Hello, friends. I am Kith and I like videogames. I also like writing lots and lots and lots of words about how I think they could be better. Today’s offering is no different, and the topic of the hour is Varian: King of Stormwind and sentient bowl of oatmeal.
However, this time will be different. Unlike my other Review + Rework threads that go into huge amounts of detail upfront and then do a summary at the end, I’m going to summarize first and shove all of the details under collapsibles to make the topic a bit easier to navigate.
Let’s get started.
Hero Features
- Solid Winrate - Although HOTSLogs is currently down due to migration, the Internet Archive snapshot of HOTSLogs on Augist 4th, 2019 shows Varian with a Winrate of 50.4% - which is almost perfect.
- Incredibly Flexible - Thanks to the Spec Talents, Varian can fit into a wide variety of team compositions and is one of the most adaptable characters in Heroes of the Storm, being able to fulfill the role of Tank, Burst Damage, or Sustained Damage.
- Well-rounded Kit - Regardless of the chosen role, Varian has access to a sustaining skillshot poke with soft CC, a powerful defensive buff, a mobility tool that doubles as a significant Movement Speed Slow, and a passive that adds bursts of Spell Damage to his Basic Attacks.
- Powerful Talents - Many of Varian’s Talents are very strong, providing him with multiple Power Spikes throughout the match.
Design Issues
- Awkward Talent Tiers - Varian’s Spec Talents (arguably the most important thing about him, given they determine his role and capabilities) are shoved into Level 4 instead of being immediately available due to the Quest Tier.
- Uneven Talent Viabilty - Some talents are must-haves regardless of your Spec, some are nearly useless no matter the situation.
- High King’s Quest - From making a fed Varian overwhelmingly strong to skewing the pickrates due to the synergies and benefits with other talents, High King’s Quest is bad enough to get its own bullet point.
- Stat Penalties - Two out of three Spec Talents come with penalties that, while important for balance’s sake, wouldn’t be necessary if Varian was more cleanly designed.
Review Detail
Varian’s your bog-standard Human Warrior Guy With Sword, but what’s really cool about him is that his equipment and animations change based on your choice of Spec Talent. The artists and animators could easily have gone with a status icon in Varian’s selection circle (not unlike Cho’Gall’s Ogre Hide/Ogre Rage), but the extra effort really shows and it’s nice to see.
I just miss the “swordless Varian” glitch because I liked punching people.
Varian has very Bruiser-like stats - he’s pretty durable and is equipped with a respectable damage output. Additionally, he comes with a strong Trait that adds a pretty solid chunk of DPS to his Basic Attacks.
There’s not much to say here that the bullet points don’t - Heroic Strike is reasonably solid Trait that makes Varian’s Basic Attacks hurt more in a versatile way.
Lion’s Fang does four different jobs and isn’t super great at any of them. Now, granted: versatility is definitely a virtue, but when that versatility forces the impact to be spread out among too many factors, the core performance tends to suffer. Still, it’s functional, and it’s useful when you need it.
Parry is excellent - it’s versatile, easy to understand, and it has a wide range of impact potential based on the timing and context it’s used in. It’s a very powerful ability, but not so powerful that it cannot be worked around.
Charge, like Parry, is very simple. Also like Parry, Charge has great potential when used properly.
On the surface, Lion’s Maw seems like a good pick to shore up the weak damage output of Lion’s Fang and, as an added bonus, make the Slow of Lion’s Fang more substantial. However, the damage bonus is a flat one, meaning that the majority of its value is in the early game (which stacks are scarce anyways). Lion’s Maw also doesn’t change that Lion’s Fang is a pretty big strain on your Mana when used frequently, so farming up stacks can leave you dry at very inopportune times.
The only absolute value I could assign to Lion’s Maw is if you’re up against a ton of Blinds and expect to have your Basic Attacks disabled constantly, but that’s a very small comfort - Heroes aren’t the only thing you fight in this game, and often the damage bonus from High King’s Quest is more reliable in helping you do things like siege structures or clear camps or fight Objective Monsters when those sources of Blind aren’t around.
For Tank Varian, the most important part of Lion’s Maw is the slow: it makes Lion’s Fang better for bogging down enemies and, by extension, makes body-blocking easier. If you’re looking for damage, both of the other options at this tier are better.
Lion’s Maw paired with Colossus Smash interacts with the -20 Armor and gives some extra Spell Damage burst, but High King’s Quest does almost the same job without a cooldown or Mana cost. I’d only recommend taking Lion’s Maw for the extra burst if you’re up against a lot of Physical Armor - and I do mean a lot.
