I am sick of hearing people complain about this.
AP Varus is a completely legitimate build. His w gives you very high damage on basic attacks, and when the stacks are triggered, does extreme damage based on % health.
His ultimate is capable of very high damage (over 1000) + locking down entire team.

Somebody please explain to me why this is considered a "troll build"

It's not troll, but rather not as viable because if you miss your ult you're missing out on a huge amount of damage.

If you whiff your ult that is not good, but AP Varus scales with autoattacks as well through:
1) The passive of blighted quiver: .25 AP ratio per autoattack
2) Spellsword mastery: .05 AP per autoattack
3) Malady: .1 AP per autoattack
4) Consuming blighted quiver charges: 15% of target's max health, +6% more per 100 AP

So you are doing 40% of your AP with each autoattack, which is not that much less than the damage you'd be doing with an equivalent amount of gold spent in AD. And then every 3rd autoattack you are consuming your blighted quiver charges -- given 400 AP which is very attainable that's another 39% of their max health -- not too shabby.

Also, Runaan's Hurricane is supposed spread his blighted quiver stacks/damage so you can really chunk the enemy team after building those charges up and consuming them. However, I thought the stacks only built up on the current target like Vayne's silver bolts (which is specifcally disabled with the extra shots of Hurricane). I haven't actually played him with a Hurricane yet, so I'd be very interested to know if anyone has tested it out and had stacks built up on multiple people at the same time and then consumed them with a Q or E.


In any case, his damage profile is not like an AD carry, but it's also not like a bursty AP carry either. You really have to manage your stacks because if you autoattack once too many times then you are wasting a lot of dps, and if you consume too early then you are going to run out of other spells to consume the charges in most engagements -- and waiting for E or Q to recharge is generally not fun. I thought AP/AS Varus in season 2 was viable in normals but in season 3 with all the item and mastery changes it feels like a very competitive way to play him.

AP Varus is an APC with ADC-playstyle. So you do massive amounts of magic damage, you need a ADCaster mid.

So: AD Caster mid, AP Varus bot -> damage meta with change playstyles

AP Varus can really dish out the damage.

The limitation (an I'm not saying troll) is that it is magic damage. Hence, people understand AP Varus if he claims mid but they misunderstand him when he claims bot.

Ironically, as IonDragon sayd, people will bash you when you go bot AP Varus, EVEN when AP Varus counters Bot Masteries/runes and Taric/Soraka armor buffs.

AP Varus is typically considered a troll because most people replace the ADC with it, which isn't really acceptable. Go mid or top and you have a rather unusual pick instead of a troll one.

Well thats it. You can play a AD caster mid. Panthen, Talon etc were interesting viable mid counter in s2 already.^^

AP Varus is great if you have a team who understands and works with him. He sucks when your team ignores his needs. He is extremely squishy and farm-dependent. He needs a good amount of attack speed, ap, and CDR to be useful. He has NO range on his autoattack, which is his only means of doing damage in this build. Any bruiser with a gap closer can jump him even from outside this range and shred him to nothing, and any adc or apc can shred/burst you before you even get close enough. You need your team aware of this danger and ready to focus whomever jumps in, or your tank to provide sufficient cc for you to get in and do your damage. E is unreliable, since most champs will end up unknowingly dodging with a dash or gap closer before the shot can finish its HUGE travel time. (I would like to see this improved) Hurricane is theoretically awesome, except that it has very little range, and combined with your autoattack range equates to 2 champions on top of your face in order to proc, in which case you are dead in under a second or stunned until dead anyway, so enjoy the single proc that never detonates. AP varus is only good when you have a team ready to focus, peel, and cc to get you in to do what you need to do.

The main problem is finding a team that will stop yelling at you long enough to help you, in the games where I am lucky enough to find a good team I do very well, but I seem to attract an unusual number of morons