League of Legends: how the pros are building Aphelios

Aphelios has been out for a week now. Here is how all the best players are building the newest champion in League of Legends.

From the moment his kit was revealed, people were memeing about how complicated Aphelios would be to play. It makes little to no sense trying to explain his playstyle after barely a week’s worth of gameplay. However, pro players seem to have found a strong build for the newest champion in League of Legends.

From runes to items, here are the different ways that professional League of Legends players have built Aphelios. These builds and statistics are courtesy of OP.GG and U.GG and we will be linking to specific builds as appropriate.

Role

On release, it was fairly evident that Aphelios would be an AD Carry. Of course, players at the top of the ladder were bound to experiment with him on release, but so far it seems opinion on his role is pretty set.

92% of Aphelios games have been played with him the ADC role. His next-highest role in terms of pick rate is mid, with a 7% role share.

Runes

Again, there is almost complete agreement with regards to his keystone rune set-up. Almost every single pro player takes Press the Attack on Aphelios, with a few people experimenting with Conqueror. However, after the nerf it recently received, it’s safe to say that PTA is the keystone for Aphelios.

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In the Precision tree, two of the minor runes also seem pretty clear-cut decided. Almost every pro player takes Legend: Bloodline for additional lifesteal. They also almost always take Coup de Grace for that extra damage on low-health targets.

The final minor rune in the Precision tree is split between two options. On the one hand, you can go Triumph (as most people using the Precision tree do) for the extra gold and healing on champion takedowns. However, some Aphelios players are taking Overheal. Remember, Aphelios does get a shield from the healing from damage done by his pistol Severum, so Overheal and Legend: Bloodline really help to maximize this playstyle.

As far as the secondary tree, the most common pick is Inspiration. Over 50% of pro players take Inspiration, with Biscuit Delivery and Magical Footwear being the most prominent picks.

However, a fair number of players choose to go Domination as their secondary tree. These players universally go Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter, again to double down on the healing.

Skill Order

There’s not really a lot to say about skill order, since Aphelios only has two skils you can level (Q and R). Unfortunately, OP.GG doesn’t provide information about what stats you can level, so experiment and try to find what feels best to you!

Items

Finally, for items, almost every one of Aphelios’s core builds has Infinity Edge and Runaan’s Hurricane. Usually, Runaan’s Hurricane will be his second item, with IE coming after that. The big question is what is his first item pick-up.

This is split between two options: Essence Reaver and Stormrazor. Essence Reaver is by far the most popular first item (13% pick rate) compared to Stormrazor (5%) so I’d definitely recommend that in most cases.

In terms of boots, Berserker’s Greaves are the runaway most-popular choice for him. Players build these boots on him 93% of the time.

For rounding out your build, defensive options like Guardian Angel, Phantom Dancer, and Quicksilver Sash all seem to be popular choices. I would recommend that you build these as the enemy team’s composition dictates.