✦ Berserker's Greaves - First Boot Buy Berserker's Greaves should be taken every time for the increased attack speed and mobility they provide, its rare to ever deviate from these as Aphelios .
✦ Infinity Edge - Core Build Infinity Edge is a great item choice for Aphelios as the Flat stats offer so much aggression and damage to any trade Aphelios has. The items offers a solid amount of stats focusing on Crit and AD, having this at your core allows you to scale tremendously well.
✦ Stormrazor - Perfect for Aphelios Stormrazor is a perfect buy for Aphelios due to everything it embodies. This combined with his Crescendum or Severum can ramp up trades and devastate damage in team fights. The energized attack works fantastic early to mid game
✦ Bloodthirster You gain AD, Crit and an EXTRA AD above 70% health, granting you extra survivability and sustain. Be wary of grievous wounds when taking this item, champions like Kled and Katarina already have it built into their kit. Great item choice as it synergises very well with Aphelios and his kit! Should be chosen as a 4th or 5th buy!
✦ Immortal Shieldbow Shieldbow works insanely well when combined with Bloodthirster, the survivability allows Aphelios to avoid being 1 shot in the Season 14 high burst Meta. This combined with Severum can turn Aphelios into a Vampire ADC!
✦ Maw of Malmortius Maw of Malmortius is a great late game buy on Aphelios if the enemy has any high burst AP Mages. This is usually bought when wanting extra survivability and actually works well if comboed with shieldbow. This is a situational buy.
✦ Lord Dominik's Regards This is a great option for Aphelios due to the Armor Penetration and Unique Passive! Being able to build bonus damage based on health difference means that you can melt any pesty toplaners or junglers that are focusing their build around armor items. The flat stats alone are a nice stable choice for all Aphelios players. Can be focused on as an early 3rd buy if the team comp needs it, otherwise a 5th or 6th for the late game scaling.
✦ Guardian Angel -SITUATIONAL/LATE GAME We gain a second life with Guardian Angel, making it extremely useful if you're the sole win condition on the team and are being bursted down every teamfight.
★ Taste of Blood increases our our sustain in lane and is great a combo early with Severum. An all around solid pick for early trades.
★ Ingenious Hunter Item haste is a fantastic addition to Aphelios and his aggressive gameplay.
★ Cut Down is the go to rune in this column, granting us extra bonus damage vs champions with more max health than us.
★ Legend: Bloodline grants us up to 6% extra lifesteal, which is invaluable on a marksman. Legend: Alacrity is a secondary option for Lethal Tempo. Legend: Bloodline is a great rune for scaling into the late game.
★ Overheal is a fantastic rune of Aphelios as it allows him to convert his excess healing from Severum, the Scythe Pistol
★ Fleet Footwork is perfect on Aphelios in the current patch/meta. Aphelios can kite with severum early on which allows him to stack Fleet quite efficiently compared to other ADC's! Fleet has a unique ability where you gain charges when moving and basic attacking, at 100 charges you become energized empowering your next basic attack to heal you and grand bonus movement speed for 1 second!
EARLY TO MID GAME! ★
Early game Aphelios starts off with constant poke and harass with Calibrum auto attacks mixed with aggressive Q's. Being able to out range from level 1 is great for establishing momentum in the lane and helping get an early gold advantage. Very few champs can deal with the early aggression especially when combined with that of an unorthodox AP support eg Lux, Heimerdinger, Brand, Zyra! Alongside your Calibrum is your Severum on offhand, this helps keep you afloat in lane without heavily investing yourself into early Life Steal. Adept usage of this can allow you to overheal and out sustain your opposing ADC quite easily with an early Dorans Blade. Note that when you use Severums Q that you gain a significant movement speed boost, this allows for a great gap close or a disengage too. Early game using Severums Q can allow you to heavily trade while re-gening quite a lot of health in the process. Take advantage of your pressure if you achieve level 2 before the other laner.
Once you hit around level 3 or so you'll become a lot more reliant on your Gravitum. This gun is used purely for kiting, stunning and slowing. Aphelios uses this to disengage from ganks or if he gets caught out in a 1v2 scenario. Combining Gravitum Q with Severum Q can allow you to AoE stun and pull of great combos with your jungler or support. The guns attack speed is significantly lower than that of other weapons but with good reason, each auto attack slows and then stacks are consumed as a stun when Q is used. Using Gravitum stun allows an easy unmissable Calibrum Q!
By level 6 you will be balancing all weapons with Infernum and Crescendum now being available. Infernum is primarily used for clearing massive waves of creeps and procing multiple offhands eg, AoE Calibrum Marks, Multiple Chakrams and AoE Gravitum stuns. Crescendum is exceptionally good when getting caught in melee range as the attack speed can be devastating especially when getting multiple Chakram stacks. Crescendum Q is fantastic for helping take towers/objectives or procing other weapons special effects. Your turret can be an AoE monster with Infernum offhand, a vampire lifesteal Sentry with Severum offhand, a Sniper Elite with Calibrum or a great disengage stun machine with Gravitum!
MID TO LATE GAME! ★
Mid to late game, you've hopefully turned into the hyper carry (we've all seen the videos!) that you're aiming to be. Your damage has the insane potential to one shot the majority of squishies, but - you yourself are also very easy to be assassinated. You must watch your positioning at all times, just like most ADCs. During the mid-game, focus on accumulating as much gold as possible. Based on the outcome of the laning phase, consider working with your team to venture into the enemy jungle. To maximize your chances of farming, try to remain in a lane where you can farm minions solo, typically the mid lane as it provides better protection from enemy ganks. Once you've pushed the wave, join your team to secure vision. This will increase your chances of securing kills and objectives, which will give you the advantage in the game. Keep in mind that in lower to mid-level play, ADCs often overlook the importance of continued farming in the mid and late game to maintain their gold income.
For champions like Aphelios, who scale well with each item, any item advantage can greatly impact their ability to perform in team fights. In this part of the game, try to keep your Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon, ready to engage enemies with your ultimate, Moonlight Vigil.
Heal is generally the summoner spell that all ADCs take, giving you extra sustain in lane and can be used for a clutch turn around in a fight. It also grants you extra movement speed, and heals a nearby ally.
Flash is the best summoner spell in the game, it is your escape tool and engage tool. You can use this to get in range for that last auto attack on an escaping enemy, or to escape from enemies yourself.
