of time
I play Varus a lot bot, and if I know I'm getting ahead that game (an early kill or two thanks to a gank or something), then I will probably buy dark seal regardless of what build I plan to do later on (regular AD, on hit, lethality, AP). Laning against 2 people while ahead means I get a lot of stacks really, really quickly - a really cheap investment to make snowballing even stronger.
I just love how Varus is so stupidly flexible in terms of builds, depending on situation. I can't believe I forgot about Riftmaker though, and now I really want to try that!
Riftmaker sounds so troll on someone like Varus. Yeah sure you're in combat for a long time in a teamfight, but 99% of your damage will be done from long range at full HP making all that gold spent on omnivamp useless. Even if the idea is to be more useful beyond your innitial burst you would be so much better off going Ludens for the CDR to have your abilties up faster or even Night Harvester for the upfront damage on multiple targets.
That being said this guy has probably 1000000x more time on Varus than me but his explanation for it doesn't convince me.
I definitely agree.
Riftmaker is such a bad choice, my pick would be Ludens against poke or Everfrost for the disengage (and root that gives free w stacks).
Imo any ap mythic would work here, riftmaker is specifically good for making your damage last longer and also heal you as your burst combo is already 1 shotting people.
Also it doesn't have mana which is actually a good thing because it would waste lots of gold on poke sustain that you don't need.
I personally hate riftmaker but I do really like it here because of how it maximises damage over classic mage stats like mana
Building luden's increases the gold value from manamune and gives you a ton of magic pen to one shot people even harder but it leaves you with just the one shots. If you miss ulti on ludens the fight is probably doomed but riftmaker lets you stay useful even with ult down. For norms though I don't think anyone would disagree with ludens/everfrost being hilarious with how people just instantly disappear.
@@batcrow6224 Everfrost lets you be in the fight after ult by securing the 3 w stacks, so i'm having a hard time figuring out how Riftmaker would ever compare to Everfrost here.
Especially when you consider that Riftmaker costs 400 gold more than Everfrost.
Riftmaker is AP Varus' best performing AP item. It turns you into a consistent DPS. 99% of your damage comes from blight stacks, which you need to auto to apply. Auto = threat of splash damage. Rift sustain mitigates that. You'll do the same damage on it compared to every other item, except you also have HP and omnivamp which are utility stats you actually use compared to Night Harvester's inferior burst (it's a really bad item in general), and Ludens/Liandries which requires a more spammy caster (something like Ori, Syndra, etc..). Crown is super solid though, rocketbelt has its uses and everfrost is inferior but still ok.
Hybrid varus bot is a thing
the full build would be rift maker, Nasher tooth, manamane and rework hydra
boot and six item are your choice
with w cd reset when trigger stack, against any bruiser he can put up a fight as long as he trigger the stack
and also with rift maker he heal a lot
I forget to mention but as for the rune bot
Take lethal tempo
As you would be auto them in order to trigger w passive stack
i thought he would buy everfrost cause u said he dont need to use ult xd
I knew it was going to be Riftmaker. This man and I are spiritually connected.
11:32 trolling soraka😭😭😭
I low key buy Horizon Focus last item on Lethality Varus. It double scales your damage by giving you just a lil AP for your W and R, plus it increases your Q E and R's damage innately by 10% since you're hitting them at high range.
As an mid ap varus player a decent keystone is also hail of blades with secondary sorcery (manaflow and transcendence)so u dont need tear of goddess nor need to worry about r cd
As a Varus main on Wild Rift, I truly agree on Chime's point on waiting for the three stacks to appear before releasing Q because this is your main damage output be it ad or ap. Many will say that if you have Lethality on Varus you can just disregard the stacks and go for autos and abilities and yes that is true but it is better in my experience to stack the three before using using Q for it gives you more damage and distance from the enemy champion, meaning that you can actually charge the Q backwards. This is very helpful in many circumstances such as when a melee champion is going near you or you're getting greedy and trying to snipe the enemy champ before going back to tower or base; the burst that the stacks give can allow you to have a higher chance of oneshotting and not doing a follow up. And since we're on the topic of bursting, I also would like to add that when you are using Q try to charge it as long as you can, around half of the charge. Because doing this simple thing makes a huge difference; a difference in whether or not you can finish the enemy champion in that exact moment. Trust me, you have no idea how tilting it is to know that if you charged your Q a little longer you could have slained the enemy champion you were trying to kill. Lastly, as a person who also does AP Varus on Bot lane (no shit I just had a comeback two days ago 19/6/7 with all towers on our side destroyed, and the enemy team stealing our Elder and eating Baron) going for Nashor's first is the best option because just as Chime mentioned, the item gives you three things: AP, AS, AP damage ratio. In a sense, this actually gives you a powerspike early on, ability and champion wise. Also going for VS asap really complement this AP build. Because in my opinion VS's penetration damage and scaling with other AP items allows your W to have higher ability and AA damage this in turn sort of enables you to do your job as an ADC even though your AP. For me, the reason why AP Varus is OP is because not only does his scaling do "piercing" damage but also because it makes one or more of the enemy go with an MR build. Which is a permanent disadvantage when their Support is squishy or the Top utilizes on AD items. However, in most cases, AP Varus is almost always OP.