Lion’s Maw is by far the least useful to DPS Varian. If you’re up against enough Blinds and Physical Armor that Lion’s Maw would be genuinely useful to you, you shouldn’t be taking Twin Blades of Fury anyways.
Overpower is an excellent pick if you’re not confident in your ability to complete High King’s Quest or if you feel that you’re going to be getting focused a lot.
Overpower pairs exceptionally well with Tank Varian’s Taunt, giving him some pretty solid damage output via being able to get multiple Heroic Strikes off in a row by forcing people to hit him.
Overpower is also a good pick for Burst Varian, as the shout that indicates that Varian’s jumping in to Colossus Smash almost always results in him getting focused by someone.
DPS Varian has less use for Overpower due to Twin Blades of Fury generating Heroic Strikes every third attack, but has the potential to get off even more Heroic Strikes than any other spect due to its high Attack Speed. You should probably take High King’s Quest anyways, though.
Ugh.
High King’s Quest makes me angry because it’s so good, it’s basically mandatory. If we’re going off of base stats, Varian clocks in at 74 Basic Attack Damage, and +60 is an increase of roughly 81%.
guys that’s a lot
Now, granted: that +60 damage doesn’t scale with levels, so it loses value as the game goes on. However, what it does do is get impacted by the stat modifiers from the various Spec Talents, meaning that Colossus Smash gets 200% value and Twin Blades of Fury gets 160% value.
You wouldn’t think that Tank Varian would need a bunch of Basic Attack Damage, but the truth is that Tank Varian is pretty Bruiser-like and spends an awful lot of time hitting things. In addition to that, the extra damage from High King’s Quest feeds into the extra healing from Second Wind when Varian drops below half health, so that extra 60 damage translates to an increase of 30 health per hit.
When I said that High King’s Quest basically does the same job as Lion’s Maw in the damage department, this is what I meant. Colossus Smash’s 100% Attack Damage bonus applies to High King’s Quest, turning that +60 to +120 and only falling short of the total bonus of Lion’s Maw by 5. It’s a huge boost to DPS and to burst, which is excellent overall.
While the 20% Attack Damage penalty from Twin Blades of Fury cuts down the total bonus from +60 to +42, the 100% Attack Speed bonus brings the DPS bonus from a complete High King’s Quest to +84, which is a big boost to DPS Varian’s damage output (and, with Second Wind, sustain).
There aren’t a whole lot of “point and click” hard disables in HOTS, so Taunt is kind of a big deal for that reason alone. For a Heroic ability, it’s got an incredibly low Mana Cost and Cooldown, allowing the user to generate picks or cause interrupts on a regular basis. Additionally, the forced attack period neatly lines up with the duration of Parry, so the chance of Varian taking lasting damage from using Taunt on someone is pretty low.
Colossus Smash is an excellent tool for bursting down vulnerable targets. While the impact of Colossus Smash itself isn’t stellar, combining that -20 Armor with Varian’s empowered Basic Attacks, Heroic Strike, and Lion’s Fang can put out a volume of damage that’s truly… smashing. 
Twin Blades of Fury is great, but weird in a lot of ways. Most notably, it’s the only Passive Heroic in the game and it radically alters how Varian handles. It’s also a much, much bigger DPS bonus than the stats would suggest - of course, there’s the napkin-math 80% boost that comes from the stat adjustments, but there’s also Heroic Strike activating almost once per second instead of once every seven seconds.
Despite the weirdness of Twin Blades of Fury, there’s no denying its impact. Between the stat adjustments and Heroic Strike’s increased proc rate, it puts Varian’s Basic Attack DPS at the highest unmodified value in HOTS. High King’s Quest improves this significantly, pushing Varian’s DPS well beyond even Worgen Greymane with Inner Beast active.
Last but not least, Basic Attacks gives Mounted Speed for 2 seconds - something that has a lot of potential when used correctly. Sticking to targets easily is the obvious use, but it can also be used for easy Body Blocking and a potential escape mechanism.
Lionheart has no redeeming qualities.
While the extra healing that Lion’s Fang gives for hitting Heroes is a nice idea, you’re rarely (if ever) going to be hitting more than one or two at a time because that’s just how thin, linear skillshots are. Even when the sun and stars align and you get some sweet lineups of the enemy team, Lionheart merely matches the basic performance Second Wind or Victory Rush instead of outdoing them. Even if Lionheart gave a boost to all healing from Lion’s Fang, Victory Rush would have similar or greater throughput against Minions and Second Wind would still remain the king of sustain during teamfights.
