Aphelios Kit Primer

Riot·Nov 25, 2019·36 votes·236,665 views

Most champions can be summarized relatively quickly, but Aphelios isn't most champions. Learning to wield the Weapon of the Faithful demands discipline, focus, and mental acuity, so consider this primer your first test of faith along the path to mastering a champion with one of the highest skill ceilings in the game. (But really, this page has a ton of info to process. Read it a couple times, probably.)

We're going to start with the overall structure of Aphelios' kit, then get into what each of his weapons does.

How the kit works

Guns, basic attacks & ammo

Aphelios cycles through five weapons, each with its own basic attack. He attacks with his main-hand weapon, but always carries an off-hand weapon he can swap to with W.

Aphelios can't pick and choose which two weapons he equips at any given time. His weapons have 50 ammo ("Moonlight") each, and when a weapon runs empty you get the next one in line. Empty weapons go to the end of the line to recharge.

Since Aphelios can swap between his main-hand and off-hand, weapon order changes throughout the game based on which weapons you use first.

Abilities

Aphelios only has three buttons: Q, W, and R. W swaps between his main- and off-hand weapons, leaving him with two actual abilities. Kind of.

Each of Aphelios' five weapons has its own Q ability when equipped as his main-hand weapon. Each Q applies bonus attacks and effects based on his off-hand weapon. All five Qs cost mana and ammo, and each has its own cooldown (you can Q, switch guns, then immediately use the other Q). Aphelios automatically learns Q at level 2 and it slowly becomes stronger over the course of the game. We'll get to what each Q does in the weapon sections below.

Aphelios' ultimate, Moonlight Vigil, sends forward a moon bomb that explodes on the first enemy hit, damaging nearby enemies. Then, Aphelios follows up with enhanced basic attacks from his main-hand weapon against all enemies caught in the explosion. He automatically learns R at level 6, and it automatically levels up at levels 11 and 16.

Level-ups

Since Aphelios automatically learns his Q and R, he puts his 18 level-up points into stats rather than abilities:

Attack Damage
Attack Speed
Bonus Armor Penetration

Calibrum, the Rifle

Calibrum

Calibrum is a poke/harass weapon. Its basic attacks have extra range.

When abilities deal damage with Calibrum, they mark enemies hit. Aphelios can right-click marked enemies anywhere on the map to follow up with a basic attack from his off-hand weapon (or his non-Calibrum weapon, in cases where he swaps Calibrum to his off-hand before firing). This attack detonates other nearby marks for bonus damage against the marked targets.

Calibrum Q: Moonshot

Fire a skillshot that damages the first unit hit and marks them.

Moonlight Vigil Calibrum effect

Moonlight Vigil's follow-up attacks mark all enemies hit. These marks deal higher damage when consumed.

Severum, the Scythe Pistol

Severum

Severum is a sustain weapon that heals Aphelios for a portion of the damage it deals. Overhealing from Severum is converted into a small shield.

Severum Q: Onslaught

Gain movement speed and rapidly fire your main-hand and off-hand weapons at the nearest enemy, prioritizing champions. Onslaught shots behave like basic attacks but deal reduced damage.

Moonlight Vigil Severum effect

Moonlight Vigil grants Aphelios a flat heal.

Gravitum, the Cannon

Gravitum

Gravitum is a utility weapon that applies a decaying slow to enemies.

Gravitum Q: Eclipse

Damage and root all enemies on the map affected by Gravitum's slow. Eclipse doesn't use Aphelios' off-hand weapon.

Moonlight Vigil Gravitum effect

Moonlight Vigil's follow-up attacks apply a massively increased slow.

Infernum, the Flamethrower

Infernum

Infernum is an AoE/waveclear weapon. It deals increased basic attack and ability damage and creates a damage cone behind enemies hit.

Infernum Q: Duskwave

Spout a wave of flame, damaging enemies. Then basic attack all enemies hit with your off-hand weapon.

Moonlight Vigil Infernum effect

Moonlight Vigil's follow-up attacks create damage circles around enemies hit instead of damage cones behind them.

Crescendum, the Chakram

Crescendum

Crescendum is a close-range DPS weapon that behaves like a boomerang. Once Aphelios basic attacks with Crescendum he can't attack again until it returns to him, but his attack resets when it does. Attack speed increases Crescendum's travel speed instead. The closer Aphelios is to his target, the less distance Crescendum has to travel—and the faster Aphelios can attack.

