Below, we’ve put together a complete Aphelios Guide for both new and old League of Legends players alike! Everything you need to jump into Summoners Rift, you’ll find below…
New to League of Legends? Tired of the same ADCs? Want to slay your opponents with five different weapons? This fully-explained Aphelios guide is what you are looking for! It has everything you need from runes to builds, and tips on how to play him in game! Read here to know how to play Aphelios and Alune: Lunari’s weapon of the faithful!
Table of Contents
Aphelios Guide – Runes & Summoner Spells
With the recent items changes in preseason Aphelios finds new ways to use at their best his weapons.
Conqueror is can get easily stacked to 10 due to the amount of casing Aphelios does with his weapons as well as all of the on-hit effects his weapons have built in. So, Conqueror is a good alternative to Press the attack if you’re looking for AD stats paired with a decent chunk of healing!
Conqueror grants us 2-5 adaptive force for every stack (up to 12 maximum), and heals for 6% of the damage you do, when fully maxed. This increases your damage output and helps you to mantain sustain throughout the game. Lethal Tempo is the second best option for your keystone. Triumph helps you to secure clutch outplays, by healing after we get a takedown, and also granting an extra 20 gold. Legend: Bloodline grants us up to 9% extra lifesteal, which is always good to have on a marksman like Aphelios. Coup de Grace grants you an extra burst of damage on low health enemy champions, this helps you exectuting your opponent and it combines well with the other runes.
Usual Summoner Spell choices for heimerdinger is Flash and Ignite. Ignite is the universal option for securing a kill and escaping alive, using Zhonya or flash.
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Aphelios Guide – Build & Skill Order
Here you can see the recommended build for Aphelios, his kit is centered on his various weapons, so be sure to focus your build on increasing your Damage and Critical Hit. You want to build your Mythic Item first and foremost, as with the new recent items changes in preseason that is where your core will be.
The 3 core items of Critical Hit are pretty good. After your mythic item, you wanto to get Essence Reaver (because of the mana regen) in order to avoid having any mana problems ever. The cdr is also great because you’ll be able to spam your Q in fights, do more damage, and overall increase dps. Next up is Runaan’s Hurricane: Aphelio’s guns have a lot of neat interactions with on-hit, so having hurricane to apply that on-hit onto additional targets is something you don’t want to miss out on! And for the next item you want to get Infinity Edge as it’s an overall damage increase with it’s high 80 AD as well as increasing Critical Damage by 25%.
Mercurial Scimitar is a great defensive items: it gives you lifesteal and provides an active to remove cc and a speeds you up by 50% for 1 second. Maw Of Malmortius provides ad, mr, and cdr with a magic shield and lifeline passive that gives you additional ad as well as lifesteal if you get low on health.
Attack damage | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | ||||||||||||
Attack Speed | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | ||||||||||||
Armor Penetration | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
Aphelios cannot improve his abilities with skill points, he may spend his skill points to gain bonus attack damage, bonus attack speed or armor penetration, as shown in the previous table.. Therefore he starts the game with Phase and gains access to Q abilities at level 2. Then he gains access to Moonlight Vigil (R)at level 6, which improves automatically at levels 11 and 16.
Aphelios’ Weapons and Abilities
The Hitman and the Seer (Passive): Aphelios has access to an arsenal of 5 Moonstone Weapons, created by his sister Alune. He equips two weapons at the time, one as his main weapon and one as his off-hand. Each weapon has a unique basic attack and passive effect. Weapons spawn with 50 ammunitions, which are consumed on basic attacks or to cast his Q abilities.
Weapons: Aphelios begins the game with Calibrum as his main weapon and Severum in his off-hand, with Gravitum, Infernum, and Crescendum queued in reserve. The queue order can be rearranged based on weapon usage.
The active effect of Aphelios’ Q ability varies based on his current main hand weapon.
Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle: Aphelios gains 100 bonus range while Calibrum is his main weapon. Enemies damaged by Calibrum via an ability are marked for 4.5 seconds, revealing them for the duration. Aphelios’s next basic attack against a marked target uses the current off-hand weapon and gains global range.
Moonshot (Q): Aphelios fires a bolt of energy in a line, dealing 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (based on level) (+ 60% bonus AD) (+ 100% AP) physical damage to the first enemy hit.
