Hello! I am MyFemboyAphelios, Plat 1 Marksman Enthusiast, and Aphelios main. Top Aphelios is interesting, because he's a ranged toplaner who can duel a lot of melee top laners, and can scale into the late game. He can be built to be a splitpushing monster, tearing apart their base.

My op.gg is right here: https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=myfemboyaphelios

I'm diamo- I mean platinum 1 bbg

Now, you may be wondering.
"ArshieMeBob, why would I play Tophelios?"
Great question. It's a good pick into immobile top laners, since they can't punish you for trading with them. Aphelios is also a good dueler, having many gun combinations to duel opponents and even take 1v2s

We run Barrier because it helps us cheese 1v1's. Not a lot of top laners have enough damage to get through the Barrier.

Also it's not affected by ignite so it's even more fire (pun very intended)

Without items, Aphelios would just be a squishy immobile marksmen. These items make him shine as a splitpushing threat.

FIrst Back

Always buy tier one boots as fast as you can. It helps you disengage while kiting and keeping up with melee top laners. It also helps you when chasing and dodging skillshots.

Vampiric Scepter is super good for trading, since after taking a heavy trade, you can slowly sustain back up with Vampiric and Severum.

This item is optional, as you won't always have enough money to buy a cull after Vampiric Scepter and boots. Cull is useful into losing lanes like Jax.

Core Build

This mythic is perfect for Tophelios. Lifesteal, AD, attack speed, a shield when you get low. This item let's you survive situations you wouldn't normally be able to survive. It let's you pull off 1v1s against your laner.

Build this when you are playing against an AD toplaner or if the majority of the enemies are AD focused. If you are struggling to decide whether you should buy Steelcaps or Mercs, buy Steelcaps.

If their team has a lot of CC like Morgana or Neeko, or if they have a lot of AP champions, then Merc's are good to pick up. You can't splitpush if you are stunned!

Hullbreaker gives you more damage and durability, as well as turning you into a tower destroying demon. Buy this before bloodthirster if you are doing well in lane and can 1v1 your lane opponent.

If you are struggling in lane and need survivability, build Bloodthirster before Hullbreaker. Even if you buy Bloodthirster first, remember to always buy Hullbreaker as well.

Pick one

Pick up Death's Dance if they have a lot of AD threats. Death's Dance helps you survive 1v2's and gives you a lot of healing and durability. Always buy if they have an AD top laner and jungle like Riven and Kindred

Wit's End helps you against AP threats, as well as giving you attack speed and on hit magic damage. A very good item if they are running something like Malphite and Elise

Last Item

We buy this item last because it gives us waveclear and has good synergies with our guns. We can root multiple targets with Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon and have ridiculous waveclear and aoe with Infernum, the Flamethrower

Aphelios is a complicated champion. Most of his skill ceiling comes from knowing what your guns do and how to combo them together. I won't go into too much detail on his ratio's, but I will give a general description of each gun, his abilities, and good gun combos to use. If you already know Aphelios's kit, you can skip this section.

For the rest of this guide, I will refer to the guns by their color.

Calibrum, the Sniper Rifle = Green

Severum, the Scythe Pistol = Red

Gravitum, the Gravity Cannon = Purple

Infernum, the Flamethrower = Blue

Crescendum, the Chakram = White

Green is your basic poke gun. With this gun, your auto attack range increases to 650, the same range as Caitlyn. When you activate Q, Aphelios launches a skillshot that stops on the first target hit. The target hit then get's marked. Aphelios can right click on the marked target to auto attack them with his secondary weapon. Any gun that auto attacks with Green will also mark the target.

Red is your sustaining tool. Your auto attacks with this gun don't use any projectiles (meaning that it can't be blocked by things like Yasuo and Samira) and also have an unconcealable windup. Red auto attacks heal you, with a percentage of excess healing becoming a shield on you. When you activate Q, Aphelios rapidly auto attacks the nearest target, prioritizing champions, with Red and his off hand weapon for 1.75 seconds. This also grants him movement speed.

