Varus Counter Picks: Best 11.3.1 Matchups + Lane Counters

Theme: What does Varus counter?
 
Sorry for the delay, we had some issues setting up a discussion thread this weekend and just now were able to get one out. We were going to do another matchup (support), but the plans fell through. So, we decided to do a general question.
 
What does Varus do well that other champions struggle to play against?
Is there any champions that Varus will win more than 60 or 70% of the time?
Who do you like to pick Varus into the most?

Ez's Q poke doesn't have the debuff of slowing him down. Varus' passive is negated by Essence Flux, which even still might slow his atk speed. Varus' abilities are easily dodged by Arcane Shift, forcing him to auto-attack in order to even touch Ezreal. Which he can, by barely beating out Ez's attack range by 25. But since Ez has a quicker burst, he wins most tradeoffs.
Discuss.

One of my favorite things to do when a champion is released is not to immediately pick him up, but rather figure out what counters him so I can glee in malicious delight as I crush the first-day buyers.
Unfortunately, I don't have the chance to play the game right now and was wondering what you fellow LoLers think about Varus' strengths and weaknesses, and how to exploit his flaws. Lane-wise, I think Sivir is a possible strong counter due to Varus' AD caster nature and how Sivir's spell shield can delay that damage heavily, especially with Varus' rather obvious casting of Q. What say you?

Who does Varus counter / what type of comps is he good with/against?

How do you counter or play againts this cancer matchup? I don't ban him because I always ban that cancer yasuo because of that stupid windwall that can block our axes and ult. Now we have this annoying shit. His poke does a ton of damage combined with that comet keystone especially if he has lethality.

Been trying to pick up Varus with varied success as a midlaner, and I wanted some specific tips from those who call themselves mains. He has my favorite playstyle (the closest thing I can find to my old AP Kog'maw)
(all these builds are revolving around the tear -> Penetration builds, not interested in DPS style or AP builds at the moment.
1: How important is 40 percent CDR? 45 Percent maybe? I know that Poke champs are more effective the more spells they can get out, but can cdr be valued enough to delay more pen?

1. Best lane to go against? does Varus counter any lane specifically or does her just excel against non-mobile short range mages?
   
2. Is there a "best" combo to use? mid game if I have enough CDR I attempt to full combo carries by 1. Fireing a fully charged Q (to give Q the most amount of time to get off cooldown) 2. Fire ult as soon as I let the arrow go 3. use E as soon as ult is fired 4. Use Q one last time to finish them off/pop blight stacks.
   

(so far I've only got to use this combo a few times successfully but it seems to be an effective 100-0 combo"

1. Lethality runes or flat AD?
   
2. Last one, where it is most efficient to buy QSS if needed? If the enemy team has lots of CC is it normal for buying it right after youmous? or does that delay your CDR and midgame effectiveness to much?
   

Edit) I can't seem to format this how I want, sorry if its confusing. Supposed to be questions 1-5

Twitch is my only ADC so I can't answer this question by myself. And personal experience yielded different results.
My question: all things being equal (gold, XP), assuming both Twitch and the enemy ADC got 2 or 3 items, can Twitch duel any ADC if he got surprise on his side?
In this scenario, Twitch comes out of stealth and unload everything. He got Infinity and RH, the other ADC got also two items.
Shouldn't Twitch always come out on top? The element of surprise means at least 1, maybe 2 free AA, which is almost half of the other ADC's health.
What do you think? Is Twitch the best ADC duelist among ADCs? Are there situation/ADC where he can't pull this off?
Here I could think of Varus countering with ulti and Jhin bursting down, maybe.
I

I am genuinely asking.
I like experimenting and trying new stuff. And yes there are fun builds hinging on you getting the correct items or assembling the correct legends. But simply putting a Varus in the back, pumping it full of items and then adding whatever (more rangers, make him a Sorcerer and add sorcerers, add demons) just seems like a way that in 10x easier, more consistent and that shockwave shot 1 shooting most heroes every few second seems way less risky than relying on hard to build stuff like 6 nobles or 4 wild or 4 ninja or even Gunslinger and praying you get the correct on attack items.
And with positioning him semi smartly you easily play around Blitzcrank pulling him.''
So what's the weakness I am not seeing here? Why should I not go Varus every game?

