The weapon of the Lunari is Aphelios, the shooter with the many weapons that seem so complicated.

But what can you do with these 5 different weapons? How do you best combine them and much more follows in this guide!

Aphelios is a shooter who has two weapons at any one time, which you can switch between by pressing the W button. These each have 50 ammunition. A normal attack consumes one of these ammunition units, using the respective ability placed on Q always costs you 10 ammunition of the currently active weapon.

It is important to know that the abilities of the individual weapons do not share a cooldown. This means that you can use the Q of the active weapon, change the weapon with W and use its ability with Q. Even if both abilities swap yours, you can still use the abilities of the next weapon.

Aphelios is unlike any other champion, not only because of his 5 different weapons, but also because of his skill points. You are used to being able to place a new skill point in your abilities with each level of your chosen League Champion. With Aphelios, however, you receive statistics for your skill points. With one click or CTRL+Q/W/E you will receive additional attack damage on the Q, additional attack speed on the W and lethality factor on your E.

More on this in the skill order description.

First, let’s learn more about his abilities and weapons.

As Aphelios, you start every game with the green and red weapon. Aphelios also has a purple, blue and white weapon.

The currently active weapon also influences your ultimate. Aphelios therefore has 5 different weapons, abilities and ultimates.

Let’s go through them one by one:

Aphelios’ green weapon is Calibrum, the sniper rifle. This weapon grants him 100 additional range to his minimum range of 550 units. This puts him in the middle of the shooters without Calibrum.

Accuracy: Enemies that take damage from Calibrum through an ability (Q or R) are marked for 4.5 seconds, revealing them for that time. Aphelios’ next normal attack against the marked target has 1800 units of range and uses his currently inactive weapon placed in the second hand. The ability has an execution time that is longer or shorter based on how far away you are from your target. This is mainly so that you are not incapacitated for so long when you are directly facing your opponent.

The boosted attack deals extra physical damage in the case of both Q and Ultimate.

Aphelios Calibrum Q triggers the Lunar Shot. Aphelios fires an energy bolt straight in one direction, which deals damage and places the aforementioned mark on the first target hit.

Aphelios’ red weapon is Severum, the pistol. Severum’s normal attacks do not use projectiles. This means you can attack through Yasuo’s windwall, for example, and deal damage like a melee fighter as soon as your attack animation ends.

Revive: Severum’s attacks heal Aphelios for a scaling percentage of his damage over the course of the game. Excess healing is converted into a shield that grows based on level and scales at 6% of Aphelios’ current maximum life. This lasts for 30 seconds, even if you are not attacking. This also applies if your red weapon is no longer among your 2 active weapons. The shield remains for 30 seconds or until it is broken.

Severum’s Q ability is Charge. For 1.75 seconds, Aphelios gains additional movement speed and attacks the nearest enemy 6 (+ 3 per 100% additional attack speed) times over the duration, prioritizing champions. These attacks alternate between Severum and the current secondary weapon, with each attack dealing normal damage and critically hitting. This means that the respective passive effect of your secondary weapon will be active on every second attack, even if you are currently using Severum’s Q. For example, the attack of this second hand marks the opponent at level 2 with Calibrum’s “Accuracy” and enables the attack from long range as soon as “Onslaught” ends.

Gravitum, the cannon is Aphelios’ purple weapon. You will receive this in every game as soon as you have used up the 50 ammunition of the green or red weapon.

The weapon sequences and combinations are explained later in the guide.

Gravitum’s passive is “Bind”. Gravitum applies a 30% slowdown, which decreases to 10% over time.

Each normal attack renews the 30% slow.

The Q ability of this weapon is “Binding Eclipse”: Aphelios deals level-dependent magic damage to all enemies currently subject to Gravitum’s slow and holds them in place for one second.

Aphelios’ fourth weapon is Infernum, the flamethrower. Infernum deals 110% of attack damage to the target and fires four firebolts in a cone behind the target, each dealing 75-100% (depending on level) of normal attack damage. Critical hits fire six instead of four firebolts across a wider cone and deal additional damage.

The blue weapon’s ability is Volley, like Ashe’s W it works, but far less broadly. When the ability is activated, Aphelios fires a cone-shaped burst of flame that deals physical damage and targets each of them. After the initial damage, Aphelios fires a volley of normal attacks with his current secondary weapon. No matter how much distance your opponent covers, if the initial damage from the volley hits them, the targeted second-hand attack will hit them. A combination that you will have in every game is Blue+Purple. This means that hitting the opponent with the Blue Q guarantees you an automatic attack from the second weapon. This places the aforementioned slowdown on the target and allows you to hold the target in place for a second by switching weapons and triggering the “Captivating Eclipse”.

