***To see the cheat sheets for AP and AD builds, click on one of the other 4 Alistar icons at the top of this page!***

Hello friends, welcome to my guide on my favorite champion in the game: Alistar, one of the oldest champions in the game, as well as one of the hardest to play. His difficult mechanics, CC that can win or lose a game, and dark hidden secret combos all shied me away from him and towards "easier" CC-focused supports like Thresh and Leona, until I learned of his true potential from a friend who played countless games as him, not only as a support, but as an Assassin mid and a Bruiser top (long long long before the hype last season).

After watching and playing many, many, many games of Alistar, I am confident enough in my knowledge and abilities to be able to come out and write this guide on Alistar, not only as a support (though I would consider myself a support main), but also as many other roles, including an AP Mage/Assassin/Bruiser and AD/Crit Fighter/Bruiser! (Unfortunately for you guys, adding jungle into this guide would take up way too much time for me, so for now I'm leaving it out until I decide to do it)

This guide will be LONG and contain a lot of assorted info. However, I will keep everything that is "role-related" organized and sectioned, that way when scrolling through you can easily identify if something is "Support" or "AP Mage" related or whatever, while also being able to easily skip all other things you do not wish to read.

Keep in mind, just because this guide contains every role doesn't mean I won't skimp out on the details for each role. This guide will literally be 4 complete guides in one, and soon to be more (like adding in Jungle) if I decide I have the time to do so. If anything in this guide is unclear/lacks clarity, please let me know in the comments! Don't just downvote and leave!

Lastly, you can watch some of my Alistar play at http://www.twitch.tv/yummybluewaffle. I don't really have a schedule, but when I do stream, I'll pretty much be playing exclusively Alistar, so feel free to follow.

Season 6 is here friends, and here's the update for it. It's still early and I might be changing up some things due to the meta likely changing a whole bunch before it relatively settles down, but this guide will serve well since I honestly do know a ton of things about Alistar anyways.

I might not be streaming too often since school is consuming most of my time and I've lost motivation to climb after hitting diamond. If anything, I'll be streaming on my Gold smurf. Content-wise on stream, I'll also be teaching some cool tips that aren't mentioned in this guide, since there's a lot of weird intricate things that are too hard to explain or much easier to show by example.

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UPDATED:
-Added a more fighter-mage type of itemization on AP Assassin Alistar, since Lich Bane now gives CDR and Spellthief's Edge is the meta.
-Added in season 6 masteries for all positions.
-Changed runes for the new season.
-Tweaked AD Alistar, after they removed crit from Youmuu's Ghostblade. Added in Essence Reaver, Rapid Firecannon, and moved around some items.
-Added matchups against Illaoi.


ALSO PLANNING TO ADD:
-Jungle Alistar, soon (TM).
-General lane tip: Headbutt away an opposing laner so you can farm a creep or two and then sink back behind the minion wave with Trample. I don't know where to put this and it applies to all solo lanes for Alistar. Might stick it into "Abilities"
-COMBO: W > walk > Q- Flash combo (W to send a champion flying backwards, and then Q-Flashing on them to knock them up, OR W at a minion to reposition yourself, and then Q-Flashing for far away targets)
-COMBO: W > early Q, where you Q early enough to let them fly away instead of getting knocked up, making it a free super mega burst of damage that still sends them flying off with no chance to retaliate. It's really only good for AP builds though.
-General laning matchups for AP and AD in the cheat sheet to match the support matchups.
-General tips section, with the most important parts being How To Lane, Mid-Game/Roaming, and Late-Game with Engaging, Assassinating, Peeling, etc.
-Videos for each combo.

The fact that I'm including Support, AP, and AD makes this guide naturally EXTREMELY long.

To access the cheat sheets for the AP and AD builds, just click on the 4 Alistar faces at the top left of the pages.

To help YOU, the reader, find all the things you need in this guide, this will be the way I organize things:

1. Chapter Headings: Looking at the chapter headings in the "Table of Contents" will help you find the general type of content you need. If you are looking for Item Building or Runes/Masteries, simply click on the chapter in the "Table of Contents" and your browser will take you to the chapter.

2. Subchapters for each Role/Position: Within each chapter, it will contain subchapters specifically focused on the role you are trying to learn about, like Support, AP, etc. so as not to overcrowd the "Table of Contents" These subchapters and roles will contain a large Header/Title and will be color coded to make it easier to find when scrolling.
Here's an example header:

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(FYI this is the prettiest it's gonna look until someone sends me some nice, easily identifiable headers that are highly contrasting with the other headers, for all of you artsy and giving people out there hehe)

3. Role-Specific Mini-Texts: In sections where it's pointless or excessive or too complicated to use large subsections, I will instead resort to mini little texts for any role-specific things I would like to mention. I will simply make a color coded little mention, and then include the corresponding info immediately after.
AP Mage / Assassin: like so.

You'll likely get the gist of how this guide works by simply looking at it too!

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Also, for those of you wondering what exactly I mean by "Support", "AP Tanky Bruiser", etc., I will list their descriptions here:

Support: The most typical role for Alistar. Your #1 role is to help your ADC carry you. This means protect and peel (peel is a fancy word for protect; for example, you are "peeling" off the assassin that is currently on top of your ADC, as if the assassin were an orange peel), set up the best environment and lane you can to allow your ADC to farm (healing, warding, zoning/lane presence), and setting up good opportunities for not only your ADC, but your team as well (warding for dragon, engaging in fights/ganks, etc.). You will typically build Tank and Utility. It's important to know that when playing Alistar, particularly during late game, you'll either be engaging or peeling. You can't really do both since your abilities have such long cooldowns, even with 40% CDR.

AP Mage/Assassin: Generally, you will be solo laning in the Mid lane. There are a lot of CDR items to choose from now, making someone like Alistar more ideal in the DPS category, rather than the assassin style he was before. This doesn't mean playing as an assassin is bad! As a mage, you will try to deal DPS and CC to everyone on their team, but ideally their carries. Itemwise, you will typically build high CDR and AP. As an assassin, you'll only target important, squishy targets in fights and try to explode them, normally either their Solo-Lane Carry/ies or their ADC. Itemwise, you only value AP and penetration. For both roles, you get a huge power spike when you buy Sheen, making it so you will almost always win trades when you engage, so don't be afraid to go balls-deep early.