Fully disclosure before I begin, I may be entirely wrong on this front, as all the Champions that will be used for example in this post are ADCs and I am just a meager Silver 1 Top Lane Main, I've been playing league for a good 5-6 years now, since the mordekaiser patch, to be exact, now then, enough of that.
I would also like to state that I am not wildly biased in with these examples, as I don't play them often, but have picked them up recently to gauge how the changes made recently effect them.
Now then, to start off, I would like to state the case of Jinx, arguably one of the strongest ADCs to take hold in the botlane as of the moment, she has recently had a Nerf to her ultimate, in which the point blank damage has been brought down, I won't go into details as you can see those changes in a post meant for that, I believe these ult changes are completely justified and I don't see why anyone would really be upset with them, Jinx is objectively a strong champion due to the flexibility of her kit and her ability to seige and duel, among other things, I would like to, however, bring up the upcoming jinx changes that were implemented into the PBE, in which minigun attack speed stacks will scale off of both rank and level, and why I believe this is the incorrect way to go about balancing the botlane.
Subsequent changes to one champion obviously have a direct effect on that champion, but are at time harmful to the lane as a whole, it could be the case that Jinx counters or makes it harder for a different champion to thrive, thus, by nerfing Jinx you'd be indirectly buffing all the champions that might have trouble landing against jinx. Now instead, for the point of hypothetical (I'm saying its the case), that a champions like say, Varus counters jinx, but doesn't see to much play do to his weaknesses and generally being harder to manage than most other ADCs, as positioning is a much greater problem with Varus than almost any other ADC, in a shifting meta, instead of subsequently changing one single champion, instead, if you say, Buff the weaker contenders to make them more viable, they might have a way of shifting the botlane meta away from jinx dominance. Imagine if twitch was to receive buffs, a champion that rarely sees play and who has a below average winrate, from that we could possibly see a change in how the botlane is currently played.
As example of this in place, back in I believe season 3, mundo, and other tanks, were dominating the top lane, and were nearly unrivaled until we saw the immergence of two champions in the top lane, both Warwick and Vayne made their way into the top lane meta, slowly phasing out tanks in the top lane, as they had few ways to deal with the onslaught that these champions brought through harass and sustain.
I believe the proper way to go about champion balancment is to change the way you view champions themselves in terms of balancement, this isn't like an FPS, where the stats of a gun can be objectively overpowered, league and other mobas are unique do to their intwining interactions that we see when champions are buffed or nerfed. If you subsequently Nerf or buff one champion multiple times without first seeing ways these changes might interact with the lane as a whole, you risk making changes too severe or tipping the balance too far in the favor if another champion.
Granted, on this front, I could be wrong, and if I am, I would love to be shown as to how I am.
TL;DR - Instead of subsequently needing one champion, instead buff weaker ones and see how they interact.

is it me or aatrox‘s wing looks weird? come on it freak looks like a piece of paper or something. look at kayle‘s wings awesome right? why not aatrox too.
appearance: he will look like a varus‘ counter part, but he has wings so... he will look like a archangel. face- he looks human with blonde or brunette hair with glowing eyes and rune tatoos. he will have a M shaped crown. (elf crown or norton, silencer‘s helm) upper body- he will be half naked he has rune tattoos and he will have a glowing crest in his chest he has shoulder plates his right hand full armored the left has has a glove the long ones. lower body- armor pants thats it wing- white wing with armor then behind the wings it has two sroll with rune writings hanging (the scrolls will be the one who will be swaying when his walking) sword- looks likes varus counter part but a sword EFFECTS: passive- change particle color same color like archlight varus‘ q-change color like varus w- during toggle of glowing read when toggle on change color like varus‘ e- change color r- change color plus during active the will be a big golden ring floating behind his wings (like the thunder god in japanese myth)
thats all folks hope you like it

Looking through my homepage i can't help but consider if Irelia's passive makes her an excellent Varus counter?
Any thoughts on the matter?

The conventional bot lane (ADC/Support) for EG's Yellowpete on Varus and Krepo on Sona agaisnt DB's HosaN on Draven and Muvert on Leona was absolutely lost on the commentators. Having mentioned earlier that HosaN plays Draven, Varus was picked before Draven and I was surprised to see DB choose their hard counter. The commentators checked what Varus was leveling up to find 5 points in Hail of Arrows (e) saying something to the effect of "it's good to see how these pro players max their skills and we get to learn from them, keep this in mind, yadda yadda yadda."

1. Varus is a counter to Draven. You max e, you can zone Draven away from axes/his support and take him out easily, you can out poke him when necessary, your ultimate is strong as Draven is prone to dying during the duration of most CC and higher attack speed from your passive evens out the damage of Spinning Axe (q) during early game. I say this as a pretty long time Draven player, sick of getting countered, who is now a long time Varus player.
   
2. The commentators implied that maxing e is "the thing" to do on Varus: it's good we get to see the pros so we can learn this stuff. However they had no clue that Varus counters Draven and that maxing e is not stock standard. The joy of Varus is he's versatile, q for poke comp, w against a tanky team, e for Draven.
   
3. I guess I'm writing this because I expected a higher standard, LCS 2013 has been great and I'm up at ungodly hours watching it all, and to hear the commentators speak about bot lane completely oblivious to why it was so fun to watch (as Draven took an early cs lead) left me wanting. I'm not even particularly good at LoL and I know this stuff, so I'm surprised not to hear it from the people at the top.
   
4. Also maybe this is picky but Joe Miller sometimes gets really flustered in team fights and just distracts me from trying to figure out what's going on, no malice intended.
   