Ultimately, Lionheart is a trap talent in the truest sense of the term: the other options at this tier do a better job with less cost. There is no reason to use it.
Second Wind is what Varian wants 99% of the time, regardless of previous choices.
As previously mentioned, Tank Varian spends a surprisingly large amount of time hitting things. Even better is that Second Wind’s primary effect heals based on Maximum Health - since Tank Varian has increased Health due to the passives attached to Taunt, he’s effectively getting extra value out of Second Wind.
Burst Varian gets slightly less value than the other Specs from the primary effect due to a lower Maximum Health, but the second effect’s “50% damage dealt as healing” being impacted by the massive Attack Damage bonuses from Colossus Smash (and High King’s Quest, if you know what’s good for you) makes it an incredible source of sustain.
Second Wind’s primary effect operates via on-hit activation, so as a matter of course DPS Varian’s 100% Attack Speed bonus doubles the value of Second Wind immediately. DPS Varian also happens to have very high Basic Attack Damage output, so the secondary effect of Second Wind is also empowered by this Spec.
I don’t mean to make Victory Rush look bad with those grades - it’s actually incredible under the right circumstances. The key wording here is “Minion or Monster”, meaning that Varian gets the Cooldown Reduction for Victory Rush off of things like the Skeletons from Infernal Shrines or the Zerg from Braxis Holdout.
Victory Rush does lose points for automatic activation, however. There’s no check to prevent it from wasting healing, so if you’re only missing 10 health and there aren’t any Minions or Monsters nearby to reduce your cooldown, well… tough luck.
Unfortunately, Second Wind is still the better option 99% of the time because it’s just more reliable - there will always be things to hit. However, in a handful of niche situations, Victory Rush can outperform Second Wind by an order of magnitude.
Tank Varian’s low damage output makes him the greatest candidate for Victory Rush because the cooldown reduction only requires the Minion or Monster to be die near Varian rather than be killed by Varian, so your allies killing minor enemies around you can get you a massive amount of Health in short order.
The two damage-oriented Specs get the same amount of value as Tank Varian does, but because they can more than hold their own in the Basic Attack department, they’re better off picking up Second Wind.
1.25 seconds of Protected is an absolutely amazing counter to many sources of burst damage, but Varian rarely gets targeted by those. This is not to say that Shield Wall has no uses, but its viability is very reliant both on Varian’s build and the enemy team’s composition.
Tank Varian arguably gets the least amount of value from Shield Wall for two reasons:
- Tank Varian needs as much Parry as he can get for Taunt shenanigans.
- Tank Varian is already pretty tough between his passive Maximum Health and whatever flavor of sustain he’s chosen from Level 7.
This is not to say that Tank Varian cannot get value from Shield Wall - it allows him to absorb dangerous skillshots such as Arcane Orb frequently and without much danger. However, outside of those circumstances, Warbringer is the better option.
Burst Varian is the best candidate for Shield Wall because he’s the most vulnerable to being blown up, whether it’s because of his reduced Maximum Health or because of Colossus Smash’s tendency to encourage the entire enemy team to focus him.
DPS Varian is kind of in the same boat as Tank Varian: thanks to Second Wind keeping his health up, DPS Varian is rarely in a position where he can be bursted down. Again, this is not to say that Shield Wall has no use to DPS Varian, but typically Warbringer has a higher value.
For those not playing along at home, an 8 second cooldown reduction on Charge means that it has a cooldown of 4 seconds. As in “that’s a 75% Slow on whoever you want every 4 seconds”. Warbringer makes Varian incredibly hard to get away from.
As if that wasn’t enough, Warbringer also massively reduces the cost of Charge and turns it into a potential escape by allowing it to be cast on allied Heroes. Being able to Charge to your midline or backline to escape a hectic teamfight at low health or use an ally as a retreat point when you’re getting ganked is a defensive tool with a lot of potential.
Being able to cast Charge constantly is amazing for bogging down a target so you can body-block them more easily.
Having an escape after you Colossus Smash someone and the enemy team is now keenly aware of your presence is really, really nice.
Adding Warbringer to the mix grants all kinds of movement options. Combining the low-cooldown massive slow with the 30% Movement Speed bonus allows DPS Varian to effortlessly stick to whatever target he chooses and run away from them just as easily.