AP Tanky Bruiser: Think Singed but with more teamfight presence. As the name infers, you are a tank, or at least you are tankier than most others, while at the same time you do quite a bit of magic damage. You will solo lane, either mid or top (generally top), and perhaps even jungle (but like I said, that's for this guide's next update). However, mid lane is also a good place to put bruiser Alistar, and at this position you will likely opt for more damage than tankiness (like 18/12 masteries instead, skipping items like Sunfire Aegis and Spirit Visage, etc). Your role is to engage or peel, set up a good environment for your team to fight in due to your survivability and crowd control, and hopefully pinning down their carries and preventing them from doing damage to your team.

AD Bruiser / Crit: This is quite broad, since I'm including Bruiser and Crit together. While it's important to know the differences, I don't think it's a good idea to keep them separate, since the core to both builds are so similar. Nevertheless, this role for Alistar is to deal high amounts of burst and sustained physical damage, whether it be in fights or taking objectives. You can be considered an Assassin or a Tanky Bruiser, but his playstyle is quite unique so it's hard to say what exactly you are. Before your first recall, your kill potential is low, but you can survive through it incredibly easily. As soon as you buy Sheen, you can trade extremely well against practically everyone. Your mid-game is absolutely huge with Trinity Force and Teleport presence, combined with your Unbreakable Will ult that makes tower dives incredibly easy. You also will be able to split push incredibly well, since no one can really kill you by themselves and you can push hard and knock down towers quickly.

Jungle when I have the time to update this some more, will be included eventually!

As with every champion, Alistar has his pros and cons.

Pros:
Cons:

As with most rune builds, rune choice is pretty lenient with user preference. Just keep in mind all of Alistar's weaknesses and strengths, as listed before. With that in mind, I'll list all the good choices of runes you can have for him.

I'll make use of the col[/color]or coded role-specific subchapter headers here, using the same order as it goes.

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Quints

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Best Choices: Greater Quintessence of Armor Greater Quintessence of Health Regeneration

Alternatives: Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed .

Quintessences have overall a relatively low amount of options. Since Alistar is a tank, Armor quints are great on him. Health Regeneration is also a great rune against super poke lanes. Alistar is also incredibly slow, while his CC is incredibly devastating, making movement speed quints on Alistar are particularly good since they allow him to close gaps on slow ADC's and supports and enemy teams. The downside of running non-Armor Quints is that we'll be forced to run Armor seals and/or marks, so it's not that stat efficient. There are also other options like AD or AP, and it's really up to you if you want to try weird things like AP Assassin support Alistar (it works sometimes, it's really funny).

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Seals

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Best Choices: Greater Seal of Health Greater Seal of Scaling Health Greater Seal of Armor

Alternatives: Greater Seal of Scaling Armor Greater Seal of Percent Health .

Seals are one of the trickier runes to pick for Alistar. Out of all the runes, Seals grant the highest "stats per rune" when it comes to both health and armor, which is why it's tough to decide. I'd opt for Armor over Health only if you're facing a lane which abuses Blade of the Ruined King, though that only means like Kalista and maybe Kog'Maw or Vayne. For health, deciding on Flat, Scaling, or Percentage is heavily dependent on your playstyle and itemization. Flat Health best for early game, Scaling Health evens with Flat Health at Level 6 and gives the most late game, and Percent health generally gives the most health mid game but not late game unless you can get over 4.8k health, runes excluded (not hard since Alistar gains one of the most health per level), which usually means you won't have as much mitigation (armor/MR) as a tradeoff. Flat Armor is good all around but at a certain point, you need health too, since you're probably running Armor Quints, and Armor Seals aren't super efficient compared to Health. Scaling Armor is also okay if you think you don't need much tankiness in lane.

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Marks

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Best choices: Greater Mark of Armor Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Mark of Attack Speed

Alternatives: greater mark of hybrid penetration Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

Marks, as runes, typically have the highest stats in physical damage as well as penetration, be it physical or magic or hybrid. Alistar support doesn't particularly need these stats unless he's going for an aggressive lane, which is typically why I opt for Armor marks. However, many people take flat AD on aggressive supports to boost the 1 or 2 autos you can dish out when you engage in lane. Flat AS is also incredibly useful since it really helps you use the AD boost on Unbreakable Will (running an AS support page is actually good on quite a lot of people like Braum and Tahm Kench). Hybrid penetration or Magic penetration are pretty good against tanky bottom lanes ( Graves and/or Taric) when flat AD or AS won't cut it. I generally opt for hybrid pen over magic pen since Alistar also possesses relatively high base AD, especially with his ult.

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Glyphs

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Best choices: Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist

Alternatives: Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction

Scaling Magic Resist is good for strong AP mids that you'll be forced to face later in the game, but if you're facing a lane with a lot of magic damage ( Corki/ Kog'Maw and/or a Karma/ Sona/ Zyra/etc.), or if the enemy AP jungler or AP mid can pressure your lane, you might want to op for Flat MR instead. Lastly, you can throw in some CDR Glyphs if you don't think you'll be getting many CDR items later in the game, like a core build of Turbo Chemtank + Randuin's Omen + Banshee's Veil or something.

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Quints

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Best Choices: Greater Quintessence of Ability Power Greater Quintessence of Scaling Cooldown Reduction

Alternatives: Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction

Flat AP Quints = Scaling AP Glyphs at level 10. Scaling CDR = Flat CDR at level 9 for both Quints and Glyphs. Use these facts to help you decide how you want your rune page to look like if you want CDR or AP, now or later. If going Mage, we plan on getting Morellonomicon or Athene's Unholy Grail, so we'll have max CDR in combination with Lich Bane and Frost Queen's Claim. Thus, we opt for Flat AP Quints. However, if we are going for Assassin, we could pick CDR here since we won't have much from Lich Bane and maybe Ionian Boots of Lucidity, though Flat AP can still be good if we are just trying to one-shot someone. Movement speed is also good since Alistar is melee and has super slow base movement speeds, making it actually impossible to dodge some skillshots in lane.