Hi fellow summoners,here is a guide that I wrote a few years ago and kept updating from time to time. It is not perfect and only basic (might be I forgot to add a champ or 2 to be honest but I tried to include every champ, also some stuff might be a bit outdated, I´ll try to fix it up if I find something):
Edit: Before you read any further and be like "Eh but this and that combination isn´t really good because this champ favors this and that blablabla...This guide is meant to show Concepts of how it is supposed to be in general.You always have to adapt depending the match up, player skill, etc.
Types of Botlanes
Everyone knows it: Botlane is a case of its own. With more than 40 different champions played on Botlane, there is a huge amount of possible match ups and types of lanes.
This article is meant to categorize the usual Marksmen played on Botlane to give you an easy to find weaknesses and strengths of each Marksman.Please be aware that a champion can fit into several classes at the same time.
For that we will divide the marksmen into 5 classes:
“Lane Bully”, “Spellcaster”, “Tank Shreds aka On-Hit User” “Hypercarry aka Crit User” and “Utility”
​
Lane Bullies
What is a “Lane Bully?”A “Lane Bully” is a marksman who has strong laning capabilities and can dominate a lane if he does his job correctly. Most common examples are: Caitlyn, Draven, Lucian, Miss Fortune (most common in Low Elo) Senna, and Varus (Lethality Build). Each of them has strong laning power due to their kit:Caitlyn has the biggest auto attack range of all Marksmen LvL 1, Dravens attack damage is higher than anyone´s else, Lucian can burst down people in a few seconds due his double shot passive, Miss Fortune can zone people with her Q and deal monstrous damage, Senna has good range and built in sustain + her Q applies Glacial Augment and Varus with a Lethality Build can kill people with 3 Q´s.
At the same time these Marksmen usually fall off in the late game (please be aware of Senna here due to her in build infinite scaling) due to their early power (to make them balanced) so they tend to lose more often if they can´t end the same fast.If you play a “Lane Bully”: Try to be aggressive early game and make use of your power to snowball the game into a fast win. If you play against them: Try to play safe and go for farm instead of risky plays.
​
Spellcasters
What is a “Spellcaster”?A “Spellcaster” is a marksman who relies mostly on his spells to deal damage/ effective.The most common examples are: Ezreal, Aphelios, Jhin, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Samira, Sivir, Varus (Lethality Build) and Xayah.“Spellcaster” put a lot of focus onto their mana management but on the same time they are able to put out a lot of damage/ control on the game if they have the mana they need for their spells. Not every “Spellcaster” is strong in the early game, but every “Spellcaster” can dominate a certain state of game with their kits (Aphelios is special here because he relies less on his mana and “spells” and more about his ammunition and what guns he has and how he uses them but it is still the same idea in my opinion).The downside of playing a “Spellcaster” is pretty similar to the downsides of a mage: If their spells are on cooldown or if they are out of mana, the damage they can deal is way lower than at their best.If you play a “Spellcaster”: Play around your cooldowns and mana. Use your spells to deal as much damage as possible, back off and then go back in when your cooldowns are back up.
If you play against a “Spellcaster”: Make use of cooldowns and the enemy being out of mana. If you see them waste their spells, go in and blow them up.
​
Tank Shreds
What is a “Tank Shred”?A “Tank Shred” is a marksman who´s main damage comes from effects which get applied with every auto attack. The most common examples are: Kai´Sa, Kalista, Kog Maw, Varus and Vayne.“Tank Shreds” usually have spells in their kit which allow them to deal bonus damage with every attack/ every specific attack numbers. For example: Vayne does bonus damage with her W every three hits, Kai´Sa applies bonus damage after stacking 5 hits of plasma.Almost every time “On-Hit User” go for the same to items: “Krakenslayer” and “Phantom Dancer”. The reason for that is that “Krakenslayer” deals bonus damage every third Auto Attack and “Phantom Dancer" buffs your attack speed by 30% after attacking 4 times.
Their Itembuilds rely mostly on attack speed and their effects per attack so the damage per attack is low compared to other marksmen. The longer a fight goes, the stronger a “Tank Shred” gets.
If you play a “Tank Shred”: Play around your stacks. Depending on how much stacks you need, try to fight as long as you need. As Vayne play around your three hits, as Kalista try to stack as many spears as possible and then execute the enemy with your E “Rend”.
If you play against a “Tank Shred”: Be careful of long trades. Since “On-Hit User” get stronger with longer trades, limit yourself to do short trades to deny their strength and reduce their hp before you all in them when they can´t make use of long trades anymore.
​
Hypercarry:
What is a “Hypercarry”? A “Hypercarry” is a marksman who builds items with “critical strike chance”, the exception here is Kog Maw. The most common examples are: Aphelios, Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jinx, Jhin, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch and Xayah.
“Hypercarries” rely on their “critical chance strike” to deal high amounts of damage with every attack. Critical attacks deal 175% damage instead of the usual 100%. By building “Infinity Edge” the damage gets further increased to 210%. These Marksmen usually buy at least 3 items with “critical strike chance”, with “Infinity Edge” being the “Core” of the build.“Hypercarries” usually get to their strongest point quite late in a game. They need time to farm gold to get their items but when they got them, they outscale most other Marksmen classes.If you play a “Hypercarry”: Try to play safe early on (Only exceptions are Draven and Cailyn depending on match up) and try to farm as much gold as possible to get to your items fast and then crush the game by killing non tanks with 2 or 3 hits.If you play against a “Hypercarry”: Overpower them early on before they can stack up their critical strike chance since their high damage output is based on “luck”. The item parts for “infinity Edge” are quite expensive so try to punish that by forcing them into bad recalls.
​
Utiliity:
What is a “Utility” marksman? Utility marksmen are marksmen who´s kit revolves around their team for the biggest effect. The most common examples are: Ashe, Kalista, Sivir, Senna and Varus.
They all have an ultimate which needs the team to be useable/ for the best use. They got spells for “the greater good” than just using all of their spells for winning a 1v1. Ashe can catch out a target with her ultimate, Sivir boosts the whole team with movement speed which allows them to either gap close fast to get a good engage or disengage without getting caught that easily. Kalista even need her Oathsworn to activate her ultimate and the W passive (bonus damage if she and her sworn hit the same target in a short amount of time) so she depends even more on her team/ oathsworn to be nearby. To be fair, Varus Ultimate isn´t as “good” as Ashe ultimate due to its range, but on the other hand it provides a possible bind onto all 5 targets and can disrupt the enemy formation pretty well.
If you play a “Utility” marksman: Play around your team. Use the fact that your champion is best when having back up or when trying to make a play/ making the engage. Don´t hesitate to use your ultimate to get a catch on an enemy in the mid- to lategame since this can lead to a free baron, turret or maybe even nashor. Stick with our team and create openings to decide the game in your favor.
If you play against a “Utility” marksman: Be aware of the possible sudden engage by the enemy team using their marksman ultimate. As a tank try to stand in front of your team to “eat up” the ultimate if needed so your carries are still able to respond in a fight and don´t die in the first 2 seconds. Try to catch the marksman off guard and alone (the best would be a pincer attack), so he as to blow his ultimate to escape from one side just to die to the other side and create a 4v5 scenario for your team with the marksman being dead or back to base.
​
The Triangle of Support:
There are quite a few Supports in the game so there are a lot of different match ups and how a lane can play out depending on who you play against who, etc.
This is a rough outline to group supports in a class, what they are good at and what they struggle with if played correct and how it should play out in theory.
