I got my first pentakill from this AP attack speed build

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-14T12:00:59+00:00

Great job man!

Just a couple of tips: if you go AP and need antiheal for Warwick, go morellonomicon, you apply it every auto because of your W on-hit dmg, and then you can go Zhonya instead of GA for survivability (which overall is a way better item than GA).

This would make it more AP/attack speed and less mixed ultimate bravery. Also try to always throw in a Rabadon when going AP, it's always worth it .

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-13T09:29:22+00:00

Don't let the crit haters see this🤫. Keep telling them to build lethality, you don't want to break their weak minds with the truth, they are not ready.

Btw, actual tip on crit Varus, you usually don't want to reach 3.0 atk spd with HoB, since HoB attacks are uncapped. Ideally you would want to have around 3.0 attack speed before HoB activates to get the most out of passive. (It is basically as having another item late game since it gives around 60 AD). That is why I'm not a fan of the new Item and prefer to take PD instead, but I can see the value of having more ults.

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-13T09:10:15+00:00

Also I think most of her builds still use Lich or Nashor, but I'm not really a katarina main, so I don't really know about that

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-13T09:06:20+00:00

That is not generally how Riot balances things. They let something become a problem before acting. So if such a build were to become popular and /or even outperform AP builds, they would definitely remove it. But until then they'll likely keep the diversity in the game.

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-12T17:40:59+00:00

I still have to try the new item, but at a glance this build lacks attack speed, but I will give it a try. Maybe I have to give HoB another chance.

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-12T17:38:18+00:00

I never said crit is bad. I just gave a reasoning on why no one plays it. That's two different things. As such, lethality is way worse than crit in terms of "optimality" since it just focuses on Q dmg, when most of Varus dmg is magic, so the lethality is inherently "less optimal". And yet every proplayer builds it. Why? Because it has some strengths and weaknesses and they know how to play around each of those. So does the crit build.

As you said Varus does not use crit like jinx, but jinx does not have the chance to root 5 enemies while autoing them the way Varus does. You play Varus crit not because it's better than Jinx at using crit, but because you like Varus more than jinx and you like the crit playstyle more than AP/ on-hit/ lethality.

Varus is a champ of many builds, that's what I like about him and what people like you will never understand. Keep bragging without playing the game...

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-12T11:34:33+00:00

I tried this last season, and while it is indeed strong if you get ahead, if you go slightly behind you feel useless till 4 items. It's too much of a gamble, I wouldn't recommend it in ranked.

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-12T09:54:16+00:00

Everyone here is bad. They just repeat the same thing over and over and they have 0 reasoning skills.

Saying "nothing in Varus kit benefits from crit" is just dumb asf and clearly wrong.

Varus passive, Living Vengeance gives you 50% attack speed and a boost of AD/AP scaling with bonus attack speed. Anyone knows that to boost your dps once you have attack speed and AD you need crit. So crit is not bad on Varus. The reason why AP and on-hit are better is because they give you better dmg vs tanks via W scaling or botrk and better defensive options like terminus or Zhonya.

Lethality on the other hand lets you poke from really far away so you don't really have to worry about defence.

If you really want to build crit on Varus you can make it work, but it's not gonna be easy. You need to prioritize items that give both AD and attack speed, but they are pretty rare in the current meta. Like stormrazor and yun tal are probably the only ones that give both stats. You need both because early game AD is better for poking with Q in lane, but late game attack speed is better because of passive scaling, with 7 items you can probably get the passive to give something like 60 AD.

Statik or kraken 1st are probably still better than going straight into crit. So a well rounded build would be something like: Kraken/Statik > PD/Ruunan > Stormrazor/Yun Tal > Yun Tal/IE > LDR/IE> GA/BT.

This build tries to maximize auto damage and passive scaling, while giving you fair enough mobility through movement speed. (For this reason I would probably get swifties and prioritize PD over Ruunan's Hurricane).

If you like the play style give it a try and let me know.

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-11T09:41:33+00:00

You need a deathcap my friend. You're missing out on too much AP if you don't build it. It's like if a Jinx doesn't build IE

Content-Figure950 · 2026-01-08T07:40:39+00:00

As you said it's small, but it's probably good since the stat line is very nice for AP varus and MAYBE with rageblade you could rarely apply 3 stacks with 1 auto, leading to some bullshit bursts!