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Seals

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Best Choices: Greater Seal of Health Greater Seal of Scaling Health

Alternatives: Greater Seal of Armor Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration

Seals give the most health per rune, making Flat and Scaling Health very viable since you always want some tankiness in lane. I typically opt for flat health since Alistar's health increases relatively much higher than most champions anyways, but the meta likes Scaling Health right now. Armor is another great option against AD mids. Mana regeneration seals are also incredibly useful for mid laners, since they give the highest mana regen per rune than any other type of rune, but you'll want some tankiness since you are melee.

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Marks

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Best Choices: greater mark of hybrid penetration

Alternatives: Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

There are many reasons to choose hybrid penetration over magic penetration on Alistar. You only sacrifice a meager 2.15 magic penetration when you choose hybrid, but you also gain 8.1 armor penetration. Since Alistar's base AD is quite high, his ult gives him lots of AD when diving, and Sheen is such an important item that deals physical damage when the passive is used, having hybrid penetration in effect will allow you to deal quite a lot more damage than magic penetration alone will, particularly early and mid game. Hybrid penetration also allows you to farm a lot easier! Honestly, it's the only Mark you should consider getting. However, I put magic penetration in simply because it does in fact give you 2.15 more magic penetration, meaning you do a slight bit more damage when you get your Lich Bane.

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Glyphs

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Best Choices: Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

Alternatives: Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction

Scaling AP Glyphs = Flat AP Quints at level 10. Scaling CDR = Flat CDR at level 9 for both Quints and Glyphs. We don't really need CDR runes as a mage since our items will give us max CDR, so we run Scaling AP Glyphs. MR is another great option if you're against pokey champions like Syndra. You can choose to run CDR Glyphs if you believe you can get a kill before level 10, which means you'll probably be sticking Flat AP Quints in your page.

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Quints

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Best Choices: Greater Quintessence of Ability Power Greater Quintessence of Scaling Cooldown Reduction Greater Quintessence of Health Regeneration

Alternatives: Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed Greater Quintessence of Armor Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction

With AP Bruiser Alistar, we either want to be tanky or focus on damage and utility. Typically we opt for tanky, but we do this with other runes since it's more efficient. Thus, we like to just pick up some Flat AP Quints for some more base damage and heals. CDR is also fantastic to let us be incredibly annoying with our nonstop CC. Running Scaling CDR is more useful than Flat CDR since you don't really benefit from CDR early game; you just oom. Health Generation is also ideal against people who trade well or poke hard. Some alternatives are flat armor, great if we want to be really tanky, and movement speed, since it allows you to move quicker in fights and follow your targets around to continue to cripple them.

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Seals

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Best Choices: Greater Seal of Armor Greater Seal of Scaling Armor Greater Seal of Scaling Health

Alternatives: Greater Seal of Health Greater Seal of Percent Health .

Seals give a lot of really good tanky stats. We typically opt for either Armor or Health. Since we won't have any armor from any other runes, it's ideal just to use Armor Seals. Take Flat Armor if you're against someone who can trade well early ( Renekton, Riven, etc). Take Scaling Armor if you're facing someone who won't be trading much with you or won't deal much physical damage. If you plan on getting more damage mitigation items (Armor/MR) rather than health ( Iceborn Gauntlet, Thornmail, Frozen Heart, etc), or if you run Armor Quints, then you should pick Health Seals. Scaling Health equals Flat Health at level 6. Percent health gives us a lot of health mid game, more than Flat or Scaling do mid-game. It also gives us more than Scaling Health if we get passed 4.8k health, so keep that in mind too.

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Marks

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Best Choices: Greater Mark of Magic Penetration greater mark of hybrid penetration

Alternatives: Greater Mark of Armor .

Magic penetration in this case is more valued over hybrid penetration, unlike for AP mage or Assassin, since we want to boost the damage we do over time as much as possible, which is basically all magic damage and almost no physical damage. Magic penetration marks are too good to pass up, even if trying to be tanky, and obviously, when trying to go damage instead, it's pretty self-explanatory why you want these runes. However, hybrid penetration is still very good in cases where we build Sheen or if we want to farm easier with the added autoattack damage. Armor marks are also a good option if we really want to be extremely tanky or simply don't have enough armor from other runes, but these aren't as efficient as magic or hybrid penetration.

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Glyphs

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Best Choices: Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power

Alternatives: Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction .

MR is important for when we are aiming to be tanky. Scaling MR evens out with Flat MR at level 8, and if you don't need the MR until then, then Scaling is a better option. However, if you face an opponent with a lot of magic damage early, then Flat MR is generally good. AP is also good for more damage if that's your goal, though with Glyphs we typically take Scaling AP over Flat AP. CDR is also a very good option if you want it, since we don't have too much CDR with this build unless we build a Glacial Shroud item or a Fiendish Codex item or Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

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Quints

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Best Choices: Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed Greater Quintessence of Scaling Cooldown Reduction Greater Quintessence of Cooldown Reduction

Alternatives: Greater Quintessence of Armor Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Life Steal

Attack speed is perhaps the best quint you can possibly consider for AD Alistar top lane, since when Alistar uses his ult, he gains 60-90 AD (basically 2 ± 0.5 B. F. Swords) but only for a few seconds, so you'll want as much attack speed to dish out tons of empowered autos. CDR is also nice if you want to be a CC monster in fights too and don't plan on or want any of the CDR items. I prefer Scaling CDR over Flat CDR since you don't benefit from CDR early on without going oom, but it also allows more harass in lane too. Armor is ideal only if you want Health Seals. Attack damage is all around good as well, but I really don't see it being better than attack speed since Alistar's ult gives him a ton of AD anyways. Life steal is also an option if you want to help increase your sustain in the top lane, but I don't usually run it on bruiser tops with innate heals.

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Seals

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Best Choices: Greater Seal of Armor Greater Seal of Scaling Armor .