Severum, the Scythe Pistol: Severum’s attacks heal him for 8% − 25% (based on level) of damage dealt. Healing from Severum in excess of Aphelios’ maximum health is converted into a shield for an amount of up to 10 − 140 (based on level) (+ 6% maximum health), lasting for up to 30 seconds.
Onslaught (Q): For 1.75 seconds, Aphelios gains 20% (+ 10% per 100 AP) bonus movement speed and autonomously performs up to 6 (+ 3 per 100% bonus attack speed) attacks over the duration to the nearest enemy, prioritizing enemy champions.
Gravitum, The Gravity Cannon:Gravitum applies a 30% slow that decays over 3.5 seconds.
Binding Eclipse (Q):Aphelios expunges all enemies affected by Gravitum’s slow, dealing 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 (based on level) (+ 35% bonus AD) (+ 70% AP) magic damage and rooting them for 1 second.
Infernum, the Flamethrower: Infernum deals 110% AD physical damage to the target and spray four firebolts in a cone behind them, each dealing 75 / 100% (based on level) AD physical damage to enemies hit, reduced to 34 / 45% (based on level) AD physical damage against minions.
Duskwave (Q): Aphelios unleashes a wave of energy in a cone, dealing 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65 (based on level) (+ 80% bonus AD) (+ 70% AP) physical damage to all enemies hit and locking on to each of them. After a delay, Aphelios then fires a volley of basic attacks from his current off-hand weapon, one at each locked-on enemy. There is no range limit for locked-on targets.
Crescendum, the Chakram:Basic attacks with Crescendum hurl the blade at the target, which lingers for 0.25 seconds before homing back to Aphelios. He is disarmed until he retrieves Crescendum, but the attack timer is reset once caught. Aphelios accumulates the Chakrams he catches, up to 20, which last for 5 seconds. Attacks against champions and epic monsters will refresh the lifespan on Chakrams.
Sentry (Q): Aphelios deploys a lunar sentry for up to 20 seconds, reduced to 4 seconds after it starts attacking. Deploying a new sentry reduces the eldest’s duration to 4 seconds. A sentry has 3 health, enemies can attack the sentry with basic attacks, dealing 1 damage per hit. The sentry autonomously attacks the nearest enemy in range with a clone of Aphelios’ current off-hand weapon.
Phase (W): Aphelios switches between his main weapon and off-hand weapon.
Moonlight Vigil (R): Aphelios casts forth a lunar spotlight that stops upon illuminating an enemy champion. Alune smites the area centered on the illuminated enemy, dealing 125 / 175 / 225 (+ 20% bonus AD) (+ 100% AP) physical damage and locking-on to each enemy hit. After a delay, basic attacks will beginattacking the enemy hit by Apehlios’ ultimate based on his current main weapon. There is no range limit for locked-on targets.
- Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle: Applies an empowered mark that deals 20 / 45 / 70 (based on level) additional physical damage per mark .
- Severum, the Scythe Pistol: If at least one enemy is hit, Aphelios heals for 200 / 300 / 400 (based on level) health.
- Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon: Enemies are slowed by 99% for the same duration.
- Infernum, the Flamethrower: The initial blast deals an additional 50 / 100 / 150 (based on level) (+ 40% bonus AD) physical damage. Attacks splash in a circle instead of a cone. Enemies will take damage from overlapping areas.
- Crescendum, the Chakram: 3 additional spectral chakrams return to Aphelios from the first enemy hit, for a total of 4, on top of those from other enemies hit.
Aphelios In-Game
Athe end of this Apehlios’ guide let’s see how to play this champion. Aphelios is a mid-late game AD carry, his early game is quite weak in laning phase, but once he gets an item or two, that’s when he starts to ramp up.
The key to success is staying out of trouble while ensuring you’re close enough to do damage to the enemy team. Since Aphelios has no movement abilities, and both his crowd-control and healing are highly situational and having no movement means that it’s more important than ever to focus on positioning.
Keep a weapon that’s useful for the phase of the game in your off-hand as long as possible, and swap to it only when needed to ensure you maximise its effectiveness. Different weapon combinations have divergent strengths and weaknesses, so keep an eye on what you’re holding, what’s coming up, and when you’ll be forced to swap to make sure you’re not caught out by an unexpected change in your arsenal.
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