I know
Which is why I made a post from the perspective of someone who mains a melee assassi who can get MORE survivability then Smash Varian even if you forgo Warbringer and explained why even she’s struggling in the tier lists for reasons that Smash Varian is even worse for.
Shieldwall is a trap talent for smash for me, warbringer is the only one. 
I would only pick it up, when I am playing tank.
I concur with the exception of a Pyroblast Kael on the enemy team
All I was trying to say is that even if you forgo neigh mandatory talents in favour of survival talents Smash Varian still gets less survival tools then other melee assassins, who also have better escape tools and THAT assassin is struggling
The problem is value. TB gives Varian sustain, chase and the ability to camps. Taunt is well… taunt. You lock down enemies and get more health to boot with it too. Smash just deals damage and reduces armor. Even the 20 upgrade isn’t that valuable. I wish it did something more like a slow or damage reduction.
Well then it happens, I take that and die in honor and take him with me. 
But yeah here you are right, he lacks a lot. I would also seeing him be buffed.
Taunt varian is extremely durable you pick that if your team has a follow up like ming/jaina + tyrande. You dont go varian if your the only cc in youe team
Twin blades when you need to dominate the solo lane and want to be anoying on later fights. A uncontested twin blades can cause good dmg to the backline
A contested twin blades takes 2a3 enemys to take down. Providing your team time
Coloss when your team lacks burst damage and you have trust in your tank
You draft varian for his lvl 13 talents, his stubborness not to die and his overal anoyence that he drops to the enemy team.
Varian is the best Johanna counter
He has terrible wave clear.
TB absolutely destroys arthas. What are you on about?
This is a common misconception. While Varian can counter her shield, Johana counters his every other ability. You need more than just varian to seal the deal.
You’d usually go Taunt vs Johana, but you need to trust your team to follow up.
Interesting then all the varians, who played against me, when I was Arthas, because I pick him often enough, when I see Varians in the enemy team, all of them were potatoes. I crushed all of them, when they go TB, but I also saw more often then not that Varians go taunt, when they see Arthas in the enemy team.
I can’t remember a single TB Varian, who were successful vs Arthas.
Winblades or die trying
Ive already explained it
Well, they were potatoes.
But here’s the deal. The move speed buffs and the attack speed buffs stack by addition. That means if varian were to have 100% extra attack speed (so he sits at his 200% usual), when you debuff him by 30%, he will still be attacking at 170% attack speed. That means your debuff, while annoying, is really nothing to him.
You can dominate him till level 7, but after that he will make short work of you in any situation, assuming he picks second wind. If the team lends him a bit of help to focus you down first, you become a mare annoyance and a free kill. Everything in his kit counters you (well, except for shattering throw). Whereas you only have your slow, and your E is easily dodged. Mortal strike is also a huge hit to arthas self sustain, further countering you. Then level 16 brings armor or spell damage and 20 brings damage debuff.
Going taunt or CS against arthas is essentially a free win for you. Especially if taunt is the solo tank. TB also obliterates xul and muradin, both of which usually destroy AA based heroes. But TB attack speed buff is so large, he doesn’t care.
On top of what moon said I’d also like to ask, were the enemy team focusing you down?
Because if not then that’s also a thing, ARthas’ entire tank survival strategy involves self healing, unless you take Icelbood Fortitude you’re relying solely on self heal
That thing that Varian cuts in half, and twin blades cuts in half literally just by existing.
Of course I do what a tank needs to do and if they have more AA-heroes than Varian, I would also pick that 7er armor talent and well I am pretty succesful vs Twin Varians at the moment. Mostly I go E-build as tank, but depends on enemy AA heroes I pick Q-talent or armor talent on 7.
What about armor on 1 aside from the 7 talent? Sure it only blocks few hits, but better some hits than nothing.
I mean if the enemy don’t also have a ranged aa attacker eating some of those blocks then well I don’t know what to say other then they dun goofed.
Trust me while I dont think TB varian is ideal against arthas iit’s probably his best build against Arthas and if the team works around it it can still be dnagerous.
Interesting that all of them goofed, because I said I am pretty successful vs TB varian with Arthas and I also see players don’t go TB vs Arthas, because they are maybe scared?
I have yet to test a 1v1 equally skilled varian and arthas in solo lane at 13. If varian goes warbringer and heal reduction i could see him beating arthas. But if its on a map like braxis arthas would have dominated the first 13 levels and would have taken his well + fort by then so i dont think it would matter.
If arthas is maintanking just as a counterpick to varian vs a meta team comp of mage/aa/tank/heal/varian then varian would be able to get rid of arthas’s main healing with whichever build he chose. Then arthas would be bursted down and killed but he’s bad as a solo tank in those cases anyways. If arthas is picked as a bruiser then his aa speed reduction/slows would prevent varian from pressuring backline. If arthas was picked as a maintank vs xul,varian, muradin, aa, and healer then he could survive long enough for his backline to blowup any of the enemy.
So if arthas is picked in the wrong draft varian can counter him. If he is drafted correctly then he does more damage to varian than vice versa. People here vastly under-rate arthas imo. Just like they do with uther, tyrael, and blaze.
I mean I don’t know what rank you re but down in SIlver the amount I find teams that beleive me when I say we have the comp to brute force through the tanks, even when we have something as great for tank busting as a Zul’jin, Tyrande negative armour and a sustain DPS mage like Mephisto is stagggeringly small
Combined with how few people actually know how the attack speed debuff is calculated on Twin Blades and I can see that.
Smash Varian was excellent in much earlier patches. Back then, his armor debuff was less common, and thus I would argue it was much more valuable. Now, many other heroes perform the same or similar debuff, reducing Smash Varian’s value. My argument is that he STILL offers an uncommon, or even rare, characteristic, and that is melee burst. So I ask you, have you seriously considered the burst he brings? It’s rare to find melee burst as big as Smash Varian (Alarak, Blast wave Rag, Imperius?).
Nevertheless, I think Smash Varian needs some love, perhaps remove the Armor debuff altogether in place of a short stun (a la intercept), or maybe just replace it with a beefed up “Mortal Strike” and make it a fat healing debuff with some %health damage. Remove the level 13 MS and replace it with a talent that makes Heroic Strike (“D”) apply an Armor debuff.
-TLB