Alternatives: Greater Seal of Scaling Health Greater Seal of Health Greater Seal of Percent Health

We generally run Armor Seals, since we don't have any other source of armor in runes. Take Flat Armor against someone with strong poke or trades early, and take Scaling Armor otherwise. Don't forget to grab some health items some time during the game. If you went Armor Quints, then you should get Health Seals instead. Flat health is good for early game, Scaling Health evens out with Flat Health at level 6, which is good if you are facing an opponent who has a weak early game, and Percent health generally gives you more health mid game if you decide to build some health items.

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Marks

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Best Choices: greater mark of hybrid penetration Greater Mark of Attack Speed

Alternatives: Greater Mark of Attack Damage greater mark of armor penetration

Hybrid penetration is a great option overall. Your passive and all of your abilities do a lot of magic damage, while at the same time your sustained damage consists of Trinity-powered slaps, so you benefit from the hybrid penetration. Attack Speed Marks are also an incredibly good option on Alistar. When he ults, he gains a huge AD boost that doesn't last that long, and the only real way to utilize this AD boost is through attack speed, rather than mere attack damage. But pure attack damage is great too if you're trying to do short trades. Armor penetration is also good too if you think you'll be doing more damage with your auto's than abilities, such as playing against a lane where harassing with Headbutt is useless.

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Glyphs

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Best Choices: Greater Glyph of Attack Speed Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Magic Resist

Alternatives: . Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction

As stated before, we love attack speed on Alistar. He's someone who can seriously benefit from using the cheesy Attack Speed Glyphs, which don't really give much per rune but can make a dramatic difference in fights. However, MR is a more normal choice. I like to take a nice balance of Attack Speed and Scaling MR Glyphs since it's inevitable to have to face the enemy AP Mid eventually. Flat MR is also good against annoying AP top laners. Mana regen is also an option too if you want to harass more, and CDR overall isn't a bad option either, as it allows you to harass and heal and ult more often too.

This chapter will use color coded role headers like before. I will first describe notable masteries which I believe are must-haves, then alternative viable options, and lastly masteries that are deceivingly bad choices.

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This is what I run on Alistar now. I'll explain some of the most important ones and why I chose them. I'll skip over the obvious ones which are Bandit and Secret Stash :


Some masteries are good on Alistar but aren't listed above because I personally don't prefer them. Some require an 0/12/18 mastery page. Some are decievingly bad and shouldn't be chosen. I'll first list the good alternatives:

Some masteries just aren't worth taking on Alistar. Aside from the obvious, here's a few deceiving masteries that I would try and cross off the list:

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This page is geared more towards playing Alistar as a mage, as it increases his CDR cap. However, as an assassin, an 18/12 page might be more useful. I'll first explain the choices for Mage, and then include a later note for Assassins. I'll also skip some of the obvious ones like Natural Talent and Dangerous Game :


Alternatively, you can go with an 18/12 page to do more damage outright, at the expense of your CDR cap being only 40%. This is more of an Assassin type of playstyle:


There are several great alternatives to the masteries already listed in both of these pages that weren't taken simply because of preference. Here's a few alternatives that you can consider taking if you would like:

Some masteries are deceivingly bad on AP Alistar. Don't take these, even if you think they're good:

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To be tankier, 18 points in Resolve is typical, and the other 12 points are up to you. You can also try running other masteries, such as 18/12 if you want more damage. I won't really make any other additional pages, like I did for AP Mage / Assassin, but I'll include some good alternative masteries in keystones later like usual. I'll first talk about the ideal masteries and also skip some of the obvious ones:


I did not list some particularly good masteries, either through personal preference or because they are in other trees. However, it doesn't mean they are bad masteries! I'll list the ones that didn't make the cut but are still particularly good in my book, or some masteries to try if you're running things like 0/18/12:

Lastly, aside from the obvious, a few masteries just should not be taken, though they may seem good:

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This is almost identical to a Tryndamere mastery page, and that's because this particular page is centered around a crit-oriented build, where Trinity Force and Statikk Shiv or Rapid Firecannon are core. I will only include this page because, if you plan on trying other AD builds for Alistar, like running a tanky initiate or more AoE minded, there will be too many pages I'll need to include for all the different possible ways you can run AD Alistar. With that in mind, I'll explain all the key masteries for this version of Alistar, excluding the obvious:


Here are some particularly neat masteries I recommend trying, especially if you plan on running other versions of AD Alistar. I'll skip some obviously viable ones and just talk about some that are more notable:

As for masteries to avoid, there actually aren't that many bad masteries on AD Alistar. The only ones that are bad are the ones that are obviously bad for AD Alistar, like Runic Affinity or Perseverance.

This chapter will use color coded role headers in order. I'll talk about the 2 summoner spells you should take for each role, as well as talk about the viability of some other spells.

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I take these two 95% of the time. There really is zero reason not to take Flash with Alistar, because one of the greatest things to do with Alistar is to Flash in with Pulverize, and then Headbutt a target into your team/turret (which I go over later).

This QW combo can be done with Exhaust on special occasions (mainly if the ADC or support has no escape or CC), but aside from that, Exhaust itself incredibly useful. It's one of the only abilities in the game that has pure damage reduction. It also has an auto-attack slow which is very useful against Jax and Master Yi that love to sit on top of carries.

Alternatives:

Ignite is a great mastery for much more aggression, but bear in mind that the amount of peel you have late game will be reduced since you won't have Exhaust. The spell also helps give sight of enemies when they run into bushes, making it great for chasing to land the finishing blow. It's also very effective against champions with heals, like Soraka and Dr. Mundo and even summoner spell Heal, since it halves the heals. Make sure you ignite them before they get the chance to heal!

Heal is also a good spell, but it's typically reserved for ADC's, and the second heal amount gets halved when you both use your summoner heal together. If the ADC chooses Barrier, you can opt to take Heal since those two spells don't stack, and it gives them another escape too.

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Quite typical two spells for an AP melee champion. Flash is pretty self-explanatory, especially to help cheese lane opponents and hit them into your tower with Headbutt.

