Hi! I'm a hardstuck gold Aphelios OTP (200k points), so please don't play these builds in Ranked. I am not responsible for any LP or sanity losses from using these builds. But - if you got a group of friends to play a few games with, why not try out these builds in Normals?

In the following chapters, I'll talk about how to utilize these builds effectively to my knowledge, as well as give a really short explanation on his abilities and passive. If you're a beginner Aphelios player reading this, I suggest watching some videos. My personal recommendation would be the Mastering Aphelios guide by Kenjō, as he goes really in-depth and explains everything for most players.

Unfortunately, these videos have been taken down due to their outdatedness. I'll try to become more in-depth to cover for this lack of information, but don't expect much.

In simple terms, Aphelios has five different weapons that he cycles through, all with different abilities and passives.

He always gets them in a certain order:
Calibrum: 100 extra range
Severum: Life Steal and Overheal Shield. Attacks are not projectiles.
Gravitum: Slow
Infernum: AOE Auto Attacks and 10% more AD damage to the primary target.
Crescendum: Attack Speed based on how close you are to the target. If an ability attacked with Crescendum (e.g Severum Q, etc.), it creates a chakram for each time, which enhances your auto with more damage depending on the amount of chakrams.

Aphelios carries two of these guns at any one time, a main-hand and an off-hand.

All these guns have different Q abilities, and they also mostly have effects based on the other(the off-hand) weapon you're using.

Calibrum: Skillshot that marks one enemy, granting sight. You can consume the mark to attack with your off-hand, applying that weapon's effect.
Severum: Gain movement speed and start attacking rapidly with Severum and your off-hand weapon, applying its effect. Your attacks have a certain priority (Champions, Minions, Structures).
Gravitum: Root, dealing magic damage. This has no effect with your off-hand weapon.
Infernum: AOE cone which deals damage, then does an attack with your off-hand weapon, applying its effect.
Crescendum: Creates a sentry with 500 range that is affected by your attack speed and crit which applies your off-hand weapon effect.


As Aphelios, you don't upgrade your abilities, but rather, you upgrade your stats (Attack Damage, Attack Speed and Lethality respectively.) Your abilities are upgraded automatically as you level up.

Furthermore, you only have Q, W and R abilities. You don't have an E. Your Q is your weapon's ability, your W is to switch between your main weapon and your off-hand weapon, and your R is Moonlight Vigil.

Moonlight Vigil, your ultimate, is similar in that it has different effects depending on the weapon in your main-hand. To be more precise, it first does an initial explosion, then auto attacks everyone that you hit with the blast, and then applies your weapon effect and even adds another effect onto it. The attacks can crit, but only for 120% of the damage rather than the regular crit damage of 175%. It also applies on-hit.

Calibrum: Marks everyone that you hit with your R. Marks consumed this way are empowered, and do more damage than regular marks.
Severum: If you hit a champion, heal for a certain amount of HP depending on your R level (250/375/500).
Gravitum: Slows the people hit by your R by 99%, and your Q roots for 1.25 seconds rather than 1 second.
Infernum: Initial blast does more damage, and the attacks done after will splash in a range of 400 of the champion attacked, dealing 85% of the initial blast damage. This damage can overlap several times.
Crescendum: Creates 4 mirror chakram.


An important thing to note is that your Ultimate does not only do the following stated above. After your ult, the attack still applies your weapon's effect.

I'm not good at explaining this, but basically, if you hit Crescendum R, while it sounds like you'll only get 4 chakrams, you get *5*. This is because after it creates 4 chakrams, your Crescendum is forced to attack by your ultimate, creating one more chakram from its passive (when you cast an ability that throws Crescendum, it creates a chakram). So if you ult a group of people, say 4 people, it'll create 8 chakrams, rather than just 4.

Another example would be Severum. It heals for the base amount depending on your R level, and then heals another amount after your ult *attacks*. So it actually heals for more than the base amount.


Are you lost yet? Because if so, the next chapter is the confusing part. Good luck.

Every gun holds 50 moonlight (ammo). Each auto attack takes up 1 ammo, and each Q takes 10. After the moonlight for a gun has been depleted, it cycles to the end of your weapon cycle, and the next one comes in.

