Alistar is a huge, beefy cow, a formidable tank, a great supporter and a very nasty pusher.
His main strenghth is his durability - he's got tons of hitpoints, a massive heal, lots of crowd control and a great ultimate, helping you to shrug off focus fire while pulverizing your foes. Don't get fooled by his looks - even though he wears a skirt, he's a force to be reckoned with.
His main strenghth is his durability - he's got tons of hitpoints, a massive heal, lots of crowd control and a great ultimate, helping you to shrug off focus fire while pulverizing your foes. Don't get fooled by his looks - even though he wears a skirt, he's a force to be reckoned with.
Beefy Abilities:
Pulverize is a great ability, mainly because it's an area of effect stun. You can either last hit several damaged creeps, stun some foolish foes so either you or your teammates can engage them, or stun enemy champions who are chasing your injured teammates. If you are a nasty cow, and you are..., you can stun hostile heroes within your tower range, when there either are none of his creeps around, or the tower is already engaging them. They will love you for that!
Headbutt bounces your target several feet away in a straight line in exactly the opposite direction you are facing. Using Headbutt successfully requires a lot of skill. It's also a nice finisher, especially when maxed out. This ability either helps you escape, helps your teammates escape or throws hostile champions into your team, so they can gangbang him. You can headbutt enemies right into tower range, or somewhere behind the tower, so he has to run all the way through the firing tower just to receive a nasty Pulverize from you before he gets out of the tower's range.
Personally, this is Alistar's best ability. A nice area of effect heal, which is extremely nasty at low level and keeps being awesome the entire game. But beware, it requires a kill! This ability is (besides the nice skirt and the sandals) the reason why your team loves you and why you picked Alistar. You will spam it. The entire game. And you will love it, too. Try to heal injured teammates first, but also keep an eye on your creeps' health. Since Triumphant roar has a rather low cooldown, you can spam it (especially when you get your primary item: Tear of the Goddess), which keeps your creeps and teammates alive so you can push tower after tower. Triumphant Roar excels in group situations, where your entire team benefits from your heals.
This is your ultimate. It removes all debuffs on you, reduces taken damage by a great percentage and increases your damage by a good amount. Use it to take down towers quickly (for instance if the tower killed all of your creeps and is targeting you now), or to survive focus fire/escape.
Increases the damage you deal to towers. This ability enhances your formidable capability of pushing and wrecking.
What's a skirt wearing, huge, beefy and blue cow good for?
Well, if you are looking for tons of kills, Alistar isn't your man (cow). You will kill foes, but your primary role is to support your teammates, to keep them alive and to prevent them from being killed. You will get plenty of assists and you will be the last to die - if you die at all. You perform best when you have teammates around you, but even solo you can push fairly easy against 1 foe (unless this is a pusher, too) and escape, when the enemies gang up to take you down. But try to work with a partner, since this game isn't a solo game anyway.
Well, if you are looking for tons of kills, Alistar isn't your man (cow). You will kill foes, but your primary role is to support your teammates, to keep them alive and to prevent them from being killed. You will get plenty of assists and you will be the last to die - if you die at all. You perform best when you have teammates around you, but even solo you can push fairly easy against 1 foe (unless this is a pusher, too) and escape, when the enemies gang up to take you down. But try to work with a partner, since this game isn't a solo game anyway.
Mastery trees:
Well, Alistar works fine with every mastery build, so it's up to you. However, we recommend you the defensive tree. Especially Resistance, Strength of Spirit, Veteran's Scars, Ardor and Tenacity.
As summoner abilities, you may want to consider the Ghost and either Flash or Boost, but Alistar works fine with every summoner ability except Smite. With that being said, Ghost does help you chase foes to finish them off, or helps you reach your teammates quickly, so you can help them, so this is rather mandatory. Last but not least it's awesome when you need to run away, especially when combined with Boost. You can combine it with Heal or Teleport. Heal enhances you already great healing power and Teleport brings you back instantly when you left your lane for any reasons or brings you where your teammates/towers need you.
Runes:
We prefer Haste (the red ones), Dodge (the yellow ones) and Force ( the blue ones). You can stack all kind of health runes, if you want to get a lot of hitpoints in the late game (this works very well, too), or stack a lot of Haste so you can actually deal some damage. However, Quintessences of Fortitude are mandatory. DO NOT change the Quintessences. You are a tank and a melee, so you will need these extra hitpoints at early game!
I can imagine Alistar works quite fine with manareg runes, too, since mana is a problem until you build your second item with manareg. But we never tried manareg runes, since you won't need them after your second item with manareg, anymore.
Well, Alistar works fine with every mastery build, so it's up to you. However, we recommend you the defensive tree. Especially Resistance, Strength of Spirit, Veteran's Scars, Ardor and Tenacity.
As summoner abilities, you may want to consider the Ghost and either Flash or Boost, but Alistar works fine with every summoner ability except Smite. With that being said, Ghost does help you chase foes to finish them off, or helps you reach your teammates quickly, so you can help them, so this is rather mandatory. Last but not least it's awesome when you need to run away, especially when combined with Boost. You can combine it with Heal or Teleport. Heal enhances you already great healing power and Teleport brings you back instantly when you left your lane for any reasons or brings you where your teammates/towers need you.