Juggernaut is your standard “Percentage Damage At Level 13/16 Talent”, adding a little “oomph” to Varian’s overall damage output against meaty targets. Unlike most of Varian’s Talents, Juggernaut’s grade isn’t dependent on his chosen Spec, but instead on what he chose at 10:
- Without the Cooldown Reduction of Warbringer, Juggernaut adds a potential 0.3% Maximum Health DPS.
- With the Cooldown Reduction of Warbringer, Juggernaut adds a potential 1% Maximum Health DPS.
The majority of the Talent choices at 13 are dependent upon the enemy team’s composition because they’re focused on countering specific things, but I’d say that Juggernaut is the most flexible because… well, all characters have Health, so any extra Health Shred is going to increase Varian’s damage output.
Healing Reduction is almost always handy because almost every team is going to have healing of some form, so Mortal Strike benefits the Varian Specs pretty evenly. However, a special shout-out goes to DPS Varian’s high Heroic Strike rate making the effect more or less permanent if he’s sticking to someone.
Shattering Throw is an insanely powerful counter to any Hero that relies on or provides Shields, but outside of that… well, 50 damage on a 30 second cooldown isn’t great.
Although the various Banners have very different uses and roles, they’re all more or less identical in implementation, all are very straightforward in their use, and all are very, very good - they’re basically secondary Heroics. Some notes, however:
- Banner of Stormwind gets extra points for Tank Varian and Burst Varian because it gives them something close to the passive mobility that Twin Blades of Fury grants DPS Varian.
- Banner of Ironforge gets extra points for Tank Varian as an additional source of damage mitigation for his team.
- Banner of Dalaran gets extra points for DPS Varian by virtue of making Heroic Strike hit 20% harder, boosting his already considerable damage output.
Vigilance is a pretty solid upgrade to Taunt. However, against rapid attack enemies like Tracer, Tychus, D.Va, and so on, Vigilance is utterly amazing and can potentially lead to multiple casts of Taunt in a row.
The real meat of the sandwich is in that 50% reduction in cooldown for Colossus Smash, but the AOE damage/armor reduction is also pretty great and makes Colossus Smash a much stronger initiation tool.
Frenzy increases DPS Varian’s Attack Speed from 2.5 to 2.69. You may think that may not seem like much, and you’d be right, because the DPS bonus is barely noticeable.
The 10% increase to the Movement Speed bonus is also not that substantial. I mean, yeah, you’re going faster than you used to, but the difference between a 30% Movement Speed bonus and a 40% Movement Speed bonus isn’t really that big - especially when you can throw out Charge mobility and 75% Slow constantly thanks to Warbringer.
The cooldown reduction for your chosen Banner would be good enough on its own, but the 50% increase to healing is bonkers. If you’re wondering, that Healing Increase applies to all parts of Second Wind, meaning you’re healing for 1.5% of Maximum Health per hit and 75% of damage dealt instead of 1% and 50%, respectively. Of course, it’s incredibly helpful to your team too, but the drastically lowered cooldown means that Varian can basically use Banners whenever he wants - especially for duels.
If the Banners are Varian’s Second Heroic, then Demoralizing Shout is his Third. The AOE and duration of Demoralizing Shout are generous and, regardless of Spec, you’re likely to be right in the middle of the enemy team on at least more than one occasion. It’s very easy to get value out of Demoralizing Shout so it’s a great pick, but not so great that it completely outshines the other options (unless it’s Frenzy).
All concepts discussed in this Rework are free to use by Blizzard without credit.
- Sharpened Spec Roles - While Tank Varian and DPS Varian are more or less the same, Burst Varian has been shifted towards Spell Power rather than Attack Damage to better differentiate him from DPS Varian.
- Adjusted Early Game - A combination of modified Core Stats and Spec Talents being moved to Level 1 establishes Varian’s role immediately instead of having to wait until Level 4 and relying on penalties to balance out the benefits.
- Improved Lion’s Fang - The Healing granted by Lion’s Fang has been changed to percentages of Maximum Health (so it scales to Taunt’s bonus Health). Additionally, Colossus Smash’s rework provides significant benefits to Lion’s Fang.
- New Heroic - Twin Blades of Fury has been reborn as Enrage, providing the same passive Attack Speed bonus and a toggle that drains Health for even more Attack Speed while active.
- More Build Variety - Overhauled Talents improve on underpicked options, cut back on must-haves, and provide competitive choices at every tier.