Purple is your CC gun. Purple's auto attacks apply a decaying slow to the target. When you activate Q, Aphelios roots all targets that are currently slowed by Purple. Keep in mind that Purple is the only gun that can't combo other guns, but other guns can combo into it.

Blue is your big aoe teamfight gun. It's auto attacks have a 110 % AD ratio, and splits into a cone of 4 missiles behind it. If Blue crits, these missiles are faster and there are 6 instead. Activating Blue's Q makes Aphelios unleash a wave of fire in a cone that deals damage. All targets that get hit by this ability will be attacked by Aphelios's current off hand weapon.

White is a great close ranged weapon. White behaves like a boomerang, meaning that you can't attack until the weapon comes back to you. The closer you are to the target, the quicker it comes back to you. Crits cause White to come back to you faster. If White is used in another gun's ability, instead of throwing out White, Aphelios throws out a phantom chakram that returns to him. These phantom chakrams last for 5 seconds, which resets every time Aphelios auto attacks an enemy champion. These phantom chakrams empower White's damage. When you activate Q, Aphelios throws out a turret of his off hand weapon. The turret will stay on the battlefield until someone walks into it's range, where it starts attacking the closest target, prioritizing champions, for 4 seconds.

Moonlight Vigil is Aphelios's ultimate. When activated, Aphelios releases a skillshot forward, exploding on the first enemy champion hit, and hitting enemy champions in a circle around it's impact zone. Everyone hit by Moonlight Vigil get's auto attacked by Aphelios's main hand gun, which have empowered effects. Green: Marks all enemies hit. Red: Heals for a flat amount if you hit at least one enemy. Purple: Applies an empowered decaying slow on each enemy hit that Aphelios can root for an increased duration. Blue: The initial blast deals increased damage, which explodes in a cone from the target, having the potential to do damage to people around them. White: If Aphelios hits at least one enemy, he gains 5 phantom chakrams, increasing by one for each enemy hit.

And that's basically a summarized version of his kit. Next we'll go over the weapon order I use.

Aphelios can't just choose what weapons he wants. He has to wait for his guns to run out of ammo before swapping to another. The default order for his guns is:

Green > Red > Purple > Blue > White

This is a good gun combo, but we can make it better.

First, deplete Red first, so you have Green and Purple. Then, continue to cycle the oldest weapon, until you get to White Red. From there, you want to deplete Red first, so you have White Green.

That will make your gun order look like this:

Red > White > Green > Purple > Blue

This is the gun combo I personally use. This gun combo also has some of the best synergies between it's weapons, which we will now go over.

Using the gun order above, you get a lot of flexible and good gun combo's to use. We'll begin with the combo's you will be getting first, and go from there. This also includes 3 weapon combo's, which describes a combo that uses 3 guns by having one gun at low ammo, so it will switch with the next gun in line.

Green Red

This combo is what you always start the game with. It's a good combo in the early game, as it let's you poke your laner with Green and sustain with Red. Hitting the enemy with Onslaught will Green mark them for a follow up auto attack.

Green Red Purple

This is a one time combo, but it can result in a kill if your laner is low. First, get Red to 10 ammo or less. Use Onslaught to mark them with Green. Your Red will swap to Purple. Next, consume the Green mark. Aphelios will auto attack with Purple. Next, root them with Binding Eclipse. Swap to Green and hit the rooted target with Moonshot, then follow up with an auto attack. This combo does a lot of damage, and it's super easy to pull off.

Green Purple

This gun combo has good gank setup. Hitting a Moonshot guarantees a root with Binding Eclipse.

Purple Blue

Very good waveclear combo, and the potential to get an aoe root off. A good trading combo would be to Blue auto, Duskwave, swap to Purple, Binding Eclipse, and finish it off with a Purple auto. This combo allows you to proc pta and chunk your lane opponent's health. If they are low enough you can also run them down with the Purple slow.

Blue White

You will only get this combo once, but it's deadly if used correctly. If you Duskwave a massive wave, it will give you a lot of phantom chakrams that you can use to shred the enemy.

