Hello, i'm Ponyboy here and in hots and this is my second guide, my first one being on Tychus and my second one being on the hero Varian, our first multi class hero working as either a warrior or an assasin. You could make the argument that Kharazim is a multiclass hero, but he can blend rolls a bit more and can still do his other roll decent or at least better that other people of the roll he is maining, where as Varian goes one direction and does it quite well but blending will just not do well for you. Choose the right weapon for the match, either sword and shield, 2 handed sword, or dual wield and you will prove why you are king of the alliance.

Quick flying narrow skill shot, nice poking ability and helps when chasing with the slow. Also does quite a bit of healing if you hit a hero in a minion wave, so its a nice source of sustain in early game for a 1 on 1 lane fight before the objective starts.

Going to take some practice getting used to this one, try to do it when as many people as possible are attacking you, and a nice time is if your rooted, since most people focus you then.

Your simplest ability, click charge and slow. End of story

This will give your attacks a nice boost but you will need to keep attacking in a fight if you want to take advantage of it.

Should be pretty easy to get to max relatively quickly, and the slow increase will make it easier to use this to secure kills. If the enemy team is spell based damage, this works out better for you than Overpower would since you'll have a harder time getting the timing right for Parry and will need Shield Wall down the road.

If your planning on going tank and the enemy team's has assassins that are mostly built around AA, this can help you deal a lot more damage than you would expect when going tank. Taunt makes it almost impossible to negate this if you time it right.

A quest talent where the quest is completing quests. Makes sense for the King of the Alliance. The only one that should take a while to complete is the regen globe one the rest should be relatively easy and you'll get a nice attack boost from it once it's done. Great for the fury build since you can get huge amounts of attacks in.

Choose your weapon and destroy the foes of the Alliance. And the King gets his heroics sooner than everyone else, even the time dragon girl. Ruling has its privileges.

Raise your shield, protect your allies, let the foe come to you. The tank choice after you take this you won't have the damage you would of had if you went with the other options. And that shouldn't matter to you since if you pick this your gonna be the one taking hits. Your gonna wanna threaten the most hard hitting and squishy hero you can or a vulnerable target so your team can kill them.

Bring the might of Stormwind down, crush the enemy under your blade. Damage choice one, this one leans more towards burst damage and gives hard hitting allies with burst a big boost with the armor lowering ability and can help against heroes who can get or give armor since you have a fast way of lowering it.

Cut them down, no defense will stand to the fury of the king. Damage choice two, this one is about sustained damage and sticking to people with the speed boost. This one is the choice if your team doesn't have much of a follow up to make use of the smash or you need someone to take camps, since this plus Second Wind make almost anything easy to take, heck it might be possible to take a boss solo, but try it in practice mode first, people doing that and not knowing how have killed a match for me before.

I'd take this if you picked Taunt, as you won't have the damage or attack speed boost to really take advantage of Second Wind, but since as the tank you'll have people close to you this can give a bigger boost than you might think.

If your planning on going dual swords, take this certainly and still a good choice if your going 2 handed. Gives nice sustain and gives more when your low health automatically which is when you will need it.

Rather map dependent, but if your on a map like Braxis holdout, Infernal Shrines, or the spiders, this can make you a pain to kill. But even then, only go if your tank, as Second Wind will be more reliable for the other two heroics.

This depends on what your fighting against.

If your fighting against a wizard team, I'd pick this. Otherwise Parry doesn't really do it's job and a useless ability is something you don't want.

If your not fighting wizards pick this, boosts everything about it and give it a bit of escape utility, something you don't have normally.

This is honestly a somewhat situational talent tier, but there is always one of those situations in a game, so just make sure you pick the right one.

Probably should pick it if the other two won't be useful or if the enemy has some rather high health people. If you went for Warbringer this gets a good deal better.

I did say this is situational, but really only in QM where there's a rather decent chance of not having a support on either team. In Hero League there's always a support so this will make dealing with a support aided hero rather easy since you will have less healing to out damage. And if your fury this is always on someone so that person is almost guaranteed dead.

The most situational of the whole set, but a bit less than you think. There are several heroes with shields and this would help with knocking those down, I'll make a list down below of shielded heroes.