This “Triangle” shows the idea of who beats who
Poke -> All in -> Sustain/ Peel -> Poke ( -> = Beats)
​
All in
“All in” supports like Alistar, Thresh, Leona, Nautilus, Pyke, Rell etc. excel at going in till either one side is dead or has to back off. This kind of support beats “Sustain” supports since the “Sustain” supports don´t get the time/ chance to really make use of their shields and heals. Your heal won´t help your ADC if he´s going to die anyways.
While they do have an advantage over sustain, they lose out against “Poke Supports”, because they don´t get the chance to all in due to the damage the lane already took by the poke of the enemies. The only chance for you to score kills in such a lane is by going in after coming of a recall so they didn´t have the time to poke you down.
“All in” supports are usually picked with strong early game ADC to force kills and resources from the enemy and get your ADC as much gold advantage as you can early on in the game.
​
Sustain/ Peel
“Sustain/ Peel” Supports are champions who are able to negate damage due to their kits via shields and heals. Common examples are Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, Soraka.
Their strong point is to keep their ad carry alive so he stays able to fight and farm in lane despite taking damage.
They beat out the “Poke” supports because they can block the incoming poke via their shields (which can´t be dodged) and are able to deny the high aggression of the enemy botlane. In case of having a heal instead of a shield they can even restore health that got lost by poke if they were not in range or their spells on cooldown to deny the poke.
A “Sustain” support is usually picked with a strong scaling ADC to make sure he survives the lane and get him to his items as safe as possible.
For the "butthurt" people :D :
As a subclass of "Peel" Supports we got the, let´s call them, "Warden" Class:"Warden" Supports are champions who protect their ADC by "thowing themselves between their ADC and the enemy". They wait for the enemy to engage and then counter after the enemy blew their shots to get back at them when they try to retreat. Common examples are: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench.
Their strong point is that they are able to take a punch while offering safety for their allies from enemy champions that try to "dive onto them".They beat the "All in" Supports at their own game because they abuse the fact that the enemy is trying to use their strength and then "swap" their strength into a weakness when they failed.
They usually play rather reactive than proactive since they rely on the enemy to step up first.At the same time they struggle against ranged match ups since they are easy to abuse for the enemy via poke. "Warden" don´t have a good way to deal with that kind of playstyle.
​
Poke
Poke supports are often times mages who went down from midlane to botlane, like Annie, Brand, Fiddlesticks (a jungler tho), Lux, Morgana, Senna, Seraphine, Vel´Koz, Xerath and Zyra.
Each of them offers quite a bit amount of damage and range with their spells what makes them able to harass the enemy botlane from far away without fearing taking damage in return. Their goal is to harass people do death or to force them back/ to the point where they can´t fight and have to “forfeit” the lane in their favor.Keep an eye on your mana pool and cooldowns since “Poke” supports rely heavily on their mana to deal damage just like “Spellcasters”. If you play Senna out of this bunch of supports, since she has a sustain spell, you can be more aggressive and trade harder since you can heal back up ( take notice on how you use your Q, try to heal up your ADC and yourself and hit the enemy champions for best usage).
For the same reason on one hand this kind of support beats “All in” supports since they deny the possibility of an all-in by the enemy because they are too low on hp to win the fight.
You have to be careful regardless after an “All in” support comes back to lane because that is the best point in time for him to turn onto you.On the other hand they have a hard time against “Sustain” supports due to getting their poke denied or healed back up by “Sustain” supports.
Try to bait out their shield or heal and then dump damage onto them so they can´t block the damage coming in and try to kill them before there cooldowns are coming back up.
“Poke” supports can be picked with early game strong and weak ADC to either enhance the killpressure and the possible lead or to cover the weakness of a weak ADC so they get some breathing room. But if things turn bad they tend to be worse than the other support classes due to them being less “supportive” due to their kit.
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Synergies between ADC and Support classes
Overall there are 3 ways to “build” a bot lane. Each way differs in their strengths and purposes and I will just call them “Comfort picks”, “Synergy” and “Compensation” to make it easier to understand.
Comfort picks:
“Comfort picks” is literally what you think, you just play whatever you are best at. This has the chance building a mismatch on bot lane if people don´t communicate a lot with each other because every player plays to his own tune. I bet you all already saw something like a Thresh + Vayne lane where Thresh engaged and Vayne just stood in the back, chilling her life and continues to farm while Thresh fights for his life. What went wrong? The bot lane probably didn´t talk with each other, picked whatever they wanted and now are playing for two different goals. Thresh wants to play aggressive and score a lead in lane while Vayne just wants to sit back and scale up. If they don´t “group” up and play together they are likely to lose bot lane hard. On the same time, because they picked their mains, they are more likely to perform well compared to playing other champions to “fit” something because they know their champion (damage, tankyness, kit, spikes, etc.).
Synergy:
Synergy is when you pick a champion that fits the playstyle of the champion from your partner, e.g.: Thresh-Lucian, Kog´Maw-Lulu, Ashe-Zyra, Draven-Leona.
If you partner picks something that wants to get a lead early game you pick something that is strong early game to help him achieve his goal (winning lane), if he just wants to sit back, farm and scale up (on ADC side) you pick something that excels at peeling so your ADC survives the laning phase (Nami, Yuumi, Lulu, Braum, Tahm Kench, etc.) and can wreck the enemies later on. The downside of this “strategy” is when you can´t achieve your goal (either win lane or scale up) because then you are in a really bad spot.
If you need 5-10 more minutes to hit your item spike as jinx or Tristana, Kai´Sa, etc. the game might be over before you get there and if you lost early game as someone like Lucian, Miss Fortune, Lethality Varus, Caitlyn, etc., depending on match up you might get outscaled by the enemy and will “lose” to their advantage due to their kit later on. If you play against another early game champion, he might snowball the lead onto other lanes so your whole team starts losing, etc.
Compensation:
Compensation is pretty specific and usually works only in one direction and that is the Support compensating the ADC in the early game.
The Support should play a poke/mage support to do this since these champions are very strong in lane and that´s when they want to shine. The poke support has the “duty” to get/ create openings/ advantages for his scaling ADC so he might scale earlie has an easier laning phase. A scaling ADC who can´t get touched is a happy ADC, even more if he gets a few free kills.
The Support shall make the lane more “competitive” so you are able to put more pressure on the enemy team as a whole (if their ADC has to recall 24/7 he can´t do shit + it forces their Jungler do something). Problems will occur if the Support dies while trying to get advantages since he can´t really expect help from his [still] weak ADC.
This playstyle requires a lot of work/skill from the Support since he has to do the main work in lane while he can´t afford f*ck up. If he f*cks up, he lost bot lane single handily and maybe even the game.
To the question: “Can you compensate an early game ADC with a late game Support?”:Hardly. Most "late game” Supports would be “Sustain” Supports since they excel at keeping their team alive and allow their carries to dish out the damage they need to do.
Even if you peel a Lucian really well, chances are bad that he will carry a team fight compared to a Jinx if they are on even terms.
Edit: Feel free to argue or comment as much as you like, just by doing that I got what I wanted:People thinking about it

