Varian Talents

Level	Choices
1	✘ ✔ ?
4	✔ ? ?
7	✘ ✔ ?
10	✔ ?
13	? ✔ ?
16	✘ ? ✔
20	? ? ? ✔ ?

Lion's Maw is a Quest that provides a better Slow and additional damage to Lion's Fang upon being completed. While the Slow upgrade may be useful for peeling low-mobility Heroes, we do not recommend Lion's Maw because the damage increase does not match the other Talents in the same Tier.

Overpower adds burst damage. When playing against Heroes with high Attack Speed, you will get double the value from it because the trigger will happen twice per activation, if you can manage to Basic Attack an enemy Hero twice during Parry. While it is hard but possible for the enemies to suddenly stop using Basic Attacks on Varian to avoid triggering this Talent, it is worth mentioning that Taunt will negate any counter-play.

High King's Quest is a group of Quests that increase Varian's Basic Attack damage, something that is crucial when going for Twin Blades of Fury and works well when choosing Colossus Smash too.

Taunt turns Varian into a Tank who is capable of engaging and/or peeling for his team, while increasing his maximum Health at the same time. Choose this Heroic Ability when your team needs a Tank, but it can also be played as Solo Laner.

Colossus Smash turns Varian into a highly explosive Melee Assassin, but it reduces his maximum Health. Choose this Heroic Ability when a second Assassin is needed.

Twin Blades of Fury turns Varian into a Bruiser. Choose this Heroic Ability when a Solo Laner is needed.

Lionheart is a decent but not good enough Talent which enhances Varian's self-healing if Lion's Fang hits enemy Heroes. It works better against team compositions that feature multiple melee Heroes, since they are usually easier to hit.

Second Wind is a always a great choices because it unconditionally increases Varian's self-healing, especially if there are no Blinds or crowd control to prevent him from landing Basic Attacks. Due to the fact that Second Wind scales with Varian's maximum Health too, and not only his Attack Damage, it becomes quite strong if paired with Taunt.

Victory Rush is a good but situational Talent because it only gives enough value if you have enemy Minions or Monsters nearby, however, it is really strong in those situations and should be your default choice on Maps like Braxis Holdout, Dragon Shire, and Infernal Shrines.

Shield Wall becomes a powerful pick-up at Level 10. While the Invulnerability effect allows Varian to attack more recklessly, the loss of mobility and lockdown potential that comes by ignoring Warbringer is still noticeable. However, the strong protection it offers makes up for it.

Warbringer lowers the cooldown on Charge by 8 seconds, a nice boost to both his chasing and peeling capabilities.

Juggernaut is a good choice when your team wants to focus the enemy front line first and/or if the enemy team has several Heroes with high maximum Health (such as Stitches, Chen, and Azmodan). In case of prolonged team fights, this Talent has good synergy with Warbringer at Level 10.

Mortal Strike is a strong choice most of the time because every well-drafted team has a Healer; furthermore, there are even some Heroes with self-healing capabilities (such as Arthas). If you decided to go for the Taunt Build featuring Taunt at Level 4 and Overpower at Level 1, you can guarantee an application of Mortal Strike after successfully Taunting an enemy Hero and parrying the following Basic Attack even if Heroic Strike is on cooldown when you engage.

Shattering Throw is a very powerful but situational Talent that can be used to hard counter Shields (for example it can be used to completely deny Sound Barrier by Lúcio on the target that you and your team intend to focus).

Banner of Stormwind is the least useful Talent in this Tier because it only provides Movement Speed, a status effect that does not really compete with the other options.

Banner of Ironforge is a situational Talent that provides Armor to Varian and nearby allied Heroes. Due to its long cooldown compared to the alternatives, only pick it when the enemy team is capable to one-shot an allied Hero with huge burst damage and your team composition does not have the tools to handle that.

Banner of Dalaran is always a strong Talent because it increases damage and healing of everyone in your team, and it also has a short cooldown, a characteristic that allows you to use it with more freedom.

Vigilance is a situational Talent that works only when facing Heroes with high Attack Speed (such as Tychus) because it allows you to use cast your Heroic Ability twice in quick succession and snowball the team fight from there.

Master at Arms is a decent Talent to boost the area of effect burst damage of your team. The cooldown reduction is good when you want to pick isolated targets with the help of your team, but it is not the reason why you pick this Talent because a late game team fight where your team focuses on burst damage will not last that much anyways.

Frenzy is a decent Talent to increase your own damage, and it also increases your Movement Speed by a small amount.

Glory to the Alliance is a strong Talent because it provides both increased healing to the whole team and cooldown reduction on any Level 16 Talent. If paired with Banner of Dalaran that has only 25 seconds of cooldown, you can basically spam it every 12 seconds, even if just for checking a bush after another because a trap by the enemy team in the late game can have a devastating outcome.

Demoralizing Shout is a situational Talent to use as counter against team compositions that focus a lot on burst damage. Being able to debuff several Heroes at the same time allows Varian to protect not only himself but also nearby allied Heroes who might be in danger. Do not hesitate to use Demoralizing Shout on a single Hero when needed.