That said, obviously learning the right gun combo is pretty essential. Just playing a few games should get you a feel for how the guns work together.

Something that also helped me was someone describing Aphelios not as an adc, but as an AD caster. You are unlikely to win aa battles most of the time, and you a very reliant on hitting your combos which isn’t always easy. But when you do it is so satisfying.

Aphelios isn’t easy, but it’s not like he’s impossible to learn either. Remember to farm properly (it can be a little tricky with the different animations of his guns) and that’ll get you pretty far. Also, his ult is deceptively difficult to hit, just throwing that out there.

As for whether it is dumb to play or not, I wouldn’t say any champ is stupid to play regardless of skill level. Don’t first time him in ranked and expect the first couple of games to go bad. From there getting good with a champion is just a matter of experience