Ignite is great to help finish off a low health opponent who would normally walk away alive from a fight. It also scales very well, and reduces the amount of healing your target can do, making it very useful against ADC's trying to lifesteal their health back when you go in for the kill.

Alternatives:

Exhaust is honestly quite underrated for mages and assassins. It helps keep your targets locked in so you can keep hurting them, and it helps reduce the damage that your strongest targets likely can deliver to you in extreme amounts, like an ADC. It also reduces your target's armor and MR, allowing your damage output to be increased. It's also particularly good to help peel off enemy assassins or dramatically reduce the damage output of a mage's burst in a fight.

Teleport is another good option for mid laners, specifically ones that can gank extremely well, as well as push extremely well. Alistar is both of these. He provides such an immense presence, and can apply strong map pressure with the high amount of damage he can do to towers by healing minions with Triumphant Roar, using Lich Bane, and passively lowering tower and inhib health with his passive Trample. However, the cooldown on this is extremely high, so you won't really use it that often in game.

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Again, Flash should be self explanatory. Teleport on the other hand, as opposed to choosing other summoner spells, is quite preferential. I think taking Teleport is particularly good for AP Bruiser Alistar since he can provide a lot of map pressure with his amazing ganks and awesome teamfighting ability, as well as his strong splitpushing ability. It's hard to get kills on Alistar without choosing aggressive runes and masteries for Alistar's early game and investing in damage, so aggressive summoner spells aren't useful. And since we are a tank and are more team oriented, Teleport just fits our role much better.

Alternatives:

Ignite is good if you want to be aggressive and do a lot more damage, like if you're mid. This likely means you're opting for 18/12 or 12/18 masteries and building damage (and possibly going mid, which is okay!). Ignite helps a lot to kill lane opponents who would normally walk out alive, making it good for aggressive laners and people who want more damage overall. It's also ideal against healers like Dr. Mundo and Illaoi.

Exhaust is my personal favorite for most roles, since it practically removes an enemy from a teamfight temporarily. Its high damage reduction means you can jump on their whole team, ult yourself with Unbreakable Will for dramatic damage reduction, and when it runs out you can Exhaust their carries for even more dramatic damage reduction!

Ghost is another great spell, which you would take in conjunction with Flash. It gives you a great deal of movement speed, allowing you to initiate with no chance of being stopped, as well as run around in teamfights with your Rylai's Crystal Scepter and slowing the heck out of everyone. It also allows you to chase down far, fleeing targets and lock them in to kill them. You can even use it to roam and get to a teamfight quickly, sort of like an alternative to Teleport. Take it alongside of flash, because there are still many key and core things you can do with Flash.

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Again, Flash is still extremely key to playing Alistar to his full potential and shouldn't be skipped. Teleport is also very meta for top laners nowadays, and for good reason. It allows you to base and return to lane extremely quickly, as well to join your team for important objectives and teamfights to provide them with your large CC. Alistar can split push extremely well too, as with most Trinity Force reliant AD bruisers, making Teleport even more useful to let him splitpush and also instantly join a teamfight on the other side of the map.

Alternatives:

Ghost is another great spell, and in this case you'll want to take it along with Flash, rather than replace it since you don't necessarily demand map presence (you can splitpush very well), and because there are so many things you can do with Flash as Alistar. It's hilarious because if you want to engage onto their team, you'll cast Ghost and Youmuu's Ghostblade; you literally cannot be stopped. Your objective in fights is to terrorize the squishies (think the playstyle of Jax or Irelia) by getting up in their face, or to engage and frontline for your team (like Malphite or Hecarim). Ghost can really help you with all of these things.

Ignite is another great alternative for people who choose to be very aggressive. Early level cheesing and headbutting them into your tower might not be enough to kill an enemy, and ignite can really help finish the job.

Exhaust is one of my personal favorite summoner spells. It dramatically reduces the damage output of an enemy champion, making it great for baiting out tower dives or surviving a Riven's all-in. The spell also keeps your target slowed for a significant amount of time, so it's great if you want to focus a carry in a fight.

Trying to juggle including descriptions for 4 roles with the descriptions of each ability as well as role specific leveling order would be a total mess with color coded role headers. Not to mention, the leveling orders for AP Mage / Assassin, AP Bruiser, and AD Bruiser are generally all the same.

To make things less complicated, this section will use color coded mini texts at the end of each ability. I will first list an ability, and then put in the color coded role mentions and talk about the ability in relation to the specific role, including when/why/why not max it.

But before I get into that, I must emphasize to you, when it comes to playing Support, unlike the other 3 roles, there is no ability that you must always level up first! Though I list Q, Pulverize, as the first to be maxed for Support, there are cases where you instead will rather max W, Headbutt, or your heal E, Triumphant Roar. This will be included in the Support mini explanations for each ability! First I'll start with his passive:

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Trample (Passive)

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Every time Alistar casts an ability, he starts doing this angry dance that passively causes magic damage over time to enemies nearby for 3 seconds. He even does damage to structures! The damage is doubled against minions ONLY. Trample refreshes on new ability casts too. In other words, it doesn't stack, meaning if you cast your multiple abilities in a short time, you will simply refresh the 3 seconds on his passive. Thus, if you are trying to jungle him or clear creep waves, you'll want to cast abilities at time intervals (like Lee Sin).

Alistar also gains the ability to pass through units for the 3 second duration. Approaching units will still attempt to walk around you, which is awesome because if you are peeling someone away with your abilities, they still have to walk around you (great with Elixir of Iron). However, you really shouldn't be trying to use this passive as an escape tool to walk through minions if you are being chased, because most of his abilities take up a significant amount of time to cast. I find this part of Trample only good when I Headbutt an enemy to harass and then quickly sinking behind the minion wave to farm or disengage so they can't retaliate without going around the wave.

Stats:
Support: Alistar's passive is good to help push lanes and knock down towers, but be wary! It means if you stand near a minion wave while your passive is on (for instance, if you just used your heal), you could accidentally steal CS or push a lane that your ADC wants frozen, especially since it does double damage to minions. You can also draw turret aggro with your passive.