Love the content! I do think manamune into nashors has been popular with ap varus builds for awhile. I started playing varus two seasons ago and it was still a thing then. Cool to see it at gm level play
Fun fact, because charging the q to max raises the damage of the stacks by up to 50%, it is possible to achieve 100%+ max health damage (with void staff to actually have it happen)
Couple that with the w active, which dealts damage AFTER the Q damage and at around 600 AP you can one shot more champions regardless of their build.
It's great!
I play AP Varus for a very long time, i started playing him in season 6 when rageblade was so op and had almost 100% winrate in high plat. Nowadays i play him mid and adc but always AP, but my setup is litttle different. My build path is always the same Nashors-Crown-Sorcs-Rabadon. Crown is really big if you dont have R and want to kill someone because you can just walk up and AA a little, also assasins get mad. My runes are Press the attack-Presence of mind-alacrity-coup de grace taste of blood-ultimate hunter. Press the attack is rly op, and you dont rly need more damage after the R but without it you always lack damage so press the attack is perfect.
As an AP Varus mid main, this video bring me so much joy
ye your the reason why death sentence should be legal
I have recently started using Varus but in the bot lane though instead of going the manamune I go Nashors tooth and my mythic is the crown for protection from assasins. Now going nashors on varus and maxing w first with lethal tempo gives you more or less the same dmg as other adc's in the early levels in flat on auto to auto trading if not more but it also gives you the huge burst from the combo of ult w q. As I can see the logic in the manamune as it does give you more ad dmg on the q e and well auto for people that prefer a cheaper build and faster mythic nashors into crown works just fine in the bot lane then you can go whatever you want either zhonyas for even more defence and self peel or deathcap for more damage.
I have tried this even before the video and even me, in like silver Elo, with no skill on Varus, was able to make this work... it is a good pick and I would recommend to try it out to everyone. It’s fun, op and you don’t need any understanding of midlane or varus to make it work
I played 5 games with this, won 4, and the big problem is that although you one-shot people, you are also very one-shootable. As a super immobile champion, it doesn't really matter if you are in the backline, any long ranged champion like Xerath and Zoe can melt you down, as well as assassins like Zed, Shaco and Fizz. I also tilted because of the EXTREMELY low speed he has in the early game, being unable to even buy boots.
Because of that, I recommend using the chronometer rune instead of the boots one and building Zhonyas later in the game. It will even save you more gold.
The ideal games are definitely the ones where the enemy team is full of tanky champions.
The mythic passive doesn’t give omnivamp and ap to items. It gets those stats off of having other full items finished (except boots)
On wild rift (lol mobile) i played this build but there's something even more interesting, cancrling q would refund half of the mana cost and half the cd wich means that you could charge tears almost for free. It wasnt op as varus would still often get oneshoted early game but the damages late game were insane.
The reason he deals so mutch damage is because his q has a second part were it buffs on hit and blight damage by up to 50% based on channel time, so if he would deal like 30 % max health damage with 3 stacks and he charges full q, booom thats 45% max health gone. That is also why hitting e with 3 marks feels so weak and like it deals no damage at all.
tbh ive been playing this game for a 10 years.
since bruisers and tanks meta exists ive never had fun playing this game knowing that full tank malphite can destroy you.
From now on since i saw this video and tryied this pick by my self, old time moments came back to my head.
Ive never seen and played any champion that was capable of doing such things to a tank.
Thanks for this video, ive tried ap varus earlier but it wasnt quite succesfull as it is now thanks to you.
Cheers
Everytime you upload I make happy chime noises
This channel has essentially evolved into aram builds going high in ranked
started playing AP varus top about two weeks ago, usualy im top damge on team every game. its great.