Blue White Red

If you Duskwave a fat minion wave while Blue is at 10 ammo or less, you will get a bunch of phantom chakrams and you will have the Red gun. From here, you can use Onslaught to stack even more chakrams and shred the enemy.

Red White

The most famous Aphelios gun combo. Using Onslaught while running down the enemy will give you a bunch of phantom chakrams. Using these you can shred the enemy. Remember, if you have a lot of White ammo, use Sentry for more damage and lifesteal.

White Green

This combo is one of my favorites. Using Sentry will place down a Green turret, which will mark enemies with it's auto attacks, which can be consumed to auto attack them from a far distance, while also stacking phantom chakrams. It's incredible for area control and if the enemies stay in your turret range, you can melt them quickly.

White Green Purple

Drop a Sentry down while White is at 10 ammo or less, so that White gets depleted. Your guns should now be Green Purple. The turret will mark the enemies with Green, which Aphelios can consume to auto the enemies with Purple. He can then follow up with a Binding Eclipse and a follow up Moonshot on the rooted target. This combo is good for one shotting targets that get caught in your turret, especially if you root them on top of your turret.

Blue Red

This combo isn't too great, but it has it's uses. You can Duskwave a huge wave for massive healing, and you can use Onslaught for big aoe and single target damage, since Blue auto's do increased damage.

Now that we've gone over how Aphelios even works, we can finally move on to Tophelios.

Level one, you are relatively weak in all ins, but you can poke the enemy with Green and can sustain back from trades using Red. But you mostly want to farm and stay safe for the level one.

At level 2, you get your Q ability, which instantly unlocks your combo.

Onslaught > AA > Moonshot > AA.

This combo does a ton of damage, while leaving little room for them to trade back.

Once you are running low on Red ammo, you can do this combo again, except you also have Purple to guarantee the Moonshot. The combo would look like this:

Onslaught (Red switches to Purple) > AA > Binding Eclipse > Moonshot > AA

If you've chunked them enough, this combo can kill most top laners.

If you are playing against an aggressive top laner, like Kled, try to play safe. If they jump onto you, you can disengage, then trade back while they run away from you. It's important to play safe in these matchups, as you will eventually outscale.

It's also useful to have either Red or Purple since they will help you disengage and sustain.

You don't really want to all in until you have a good gun combo like Blue White.

If you kill your laner, remember that with White, you can absolutely shred towers and take tower plates.

Remember to back early and rush tier one Boots. It helps so much with kiting top laners. Vampiric Scepter is good for sustaining from trades. Usually you will take the first turret. That marks the end of the laning phase.

Welcome to the mid game! By this time, a couple of tier 2 towers should have been destroyed. Keep splitting top, trying to take as many towers as you can. If you can't push without dying, swap to bot lane and split there.

Always try to split the opposite side of the objective. If dragon is up, split top and take their tower. Either they have to send 2 up to you and it's a winning fight bot, or they don't send anyone and you kill their towers.

If you have Red White, you can 1v2 easily. Remember to use either Red Moonlight Vigil for healing or White Moonlight Vigil for more damage.

You powerspike hard at Hullbreaker. It helps you shred towers super quickly. Mostly for the mid game all you want to do is be in a side lane applying pressure.

By now, most of the towers are already dead, and there isn't much to split push anymore. At this stage, you have 2 options:

[*] Group with your team and either siege or take objectives

[*] Threaten to end the game

Each options have it's pro's and cons. If the enemy team have people constantly defending the base, then group with your team and take fights for objectives. If a big objective is coming up, like elder dragon or baron, and they have a broken inhib, it's possible to split that side and try to take their nexus. They can't back because your team will take the objective or stop their backs.

If you choose to teamfight with your team, you should either have Purple Blue, White Green, or Red White. All of these gun combos have tons of teamfight damage, while giving you utility in some way.

If you choose to split and end the game, remember that you can 1v1 most champions in the late game. You just have so much damage. Just remember to have White when taking towers, since it takes towers ultra quickly.

Thank you so much for reading my guide! I've really enjoyed writing this, and playing Aphelios is super fun! I started playing him ADC (and I still do) and Top is also really fun. I hope you have fun playing Tophelios in your games!