Hi all. After Blizcon everyone was so excited about playing a raid boss, that Varian kind of was left in the background. Not me though. I thought that flexible playstyle and the ability to counter what the enemy has in basically every situation was much more exciting. So after some testing here are my thoughts on Varian.

The purpose of this guide is to provide some insight in how to build different Varian hybrid builds. In some situation it is better to go for Full dedicated builds to do 1 thing. However those cases are only when your team lacks a warrior, or the game goes in particular direction where you are winning or loosing very hard. In witch cases it doesn't really matter much what you will do with your talent pics.

If you are unsure what to do with Varian, or you are just starting to play the hero, the most reliable thing to go for is the full burst build that I have included last.

I am going to add improvements to this guide over time. Check later for more info.

On the PTR most people always went for some 100% dedicated build to 1 single purpose, defined by Varian's heroic. That is valid strategy, however it's my strong believe, that to get the best out of Varian you must walk the thin line between the different builds, creating a hybrid who can balance between providing support to your team, stopping the enemy with crowd control, dealing as much damage as he can, and all that while managing to stay alive.

Varian is by far the most flexible hero in the game. He is the embodiment of Blizzard's efforts to make players pick their talents based on the match they are in, their team and the enemy team.

But as with any hero Varian has his weaknesses. He can become many things, but he can never be as effective in certain roles as a hero dedicated to that role. Examples:
1 - Even if you build for a tank, you can never be as effective solo tank as E.T.C., Muradin or Johana, simply because you cant have their Crowd Control and syrvivability. You can build for one of them, but not for both. However you can be a great offTank or Bruiser in a team that already has a primary tank.
2 - You can attempt to build a DPS hero with lots of mobility similar to Illidan, however you will still have the weakness towards Crowd Control and the lack of escape, that this plystyle has. But you can counter this by giving some damage for extra survival talents, that will let you stay in the fight for longer periods of time. Like in my first hybrid DPS build.
3 - You can go all the way to burst damage, and focus on 1 target to kill. This is perhaps the most straight-forward and reliable approach and offers lots of burst, but you have to sacrifice lots of DPS, mobility, survival potential and team utility. And you cant do much to offset the weakness of burst melee assassins. Which is that they are only useful when they do their burst combo, and after that they are left vulnerable to the enemy. The only thing you can do in that situation, is to grab some extra stun to hold the enemy hero in place, get the mobility baner so your team can finish off the kill if you don't have sufficient burst and hope they do a good follow up.

Note: The Second Wind talent description for Varian is being overridden by the Second Wind ability description for Muradin when used on this site. I hope the issue will be resolved somehow soon. What the talent does is: every attack heals you for 1% of your maximum health and when you are below 50% health, it also heals you for 50% of the damage dealt.

Hybrid build. DPS.

High King's Quest, Shield Wall, Second Wind, Twin Blades of Fury, Banner of Ironforge, Mortal Strike, Glory to the Alliance.

The inspiration behind this guide. I wanted to make a good mobile assassin, who deals insane DPS, while is not easy to kill with 1 CC like Illidan or The Butcher. The playstyle is simple. Get on top of someone and start cutting them to bits. Don't go too deep. If you can only reach the enemy tank, shred him. Stay in range of your healer and tank and just deal damage. In case the fight escalates quickly or the enemy decides to focus you don't panic. Drop your Banner of Ironforge to negate some damage for you and your team. Keep attacking. Just like Artanis you live as long as you do damage. Do not activate your Parry before you drop to about 30% health. That way you can take full benefit from Second Wind and the healing it provides, without wasting your best survival tool. In most cases that will happen when Banner of Ironforge expires due to the insane amount of healing provided even without your team healer helping you. Thanks to Shield Wall negating all sorts of damage you will easily heal to over 50% health, then wait a bit to drop back down in health and use the second charge. If used correctly you will have a third charge ready to go very shortly, since the cool-down starts after you use the first charge. Parry is best kept to negate huge chunks of damage. For example Greymane using Go for the Throat, Kael'thas targeting you with Pyroblast, Tyrael's Archangel's Wrath etc. Mortal Strike works best with Twin Blades of Fury and denies your target healing constantly. In case the other team has lots of shields to protect themselves and little healing, then Shattering Throw is you alternative option. It does wonders against Artanis, or Zarya + Tassadar. Lastly Glory to the Alliance provides 50% extra healing, included the heal from Second Wind so it is the best option at 20.

Bruiser with team utility.

