Aphelios: The Ultimate Champion For Pentakills In League Of Legends

League of Legends has a long history of making champions that are uncanny and seldom shake up the game's meta. Bradford "CertainlyT" Wenban, Senior Game Designer on Research and Development Project at Riot Games 'certainly' has unique taste when it comes to making game-changing champions, and is known for his contribution to characters like Darius, Zyra, Thresh, Yasuo, Kalista, Zoe, and more. These champions make the players rethink their existing in-game mechanics and learn the newly added champions to counter them effectively in the matches.

The legendary free-to-play MOBA game has over 150 champions on its Summoner's Rift battleground, with new ones getting added with every seasonal interval. Therefore, making so many new champions without overlapping each other in unique abilities is a challenging thing to pull off. But, CertainlyT always comes up with new ideas for new champions and existing champion reworks, which keeps the game fresh and exciting.

One of the most recent champions that CertainlyT worked on was Aphelios, the Weapon of the Faithful. He is an exciting champion, and the community went bonkers when Riot revealed his abilities on the PBE server. The champion has access to five different weapons, which expire after utilising a certain amount of its ammo. His W changes the primary weapon with the side weapon, and the complicated champion has a fun and steep learning curve attached to him.

• Related: Top Three Takeaways From The T1 vs DWG KIA LCK Match

APHELIOS DOMINATING THE BOTTOM LANE IN LEAGUE OF LEGENDS

Aphelios' win-rate has sky-rocketed after the recent buffs to the ADC items, which gives him a substantial early game spike, as well as excellent scaling for the late game. Many players underestimate the damage and CC from the champion, which leads to some very easy kills for the champion. When paired with champions like Thresh, Zyra, Rell, and more, he could use his ultimate to dish out a humongous amount of damage to the enemies.

He has been a potent meta pick in the competitive leagues all over the world. With T1 Gumayusi (LCK) and FPX Lwx (LPL) already netting a pentakill with the champion, it further explains why this champion is receiving a lot of bans and insta-lock priority lock pick from many professional League of Legends teams.

His level up enables him to gain passive attack speed, damage, and lethality, which also helps the champion gain stats in the lane like Ornn. Moreover, with Runaan's Hurricane, Infinity Edge, and more, his ability to snowball the matches and wipe the squishy targets easily on the map. The different weapons provide healing, CC, long-range attacks, attack speed, and more benefits upon using them. Players can build specific synergy with the weapons to get the most out of them.

WHAT MAKES APHELIOS THE PERFECT CHAMPION FOR TAKING PENTAKILLS?

Aphelios and Aluna form the best combination of character and a fascinating choice for AD Carry, providing multiple utility options. Aphelios getting the 'pentakill champion' spotlight could be weighed to his multiple options with his weapons and the ability to turn team fights with his ultimate ability. With a single well-placed ultimate, he could root the whole enemy team or deal an enormous amount of poke damage. If the team plays around Aphelios and keeps him safe from assassins entering the backline during a team fight, he can single-handedly win.

With so much potential, many teams like T1 are drafting their compositions to help the AD carry snowball into the late game, where the enemy team has to give up or kill the Aphelios at the cost of acing their whole team by the opponent. 

One of the critical features of Aphelios is the ability to change weapons and gain new effects with his auto-attacks. His ability to adapt during any game stage makes him stand out and makes him a dangerous champion to face in the bottom lane. With so much time invested into making his complicated kit, it would be a balancing nightmare for Riot if he continues to dominate the meta, and the developers might have to bring the champion under the nerf hammer. 

HOW TO COUNTER APHELIOS IN LEAGUE OF LEGENDS?

Aphelios always goes for damage through his items, and he has significantly less sustain in his kit, except when he is using the 'Severum' weapon, which gives him lifesteal. Therefore, do not fight him while he has Severum in his kit. Moreover, one of the champion's fundamental problems is that he doesn't have any mobility through his ability, which makes him a great target for the junglers to gank.

Always look at the weapons that he uses and improvise your approach to teamfights by utilising them. It is still great to focus the AD carry during the team-fights; however, do not let him peel your team, as it is what he does best. Beware of potential ultimate from him, and play according to it to get the best chance of winning the fight. It would be very beneficial if an assassin could catch him off-guard and eliminate him before a major objective appears on the map.

Images via Riot Games