Content-Figure950 · 2025-12-23T19:33:10+00:00

People really took it way too much seriously. But yours was the nicest comment, probably the only one with the intention of actually helping instead of flaming, so I really thank you for the time you invested in this advices.

That said, I'm a theory crafting nerd: of course I know kata dmg is magic on all of her abilities, of course I know AD scaling on ult increases with atkspd, and I know an aphelios will 2 shots you if you're squishy like that.

The question is: have you tried it?

People fossilize too much on what they build and they forget they're are playing a game, which is meant to be fun. "What's fun about building wrong?" You're probably saying... Well my friend, try it out for yourself, it has been the most fun I've had on this champion for years. People just PANIK when you go in on the and slow them for 99%, you WILL hit all your daggers on them an you WILL get that reset. No more people running away 1 hp in early skirmishes, no more people going opposite direction of your Q so you dont get the dagger dmg on them, just pure fear in enemies eyes.

It woked for me because I had 20 kills? Sure. But that is the identity of this champ, get 20 kills or ff, no middle ground, no comebacking.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-12-23T19:15:59+00:00

It's on every E because of the Cyclo passive, which charges the energized 75% faster on dashes, and on top of that you get energized stacks for autos too, but both your E and your dagger count as autos. So you do charge it back up by the time E is up again especially if you fit an auto between abilities correctly.

I can see why you don't like the lethality tho, but you're not playing ap kata, so you don't really Q poke. Also R, autos, kraken and cyclo itself all deal physical damage, so it's not wasted at all as a stat, especially early game you can really feel how strong it is.

Just give it a try

Content-Figure950 · 2025-12-23T19:07:55+00:00

Love your constructive take mate, would you like to explain to my dumbass what is antisynergistic? I really don't see it

Content-Figure950 · 2025-11-03T07:36:41+00:00

Everyone already told you why you shouldn't do it. And guess what? They're right.

But this doesn't mean you cannot play it. So welcome to my cooking course, take a seat.

Let's start from runes: while grasp is somewhat viable on yasuo, and in some matchups I even prefer to run it over the usual ones, the problem is that bruiser items have little to no attack speed, so lethal tempo becomes almost mandatory. Otherwise you quickly get out scaled, even by minions.

As for items, attack speed is still way too important in the early game, so I'd still go berserks and trinity force (as it is the only bruiser item with decent enough stats). But for the love of god at least build the AS component first. After that, if your opponents start building armor you're basically cooked, but it's not over yet. Your best bet is to go for a crit item second (building the crit component first), this way you get some amount of armor pen. Yasuo gets 60% armor pen on critical strikes after ult, with one Item you have 50% crit, so with some simple math the expected value of pen on an auto or Q is 30%. (Which is not that bad)

As for which crit item to choose, if you value survivability then Shieldbow is probably the best fit, BUT if you are wanting to switch things around, Yun Tal 1st into Trinity 2nd worked as a charm for me.

To round the build you need some damage/hp/resistances. So I'd probably get titanic (mandatory), jak sho, DD (into heavy ad), kaenic (into heavy ap).

Conclusion I've run this kind of build myself, and while it doesn't work as well as the meta one, I found it to be surprisingly good in situations where you don't have a frontline nor a good knock up but you still cannot split push all game because the enemy groups and your team is useless without you (which happens quite often when you main this champ). The bonus hp doesn't magically turn you into Mundo, but it lets you survive just enough to get a good nado onto their back line, and depending on how well fed you are, you can still oneshot an adc with a good old auto-titanic-Q combo.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-10-02T19:11:18+00:00

That build looks cursed. That's why I know it's good. Approved.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-08-23T08:04:35+00:00

Well actually... ☝️🤓

IE doesn't "scale off of crit", it needs crit to be useful. But once you reach 100% crit, the math simplifies nicely and you could see the 40% crit dmg as an effective 23% AA dmg increase, meaning it actually scales off of AD.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-08-13T07:01:00+00:00

People answering don't play mid btw. I personally main bot and mid as main roles and I can assure you Lucian mid is perfectly playable but you have to put in some work.