Not a real fan, team move speed is nice, but your either running or chasing if you need it so you've already won or lost and since your moving, you'll move out of benefit of it most certainly, and if the team has chasing abilities it might not even benefit.

The best pick, team wide resistance is really nice. Can never go wrong with it.

Nice but need a team of mages to really benefit but it really helps if you do, and its not that uncommon. I just like Banner of Ironforge better, team wide armor is just to useful to pass up.

Not a fan, Taunt already has a rather nice cool down for what it does and a lot of it's killing potential comes from the rest of your team, so you have to wait for their cooldowns anyway. It's just not a good enough boost for what it does.

The AoE add on is ok if the enemy team tends to clump up, but the real bonus here is lowing the cool down. Damage, jumping into combat and vulnerable is never bad and this will get you more of all of it.

Boosts everything that was good about Twin Blades of Fury so a good pick if you went dual blade.

Nice boost for your healer and you can use your banner more, it works a bit better for a sustained healer like Brightwing that a burst one like Auriel but not the best choice if you don't have a healer in a QM. Although if your team has a bunch of self healing like Thrall and Diablo this is still a nice pick.

If your tanking lowering anyone in ranges damage is a good idea. And you almost always have heroes around you as the tank, so this hits them hard.

This is a list of heroes who will always have shields to deal with so we all will have an easier time figuring out when to pick Shattering Throw at 13

Artanis He's the most obvious one, he's one of the most vulnerable without his shields up, and you want him dead fast.

Johanna Kill her trait shield she loses unstoppable and almost every one I have ever went up against has picked Indestructible so this will make killing her when that triggers rather easy.

Kerrigan Her damage generates her shield and without them she is rather squishy, so this should help kill her faster that without.

Tassadar If he picked the level 4 talent that gives him shields, otherwise he doesn't have any.

Zarya killing her shields will give her a damage boost so be prepared to fight hard to kill her once they are down, and make it fast.

Fenix He is quite squishy without his shields, but make sure he doesn't get the chance to warp away before you kill him

Lúcio If he picked Sound Barrier for his heroic, this will all but fully negate that

A key part to playing Varian is choosing what heroic to build. The big thing is don't be selfish and just pick whatever you want without thinking of the team. You may of gone in wanting to go Arms but should go Protection. But playing the less fun build for you is more fun than losing, which not being what your team needs could easily make happen. Your the king, your job is to serve your people. So here is some guidelines on what to play

When to play Protection
If your team has no warrior, or the one you have is more of a bruiser that a true tank.
There's really no other time to play this one, otherwise you'll be losing out on a good deal of damage. If your team already has a tank, go damage.

When to play Arms
If your team is burst heavy.
If there is one hero that needs to be dead now.

When to play Fury
When you need the sustain for yourself, as in QM without a support.
You need someone who can take merc camps for themselves. Also is great at dealing with monsters on objectives.
Your fighting a team that mostly lacks escapes and you can stick to them.

Fun thing all 3 builds are the same 3 roles a WoW warrior can be. Blizzard nice job with this, make this more fun when you play the same one you did.

Protection
This is the tanking build, your job will be to keep the enemy focused on you so your team will stay alive so they can kill the foe. Your damage will only be from Lions Fang from here on out so focus on keeping the foe off the team and use Taunt to keep the enemy you need to stay so they die by your teams hands. Now whether you go for Overpower or Lion Fang style depends on the enemy teams comp, AA fits better for Overpower and spell for Lion Fang

Arms
Damage build one, you will burst down heroes with your heroic and flat out damage. Best way to play this is to whack the most important target with Colossus Smash and make sure everyone hits them so they die, then go for who you can till you can smash again and rinse and repeat.

Fury
Damage build two, this one is centered around constant damage and has nice sustain when paired with Second Wind. This is a great way to chase targets and you'll throw out tons of heroic strikes. Just make sure you don't get too zealous and chase into a large group with no backup.

This is my second guide that has been made a guide of the week, thank you thank you thank you!

Varian is quite an entertaining hero to play, and lives up to his title. Give him a try and if you need a hand in figuring him out, give this a try. Also an nice guy to look at for a hand is MFPallytime on youtube, nice plays and he's fun to watch.