Depending on your weapon usage, you can change the order in which you cycle your guns.

An example would be:
Aphelios uses Severum first.
He holds his Calibrum ammo, and uses up Gravitum next.

The weapon order would then turn into: Calibrum, Infernum, Crescendum, Severum, Gravitum.

Rather than if Aphelios was to use up Severum then Calibrum instead, which would turn the weapon order into:
Gravitum, Infernum, Crescendum, Severum, Calibrum

Basically, whatever gun you use up first will go to the end of the queue, so keep that in mind when using up your ammo. Use this to properly manipulate your weapon order when planning ahead. E.g, you're currently carrying Severum/Gravitum, and you know Crescendum is at the end of the queue. Here, you use up Severum to pair it with Crescendum later due to how strong those two weapons are together as compared to Gravitum and Crescendum, which is usually considered quite weak due to the inability to stack chakrams other than with your R.

Your laning phase always depends on your lane opponent, of course. Though there are a few things you should always keep in mind when in lane are your weapons and ammo, along with everything else you normally worry about (cooldowns, lane state, etc.).

An example of this would be if you have Calibrum - Gravitum, you wanna focus more on catching the enemy for your jungler or support, where as if you have Severum - Crescendum you need to look at all-ins.

Also, something extremely important! Most beginner Aphelios players make the mistake of feeling stronger or safer with more ammo. This is not true. Aphelios is at his strongest the lower ammo he has (specifically, 10 or less moonlight). This is because of how your kit works - every Q takes 10 ammo, so instantly consuming that moonlight and gaining the next weapon grants you another Q - giving you three abilities rather than two. (This is also known as a Triple Weapon Combo)

Because of this, Aphelios is actually stronger the less ammo he has due to his weapon Qs not sharing cooldowns. But you always need to be careful of the 1 second phase animation between each gun, cause that can make or break a fight.

Omnistone is all about your adaptation to the current situation. Understand your limits, and try to employ your different runes in the most optimal way possible.

One thing for you to keep in mind, *especially* with Omnistone - whenever you get Lethal Tempo/Hail of Blades with Severum, make sure you auto(HoB) or damage (LT) the enemy, then use your Severum Q - the amount of attacks that happens in your Q depends on your attack speed, so engaging with your Q with either of those runes is suboptimal. It either doesn't activate (HoB only activates *on-attack*) or takes too long to start before your Severum Q ends (LT has a 1.5 second delay, and Severum Q lasts 1.75 seconds).

Most of the other runes don't really have subtleties like the one above, just try your best to understand your limits with each rune. For example, Phase Rush empowers your kiting by an incredible amount, Predator gives you good chase, Arcane Comet lets you poke. Try to play around your runes - understand when to all-in, and when to focus on other things, similar to your weapons where you want(not necessarily have to) to all-in with specific weapons and focus on other objectives with others.

The most important part of this runeset is that unless they click on you, no one else can see what rune you have (including teammates!). Yes, they still haven't fixed it after they gave him the second icon. Do they plan on fixing it soon? Probably. (please don't tho riot)

Better known as APHelios.

I like this build most in the mid lane - where your 'safety' as a 'control mage' really shines due to your range from which you output damage.

This build is all about putting *all* your damage into nothing else but your weapons' Qs (excluding Severum).

Explain why?
Calibrum Q has a 100% AP scaling in Physical damage, which marks them afterwards, which, if consumed, applies on-hit.

Gravitum Q has a 70% AP scaling in Magic damage, which roots.

Infernum Q has a 70% AP scaling in Physical damage for the initial volley of flames, and then the auto attack afterwards with your offhand weapon which applies on-hit.

Crescendum Q has a 50% AP scaling in Physical Damage for each attack.

Severum Q uh...has a 20% movement speed bonus that for every 100 AP is increased by 10%.

Moonlight Vigil (your ultimate) has a 100% AP scaling for the initial explosion in Physical.

All your damage comes from your abilities (excluding Severum), and while pretty much useless in the early game, this build is *incredibly* fun late-game. I've hit upwards of 1040 AP with each Calibrum Q or R one shotting the enemy ADC.

The most important part of this build is to remember - you max Attack Damage first. While you're not building AD, you can still at least do more than heal the enemy Zed cause you decided to pick APHelios mid for some reason.