I've been doing this except I start W and first item nashors, buying blasting wand first back (prioritising AP over Atk speed on first buy), this makes your autos with W passive deal decent damage and you don't lose out on any ap which makes you deal 100% maxhp dmg alot sooner in the game. I also go hail of blades and gathering storm
HappyChimes uploading a build that was already being used
Up next, how an AD Lee sin got to Challenger
if 0.1% pickrate is 'already being used' then I think there is no champ that is off meta lol
You might want to reconsider your definition
@@HappyChimeNoises damn chime not holding back lol
a few months ago i started playing almost the exact same build as here and it is alot of fun. however i prefer hail of blades especially in the early game it helps u fight off annoying laners by stacking ur passiv really fast. and i usually go for crown as a mythic to counter most assasins because they cant burst u and it gives you enough time to lock them down with ult and burst them. otherwise i tend to build exactly the same with muramana as my first item into nashors tooth. once ur muramana has been stacked and u got ur nashors your dmg is incredible
i knew only one varus main in my life and he always said that AP or even on hit are the right way to play varus
I've been awaiting an AP Varus video, it was only a matter of time :)
i have used this build, right now im sitting at 73% wr with varus at 120 games, platinum divison, rank around 20 on eune :D this build is pure chaos.
I've been maining Varus for a month or two, finding my perfect build and ended up with AP Varus. It felt like a secret OP pick. Now I see this video and I am baffled. Now my secret pick will not be secret anymore.
I found Varus to be perfect for me, since i like Dark stuff. So Darkins were my choice, but both other darkins are too popular, so i chose Varus. Also i like bows and purple. That is why i play him.
I've been playing AP varus for years, and now people will say I just stole the build from here
@@TerrifyingTuba Yeah, now it will feel like i started to play cuz of this video. Sucks right? Sometimes these videos destroy these secret builds. Well, all I hope is that this video doesn't catch onto other players.
@@darxian6503 I think at least since AP varus has been a thing for years people won't just assume immediately you got it from here, but whatever. I mute everyone anyway
AP Varus has seen on and off play throughout the years even in pro. It is by far his hardest scaling build and was "the pick" next to Kaisa when ADCs were at their lowest.
@@amethonys2798 Well in my own experience i havent seen a single AP Varus in enemy team in my whole 12 years of LoL. It's really unpopular and hope it stays so.
varus W also applies %ap damage on auto attacks, its not significant but it does.
And you can do a lot of damage without using the W active, the W active deals % missing hp magic damage per blight(W) stack, and the passive deals %max hp magic damage
ive been tryin to use ap varus since s9, so at least someone is doing well with him
caPs just pulled this off.
Chime is so awesome. He basically goes to people and says, "Hey, I like what you are doing. Do you want to explain to me how you do it and get some free publicity?" As humans, we love talking about ourselves and sharing new stuff we found so it's a win-win for both Chime and the player.
I've been playing AP Varus since season 4 or so. A few tips for anybody wanting to get into him- As mentioned, Yasuo and Akali make it hard for him to do his job, but ANY champion with a lot of quick dashes is really difficult to go against. If you can't land a skillshot then you can't proc your W, which means that you really aren't doing what you need to be doing. With AD Varus it's still an issue, but since he can poke from so far away it's not a big deal if he misses 1 Q, but AP Varus needs to be close enough to apply stacks first, meaning if you miss then you very well could die after.
Also he didn't really get much into it, but AP Varus is an absolute tank buster. You'd normally pick AP Varus as a counterpick the same time you'd pick Kog'Maw- the enemy has a LOT of health, and you're confident you can survive in fights long enough to melt them. Don't OTP him, because he depends not only on your comp, but on your enemy's comp as well.
ey Yo a tuesday Upload sick! lol got an early present this week. I'm always waiting for every Friday for your videos always top notch!
That Manamune bait is a very cunning strategy. I wonder though - shouldn't getting more items on AP Varus and that cc ult help with comebacks?
Take notes kids, this is how you make an entertaining 15min clip 🔥
If enemies consist of assassin like Akali, zed or very mobile champs... i always go crown as mythic. Build is Muramana>tier 1 boots> situational (if you are fed 15 mins go death cap, if not go mythic), tier 2 boots, void staff, GA or zhonyas depends on your playstyle. Also if there are more squishy go Dark Harvest keystone, if tanks go PTA, if mobile enemies Glacial/commet.
I've been playin it a lot since long ago!
Hail of Blades and Manamune into AP is very strong!
I play pure AP Varus mid, without manamune but with nashor's. His AP scalings are just too insane for me to like manamune hybrid over pure AP tbh, hail of blades + 3 autos + fast W Q means oneshot on anything that isn't a tank, it's so fucking dumb lmao.
basically, this build is literaly a full-on Glass canon.
