Varus is an ADC champion that has a long poke range due to his Q. His kit revolves around dealing on-hit damage and slowing/rooting his enemies. In this article, we explain how to effectively counter Varus.
Best Varus Counters
- Graves
- Lucian
- Sivir
- Tristana
- Leona
- Blitzcrank
Dark Star Varus
Varus Counter Picks
Now that you know who counters Varus, you can finally counter pick Varus in any matchup. Let’s take you through some tips on how to use a few of these champions who are counters to Varus. After, there is a general section explaining how to use any LoL champion as counters for Varus. After all, if you know how to play against Varus, you can play safely and effectively to defeat Varus in a lane.
Graves
Use Graves’ W when Varus is charging his Q. He has mostly skill shots so you can dash out of them.
Sivir
Use Sivir’s spell shield to block Varus’ ultimate and Piercing Arrow. Use your Q to harass him.
Tristana
In the early game phase Tristana’s ambush potential overhangs Varus’ burst potential, so maximize your opportunities to flank Varus and separate him from his team.
Leona
- Since Leona’s passive shield blocks both magic and physical damage, forcing Varus to focus Leona will always result in a net loss for him in a trade.
- Once Leona lands one of her stuns/slows, both the ADC and Leona can all in on Varus and take him out easily.
Blight Crystal Varus
Tips For Playing Against Varus
- Varus does not have any escape abilities. Try to focus him in team fights.
- Move away from a target hit by Varus’s ultimate, as it will chain onto you if you don’t move far enough from the initial location.
- Dodge his Piercing Arrow at any cost when he has stacked 3 blight on you, as it will do an incredibly high damage. Decreasing his attack speed makes it harder for him to get the 3 stacks.
- His E (hail of arrows) slows down movement speed and health regen, stay out of this no matter what if you are heavy on health regen/ combined with his ult you will be down for damage.
- Avoid being caught by . Fanning out from a caught ally in team fights will break the tether and minimize the disruption it causes to you.
- When Varus begins to charge , he will slow down and draw his bow back. He cannot perform any other action while in this stance and his movement speed is reduced, so take advantage of this time to juke the shot or close the distance on him.
- lacks the mobility that many other AD carries possess, which means he is more vulnerable than most to errant crowd controls and gank attempts, and also means he has trouble fleeing from diving champions in teamfights. A single root can be a death sentence for him.
- Much like the case of who also lacks mobility but compensates with very high steroids and nukes benefits from one of the highest burst among all marksmen and extremely long range damage. As his burst depends on skillshots keeping yourself constantly on the move will keep you safer.
- ‘ lack of mobility mechanics also means he can have difficulty avoiding skillshots. Being a skillshot-based champion himself, he also has difficulty with mobile champions like , , or as they all have the means to dodge his spells.
- Once Varus has used and , he will be unable to detonate stacks for several seconds. It may be a good idea to engage him after you see him use those two abilities.
- Being hit by reduces your champion’s healing and regeneration, so save any healing abilities until you have exited the desecrated zone.
- Although can be very disruptive to many champions, neither it nor any of other abilities will interrupt channels. Champions with powerful channeled abilities such as and can freely cast their abilities without fear of having their channels discontinued.
- only deals damage once on impact. When fighting 1v1, don’t be afraid of standing inside the Desecrated Ground unless the reduced healing/movement speed will significantly hurt your capabilities.
- Watch out for when fully charges it, especially if you have several stacks of , as you will receive formidable damage.
- becomes more dangerous after he has scored a kill. If time and positioning permits, it is wise to let his passive attack speed bonus wear off before reengaging on him.
- During the laning phase, wait for his bonus attack speed from killing a minion to wear off before committing to a skirmish with him. Doing so while his bow glows RED can be a dangerous maneuver, as in tandem with , can quickly out-trade most other autoattacking champions.
- In teamfights, it is easy for to obtain a great attack speed bonus for scoring a kill or assist, signified by his bow glowing a light SILVER-PURPLE. As a teamfight often does not allow a team to quickly disengage to let this bonus wear off, it strongly encourages good positioning and teamwork to avoid any deaths letting snowball his advantage.
- If builds ability power, he suffers under an extremely weak early game as he has no real damaging ability besides ‘s passive. As the game proceeds, however, he will slowly but surely become very dangerous since belongs to the strongest sources of % health-damage in League of Legends. It is highly advised to take him down immediately after a teamfight starts.
- This is even more important when he possesses a , as he can continually stack onto your whole team and trigger it with or just his basic spells, dealing high percentage numbers of everyone’s maximum health as magic damage. However, he has to stay in attack range to do this, which makes him an easy target for burst spells.
- In a lategame 1v1, avoid his under all costs. The spell has a 1:1 AP-scaling and applys 3 stacks of during the root. Squishy characters are very likely to be one-shot just by the ult damage and the triggered Blight stacks.
Arctic Ops Varus
By using the champions who counter Varus and the LoL Varus counter tips above, you can now develop a strategy to help you, as a summoner, become an effective counter to Varus players.