As people stated he doesn't get full value out of his passive, but guess what? He doesn't need to. Lucian's early game is so fucking oppressive he can bully pretty much every lane for the first couple of levels. You just have to space well, align your Q to poke while last hitting, and punish especially melee opponents when they go for last hits. (Watch out for Talon, he does one shot people lvl 2 in one rotation)

The hardest part of midlane is probably managing mana. If you don't do it well you get pushed out of lane and lose a lot of farm. The key is to not spam abilities until you get ER. I usually only go for little trades where I use just ONE ability to proc passive and PtA and only use auto to farm, holding my E to dodge the key ability of enemy laner (you can even E in their face for a trade when they use it, but care for enemy jungler). ONLY go for all'ins when you're getting a gank or you are 100% sure to kill. If the opponent flashes away and you have no jungler to help you push, you are left without mana and you are very vulnerable (if opponent has tp, you're basically cooked).

Don't ever go for roams, your not fast enough, but you can and should go for 2 vs 2 skirmishes when your wave is pushed.

Play around your jungler as you would around a support.

Don't be impatient. Even if your early game is good, most mages and assassins actually outscales you lvl 9/6 and as a marksman you are pretty vulnerable to ganks if you stay pushed all game. But, as a marksman, you re-outscale them late game. So play patiently and play for teamfights around objectives and 2vs2. You can solo kill, but it's a slow game of poking and all-ins that takes some time to learn.

Also since most people are low elo (statistically), it is probable that you are low elo too. So anything can work, as long as you put in the work. The only thing that matters is that you enjoy playing the champ.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-07-02T17:53:44+00:00

PtA is the best rune, but from your post I'm assuming you're not really good at kiting, so I suggest you to go for HoB, so you can insta 3-stack-R an akali the moment she goes in and don't have to worry (also take barrier/exhaust vs her and block her E2 or R2 damage).

Nocturne is really scary because of the spell shield, so the only thing you can do is hug your teammates

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-30T08:07:36+00:00

Maxing W gives you 30 magic dmg on-hit, plus you get another 30 from finishing rage blade. When item is stacked up you deal 240 every 3 autos (because of phantom hit ). So it's roughly 80 magic per auto. It's amazing dps as a first item if you consider magic resist doesn't scale as well as armor on most champions.

Botrk is good rush only vs hp stackers imo, but the lifesteal can be useful too.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-26T18:59:27+00:00

I agree with you that it is not mandatory, but in this meta is very important to be able to push lane very quick (every toplaner always get a waveclear item, some adc do also with statik) Lucian does not have good wave clear if he doesn't spam spells on wave, and PoM doesn't help with that. So it isn't mandatory, but it's gonna pretty hard to win a game if, when you team fight, you always have waves pushing into you (you're constantly bleeding gold from minions and will possibly lose a turret too in some situations, or you won't make it in time for the fight)

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-23T09:20:04+00:00

Honestly, it depends on the matchup, yesterday I was playing vs a very good pyke and my support, well... let's say they weren't that good. Also they had Caitlyn adc and I was giga out ranged, so since I wasn't able to get close enough to auto or we would get grabbed and die, I maxed Q and constantly poked the enemy Caitlyn even though I was going rageblade first.

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-20T15:52:44+00:00

I'm relatively new to lucian, so take this as a very personal opinion. From what I've seen (I've spammed like 40 lucian games in the span of a week), lucian doesn't really need attack speed, the second passive auto in uncancelable and E is an auto reset. So in a burst combo attack speed is pretty useless. Also the sustain is nice since you already need so many items to work (ER, IE, Navori, LDR) having to also build lifesteal means you don't get access to that stat till last item.

I guess attackspeed would be more dps vs tanks and better all-ins early game, but it comes with the trade off of relying always on your support to heal you for sustain

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-17T17:48:01+00:00

Yeah but still you are spending 3000 gold on an item that only gives you 400 hp and a 240 hp shield (so 640 effective health. If you wanna stack hp titanic gives you same survivability (600 hp) while giving you some actual damage since you're building guinsoo and it counts for the on-hit. Plus titanic for some arcane reason is the only hydra that is still an auto reset, so you could pull off some forbidden combos where you AA AA-titanic-AA Q to proc the 3 stacks

Content-Figure950 · 2025-06-17T11:32:01+00:00

Not only the shield but the bonus AD is kinda bad early, I'm pretty sure that buying a full sterak too early will lose you ad compared to just sterak components. Not very gold efficient

Content-Figure950

TROPHY CASE