Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight. Featuring Aphelios: The Most Complex Marksman Riot Games Has to Offer. Today I will be covering Aphelios’ abilities, his main-hand and off-hand gun interactions, optimal gun sequences, as well as gameplay strategies and tips. This guide is intended to help clear the air about how to play as Aphelios. At the end of this article, you should feel confident about Aphelios’ abilities and the way he plays in-game. After some practice following this guide, you’ll be climbing ranked in no time.
Who is Aphelios?
Aphelios is paired with his sister, Alune, who gives him the five moonstone weapons that he wields. He only has access to two weapons at a time: one main-hand and one off-hand. Each weapon has 50 ammunition at the start, unique basic attacks, Q abilities, and R ultimate ability interactions. His ultimate ability, Moonlight Vigil, sends a moon bomb that explodes on the first enemy hit.
Aphelios essentially has two abilities (Q and R), a W key that allows you to switch your off-hand and main-hand weapon, and instead of leveling up your typical abilities, you level up your stats in Attack Damage (AD), Attack Speed, and Lethality.
On initial release, and admittedly a few months after that, Aphelios was still incredibly confusing for me. A lot of my struggles were definitely attributed to me not doing enough reading and watching other people play this champion. Regardless, I would find myself banning him instead of attempting to understand how he works. Over the last couple of years, Aphelios has been tweaked and, overall, nerfed. He really does fit into the category of “better nerf Irelia,” but this time it’s “better nerf Aphelios.”
Despite all these changes and the meta adjusting as well, it’s never too late to learn how to improve your gameplay. I’m here to help you either brush up on your knowledge about Aphelios or learn about him for the first time. Thanks for joining me today, and let’s get started with his five moonstone weapons.
Moonstone Weapons
Calibrum, The Sniper Rifle
Calibrum is used for harassing and poking as it gives your auto attacks increased range. This weapon also allows you to mark enemies. When you right-click a marked enemy, your off-hand weapon is used to attack. Your Q for this weapon, Moonshot, fires a skill shot that damages the first unit hit and marks them for a long-range attack that utilizes his off-hand weapon. The Calibrum ultimate allows follow-up attacks to mark all enemies hit. These marks deal higher damage when you attack them.
Severum, The Scythe Pistol
Severum is a sustain moon weapon that heals you for every attack. Overhealing from Severum is also converted into a small shield. This weapon’s Q, Onslaught, allows you to run faster while attacking nearby enemies with both weapons and gives you increased healing during Onlaught’s duration. This will also apply the passive of his off-hand weapon. These attacks are like basic attacks but with reduced damage. The Severum ultimate heals you for a flat amount.
Since the combo of these two weapons is what you start off with, switching between them will be incredibly useful for you. For example, if your team is on Blue Side and your jungler is starting their Red Buff, you would want to use Severum if you are helping them leash. That way you’re not only helping your jungler, but you’re helping yourself gain a small shield going into your lane where you’re inevitably going to be poked. I personally love this combo in the early game, because it gives you the best of both worlds: being able to poke your opponents in lane with Calibrum and also being able to heal off every auto-attack with Severum.
Gravitum, The Gravity Canon
Gravitum applies a decaying slow to all enemies and is your main way to apply crowd control. This weapon has multiple uses: in lane to help your teammates get closer to engage, as a way for your jungler to get a better angle for a gank, or even for rooting enemies to allow you to run away. This weapon’s Q, Eclipse, roots all enemies slowed by your auto attacks. The Gravitum ultimate allows follow-up attacks to apply a huge slow allowing for even more crowd control for you and your team to engage with.
Infernum, The Flamethrower
Infernum utilizes AoE to help your basic attacks create a cone of fire behind any enemies hit. If your attack crits, the cone widens even more making this weapon especially useful for killing minions efficiently as well as for in teamfights. This weapon’s Q, Duskwave, blasts enemies in a cone and attacks with your off-hand weapon. The Infernum ultimate allows follow-up attacks to create an AoE circle of damage around enemies. Not only does it deal increased damage to the initial enemy hit, but the more enemies that are close, the more the AoE will spread and continue to deal damage.