AP Mage / Assassin: Alistar's passive is surprisingly actually a significant source of damage dealt when playing Mage or Assassin and stacking tons of AP! 10% AP each second means you can deal an immense amount of damage to your target since they get CC'd by your knockups for so long and then have to deal with you slapping them. However, this doesn't mean you need to wait out the passive's full 3 seconds before using your Triumphant Roar for your next Lich Bane proc; as an assassin you care more about burst damage than sustained, so as soon as Lich Bane's cooldown is off, use your heal for the final judgment slap! Other than that, since you naturally are building a ton of AP, it also helps push towers and minion waves like crazy as well.

AP Tanky Bruiser: Unlike AP Mage or Assassin Alistar, in this case you want to drag out your passive to it's fullest extent to allow your Rylai's Crystal Scepter to slow the enemy team as long as possible, which is why it's such a core item! The key is to spread out the times you cast each of your abilities, since the passive doesn't stack. By initiating, ulting, and healing mid-fight at the correct intervals, you should be able to get off around 7-8 seconds of AoE slows on their team by not stacking the passive. Add your passive in with the AoE damage from Liandry's and Sunfire, plus the MR reduction Abyssal Scepter, and you are doing a bunch of crippling damage over time. Plus, with the tankiness from your items and ult, it's a perfect environment for your team to fight in!

AD Bruiser / Crit: Alistar's passive isn't as useful for AD Alistar, but it doesn't mean it doesn't come in handy! It has significant base damage that deals quite a large amount of sustained damage to waves and towers when trying to push, and the fact that killing minions lowers the CD of your heal, you can have your passive up constantly as you push waves and simultaneously deal a ton of damage to the enemy laner/tower with the repetitive Trinity Force procs.

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Pulverize (Q)

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Alistar causes all enemies in a 182.5 radius around him to be knocked up into the air for 1 second and then are stunned for 0.5 seconds when they land. Though a channel bar appears, it's really just an animation. The animation takes about 0.25-0.5 seconds, meaning he can do some funny things with Flash while it animates (check out the "Combos" section and see!). As with all knock ups, tenacity does not effect the air time, which is awesome; however, the stun time when landing is affected. We like to max this when we Support and Jungle, but never when solo laning. Just read Headbutt's descriptions as to why!

Stats:
Support: Comparing Pulverize's cooldown with that of Headbutt (W), you'll notice Pulverize has a much longer cooldown. However, after putting points in Q, Pulverize will lower its cooldown pretty significantly to the point where it will match W's cooldown at 4-points. You generally would choose to max Q first if you like to pull off more ability combos in a short span of time, since Q's cooldown is the bottleneck when it comes to the CD of your combos. I also like to put the starting ability point in Pulverize. A 1-point Pulverize does a bit more damage than a 1-point Headbutt, not to mention the fact that it is AoE and the stun is longer, making it great for leashing (better than Headbutting the buff and risk sending it over a wall), in level 1 jungle invades, counter-invades, and level 1 ganks/counterganks.

However, you must keep in mind that the lowered mana costs from Patch 4.12's buffs doesn't mean you can't easily run out of mana when spamming combos. Alistar's real weakness is his low base mana and mana regen. If you look at his stats and do a bit of math, you'll see exactly what I mean. Two WQ combos when he's level 6 cost a little less than 300 mana. Add in his ult, Unbreakable Will, and that's nearly 400 mana for an entire set of combos. At level 6, Alistar has around 440 mana. Not to mention, since his natural mana regeneration is so low, it means you either don't ult, don't heal often in lane, use a Mana Potion at some point, or run a decent amount of mana regen runes. Consider this before making your choice on maxing Q first!

AP Mage / Assassin: Pulverize for this role serves a few purposes. It's actually much more CC/utility focused than damage, since it doesn't really have a good ratio. You will max W, Headbutt, first, and not Q, and if you need a detailed explanation, just read below on my description for Headbutt. A 1-point Q costs a lot of mana and really doesn't do any damage, making it extremely inefficient with mana. Plus, keeping your enemy up close puts you at risk of harass and getting outtraded. Thus, instead of WQ'ing in lane, you'll more likely just W them away for free harass and then return to farming. This is the reason to always max Q second.

However, a 1-point Q is still useful for the CC in many cases. For example, when facing any gap closing lane opponents or enemy junglers, you can use Pulverize to CC them, and then Headbutt them in the direction you wish. You stun an enemy Fizz immediately when he uses Urchin Strike, let him take a ton of minion aggro while he's stunned, and then Headbutt him away. Or if a ganking Amumu uses Bandage Toss on you, you can Pulverize him, walk behind him, and Headbutt him into your turret! Though this ability isn't your source of damage, it is still a very useful, CC-focused skill.

AP Tanky Bruiser: Pulverize, as with AP Mage and Assassin, is mostly there for the CC and utility, rather than the harass. Q keeps the enemy up close and personal with you, which you might not always want because they could harass you as you walk away. Since you aren't leveling it, it really doesn't become mana efficient either in lane. This ability typically reserved for when you want to get up and close with your enemy, be it a lane opponent you are trying to trade with, or an entire enemy team you are trying to initiate on. Since we don't rely much on Q in lane, we won't max it until second.

AD Bruiser / Crit: As stated before, Q is mainly there for CC rather than harass like W is. With AD Alistar, however, you naturally do a lot more sustained autoattack damage. Unlike before when you didn't want your opponent up close and personal with you, in this case it's actually not a bad thing since you are AD and do a lot of autoattack damage. Thus, you don't need to be as afraid to pull off a full WQ combo nice and early out of aggression for a kill. Late game, this ability is also great for CC'ing your target(s), waveclearing, and adding Sheen/ Trinity Force procs and keeping your Trample on when trying to push down towers. As before, we max this second.

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Headbutt (W)

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Alistar dashes to an enemy within a 650 radius of him, dealing magic damage and knocking them back 650 from the point of impact over the span of 1 second. The enemy is rooted around 0.25 seconds when they land as well. Alistar can knock enemies over walls, and if the wall is too big to be knocked over, the enemy will simply land in front of the wall. If this happens, the 1 second travel time and 0.25 root time are still applied, making it practically a stun. It's one of the funniest and most unique abilities in the game, as well as one of the hardest to master. Few champions have an ability like this, making it quite signature on Alistar, as well as quite hard to master. Knocking away an enemy at the wrong time typically means your team just lost a potential kill.