When abilities or their follow-up attacks deal damage with Crescendum, they create temporary copies of it for each enemy hit that increase the strength of Crescendum's basic attack.

Crescendum Q: Sentry

Deploy a turret that shoots the nearest target with your off-hand weapon.

Moonlight Vigil Crescendum effect

If Moonlight Vigil hits fewer than three enemies, its follow up attacks still increase the damage of Crescendum's basic attacks as if at least three enemies were hit.

Custom HUD

All the stuff above is a lot to take in, and a lot to track. Aphelios has a unique HUD to ease this burden.

Passive, explaining Aphelios' weapons and level ups. The tooltip is as long as this article.
Aphelios' main-hand weapon and its remaining ammo.
Q.
Aphelios' off-hand weapon and its remaining ammo. If its Q is on cooldown, the icon will also indicate remaining cooldown.
The next weapon you'll get once one of your weapons runs out of ammo.
R.

Additionally, if your main-hand gun has 10 or less ammo remaining, an ammo tracker will appear on the right side of your screen so you can track your remaining shots.

The Weapon of the Faithful

Mastering Aphelios' moonstone arsenal may prove to be one of the most daunting challenges in all of League. Are you devoted enough for the task? Ready yourself, the Weapon of the Faithful arrives during patch 9.24.

1,011 Comments

ThunderThighs10Nov 25, 20191663 votes

No one: Riot: does a line of coke Absolutely no one: Riot: Aphelios

RedesignatedNov 25, 2019165 votes

congratulations, this is it. this is the best comment. you've done it.

AnevyaeNov 25, 2019655 votes

Community: Senna seems a bit overloaded.

Riot: Oh you poor children, you haven't seen nothing yet.

MLGMASTANov 25, 2019387 votes

just you wait until the next champion; which will be played in first person lol

MoonšNov 25, 201931 votes

I think the next champion is supposed to be a basic juggernaut like garen and darius.

PumpedheroNov 25, 201964 votes

^ its a juggernaut.. and little do you know @mlgmasta, people played first person league Season 6 with a camera mod

lightdragoon88Nov 25, 2019534 votes

Place your bets people: Do you think Aphelios is going to go down in history as the lowest win rate champion during release window?

MiriamNov 25, 2019359 votes

Yep and then they buff him and 2 weeks later people finally figure him out and then he's OP as hell and riot is busy on holiday vacation and can't update until January.

danielcjurNov 25, 201997 votes

This is gonna take a lot longer than 2 weeks

OleandervineNov 25, 2019186 votes

Riot: Balance can be difficult with all the champions, items, and other moving cogs we have going on. It's a gradual process.

Also Riot: Here's Aphelios, who's got like 30 different abilities.

MishliNov 25, 2019300 votes

I do have a suggestion, if he doesn't have a proper E ability, maybe holding E could show you the current order of all your weapons, just so players that have trouble memorizing the order can plan out what's coming next?

MoonšNov 25, 201919 votes

There is already a symbol that shows the next weapon up when your main hand runs out of ammo.

ItsFreakinHarryNov 25, 2019102 votes

Yes, but this is suggesting that pressing E shows the entire order of weapons, rather than just the next one up.

tehdefNov 25, 201955 votes

From a UX perspective, It's better if your buttons do NOTHING, than something that isn't an attack.

HówlNov 25, 2019227 votes

let it be known, the person who designed aphelios is the same person who designed Yasuo

GëëGëëNov 25, 201972 votes

How is Certainly T still working at Riot, let alone still having so much input into champion design ?

4 Step CadenceNov 25, 201962 votes

He's not. This was his last champion, and he didn't even finish him. Another Rioter did.

ZzForeverAlonezZNov 25, 2019108 votes

CertainlyT's going out with a bang for sure. This new champ straight up comes from another game. He's going to be a balance nightmare. Imagine being a new-ish ADC player and lane against this champ with 20 different abilities while you have 4.

EhhhhNov 25, 2019173 votes

Well this is gonna take a while to understand. With these seemingly global basic abilities [sg-lux-2]

EkothNov 25, 2019184 votes

They're global, but from what I can tell they all only apply to things he's auto'd recently, so they're global in the same sense Akali's second E is, and not like Senna R.