Runes:
We prefer Haste (the red ones), Dodge (the yellow ones) and Force ( the blue ones). You can stack all kind of health runes, if you want to get a lot of hitpoints in the late game (this works very well, too), or stack a lot of Haste so you can actually deal some damage. However, Quintessences of Fortitude are mandatory. DO NOT change the Quintessences. You are a tank and a melee, so you will need these extra hitpoints at early game!
Items:
Tear of the Goddess.
This item is mandatory and should be your first item you build. Purchase the manareg first (I think it's the Fairy Charm) and don't buy pots, You won't need them. Why is this item mandatory? Because Alistar isn't a caster and has a very small mana bar (under his skirt). This item will greatly enlarge his mana bar over time, until it swells to gargantuan proportions so scary that it makes even a goddess shed tears.
Every 4 seconds you will gain permanent mana, if you cast a spell. Triumphant Roar does not cost much mana and has a rather small cooldown. Perfect for spamming. And honestly, you would unleash a Triumphant Roar, too, when the mana bar you're hiding under your skirt starts growing permanently every 4 seconds.
If one of your teammates plays Alistar and does not have this item he / she will have a tiny mana bar and will be rather useless the entire game. Thus, I will smack him down with my gargantuan mana bar until he stops being a noob
Berserker's Greaves
, if you want some extra attackspeed, or go for
This item is mandatory and should be your first item you build. Purchase the manareg first (I think it's the Fairy Charm) and don't buy pots, You won't need them. Why is this item mandatory? Because Alistar isn't a caster and has a very small mana bar (under his skirt). This item will greatly enlarge his mana bar over time, until it swells to gargantuan proportions so scary that it makes even a goddess shed tears.
Every 4 seconds you will gain permanent mana, if you cast a spell. Triumphant Roar does not cost much mana and has a rather small cooldown. Perfect for spamming. And honestly, you would unleash a Triumphant Roar, too, when the mana bar you're hiding under your skirt starts growing permanently every 4 seconds.
If one of your teammates plays Alistar and does not have this item he / she will have a tiny mana bar and will be rather useless the entire game. Thus, I will smack him down with my gargantuan mana bar until he stops being a noob
Berserker's Greaves
, if you want some extra attackspeed, or go for
Boots of Swiftness
I'd stick with Berserker's Greaves, though.
Mana Manipulator -> Catalyst the Protector -> Innervating Locket
Archangel's Staff or Banshee's Veil
Banshee's Veil or Archangel's Staff, it's up to you which one you want to build first. If the enemy team is hard hitting, go for Banshee's Veil, otherwise take Archangel's Staff. Keep in mind that you can go for offensive items after Archangel's Staff, too and build Banshee's Veil later. It's a great item though, which greatly enhances your survivability, so I recommend it quite early. You are a supporter, not a killer, and you can support best when staying alive.
Frozen Mallet (for hitpoints and slow)
Nashor's Tooth. If you need hitpoints and a slow, go for Frozen Mallet. If you have teammates with slows, go for Nashor's Tooth.
Since Alistar is such a formidable pusher and tower-wrecker, games do not take that long. Most times they will end by the time you finished your 4th item, or earlier.
Keep in mind that this is just the way I would play and gear Alistar. There are lots of different ways to play and gear him, so it's up to you and what you prefer.
Things he benefits most from:
Hitpoints. You are a tank.
Manareg. You will need a lot of mana, since you spam Triumphant Roar.
Ability Power. Pulverize and Headbutt scale very well with ability power. You will deal some serious damage with them, once you finished Archangel's Staff. Also boosts Triumphant Roar a little bit, but this ability does not scale that great with ability power. Nontheless, it's still great to boost it.
Cooldown reduction. Having cooldowns on Pulverize and Headbutt when you need them sucks big time.
Nashor's Tooth. If you need hitpoints and a slow, go for Frozen Mallet. If you have teammates with slows, go for Nashor's Tooth.
Since Alistar is such a formidable pusher and tower-wrecker, games do not take that long. Most times they will end by the time you finished your 4th item, or earlier.
Keep in mind that this is just the way I would play and gear Alistar. There are lots of different ways to play and gear him, so it's up to you and what you prefer.
Things he benefits most from:
Hitpoints. You are a tank.
Manareg. You will need a lot of mana, since you spam Triumphant Roar.
Ability Power. Pulverize and Headbutt scale very well with ability power. You will deal some serious damage with them, once you finished Archangel's Staff. Also boosts Triumphant Roar a little bit, but this ability does not scale that great with ability power. Nontheless, it's still great to boost it.
Cooldown reduction. Having cooldowns on Pulverize and Headbutt when you need them sucks big time.
Attackspeed. Helps with razing towers and bashing all kind of things. Your haste runes are sufficient, but it's always nice to have more attackspeed, though.