Alistar can also travel through walls when dashing, allowing you to escape through walls and into jungle camps if you have vision of them. He dashes extremely fast, and if you manage to hit Pulverize immediately after hitting your target, they'll be knocked up instead of knocked back (the famous WQ combo that I will go into detail later). Alistar can be CC'd while dashing, canceling the effects, similar to a Leona getting Flayed during her Zenith Blade.

Lastly, where you click to dash is where you will usually end up at the end of the dash, meaning no Maokai/ Lee Sin/ Vi effect USUALLY. However, Alistar's Headbutt is actually very very buggy, and a lot of weird things happen when you try headbutting people as they are dashing/blinking. It's actually quite hilarious. Sometimes the game waits for them to complete the target's full dash/blink before they receive the Headbutt effects. Sometimes they get knocked back and dash/blink at the same time. Sometimes it just doesn't register at all. Sometimes Alistar somehow follows the target while they dash through a wall and ends up pulling a Maokai. It can be a bit weird.

We max this first when solo laning, and it's also a good choice sometimes when Supporting, but avoid maxing this first for Jungle!

Stats:
Support: Maxing his W first gives it a whopping 275 base damage. Maxing it will allow you to take off about a quarter to a third of an ADC's health when you combine your Pulverize and a few autoattacks with it. While maxing Pulverize is more for the aggressive playstyle and pretty much better in general since AoE damage matters a lot, maxing Headbutt is more fitting for a passive but opportunistic playstyle, since it ends up giving your combo a decent bit more single-target damage. It's great if you have a jungler who can gank really well and can provide some extra CC and good damage, since you aren't maxing Q and thus can't provide another combo for an extremely long time. However, W has the lowest cooldown of the rest of your abilities when maxed, meaning you can disengage better when facing a lot of enemy gap closing potential early, or, with some proper positioning or a Flash, you can hit an enemy back into your team twice in a mid-game fight. Consider this when deciding what to max first!

Also, on a side note, it's not a bad idea to put your starting point in Headbutt in some cases. For example, if you're facing a Leona and you think they are going to hit level-2 first and go in for an all-in, Headbutt would be better in this scenario to send the Leona away when she dives your carry with Zenith Blade. However, this can be done with Pulverize too, and to multiple people!

AP Mage / Assassin: Headbutt is your bread and butter ability in lane. It scales the hardest and has a decently low cooldown, and overall is decently spammable. Maxing this first means more spamming, more harass damage, and since it has the lowest cooldown, you can even use twice in a duel, first as a WQ initiate, and then W again as an execute. In short, max this first always.

AP Tanky Bruiser: Even though you are tanky, it doesn't mean you can't cause harass damage. Since Headbutt has quite a large amount of base damage, using it for harass is still quite painful even without rushing lots of AP. Not only that, since Tanky Alistar's laning isn't as big and aggressive, maxing W means he can disengage more against threatening all-ins, since Headbutt's cooldown gets lowered with more points.

AD Bruiser / Crit: This ability generally always gets maxed first, for the same reason as listed in AP Tanky Bruiser. Even without owning any AP, Headbutt's high base damage means it's still a good harass tool, as well as a great spammable disengage tool.

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Triumphant Roar (E):

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Alistar channels for about 0.25 seconds and lets out a signature roar that heals himself, as well as all allies (including minions) within a 287.5 radius of him for half of his self-heal amount. The cooldown is long, the mana cost is somewhat high, and the heal amount is barely noticeable, but for every enemy death nearby (including jungle creeps) the cooldown gets reduced by 2 seconds. And, you heal your minions too, which can mess with the enemy's farm if you time it well.

Stats:
Support: This section is long for support, because many people get confused on whether Alistar is an aggressive support or healing support, which I will help discern to you. There's a tl;dr below too.

When it comes to deciding whether to max E first or not, "Healer" is not exactly what Alistar is made to be, and a lot of other supports like Nami and Soraka are much better at that type of role. However, Alistar can still fulfill this role decently. The few scenarios where I would choose to max Triumphant Roar when playing as support would be if the lane matchup were against an extremely poke heavy lane with strong disengage, like versus Caitlyn/ Zyra. But even then I usually won't put more than 2 points in E. The biggest reason for me to avoid maxing E is simply because the increased mana cost doesn't feel worth the amount healed, especially since it's reduced by half for allies. I feel like the amount healed with a 1-point Triumphant Roar is perfectly enough to get through laning, since most ADC players are good enough to not rely on a healer. Also, Alistar is more of an engage/disengage support, and 1-point W and Q have extremely long cooldowns and just don't do any damage at all. All of these factors are generally why I like to max E the last, since it really doesn't add to his utility and team usefulness.

But if you really need to fulfill the role as a healer, there is nothing wrong with putting 2-3 points or even maxing E! You could even put your first starting point in E if your ADC really needs it (hopefully they won't...). If you do choose to max E, you will need to keep an eye on your mana bar to make sure you still have enough mana at all times in order to be able to disengage with your two other abilities (add 100 more mana if you plan on ulting as well). Also, keep in mind that you can heal minions, which may be a good or bad thing: healing allied minions and Trample-ing enemy minions mean you will naturally push waves harder if you stand on top of the minions. It's good for pushing down towers, but bad if you want to freeze the lane and deny CS, so position yourself wisely when you heal. You can also deny CS to your opponents by healing minions just as the ADC is last hitting them. Even a 1-point Triumphant Roar can make the difference between hitting or missing a wagon minion!

