“The problem with Aphelios isn’t his numbers, but actually, how many mechanics he has for dealing damage with almost no drawbacks.”
In recent professional tournaments, Aphelios are being used a lot and proved to be a power pick, at least one team wants to get this champion in almost any match-up. Since being extremely overwhelming to other ADCs, he is getting nerfed yet again (Updates and notes for League of Legends Patch 10.13), let’s break him down a bit, to understand why it’s being done in the wrong way.
First of all, Calibrum has the AA range of Caitlyn, and his active skillshot lets him AA with his offhand weapon from a range even longer than Caitlyn’s enhanced AA range on the target it hits. Whether you hit someone with this weapon from using the abilities of other weapons, you’ll also get the mark. The second shot is counted as a basic attack for all secondary weapons, meaning they’re proc lifesteal, Runaan’s, and also critically, etc.
Severum doesn’t use projectiles and heals Aphelios for a portion of the post-mitigation damage (lifesteal, but only on Severum until you get “true” lifesteal), with Runaan letting him heal off more targets, and any overhealing becomes a shield that stacks with BT/Overheal rune. The active gives him Urgot’s W, making him attack with both Severum and the offhand weapon autonomously in increased speed, and while the attacks do not benefit from Runaan’s, they still benefit from lifesteal and criter, moreover, it can apply marks from Calibrum/slow from Gravitum/deal the splash damage from Crescendum’s Infernum/stack chakrams.
Gravitum gives Aphelios Frozen Mallet, slowing down the target(s) if you have Runaan’s), and slowing targets are the active roots. With Runaan’s, you can apply the slow to more targets per auto. It is his only weapon whose operation does not synergize with other weapons or can crit, apply lifesteal, or proc Runaan’s, since the active root is not done from an auto; think of it as Kennen’s W / Twitch’s E.
Infernum gives him Titanic Hydra on his autos and if you have Runaan’s, the splash damage can be applied to multiple targets multiple times. The active deals damage and marks everyone hit with Infernum, then follows up on all marked targets at the same time with autos from his offhand weapon; these attacks don’t benefit from Runaan’s, but they do benefit from crit and lifesteal.
Finally, Crescendum gives Aphelios almost unparalleled close-range DPS, which can get even higher, as any time you strike with Crescendum by using the other weapons capabilities, you’d gain more chakrams to hit your AA Crescendum. Each time the chakrams return your AA resets to you, and the active deploys a Heimer’s turretthat autos with your off-hand weapon, benefiting from your AS, AD, AP and crit chance.
However, this is not even considering his Ultimate, which has five variations depending on which weapon Aphelios is currently using. The most notable is Infernum’s, as it acts as a Brand-like Ultimate (which can crit and apply lifesteal as normal), with Gravitum being the second most notable for slowing down everybody hit for an even higher percentage and letting him root multiple targets from quite a distance, also giving him initiation power. And that doesn’t consider how “extra extra” AD/AS/Lethality that he gets from leveling up.
200 years Aphelios “insane” highlights
That’s the problem with this champion, Aphelios’ entire kits are synergizing too much with itself, all of his weapons have different mechanics and utilities that, while sounding deep and hard on paper, are actually quite easy to understand after 2-3 games. Everything crits, lifesteal, Runaan upgrades all his weapons except for Crescendum (you do get the normal effects, but the bolts don’t stack more chakrams, nor do they benefit from the increased damage), and for all these strengths, none of his weapons has any significant weakness or at least a trade-off for those.
Nerfing Aphelios’ numbers can only affect a great deal if he has eliminated mechanics or added weaknesses to his weapon, which was what they did to bring down the power of Irelia and Akali. Give him lower AS on Gravitum, or lower the initial damage on Crescendum, or remove the overheal on Severum, make his abilities count as abilities so that not all crits and life-steals, especially his ultimate, are just to name a few ideas.
Because until then, Aphelios is still going to be an amalgamation of different ADCs, with most of their strengths and almost none of the drawbacks other than “immobile and squishy if you can actually approach to him before he destroys you from half a screen away with turrets and Calibrum marks.”
ForestWithin creates hilarious video highlighting every broken League champion release over the past 2 years
Not only does this “five guns” guy, Riot Games has already made many broken champions in these two years, all of these champions do have this kind of OP skill set when they first come out that irritating many players.
ForestWithin, a famous League of Legends streamer and YouTuber, has made a hilarious video that highlights every broken release or rework of the champion that has been dropped in the last two years.
The video poked fun at Riot champion designer Nathan “Lutzburg” Lutz and his comments toward people’s negative opinions on the upcoming Wukong rework. While discussing the topic with fans, he said that “being good at playing a certain character in a video game is valuable,” but he’d “rather take the 200+ collective years of professional game design experience.”
As a result, Forest made a meme out of him and concentrated on some of the most broken day one champions released in season eight and nine— champions such as Zoe, Akali reworked, Aphelios, AP reworked Galio, and even Qiyana. The choice of music was great too. “Do You Remember” by Jay Sean played in the background while people were one-shot over and over again.
The response from the community has been incredibly positive with most people enjoying the video. Some people also mentioned that even though the Riot developer teams have adequate experience under their belt, they are still not as good as Lutzburg makes it seem.
No matter what, Forest has made a fantastic video that will probably stay relevant in every meta because there will definitely be another overturned and broken champion release in the future.