CrypticNeutronNov 25, 201975 votes

Can't wait to get my summoner 12 cancelled because this guy roots me after I back

Freyja WionNov 25, 2019136 votes

cant wait for the mental block of trying to press E

MSFTWRDNov 25, 201983 votes

Teemo doesnt have an E either, think of it like that

LegendWarriorJNov 25, 201924 votes

Well he does, it's a passive skill though. Not having an active ability is different from having a key to press at all

Nine Iota 002Nov 25, 201952 votes

Shh you're overthinking it.

pencildeadNov 25, 2019136 votes

This is Omnistone: The Champion, I'm gonna need flashcards to learn these weapon names, and I'll take 7 years to master him until he gets reworked and I have to start again. It's pretty much free publicity for MCR coming back too.

MishliNov 25, 201980 votes

don't worry about the names, just focus on effects cannon + lux passive lifesteal + urgot w flamethrower + offhand and boomerang + offhand turret

when you break it down into just the effects of the guns, it's not that bad to think about :)

NissaAnimistNov 25, 2019121 votes

Okay I wanna be the first to say that I think that this champion looks sick as all heck, but at the same time... Riot you need to stop making so many champions like this.

I get that this isn't the old days of 2010-2011 were making things was difficult and things needed to be simple as people weren't flocking to the game and they needed easy to learn, easy to play champions.

This is also setting a new precedent where new people starting the game are gunna mostly be looking at new harder to learn champions and with all the newer champions "Looking coolest" people aren't gunna wanna try champions like Mundo, Olaf, Ashe, etc.

Again, I'm not complaining about this, I'm getting Aphelios as soon as he's released. I'm more worried about what this means going forward. I do also miss seeing a simple champion released. I don't think in all my time playing I have see a NEW champion with a "simple" kit put into the game.

Pika FoxNov 25, 201945 votes

Yuumi.

HunsyNov 25, 201975 votes

What about Neeko her kit is pretty easy and straightforward?

KazekibaNov 25, 201932 votes

Yeah cuz Neekos entire kit is copy pasted.

Galio/LeBlanc/Zyra/Nunu

Spacecrafter03Nov 25, 201988 votes

This is pretty fair, but keep in mind with so many champions in the game, any ability is basically a "copy-paste" of another. If they don't make a crazy new champion like Aphelios, people will just complain that it's just a copy of other champions.

Lets Just TryNov 25, 201947 votes

Remember, down the line they have mentioned a brawler type champ similar to Darius who thrives in the middle of fights. There's also Voli and Fiddle reworks, both simple champs in essence.

Rebel Phoenix17Nov 25, 2019127 votes

Were* simple. At this point I'm expecting volibear to have 22 abilities and fiddle to apply a fear meter to opponents while he operates copies of himself that appear in all bushes

WriteShootKillNov 25, 201938 votes

I get your issue. But isn't that why they have been "reworking" old champions over the last few years. So older champions can look and feel as cool as the newer champions they have been releasing? And they have done really well on a lot of reworks: Pantheon Swain Urgot Aatrox Kayl, just to name a few

LysixioNANov 25, 201984 votes

Okey, I may not the the first to say that but no offence for anyone these are just my own thoughts. (and I'll prob repost it on EUW when the news gets out)

I think those new kind of champion look sick as hell to create on paper, but they are just not healthy at any point for the game and here are the reasons :

You can't just make some rules about the game and breaking them over and over again. Every champ in the game have 3 spells and one ultimate (exeption for shapeshifter and rek'sai), but like they only have 6 (seven the the shifter ability) and they are not too complicated to understand. I mean, whith the akali rework, which came from the same RIOT employe I think, we all have seen that breaking basics game rules is not juste healthy for anyone, neither the players who play akali, neither the opponent. it was writen on towers that they grant TRUE vision, and you can't create an exeption. Yes, pros knew it, and good players shall have too, but it is just not fair, its like playing poker but you can see the other's players hand, like you got a hell of an advantage, and for aphelios that will prob be kinda the same, just because your oponent won't know what the hell you'll do when you throw your q. Not only the aphelios will have to learn the champion, and it is just too much of an investment for non-aphelios players.

The champ get 5 kind of AA and 10 spells with five passive that furthermore interacts with each others, you can't predict what will do a champion, if by reading his spells you can't figure out what the hell he does, and I dont think you shall go in training tool for half an hour just the figure out the basics of a champ. it is not healthy for players to die again and again because they just don't get what is happening to em.