Hello.. I'm here to discuss a theory as to why Varus isn't played in Solo Queue as much. I know the answer will be he has no escape/mobility... But for Solo Queue purposes.. just say the player has good positioning and etc. He could potentially be a good pick since his W can shred tanks like butter and his decent ultimate to lock down an entire team, as well as having a slow and a high damage snipe ability. Some even said he could be a good top in some situations to counter tanks, Which depends on how good the Varus is. But this is probably a dumb discussion.

In most of my games i can easily deal with any enemy champion, fed or not, but i really don't know what to do againt these "I'm running to kill you" machines. I always buy Executioner calling (i don't know if it's the right item against them) but as the game goes on it seems it's not enough to stop them; if they focus me, i'm dead no matter what; if i focus them, i can barely make some damage (specially with Olaf; i cannot even ult to stop him). In most of the cases i just try to spam Q being safe, but i need some advice in order to stop them in teamfight, cause they carry their team, and i cannot stop it. What i should do?

Was going into champ select today ready to play some poke Varus and after I locked in and everything, they picked Soraka. I immediately switched my runepage back to PTA and assumed I HAD to go on-hit as she would negate my poke at most points of the game. Is this a valid reason to not go the poke build and to use the on-hit build?

Hey guys. I love playing Varus as AP because of his burst but sometimes I feel like Im useless when Im against Fizz. I can win against LeBlanc but Fizz is just a bad matchup for me. one is that I can itemize defensive so early.
I always go Hybrid Pen red, AP Blues, AS Quints + TLD with 5% and W,E,Q ( because E can proc 4 Ws )
Itemwise; Nashor Tooth, Morello, Beserkers Greaves, Guinsoo, Void/Liandry, Gunblade (45% cdr+ Gunblade to max his spells cd)
I dont go for the early game dominace with AD runes + D.Blade.
I can play him as AD but like I said, I really love to just one spell rotate and kill enemy carries
What do I do against Fizz? Should I get Wits End to replace Guinsoo?

I'm having trouble trying to decide if I should make the downvote buttons on this sub be a picture of rengar, leblanc, kalista, blitzcrank or Riot's logo....
Any ideas/thoughts?

Every time against I go versus a Varus in the bot lane, I have a really bad time. I've tried everything against him and I can't really "shut him down" early game. Any tips on how to shut him down early?