- Heavily Inspired by WoW Warrior Abilities and Talents - I spent an awful lot of time on WoWpedia learning about Warrior builds, so I hope y’all appreciate it.
Rework Detail
Varian has lost some Health (and Health Regen) to bake in some of the Stat Penalties from the original Spec Talents. Additionally, Varian’s Attack Speed and Attack Damage have been increased to make up for High King’s Quest no longer being with us.
Heroic Strike has had its damage bonus reduced slightly to accommodate for Varian’s increased Attack Speed shifting its effective cooldown from 7.2 to 6.
Lion’s Fang’s healing now scales with the Health bonus granted by Taunt. Additionally, Lion’s Fang has gotten significantly better Talents on the whole, making a Q-build possible - and even viable.
Parry itself has gone unchanged, but its Talent selection has broadened significantly.
Charge has gotten a minor Cost and Cooldown reduction to compensate for there no longer being a Warbringer-like talent to reduce either.
- Level 1 Talents: Spec Tier
- Level 4 Talents: Defense Tier
- Level 7 Talents: Mobility Tier
- Level 10 Talents: Tactics Tier
- Level 13 Talents: Boost Tier
- Level 16 Talents: Banner Tier
- Level 20 Talents: Storm Tier
So, three things:
First of all, High King’s Quest is gone.
A quest made out of mini-quests that gives you bonuses for progressing through the mini-quests and then gives you a bonus for completing all of them is a neat idea, but Alarak does it better because his core design tenet is Risk/Reward instead of Extreme Flexibility. Also, High King’s Quest skewed pickrates and performance way too hard.
Second, the Spec Talents (Tank, Burst, DPS) are now at Level 1.
It made sense to me when they were at Level 10 because suffering through having no Spec was the price Varian had to pay for his flexibility. Then I heard that they were getting moved to an earlier point, which also made sense to me, because having to play 75% of a Hero for howeverlong it takes you to get to 10 isn’t super fun. When I learned that that they were at Level 4 instead of Level 1 because otherwise people wouldn’t be able to pick up early High King’s Quest progress, I groaned loud enough to get a noise complaint.
Third, Spec Talents are now bundled with a standard Talent.
An additional Talent effect has been added to Spec Talents to give the various Specs a little extra identity and to keep “must-have” picks out of the rework’s Talent Tiers. These function similarly to Sylvanas’s Black Arrows/Banshee’s Curse or Uther’s Devotion/Eternal Vanguard. Details can be found in the next section.
Taunt itself is mostly unchanged, but it now comes with the original incarnation of Shield Wall. While Tank Varian rarely gets focused hard enough to warrant needing Protection, it makes up for Tank Varian no longer having access to Second Wind and adds an additional skill vector for players in the middle of hardcore tanking or absorbing damaging skillshots for their team.
Also it always bothered me that “Shield” Wall could be used without a shield.
Colossus Smash has shifted its bonuses from Attack Damage to Spell Damage for a few reasons. For starters, the focus on abilities rather than Basic Attacks better differentiates it from Twin Blades on a functional level. Secondly, it gives Lion’s Fang a chance to shine as an attack instead of as a utility.
The core difference between the Current Burst Varian and the Reworked Burst Varian is in how Varian behaves prior to casting Colossus Smash:
- The Current version’s focus on Attack Damage involves Varian beating on an enemy after using Colossus Smash, following up with multiple damaging Basic Attacks.
- The Rework version’s focus on Spell Damage encourages Varian to use Lion’s Fang to get a target low and then follow up with Colossus Smash to finish them off.
For the sake of comparison, here’s the Current Smash Combo:
and with High King’s Quest:
versus the Rework’s Smash Combo:
As you may notice, the Rework’s Smash Combo total damage is roughly in the middle between the two versions of the Current Smash Combo’s totals, but it lacks the brawling staying power that the current Burst Varian does.
Before we get into anything else, let me explain the math here:
- Enrage Passively increases Varian’s Basic Attack Speed to 3.
- Enrage increases Varian’s Basic Attack Speed to 4 while active.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about Enrage itself. On its face, it’s fairly similar to Twin Blades of Fury because it gives a massive passive Attack Speed bonus, but all of the other details are different.
First point of order is War Machine, which is replacing the Movement Speed bonus from Twin Blades of Fury. It’s basically Second Wind without the secondary healing to give DPS Varian sustain out of the box. If you want that Movement Speed bonus back, good news: you can pick it up with a Talent.
Second is that the penalty to Attack Damage is gone. Without High King’s Quest and the Cooldown Reduction to Heroic Strike skewing the scale, it’s not necessary to keep around.
