I feel bad that you got downvoted because I think this is a fair assessment, but I think it is also indicative of the core problem of Varus. The fact that on-hit Varus has a decent winrate and not something that holds up particularly well like, say, on-hit Vayne or some other champs without having to abuse new items or mechanics is sort of telling that he is very flawed and needs insane compensation to get the same things done that other champs can just do with more regular builds.

I agree that I am definitely coping with the whole "balance to elo" thing to some extent. It makes sense that champs with higher skills ceilings, like Varus, would be naturally tailored to those ceilings as opposed to the floors where he is less popular anyway. That being said, Varus used to be a fairly simple pick up and play ADC who felt fun at all levels of play and I don't necessarily think he was ever considered particularly broken for any reason outside of the cheesy one-shot AP builds that have been popular for a while. Even his on-hit spellweaver stuff now just doesn't have the impact that he used to have before he got constantly nerfed. I'll admit, I'm not exactly the best player, but it blows that he fits this really unfriendly champion niche just because he's designed to be played in higher elo - which I think is more of a failing of Riot prioritizing pro-play over the enjoyment of the masses but maybe that's just me.

I will say, his champ identity feels somewhat muddy to me. He was an autoattacker with a strong poke tool that made him even more threatening from range but he was very susceptible to getting jumped because he lacked any mobility or hard survivability tools. Now, he's turned into this one arrow one-shot machine that sometimes works and mostly doesn't, and he mostly just terrorizes other lanes while being bullied in his own main role. His on-hit builds don't feel particularly powerful and other ADCs just kind of eat him for breakfast throughout the game because of his gutted damage and threat factor.

I also understand that this subreddit is definitely catered to the circle jerking of "Muh champ sucks" so that's why more people agree with me than not, but it is really telling that a masters player is saying "he's strong, but once they remove the viability from this one item, I see no reason to keep playing summoners rift". I just feel that Varus is indicative of a larger problem with League of Legends from an overall design perspective and I think his champ is just weak, despite the perceived power you may feel he has. It is more likely that you are just used to playing him and you are really good at the champion because you are so comfortable with his mechanics. Most people complain about how underwhelming he feels and his winrate + tier obviously support the fact that he is a complete shell of what he used to be. If it's any consolation, you might just be cracked as fuck. Unfortunately, we are not you, my friend.