Hi fellow summoners, here is a guide that I wrote a few years ago and kept updating from time to time. It is not perfect and only basic (might be I forgot to add a champ or 2 to be honest but I tried to include every champ, also some stuff might be a bit outdated, I´ll try to fix it up if I find something):
Edit: Before you read any further and be like "Eh but this and that combination isn´t really good because this champ favors this and that blablabla...This guide is meant to show Concepts of how it is supposed to be in general.You always have to adapt depending the match up, player skill, etc.
Types of Botlanes
Everyone knows it: Botlane is a case of its own. With more than 40 different champions played on Botlane, there is a huge amount of possible match ups and types of lanes.
This article is meant to categorize the usual Marksmen played on Botlane to give you an easy to find weaknesses and strengths of each Marksman.Please be aware that a champion can fit into several classes at the same time.
For that we will divide the marksmen into 5 classes:
“Lane Bully”, “Spellcaster”, “Tank Shreds aka On-Hit User” “Hypercarry aka Crit User” and “Utility”
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Lane Bullies
What is a “Lane Bully?”A “Lane Bully” is a marksman who has strong laning capabilities and can dominate a lane if he does his job correctly. Most common examples are: Caitlyn, Draven, Lucian, Miss Fortune (most common in Low Elo) Senna, and Varus (Lethality Build). Each of them has strong laning power due to their kit: Caitlyn has the biggest auto attack range of all Marksmen LvL 1, Dravens attack damage is higher than anyone´s else, Lucian can burst down people in a few seconds due his double shot passive, Miss Fortune can zone people with her Q and deal monstrous damage, Senna has good range and built in sustain + her Q applies Glacial Augment and Varus with a Lethality Build can kill people with 3 Q´s.
At the same time these Marksmen usually fall off in the late game (please be aware of Senna here due to her in build infinite scaling) due to their early power (to make them balanced) so they tend to lose more often if they can´t end the same fast.If you play a “Lane Bully”: Try to be aggressive early game and make use of your power to snowball the game into a fast win.If you play against them: Try to play safe and go for farm instead of risky plays.
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Spellcasters
What is a “Spellcaster”? A “Spellcaster” is a marksman who relies mostly on his spells to deal damage/ effective.The most common examples are: Ezreal, Aphelios, Jhin, Lucian, Miss Fortune, Samira, Sivir, Varus (Lethality Build) and Xayah.“Spellcaster” put a lot of focus onto their mana management but on the same time they are able to put out a lot of damage/ control on the game if they have the mana they need for their spells. Not every “Spellcaster” is strong in the early game, but every “Spellcaster” can dominate a certain state of game with their kits (Aphelios is special here because he relies less on his mana and “spells” and more about his ammunition and what guns he has and how he uses them but it is still the same idea in my opinion).The downside of playing a “Spellcaster” is pretty similar to the downsides of a mage: If their spells are on cooldown or if they are out of mana, the damage they can deal is way lower than at their best.If you play a “Spellcaster”: Play around your cooldowns and mana. Use your spells to deal as much damage as possible, back off and then go back in when your cooldowns are back up.
If you play against a “Spellcaster”: Make use of cooldowns and the enemy being out of mana. If you see them waste their spells, go in and blow them up.
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Tank Shreds
What is a “Tank Shred”?A “Tank Shred” is a marksman who´s main damage comes from effects which get applied with every auto attack. The most common examples are: Kai´Sa, Kalista, Kog Maw, Varus and Vayne.“Tank Shreds” usually have spells in their kit which allow them to deal bonus damage with every attack/ every specific attack numbers. For example: Vayne does bonus damage with her W every three hits, Kai´Sa applies bonus damage after stacking 5 hits of plasma.Almost every time “On-Hit User” go for the same to items: “Krakenslayer” and “Phantom Dancer”. The reason for that is that “Krakenslayer” deals bonus damage every third Auto Attack and “Phantom Dancer” gives 30% bonus attack speed after stacking 4 stacks.
Their Itembuilds rely mostly on attack speed and their effects per attack so the damage per attack is low compared to other marksmen. The longer a fight goes, the stronger a “Tank Shred” gets.
If you play a “Tank Shred”: Play around your stacks. Depending on how much stacks you need, try to fight as long as you need. As Vayne play around your three hits, as Kalista try to stack as many spears as possible and then execute the enemy with your E “Rent”.
If you play against a “Tank Shred”: Be careful of long trades. Since “On-Hit User” get stronger with longer trades, limit yourself to do short trades to deny their strength and reduce their hp before you all in them when they can´t make use of long trades anymore.
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Hypercarry:
What is a “Hypercarry”? A “Hypercarry” is a marksman who builds items with “critical strike chance”, the exception here is Kog Maw. The most common examples are: Aphelios, Ashe, Caitlyn, Draven, Jhin, Jinx, Sivir, Tristana, Twitch and Xayah.