The fifth and final weapon that Aphelios receives in the game is Crescendum, the Chakram. Normal attacks with Crescendum throw a boomerang at the target, which flies to the target, remains there for about 0.25 seconds and then flies back to Aphelios. While the boomerang is in flight, it is disarmed, but catching it resets Aphelios’ attack animation. This only works if you do not switch weapons in the meantime. What this means for you when you use this weapon is as follows: If you attack a champion with the white weapon, Crescendum, who moves away from you with a dash or lightning or simply runs while the boomerang is in the air, the time until you can attack again will be extended. Attacking at maximum range with just one boomerang is always less damage per second than with the other weapons. However, if you are close to your opponent, for example a melee fighter running towards you, the boomerang will return much faster, as the ability flies from the center of your champion to the center of the enemy champion, back to you. This weapon therefore gives you greatly increased attack speed when you are in a melee situation.

The active ability of this weapon is “Guard”. Aphelios places a turret for up to 20 seconds, reduced to 4 seconds as soon as it attacks. Only when the turret is activated by an enemy or neutral unit coming into range can it be destroyed. A turret has 6 lives, with normal attacks causing 3 damage and abilities causing 4 damage. If you have placed the turret under an enemy turret, a shot will destroy it immediately.

The turret autonomously attacks nearby enemies within range with a duplicate of Aphelios’ current secondary weapon, dealing physical damage. Effects of the secondary weapon are also triggered.

For example, the turret can trigger the purple weapon’s slow, the green weapon’s mark, the blue weapon’s cone-shaped, boosted attacks and the red weapon’s healing, projectile-less attacks. This depends on your current weapon combination.

Now that we’ve gone over the individual weapons, we can talk about the 5 Ultimates.

Aphelios’ ultimate is Guard of Moonlight. With a range of 1300 units and a radius of 300 units, this ability can define any fight and has a high impact on what happens in a small fight or large teamfight.

Aphelios fires a moon bomb in the chosen direction, which stops when it hits an enemy champion and lights them up. Alune(Aphelios’ sister shatters the area around the lit enemy, dealing physical damage and targeting all enemies hit. After a short delay, normal attacks rain down from the sky based on Aphelios’ main weapon (one attack for each enemy targeted by Guard of Moonlight). These attacks can hit critically. Again, there is no range limit for attacks on targeted enemies.

Each ultimate has its own effect.

Calibrum’s (green) ultimate applies enhanced marks that deal additional physical damage per mark. You can follow up this attack and its mark(s) with a hit target and attack again with a normal attack from a long distance.

Severum’s (red) ultimate heals Aphelios when at least one enemy is hit for 250-500(depending on your level(6/11/16)) Life.

Gravitums (purple) Ultimate slows enemies for the same duration as a normal attack. However, not by 30%, but by 99%. In addition, the hold time is increased from one second to 1.25 seconds. When used optimally, you first let the strong slowing take effect and then hold the opponent. This gives you and your team the best possible chance of reaching and killing the target(s).

Infernum’s (blue) ultimate deals additional physical damage. In addition, the attacks raining down from the sky on targets hit by the Moonlight Guard deal damage in a 400-unit radius around each target. Enemies take initial damage, as well as bonus damage from overlapping damage areas. So if you catch 3 or more enemy champions in a fight with your ultimate that were overlapping on initial damage and don’t split up before the normal attacks arrive from the sky, you’ll deal massive area damage that can critically hit. This is the moment we’ve all heard of as “200 Years” Aphelios.

Crescendum’s (white) ultimate generates 4 additional spectral chakrams (boomerangs) that return to Aphelios from the first enemy hit. In addition, Aphelios receives another chakram for each champion hit.

With all these options, 10 abilities and 5 different ultimates, it can be hard to get your head around at first glance. Try to look at it this way: Once you understand and internalize all of this, you’ll know more about what Aphelios does in each of your matches than the 9 other players in the match. Even in Diamond or Master Rank, there are plenty of players who don’t know more about Aphelios than the threat that Red+White represent. We’ll come to the ideal weapon combinations, what makes them so strong and how you want to keep your weapon order later.