In preparation for teamfights, you want to make sure to conserve your ammo so that you have enough to make a difference in the fight. This weapon truly allows you to deal tons of damage.
Crescendum, The Chakram
Crescendum is one of the weapons that I think gets underestimated the most by the enemy team. You can use this to your advantage though within the laning phase as well as in teamfights. The basic attacks for this weapon work just like a boomerang and you have to wait for it to return before being able to attack again. As a result, the closer you are to a target, the faster it will return to you as well. Attack speed will also increase Crescendum’s travel speed.
You can store Chakrams, up to 20, by using an ability from your main-hand weapon (ie. Calibrum’s Q mark) that utilizes Crescendum as an off-hand. Gravitum is the only exception since it has no interactions with the off-hand weapon. When you auto-attack with your Chakram stacks you are able to increase damage proportional to the number of stacks you have accumulated. Crescendum’s ultimate grants five Chakram stacks on the first enemy hit, and one additional Chakram for every enemy hit after that. These Chakram stacks last for five seconds unless you auto-attack to refresh the cooldown. The simplest part of Crescendum is definitely his Q, Sentry, that deploys a turret that attacks with your off-hand weapon.
Side Notes
In this section, I have compiled some other small details that I felt were worth mentioning as well. When you use all the ammo from your main-hand weapon, it automatically goes to the back of your “queue” of weapons. Your off-hand would stay the same and the third weapon would now become your main one. As I stated earlier, your W key allows you to swap your off-hand and your main-hand weapon. For example, if you just used your Calibrum Q, then pressed W to swap to Severum, your Severum Q would still be available.
Ideal Weapon Combos
Depending on the situation in-game, who you’re playing against, and your ammo levels when you switch, your weapon combos will differ quite a bit. Here are some of the combos I most enjoy using as Aphelios.
Infernum and Gravitum: Big AoE Damage with A Side Of Crowd Control
This combo allows you to be super useful as well as dealing high damage in a teamfight. This combo can be especially powerful when your team starts to fight 5v5 and the enemy groups up enough for your damage to bounce off the most targets. Both of your ultimates in this combo can give you an advantage in teamfights: your Infernum ultimate will help you do a lot of burst damage and your Gravitum ultimate will help with rooting enemies and allowing for efficient follow-up. The combination of dealing significant damage with your Infernum Q, Duskwave, and then switching back to Gravitum to Q and root the enemy is also extremely satisfying. Building critical damage will also help build the wave of extra damage while using Infernum.
Severum and Infernum: For the Players Who Love Big Heals
This combo allows you to use your Duskwave to spread your attacks across a larger number of enemies, therefore allowing you to heal off of them with Severums’s passive. Using this combo in a 2v2 fight or within teamfights, allows you to bait out your low health, and then use Severum’s passive along with Duskwave to heal for a larger amount and continue to keep fighting.
Crescendum and Calibrum: The Little Turret That Could
This combo feels very comfortable within teamfights or small skirmishes and is one I usually look forward to while in-game. Not only are you able to build up Chakrams from a larger distance, but Calibrum as a turret proves especially handy being able to attack enemies from a larger distance. If you place it well during a fight, you will be able to zone off enemies and stop them from closing the distance between you.
Severum and Crescendum: For Kiting Melee Champs
This combo allows you to use your Severum movement speed to either kite away from melee champs or get closer to engage. By using your Severum Q, you’re able to gather more Chakrams, and then when you release them, you’re able to deal tons of damage to the enemy that’s either chasing you or trying to evade you.
Hopefully, after reading this guide you feel more confident about Aphelios’ abilities and passives for all of his weapons, along with weapon combos to use. If you’re still not totally comfortable, feel free to jump into the practice tool or even in a Co-op vs. AI game, and try out some of these combos for yourself!
Good luck on the rift, Summoners!
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