"Damn this champ is annoying as hell, Im about to annoy everyone else" I like this guy's mentality
Thanks for this, I just ranked up to Plat after a year starting in Gold. So fun playing, but weird at first because I don't understand his W. 🥴
that guy is cracked.
for the problem of falling behind
usually i end up split pushing with AP varus
more often than not, you should be able to 1v1 given you have your ult and if multiple enemies come, slowing them with E and/or picking someone off is more than worth it
i dont even run nashor's tooth, but now that i realize it, i should be running it more for this playstyle
From the creators of "top laners that hate playing top lane" now we have "bot laners that hate playing bot lane"
This build reminds me of Corki.
Here, Varus baits AD with MM.
Whereas Corki builds AD to do AP damage.
I... didn't even know that Varus' W had an active now. Mostly because I haven't so much as seen a Varus in like a year.
When was this a thing lmfao
Damnit Chime! There goes my secret fun OP build...
This varus style was found by noway4u a year ago or so btw
15:21 grooviest wounds
When using ultimate you shouldn't wait for 3 stacks to appear on you should fire your q at ~2.5 stacks so that when the q is in the air they get the 3th stack otherwise they can move at the last second. Got domed by a fizz doing this.
Here’s another thing that wasn’t mention if you wanna maximize damage even more get three autos and use your ult cause your ult proc w passive and then u hit ‘em with the wQ
I've been playing AP Varus for a month, and I've never gone back to anything else since.
I unironically climbed with AP varus but I go a diff build. He is right, without ult u are sorta useless so where he made a build that relies on no ult, I made a build where u always have ult.
Ult Hunter + Manamune > Night Harvest > Ap Boots > Horizon > Shadowflame > Axiom > Deathcap (Void if MR). Ult is on a 13 sec cooldown when u get 1 kill, lower with more kills. Absolute menacery
There's a reason why these picks are rare. People build smart (minus anti healing) that you can't really play these picks expecting success.
Once upon a Time in the beginning of season 12, varus was so fun in the mid lane. He had an ad lethal build with a 54% winrate for low elo. But then rito hit eclipse and varus on the same patch then the patch after. At least someone was able to play him mid still.
Thank you for this video I'm a mastery 5 Varus and made my build based on this one, I've had mostly success with it
I mean, AP Varus isnt really new.
The best item for AP Varus was Hextech Gunblade at first, so you could be AD in the beginning and then swaped to AP, also it had lifesteal and spell vamp wich was a perfect combination.
But nice to see somebody is still doing it, because i lost the mood after they deleted Hextech Gunblade
Darkk Mane AP Varus comes to mind
He's playing ap zeri mid now you could also make a video covering that.
ive had project versus skin shard in my loot for months now, this is a sign
I play ap varus a lot at plat/dia elo. And for me manamune dont work. I start with doran ring and W for good AA dmg and also i use Hail of blades rune to easy stack those juicy W so i can trade at lvl 2 with E more “reliably” its easier to pop stacks with E then aiming with Q. And i rush 1st item Nashors tooth so AAs do a lot of dmg so does your spells and you hiting your powerspike (luden echo most times / crown ) earlier. Also with hail of blades build (and yes i take future market too) you rly dont need to rely on your ultimate.
I always go AP Varus botlane when opponents lineup consists of bulky champs like galio mid, rammus jg, thresh supp (only an ex.)
I just saw this video and im actually an ap varus mid Main. But im Building some different Items and it Works so well. Just Hit Gold with a 80% win ratio and its going up. I really recommend playing with a Duo jgler for example with warwick.
The one thing I hate about going riftmaker is that it has no synergy with first strike, riftmaker takes 3 seconds to proc and first strike requires u to damage the target in the first 3 seconds
I remember playing this more than a year ago. Feeling proud now :D
been playing ap varus last few weeks in my games the this video came out time to go harder lol
"Even a Bronze player can figure it out" Me, an iron player: sadly eating blue-box mac and cheese
My friends on a 5 game losing streak with this ap varus build, thanks!! I surprised him in rank now
I've been playing this build since S11 as this has always been the best ap varus build and I can still remember a guy literally typing "you're cheating varus doesn't do that much DMG" because he only ones ad varus hahahah
okay hear me out, i've been using this since you upload it and it actually works. I'm a hardstuck silver 3 and finally peaked gold 1! I also did compared the dmg I get on practice tool and this build with the combo gets the highest
This is actually so good i love it
And there goes my secret autofill pick. Was nice to play it, now everyone is gonna play it and it's gonna get nerfed
People say this every video and it never happens 😂