“Hypercarries” rely on their “critical chance strike” to deal high amounts of damage with every attack. Critical attacks deal 175% damage instead of the usual 100%. By building “Infinity Edge” the damage gets further increased to 210%. These Marksmen usually buy at least 3 items with “critical strike chance”, with “Infinity Edge” being the “Core” of the build.“Hypercarries” usually get to their strongest point quite late in a game. They need time to farm gold to get their items but when they got them, they outscale most other Marksmen classes.If you play a “Hypercarry”: Try to play safe early on (Only exceptions are Draven and Cailyn depending on match up) and try to farm as much gold as possible to get to your items fast and then crush the game by killing non tanks with 2 or 3 hits. If you play against a “Hypercarry”: Overpower them early on before they can stack up their critical strike chance since their high damage output is based on “luck”. The item parts for “infinity Edge” are quite expensive so try to punish that by forcing them into bad recalls.
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Utiliity:
What is a “Utility” marksman? Utility marksmen are marksmen who´s kit revolves around their team for the biggest effect. The most common examples are: Ashe, Kalista, Sivir, Senna and Varus.
They all have an ultimate which needs the team to be useable/ for the best use. They got spells for “the greater good” than just using all of their spells for winning a 1v1. Ashe can catch out a target with her ultimate, Sivir boosts the whole team with movement speed which allows them to either gap close fast to get a good engage or disengage without getting caught that easily. Kalista even need her Oathsworn to activate her ultimate and the W passive (bonus damage if she and her sworn hit the same target in a short amount of time) so she depends even more on her team/ oathsworn to be nearby. To be fair, Varus Ultimate isn´t as “good” as Ashe ultimate due to its range, but on the other hand it provides a possible bind onto all 5 targets and can disrupt the enemy formation pretty well.
If you play a “Utility” marksman: Play around your team. Use the fact that your champion is best when having back up or when trying to make a play/ making the engage. Don´t hesitate to use your ultimate to get a catch on an enemy in the mid- to lategame since this can lead to a free baron, turret or maybe even nashor. Stick with our team and create openings to decide the game in your favor.
If you play against a “Utility” marksman: Be aware of the possible sudden engage by the enemy team using their marksman ultimate. As a tank try to stand in front of your team to “eat up” the ultimate if needed so your carries are still able to respond in a fight and don´t die in the first 2 seconds. Try to catch the marksman off guard and alone (the best would be a pincer attack), so he as to blow his ultimate to escape from one side just to die to the other side and create a 4v5 scenario for your team with the marksman being dead or back to base.
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The Triangle of Support:
There are quite a few Supports in the game so there are a lot of different match ups and how a lane can play out depending on who you play against who, etc.
This is a rough outline to group supports in a class, what they are good at and what they struggle with if played correct and how it should play out in theory.
This “Triangle” shows the idea of who beats who
Poke -> All in -> Sustain/ Peel -> Poke ( -> = Beats)
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All in
“All in” supports like Alistar, Thresh, Leona, Nautilus, Pyke, Rell etc. excel at going in till either one side is dead or has to back off. This kind of support beats “Sustain” supports since the “Sustain” supports don´t get the time/ chance to really make use of their shields and heals. Your heal won´t help your ADC if he´s going to die anyways.
While they do have an advantage over sustain, they lose out against “Poke Supports”, because they don´t get the chance to all in due to the damage the lane already took by the poke of the enemies. The only chance for you to score kills in such a lane is by going in after coming of a recall so they didn´t have the time to poke you down.
“All in” supports are usually picked with strong early game ADC to force kills and resources from the enemy and get your ADC as much gold advantage as you can early on in the game.
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Sustain/ Peel
“Sustain/ Peel” Supports are champions who are able to negate damage due to their kits via shields or heals. Common examples are Bard, Janna, Lulu, Nami, Sona, Soraka.
Their strong point is to keep their ad carry alive so he stays able to fight and farm in lane despite taking damage.
They beat out the “Poke” supports because they can block the incoming poke via their shields (which can´t be dodged) and are able to deny the high aggression of the enemy botlane. In case of having a heal instead of a shield they can even restore health that got lost by poke if they were not in range or their spells on cooldown to deny the poke.
A “Sustain” support is usually picked with a strong scaling ADC to make sure he survives the lane and get him to his items as safe as possible.
For the "butthurt" people :D :
As a subclass of "Peel" Supports we got the, let´s call them, "Warden" Class: "Warden" Supports are champions who protect their ADC by "thowing themselves between their ADC and the enemy". They wait for the enemy to engage and then counter after the enemy blew their shots to get back at them when they try to retreat. Common examples are: Braum, Taric and Tahm Kench.
Their strong point is that they are able to take a punch while offering safety for their allies from enemy champions that try to "dive onto them". They beat the "All in" Supports at their own game because they abuse the fact that the enemy is trying to use their strength and then "swap" their strength into a weakness when they failed.
They usually play rather reactive than proactive since they rely on the enemy to step up first. At the same time they struggle against ranged match ups since they are easy to abuse for the enemy via poke. "Warden" don´t have a good way to deal with that kind of playstyle.