Max Lethality second if you can. Almost everything in your kit, even though it scales off AP, does Physical (excluding Gravitum Q and other items). It's for this reason I try to avoid certain Mythics that grant you Magic Penetration, though you can still buy Sorc Shoes/Magic Pen for your Lich/Nashor's if you find it necessary to.

This is probably the second most viable build on this FF guide. The thinking behind this build for me was simple. Aphelios has a stat that increases Lethality. He is - quite literally, the only champion that can hit the maximum amount of Lethality in the game.

I like this build basically everywhere but Jungle. If you're building SP, make sure you go Umbral second or be ready to be useless. Top is probably my favourite place to play this though.

This is a really simple build. You're a non-mobile burst assassin, focused around both AOE and single-target damage depending on your weapons. Infernum for AOE and teamfights, Crescendum for single-target assassination.

You snowball really hard, but that's all you're good for - if you fall behind or fail to get any kills in lane, it's really easy to lose the game. It's pretty fun though, especially top lane.

I'll be honest, this is the worst build on this guide (and that says a lot, considering APHelios is on the list). It's also the least fun - but hey, it exists.

Your main clear path early is Red - Wolves - Blue - Gromp.

Later on, you can full clear with Infernum.

Try to be conservative of your ammo, especially for Calibrum/Gravitum for your long range CC and your Infernum for your clear. Also be careful not to mess up your weapon order.

For this build, I recommend going Severum-Crescendum-Calibrum-Gravitum-Infernum.

To get this order, use up Severum first at the start of the game, then Calibrum, then Gravitum, then Infernum. Hold your Crescendum until you use Severum on the second cycle, then use up Crescendum and rotate your weapons in that cycle, using them in the order they arrive.

Your main gank weapons would be Calibrum/Gravitum, with long range CC. For jungle skirmishes, try to rotate Calibrum/Crescendum or Severum/Crescendum, and for your clear try to focus on Infernum/Severum.

Always keep your weapon order in mind. If you don't remember, you can hover over Alune to see the order in which your weapons show up.

Focus your pathing on that.

Auto attack, auto attack, auto attack.

Crescendum is your best friend here - the amount of DPS you can reach just with this gun and Severum/Calibrum is for the lack of a better phrasing pretty ****ing ridiculous, so try to order your weapons in a manner where you get the combo Severum > Crescendum > Calibrum or the other way around of Calibrum > Crescendum > Severum. The easiest way to get this order is to use your weapons in the specific order of Severum > Calibrum > Gravitum > Infernum > Severum > Crescendum > Calibrum

This is also the best combination cycle for 90% of builds, so keep this cycle in mind!

Other than that, this build is kinda worthless. You don't have that much AD, but you sure can do a lot of on-hit :((((((((((((((((((

Because Riot keeps insisting on buffing Aphelios' lethality, what if we go a hybrid crit/lethality build because im the dumb and i want to get out pelase i dontw anna p

Alright! This build mainly focuses on your Infernum, though most other guns synergize well with it as well. The only weapon it doesn't really like surprisingly of all things is Crescendum, in my experience. You simply run out of ammo too quickly to stack its chakrams, though I may simply be mismanaging my ammo, especially due to the increased ability haste.

The strongest order of weapons in my experience is Gravitum, Calibrum, Infernum, Crescendum, Severum.

Gravitum/Severum can do some insane **** on this build, especially against skirmishers/assassins due to your burst and the slow stopping them from either getting to you or running away.

Calibrum/Gravitum is your catch tool, and mainly used to set up the combo of Calibrum/Infernum which in lane can literally oneshot your opponent with enough marks. Late game this weapon combination isn't as good, so I would recommend changing up your weapon order from the above to:

Severum, Infernum, Gravitum, Calibrum, Crescendum, which is your basic weapon order for regular Aphelios.

The only thing I can say about this build is to not underestimate your burst. An Auto-Q with Infernum, Severum or Calibrum if you're playing ahead is an instant two-shot kill.

This build is *all about snowballing*. If you're losing or extremely even early game, I recommend not building this. Just go the regular Aphelios build, it's just not worth it.

Thanks for reading this really stupid guide! If you got any suggestions, please let me know!