League of Legends: 12 things to know about the Aphelios kit

Riot has revealed the kit for the newest League of Legends champion Aphelios!

This morning, Riot dropped not only a champion trailer for the newest League of Legends champion, Aphelios, but also released a post revealing his new kit! The newest champion is going to be an AD Carry with an incredibly unique twist to his kit.

Unlike other marksmen who wield guns (Jinx and Jhin), bows (Ashe and Varus), or throwing knives (Draven and Xayah), Aphelios will have his pick of the arsenal! That’s right, the Weapon of the Faithful will have his pick of five different weapons to use in a game thanks to the blessing of his sister Alune. So what did we learn from the new champion reveal?

1. He only has two abilities

The kit primer revealed that Aphelios will only be able to really use two abilities, his Q and R, which will change based on the weapon that Aphelios has active. His W will allow him to switch weapons and he apparently won’t have an E ability at all.

2. He’ll have a primary and secondary weapon

Riot referred to the switching system as Aphelios having a “main hand” and “off-hand” but I think it’s a bit easier to think of it as a primary and secondary weapon for those of us who have played FPS. The W ability will allow the player to swap the primary for his secondary and vice versa. However, the W will not let you swap the two weapons you have for the other three that come with Aphelios’s kit.

3. Weapons will swap when you run out of ammo

Aphelios’s guns work on an ammo system. Each gun gets 50 ammo for basic attacks and once those ammo are used up that gun will be removed from your arsenal until it has “recharged.”

A weapon recharges once you’ve cycled through the others (when it runs out of ammo your weapon goes to the back of the queue) so there’s an interesting strategy to this champion. Do you hold one not-so-great weapon as your secondary so you can run through the better weapons more quickly, or switch between the weapons so that you can hold two of the best ones for a longer time?

4. You level up stats, not abilities

Since Aphelios doesn’t learn an E ability and the W is just a weapon swap, you’ll automatically earn ranks into Q and R as you level up. Since you’ll have that choice made for you, Riot has revealed that each level up will allow you to improve you AD, attack speed, or bonus armor penetration.

5. You can double-cast Q

Riot confirmed that it is indeed possible for you to cast Q with your primary weapon, swap to your secondary, and then cast Q with that weapon. Each weapon not only has its own ammo system, but they have independent cooldowns on their Q.

6. Your R is the same across weapons but the bonus is different

While you can double-cast Q, it does appear that you will not be able to do so with your ultimate ability (thank God). Aphelios’s ult is the same across each weapon – you fire a moon bomb that explodes on the first enemy hit and damaging nearby enemies – but his next basic attack will do bonus effects to all enemies hit with that moon bomb. Those effects will change based on which weapon you have set as your primary at that time.

7. Calibrum is for poking

The first weapon introduced is Calibrum, which gives Aphelios extra range on his auto attacks and marks enemies with his Q and R abilities. Once marked, Aphelios can follow up with a basic attack from his secondary weapon from anywhere on the map. So this will be a great weapon to use to pick off stragglers who managed to limp away from a fight with a sliver of HP.

8. Severus is for sustain

Severum grants healing to Aphelion when he attacks, and also grants a small shield for his over healing. His Q allows him to rapidly fire your primary and secondary weapons at nearby enemies and his ult’s bonus attack heals him a flat amount. Use this in 1v1 and small skirmishes to get off multiple attacks and heal up!

9. Graviton is for utility

The cannon weapon, Gravitum, applies a decaying slow on your basic attacks, roots enemies hit with Q, and slow all enemies hit by his R. This is going to be great for long-range CC.

10. Infernum is for waveclear

Aphelios also has an AoE weapon, Infernum, that does increased AD and AP damage and also does damage behind the enemies hit in a cone (like MF Q combined with Tiamat). His bonus attack after using his R creates damage circles around enemies hit instead of cones. This should be great for clearing waves and for team fights.

11. Crescendum is for cosplaying Sivir

His final weapon, Crescendum, acts like Sivir’s boomerang and flies back after being thrown out. However, Aphelios can’t attack again until it returns to him, but he can run to it so that travel time is shorter (like the rune Summon Avery).

With Q, Crescendum deploys a turret that shoots the nearest target with the secondary weapon and with R, the follow up attacks will increase the damage done if at least three enemies were hit by the R. Crescendum also gets stronger the more enemies that get hit by the boomerang.

12. Aphelios will have to play around his weapons

All of this information means that players are going to have to change the way that they play and their team plays around them based on which weapons are in their primary and secondary (or main/off hands). Having the Graviton and Infernum will mean that Aphelios will be powerful in team fights, while Crescendum and Severus make him better for skirmishes, and Calibrum will make him better at poking from distance.

It’s going to take a lot of practice, trial-and-error, and learning to figure out which items synergies best with which weapons, as well as how the combinations of primary/secondary can interact. This champion clearly has a high skill floor and ceiling, and I think there’s a lot of room for skill expression. Players may find themselves drawn to a particular weapon as their favorite or another that they’re weak on, and can strategize to maximize how they get the most out of this complicated kit.

12. He’ll be coming in Patch 9.24

The last big piece of news revealed today was that Aphelios will be coming in Patch 9.24. This is a bit surprising, given that he hasn’t hit the PBE yet, but I’m guessing that due to the holiday this will be a longer patch cycle.