High King's Quest, Shield Wall, Second Wind, Colossus Smash, Banner of Ironforge, Juggernaut, Glory to the Alliance.

The build is very similar, but plays much differently. All of your survival talents are still there, but now you hit very hard, but significantly slower, instead of fast but with less damage. That means you need to pick you engages carefully. Your focus is no longer just dealing damage, but also doing some damage negating for your team. That comes in 2 ways - absorbing damage with Parry and Banner of Ironforge. The idea is to pick a target for the team to destroy together. Let the tank engage and follow in doing your burst on the target. Start with Colossus Smash, then Charge to keep the target in range. Finish with Lion's Fang. At that point assist the tank and provide crowd control when needed and absorb damage. Be very careful, with this build you can negate a ton of damage with your abilities, when used correctly, however you are also squishy, so you don't want to absorb damage with your health. If you catch a target out of position hit it with Colossus Smash to apply vulnerability and slow them down with Charge. Don't forget that the self-sustain from Second Wind will not be as strong, so don't go too deep.

offTank CC and Team Utility.

Lion's Maw, Warbringer, Victory Rush, Taunt, Banner of Stormwind, Juggernaut, Demoralizing Shout.

Just remember. This build is not meant as solo tank! And it also needs some sort of compositin, that can pick and destroy a target fast. This is there Varian shines. Fast engagements, where you isolate and kill a target. As we have that out of the way a bit about playstyle. Your main focus is crowd control. Your ideal engagement is isolating a single target for your team to kill. Start with Charge to stun them in place. As they try to retreat you are in range to use Lion's Fang on them and newer miss. That will keep them slowed and in melee range of you. You finish off with Taunt to force them to attack you. This is basically like a second stun and should secure the kill. In a teamfight when you are not ganking 1 hero, might be a good idea to keep Charge as important stun to interrupt, in case the other team has The Butcher, Illidan or a hero with channeled heroic like Nova taking Triple Tap or Nazeebo with Ravenous Spirit. Try to use you Taunt the same way. this is your main way to provide protection to the team. Outside of your interrupts, you cant do much more than bodyblocking and soaking damage. Banner of Stormwind is your way of pieling for your team, so drop it during a retreat to let your team escape. Another use is as gap closer, to allow your teammates to keep up with you and follow up on the target you engaged. In case you have melee heavy team it can be especially useful during a teamfight. Again consider if you need Shattering Throw.

Varian's Twin Blades of Fury is the most powerful build. Sadly, also the most boring one. ;) You can 1v1, 1v2 or even in some cases 1v3 enemy heroes if you get ganked and have to. You must take Shield Wall at 4 for it though! It just works much better in this build. So if you are not killed immediately in the start of a team fight you can singlehandedly insure victory vs sustain compositions. At the end of the team fights, if things went bad you also usually win even in 2v3 situations. But that comes with lots of downsides - 1 stun and you are dead, 1 blind and you are usually dead, ones you go in there is no going out. You are committed and HAM is the only thing keeping you alive. Kind of like playing Illidan on steroids, with all Illidan weaknesses and all Artanis weaknesses, but no upsides at all. So in a game, where the enemy has no strong Crowd Control, DPS Varian is king. If the enemy has Li Li, E.T.C. or Muradin just stay away from this build. Same applies if they have 2 or 3 other heroes with good stuns or blinds.


Colossus Smash build is the most impactfull in wide variety of situations and usually the "go to" build. Instant 4v5 at the start of fights, since you delete 1 enemy hero in seconds. As long as your team follows up on you. :) The problem is, you are so squish, you can get deleted after that is seconds yourself. And if your team fails to secure the kill, then the team fight is usually lost. Some talents are taken to help your survival, for the 10 seconds you are useless, when your abilities are recharging. This build is great for dive/stun lock/blow up or generally aggressive style compositions. Best if the other team has some sqish target you can delete easily.

Tank Varian is the most fun to play, but also has least impact on the game overall. In high levels of play, this is the most valued Varian build, because of the huge crowd control options it brings and the damage soak potential. (Double warrior is superbly strong in diamond and higher.) Also great for countering melee heroes like Kerrigan, The Butcher, DPS Varian, Illidan, Thrall, Sonya, Artanis... - you get the point. The highest skill cap build. I firmly think that after some desperately needed buffs, this might be the way to play Varian, in the melee assassin heavy meta, that is going on right now.



I will be adding more information about the playstyle and more very soon.

Good luck and see you in the Nexus. :)