But ok, let's go over something else : Ryze. If ryze is SO hard to balance, it is over the history of Ryze because he was increadibly hard to play, so players just did bad with him, and because they do mistakes, ryze was not broken for a long time. But at a certain time, some 1000k player masteries were just incredibly good at him and hit 65 % winrate while average players had like 45% with him, just because the champ is balance around mistakes, and not around his true potential.

Moreover, that champ seem to do a bit of everything, like wave management, poke, assassin playstyle, siege (with the tower), healing, objective control, global AA, global targeted spells, range, melee, a GLOBAL root, I mean, imagine an assassin with a normal spell beeing a root, or "massively increased slow", I mean that is just too much, akali had a too versatile kit, Sylas was a flex pick, Kalista was a bit more strange then other adc, and now her AA deals 90 % of her AD and 500 Atk range, because had too much advantage on other ADC.

In conclusion, I think that this champion is just too complicated. Zed for exemple seem fair today, and takes a lot of skill. But his spells are SO simple : Q = shuriken / W = shadows that mimic spells / E = spin around, deals dmg / R = go on target, place a 2nd mimic shadow, the more you deal dmg, the more dmg it does. Simple. Now main Zed knows that they are rewarded by energy by touching multiple skillshots, and that the shuriken deal more dmg with direct hits, but these are details. I had to read twice all the post twice to only understand his spells, and I didn't thought about the combos at all, that is just overturned I think and takes way too much time to understand and learn, and when that's done, it is not fair for players who doesn't have the same time, and simply the player that do not like the champ, the playstyle, they'll have to focus on learning a champion they don't, and you can't say "Q = shuriken" it is more like "Q, heum, ok, wich one on the fives?" and "what is the weapon on the other hand" and "okey, is the guys marked".

Ok, I guess I made my point, so have a good one everyone and thank you for reading me (y that was long x) ).

MalcontentGerbilNov 25, 201927 votes

I want to preface what I am saying with the fact that I agree with you that this champion is absolutely ridiculous, and has way too much going on.

I hate the notion that people have that “champions cannot break rules”. The point of having different champion is that it lets you break the rules in different ways. At its base, each champion moves, auto attacks, and has stats that affect the abilities. Having unique champions lets you break these in different ways. Teemo has an ability that makes his auto-attacks do DOT damage. That’s not how the ‘rules’ work! Auto attacks deal damage on hit and that’s it! Yet Teemo is not broken in any way. Now, this may not seem like “rule breaking” to you, but that’s only because it’s an ability that has been extended to the rest of the game since it is not busted at all. How about any form of invisibility? The “rules” say that you get to see enemy champions if they are in your FoV or the FoV of an ally/ward. Yet Eve, Twitch, Shaco, etc... are not inherently unbalanced.

Rules are made to be broken. It’s what keeps the game fun and interesting. Yes, they shouldn’t overload things, but rules inherently can be broken without breaking the game.

OleandervineNov 25, 201982 votes

So Riot needs to now explain why the fuck the Lunari are a suppressed people in Targon if they have a fucking military arsenal residing in their shrines. Do the Solari have bigger guns and a hidden nuke in their shrines? Do the Rakkor have secret magical airships with artillery that can blast the Lunari from the sky? Aphelios really fucks up everything about Targon, because he's basically requiring that the Rakkor and Solari ONE UP the Lunari in terms of weaponry at their disposal. Where once the Targon region felt like a Grecian, mystical place, it's now full blown Stargate with these strange, alien guns under the surface of a fairly simple society.

CharmleNov 25, 201938 votes

do remember that the times are shifting and he only has these weapons because his sister traveled into the spirit realm. the solari were ahead not because of weaponry, but because they just straight up massacred the lunari. Probs has been that way since the start of the sun's time-shift, where the solari just decided, "eh, fuck it. let the sun be the only thing to be worshiped." and then just started picking them off one by one...

Rámmus HarderNov 25, 201974 votes

Looks like Riot is releasing their fps early.

GluttonCerberusNov 25, 201972 votes

Prediction- Lowest win rate on launch, but after a bit of time pro play will be so busted with him it will become a unique model minion for non pro players. Next years Akali/Irelia.

FilliumWutangNov 25, 201966 votes

April Fools?

DanceofaThousandNov 25, 201962 votes

My head hurts.

MiriamNov 25, 201950 votes

Is it just me or does this cute twink legit got everything in his kit (just split up into weapons)?

Is this a CertainlyT champ? Because he looks like he's in the category of his champs where hes gonna be fun to play but a nightmare to deal with because this is just way too much.