It is possible, but very expensive. As Heimer you should be going for quick early game pushes and turrets. Long games are not your friend, as your scaling isn't the best, so if you are getting enough gold to stack Archangel Staves to reach 1000 AP, you are playing him inefficiently.

Also, Turrets do magic damage, and scale with AP, but are affected by auras like Aegis's +8.

Hard to say, really.

What is your usual heimer build? A typical one would be something like deathcap, AA staff, void staff, rylai, sorc shoes, and either a mejai, 2nd AA staff or zhonya's for the last slot. Not necessarily in that order. This naturally gives you a lot of AP.

1500? Maybe if you were Veigar and the game was really long.

The only way to get above 1k ap is to be a glass cannon. While you would be able to take out towers extreamly fast, you would be very easy to kill and would not be able to get anywhere near the enemy or team fights. 500 ap on heim is actually decent since it allows you to get more well rounded items like rylai's, thus being able to poke more often without fear of instant death.

Oh, and turret damage scales with ap. Magic pen also helps to raise the damage.

1k ap is super insanely fed on any char, if you wanna try and get it every game you should try getting tears/boots2/deathcap then stacking aa

I used to main heim back in the day, you want to look at running something like Heimerdinger Guide

as Addison16 has already mentioned you don't need 1000AP to be effective at heimerdinger, Rylai's slow on your rockets and hitting good nades (for stun) is great team utility, added to the fact that you can have wards (turret) in a nearby bush to provide flanking (turrets in bush are a great trap aswell).

I've tried Archangel's stacking on him and its dumb, dont do it. You sacriface too much utility and survivability, you dont need all that mana and your AP doesnt take much of a hit either (considering most games don't last very long anyway)

This is not an optimal guide at all.

First of all, as Heimer you will be aggressive in your lane. The turrets make sure of that even if you don't want to be. Therefore, the best opening item for you is a Doran's Ring.

Second, you are quite mana hungry, so you are going to want an early Chalice. (Some people prefer Tears, because it can be build into Archangel's Staff. Chalice has several key advantages over, which I'll list out, but Tears is also a viable choice at this point.

Advantages of Chalice over Tears:
1. Cheaper
2. Comes with Magic Resistance
3. Immediate, Near limitless supply of mana, as compared to Tears which needs to be built up before it reaches similar effectiveness

Disadvantages of Chalice compared to Tears:
1. Doesn't build into anything

After you complete your Chalice (Or Tears), you'll want boots 1, and a catalyst, followed by Rabbadon's Deathcap (This is the equivalent of an AD carry's Infinity's Edge. Don't leave home without it).

From there, complete your boots (Sorceror's if you're offensive, Merc Treads if you're being CCed), then build your Catalyst either into an RoA (If you're offensive) or Banshee's Veil (If you're being harassed).

That's your core. From that point, strong choices for luxury items include: Void Staff (Heavy Magic Resist on their side), Abyssal Scepter (Heavy casters on their side), Rylai's Scepter (You are chasing a lot)

As for skills, Rockets are way better than grenades both for farming and for early game harass. I like to open with: WQQWQR and then from there R > Q > W > E. You may want an earlier point in E to fend off harass, but you'll definitely want to level it last.

Rockets are better from perspective of poking, but grenades allow you to survive ganks and help a lot more when you get a gank from your jungler. Plus, grenades absolutely wreck enemies like Xin or Shako in team fights and counter-ganks. The duration increase from leveling really, really helps.

Personally, I think Rylai should be the first AP item after your mana item (at least if you start off with Grenades over Rockets). The slow, even though it's the reduced AoE version, is still useful in team fights and chasing (it makes the first point in rockets a lot more valuable than it would have otherwise been). Heim's damage isn't that impressive when rushing massive AP. His utility and pushing, on the other hand, rule and should be capitalized on before you start scaling his damage output.

Heim is the first character that I ever played with and is still very dear. What yall have said as far as items and skill sets used to hold true, but after his nerf the weak points in that path have become much larger. If you start with a turret based strat at start then you will have to spend a large section of your mana on keeping your turrets up and since you only have two they are far easier to pick off. Also if someone rushes you then your turrets may not have enough damage to save you (or they might not target the champ at all and either hit minions instead or not do anything). Oh, and unless you plant your turrets near their tower (in which you're likely to get ganked, fyi) then your turrets will only be in range of about every other wave.

I prefer to start with rockets and grenades. The rockets are for farming and poking when needed (but try to focus on farming near the start). The grenades I save to stun/blind gankers. You can still farm almost every minion if you remember your auto-attack, but you use a lot less mana and you can actually defend yourself. When I do get turrets I think of them as a second auto attack to help me farm and a slight help in battle (really, 30 magic damage per hit is more of an over time thing). The skills I usually start out with are W, E, W, Q, W, E, W, Q, W. Yes, I skip his ult cause without turrets it only gives cdr, which I can hold off on.

His first item is actually hard to say. Most of the items I get after my first don't deal with mana, like rylai's or one of the rod items, so my first will provide all my mana for quite some time. Doran's Ring is still my top pick, but since it gives less mana regain now it isn't as strong a first pick. Second would be Meki and I would sit on it till I at least finish my first big item, then I would turn it into tears. I don't get catalyst since you have to rush it for it to be most effective, like at level 6, but I would rather have ap for my mid game instead.

As for spells, flash and ghost are a must for me. Heim doesn't get ganked like everyone else, he gets ****ing hunted.

A smart Heimer is almost never ganked past level 6. Even if you're in mid lane and over extended all the way to the enemy turret, it will take 3 champs (meaning your opponent, their jungler, and one of the other lanes where there's no mia call) to gank you after you flash or ghost + upgrade. Add to that a bit of map awareness in the form of wards in both of the bushes and he can overextend all day long and take shots at the enemy turret relatively unharmed.)

Rockets vs Grenades

Grenades
- Stun/Blind Effect
- Can hit more than 3 targets if they are close together

Rockets
- Stronger harass, can't be dodged without playing super defensively (Hiding far behind minions
- Better for last hitting 3 minions at once during laning (When you're ready to push the lane to the turret and start taking chunks of it down)
- Better for chasing down a fleeing enemy (Once an enemy is a certain distance away, you won't land a grenade no matter how good your aim is. Rockets will hit even if they walk out of range after you fire it)

If you have any other pros for the Grenade you should add them in. If you're getting ganked as Heimer though, you are doing something wrong. His huge health regen, Ghost/Flash, high early game burst, and consistent damage/slow from upgraded turrets make him near impossible to gank. Plus, he's an amazing farmer. Spend some money and wards.

If anything, it would be okay to take one level of the Grenade early on just so you can stun (which doesn't change with level).

Oh, as a side note, Rylai's effect counts as "single target" for rockets, so they do the full 35% slow.

@Addison

The reason you are getting "hunted" is because you aren't getting turrets. Two turrets placed on either side of the mid lane just beyond where the creeps meet naturally are enough to deter any 2 man gank attempt just by popping upgrade. In fact, once I've got my Chalice and boots 1, I push the lane hard every time there is a cannon minion coming, then follow my wave in to the tower and plop a turret right next to it. A quick shot with the rockets to scare the enemy mid away and I walk off scratch free. After a few rounds of that, the middle tower is gone. I wish I had played Heimer back when he had more turrets and they were stronger, but even as they are now, they're more than enough to keep you safe even if you're super aggressive.

That being said, I agree with Ghost/Flash as Summoner Skills, just because as I just described, I play super aggressively.