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Poke
Poke supports are often times mages who went down from midlane to botlane, like Annie, Brand, Fiddlesticks (a jungler tho), Lux, Morgana, Senna, Seraphine, Vel´Koz, Xerath and Zyra.
Each of them offers quite a bit amount of damage and range with their spells what makes them able to harass the enemy botlane from far away without fearing taking damage in return. Their goal is to harass people do death or to force them back/ to the point where they can´t fight and have to “forfeit” the lane in their favor.Keep an eye on your mana pool and cooldowns since “Poke” supports rely heavily on their mana to deal damage just like “Spellcasters”. If you play Senna out of this bunch of supports, since she has a sustain spell, you can be more aggressive and trade harder since you can heal back up ( take notice on how you use your Q, try to heal up your ADC and yourself and hit the enemy champions for best usage).
For the same reason on one hand this kind of support beats “All in” supports since they deny the possibility of an all-in by the enemy because they are too low on hp to win the fight.
You have to be careful regardless after an “All in” support comes back to lane because that is the best point in time for him to turn onto you.On the other hand they have a hard time against “Sustain” supports due to getting their poke denied or healed back up by “Sustain” supports.
Try to bait out their shield or heal and then dump damage onto them so they can´t block the damage coming in and try to kill them before there cooldowns are coming back up.
“Poke” supports can be picked with early game strong and weak ADC to either enhance the killpressure and the possible lead or to cover the weakness of a weak ADC so they get some breathing room. But if things turn bad they tend to be worse than the other support classes due to them being less “supportive” due to their kit.
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Synergies between ADC and Support classes
Overall there are 3 ways to “build” a bot lane. Each way differs in their strengths and purposes and I will just call them “Comfort picks”, “Synergy” and “Compensation” to make it easier to understand.
Comfort picks:
“Comfort picks” is literally what you think, you just play whatever you are best at. This has the chance building a mismatch on bot lane if people don´t communicate a lot with each other because every player plays to his own tune. I bet you all already saw something like a Thresh + Vayne lane where Thresh engaged and Vayne just stood in the back, chilling her life and continues to farm while Thresh fights for his life. What went wrong? The bot lane probably didn´t talk with each other, picked whatever they wanted and now are playing for two different goals. Thresh wants to play aggressive and score a lead in lane while Vayne just wants to sit back and scale up. If they don´t “group” up and play together they are likely to lose bot lane hard. On the same time, because they picked their mains, they are more likely to perform well compared to playing other champions to “fit” something because they know their champion (damage, tankyness, kit, spikes, etc.).
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Synergy:
Synergy is when you pick a champion that fits the playstyle of the champion from your partner, e.g.: Thresh-Lucian, Kog´Maw-Lulu, Ashe-Zyra, Draven-Leona.
If you partner picks something that wants to get a lead early game you pick something that is strong early game to help him achieve his goal (winning lane), if he just wants to sit back, farm and scale up (on ADC side) you pick something that excels at peeling so your ADC survives the laning phase (Nami, Yuumi, Lulu, Braum, Tahm Kench, etc.) and can wreck the enemies later on. The downside of this “strategy” is when you can´t achieve your goal (either win lane or scale up) because then you are in a really bad spot.
If you need 5-10 more minutes to hit your item spike as jinx or Tristana, Kai´Sa, etc. the game might be over before you get there and if you lost early game as someone like Lucian, Miss Fortune, Lethality Varus, Caitlyn, etc., depending on match up you might get outscaled by the enemy and will “lose” to their advantage due to their kit later on. If you play against another early game champion, he might snowball the lead onto other lanes so your whole team starts losing, etc.
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Compensation:
Compensation is pretty specific and usually works only in one direction and that is the Support compensating the ADC in the early game.
The Support should play a poke/mage support to do this since these champions are very strong in lane and that´s when they want to shine. The poke support has the “duty” to get/ create openings/ advantages for his scaling ADC so he might scale earlie has an easier laning phase. A scaling ADC who can´t get touched is a happy ADC, even more if he gets a few free kills.
The Support shall make the lane more “competitive” so you are able to put more pressure on the enemy team as a whole (if their ADC has to recall 24/7 he can´t do shit + it forces their Jungler do something). Problems will occur if the Support dies while trying to get advantages since he can´t really expect help from his [still] weak ADC.
This playstyle requires a lot of work/skill from the Support since he has to do the main work in lane while he can´t afford f*ck up. If he f*cks up, he lost bot lane single handily and maybe even the game.
To the question: “Can you compensate an early game ADC with a late game Support?”:Hardly. Most "late game” Supports would be “Sustain” Supports since they excel at keeping their team alive and allow their carries to dish out the damage they need to do.
Even if you peel a Lucian really well, chances are bad that he will carry a team fight compared to a Jinx if they are on even terms.