The third and final thing is that the Cooldown Reduction to Heroic Strike has been replaced by the Enrage ability itself. Since we’re now at the point where it’s relevant to do so, let’s do some math comparing Current DPS Varian and Reworked DPS Varian:
Current:
Current with High King’s Quest complete:
Reworked without Enrage:
Reworked with Enrage:
The Rework’s base DPS is slightly better and having Enrage active isn’t too far off from a completed High King’s Quest, but the caveat that you’re draining health for that extra damage output so it’s an actual choice instead of being a no-brainer.
A reworked Lion’s Maw makes it easier to hit things with Lion’s Fang, and therefore easier to get healing from it (which is why it’s in the Defense tier).
Don’t worry about how it also makes it easier to deal damage with.
Did your buddy get dived by a Butcher, Greymane, or Illidan? Help them survive by giving ‘em the ol’ PARRY-HUG!
Intercept is intended to give Varian a little extra peeling power and help defend his allies.
The allied escape portion of Warbringer lives on to either help Varian get to an ally in trouble or get out of trouble himself.
If bogging down enemies with slows matters to you, Shockwave is on the menu!
If you feel Parry needs to last longer or that it’s eating into your Mana Costs too much, Safeguard is a good choice.
Bounding Stride revives the Movement Speed bonus from Twin Blades of Fury for players who want to go fast. It’s possible to keep the bonus up indefinitely if you have Enrage’s increased Attack Speed, with or without the toggle, but the bonus will eventually fade for Taunt and Colossus Smash users.
Victory Rush has changed in two minor but important ways:
- The Healing it provides scales with Maximum Health, giving extra value to Taunt users.
- It’s now a standard activatable ability, meaning that players can keep it handy for when they need it instead of having to painstakingly micromanage their health levels and Basic Attacks to get full value.
Shattering Throw has been condensed into a passive that piggybacks on Varian’s various sources of Spell Damage. It’s carefully designed to be balanced in value for all specs - for example, it doesn’t empower Varian’s Basic Attacks against Shields anymore so Enrage doesn’t get extra impact, and the bonus damage is specifically Physical Damage so the reworked Colossus Smash’s Spell Damage bonus doesn’t over-inflate the shield-busting effect.
Mortal Strike is still the same, it just lives at Level 10 instead of Level 13 now.
In case it wasn’t clear, a Lion’s Fang empowered by Heroic Strike means that cast of Lion’s Fang applies the bonus damage of Heroic Strike to everything it hits. Fun fact: this directly synergizes with Mortal Strike, meaning that you can also slap -40% Healing on multiple targets at once if your aim is good enough.
You may ask “Kith, why is Overpower, a former Level 1 talent, unchanged at Level 13?”
And I would reply “Because Varian can encourage people to focus him by diving into the middle of their team and then start vomiting Heroic Strikes at 4 attacks per second.”
It’s also pretty good for enabling Colossus Smash users to be able to continue dealing noteworthy damage outside of Lion’s Fang after Smashing someone.
Juggernaut got a power boost to accommodate for Warbringer no longer making Charge spammable.
The Banner Talents are unchanged because they don’t need to be changed.
Vigilance has received a small but important power boost that increases the duration of Taunt by 20% to make it slightly more competitive with Demoralizing Shout.
Master at Arms is also fine.
Frenzy, however, is very distinctly not fine. Thankfully, we have this remnant of the original Twin Blades of Fury to replace it with, giving Enrage a substantial DPS boost and making use of a previous functionality.
We’re back to things being fine with Glory to the Alliance.
And, to wrap things up, Demoralizing Shout is also fine.
Let me make something clear:
Varian is not broken, overpowered, or unplayable.
The problem with Varian is that, outside of his Spec, he has very few choices to actually make for his own build. 99% of the time, High King’s Quest and Second Wind are the most optimal choices, so that’s Level 1 and Level 7 sorted. Level 10 is usually Warbringer, Level 16 is the banner that’s obviously most optimal to your team’s needs.
The only genuine choices that Varian has in terms of Talents are at Level 13 (which more or less conforms to the shape of the enemy team) and Level 20 (which isn’t always something you get to). Despite being one of the most flexible characters in the game, when you get right down to it, Varian has surprisingly little… variance.
So the goal of the rework is to change that a bit. I hope you liked it. If you didn’t, I hope you’ll tell me why.
Thank you for reading. 
blizz pls giv job