Finally, to address when and how often you should be spamming Triumphant Roar, it honestly comes down to instinct and mana management. Don't be a fool and heal your ADC when he's/she's at 80-90% health. It's a waste of mana and they can just life steal. If you are both around 20% health, keep smashing that E button repeatedly! It's really your own judgment when it comes to these scenarios, and I can't set a guideline for you, but I can say just manage your mana wisely and try not to dip so low that you can't cast any other abilities.

tl;dr maxing E isn't the most mana efficent. Heal increases minimally, mana cost increases significantly, and the heal amount to allies increases only half of what it is to you. 1-point Triumphant Roar is hopefully enough because many ADC players nowadays are used to not relying on healers, since most of the popular supports don't heal. But 2-3 points in Triumphant Roar isn't bad if you need it. Just be smart.

AP Mage / Assassin: Despite Triumphant Roar being only a healing ability, it still has many uses when it comes to playing AP Mage or Assassin. Having a healing ability is actually quite useful in lane, since Alistar is melee and is extremely prone to harass from ranged AP Casters. Not only that, it will activate Sheen/ Lich Bane/spellbade, as well as reset your trample. This is extremely important when going in for a fight to increase your DPS. And, if playing assassin, you probably won't be able to instantly kill someone with a W > Q > [[lich bane combo. Once Lich Bane]= comes off of cooldown from being proc'd with WQ, you can press E and slap them one more time for another Lich proc! Lastly, it's great to use when clearing waves and camps and towers, since it keeps your [[trample passive up, the CD gets lowered by kills, and overall means faster waveclear with more Lich Bane procs and easier farming. However, it should be self-explanatory as to why you would max this last.

AP Tanky Bruiser: AP bruiser Alistar relies a lot on his damage over time applied with his item synergy with Trample. It is this idea that makes Triumphant Roar quite useful, since casting his heal allows Alistar to keep his passive up to continually deal slows and damage over time with his items. Not only that, dying enemy champions and minions also allow him to lower his heal cooldown and continue slowing his opponents. Also, this ability helps give him a bit more sustain in lane, which of course is helpful. However, it still costs a decent amount of mana. With Alistar's low base mana and mana regen, it isn't advisable to rely on Triumphant Roar and spam it constantly in lane, nor would it be advisable to max it (though two points in E isn't half bad either).

AD Bruiser / Crit: Triumphant Roar for AD Alistar is similar in uses to the way used for AP Mage or Assassin. It's mainly there as another way to activate a Trinity Force proc and boost damage output that way. It also helps keep his Trample passive up, which often will stay up continuously when clearing waves due to the fact that its CD gets reduced per kill and you slaughter minions with spellblade procs every time you cast heal. It helps sustain in lane a bit too, which is useful as a top laner, but try not to spam it, since you need all the mana you can to harass with Headbutt and eventually wear down your opponent low enough to kill them or force a back.

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Unbreakable Will (Ult):

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Alistar's ult, when cast, removes all crowd control effects currently on him, and grants him huge damage reduction and bonus attack damage. When cast, he lets out this incredibly scary but inspiring roar and becomes extremely ridiculously tanky, but not immune to true damage, so beware if there's someone like an enemy Vayne or Darius or Cho'Gath. You also have to keep an eye on your mana bar. Since your base mana is extremely low, often times early in the game you might not have enough mana to save yourself with ult! It also only lasts 7 seconds, so you don't have all the time in the world.

In my opinion, Unbreakable Will is one of the most balanced ults in the game, perfect for any Alistar build you are running. Tanky Alistar build? His ult makes him the hardest living shield in the game. AP Mage Alistar build? Live through their damage and keep CC'ing them up in the air. AP Assassin Alistar build? Remove those pesky peeler's CC and damage while you are assassinating your target. AD Bruiser Alistar? The 90 bonus AD is literally like pulling out two B. F. Sword's along with the most ridiculously OP armor ever created, turning you into an absolutely terrifying monster.

In all honesty though, using his ult properly is much more difficult than it seems. Anyone can pull out a fancy combo. Anyone can do a Pulverize > Flash or a WQ. What truly sets apart the good Alistar's from the great are the ones who know exactly when to pull the trigger on Unbreakable Will. And this means for any and all positions. Finding that perfect time to ult is incredibly hard to judge, since it doesn't last forever and you can still get CC'd after you ult. Cast it too late, you die. Cast it too early, you lose your main source of tankiness for a fight and then you die. Cast it before you get CC'd, it goes to waste. Cast it after you get CC'd but take too damage in the meantime, you die. Wait too long to cast it after getting CC'd, the enemy gets away. Cast it too early before you get CC'd, the cleanse becomes useless and the enemy gets away.

No single person can tell you when and when not to ult, and that's the true source of difficulty when it comes to playing Alistar, not just his fancy combos and mechanics. Balancing the three parts of his ult with the goals of your specific role is truly how you master Alistar.

Stats:
Support: I won't need to explain when to max it. 6/11/16 as with most ults. When it comes to when to cast ult, there are many generic scenarios specific to Support. As a tank or utility focused support, your job is either to peel or initiate with your abilities, and you can think of Unbreakable Will as a tool to help you complete this job. If you need to initiate, your ult will be there to help you absorb a lot of the damage that will result. This can be either with early tower diving and absorbing tower shots or initiating a 5v5 teamfight by diving in with a WQ combo. Or, if you need to peel and a Leona has you and your allies pinned with a Solar Flare, you can ult to remove the stun and then Headbutt her away when she tries to dive on your team with Zenith Blade, followed by a Pulverize counter-initiate on the enemy team.

As for the bonus AD, it helps a little bit, but not all that much as a support, considering how you will have basically no attack speed and you'll be mostly focused dishing out CC and tanking damage and tower hits, rather than trying to throw in autoattacks. This doesn't mean don't autoattack!. It just means your main focus should be recognizing what the scenario calls for and permits/wants you to do, and Unbreakable Will is there to help you with that. 7 seconds don't last forever, so if you're focused on autoattacking the enemy ADC under their tower, chances are by the time they die, you're ult will have run out and you will die too.

AP Mage / Assassin: When it comes to playing an AP Mage or Assassin, Alistar's ult is still incredibly useful. First, to address the bonus AD, yes it can indeed help you kill whoever your target is, but it shouldn't be relied upon considering how you have absolutely no attack speed for it to be utilized with, and nothing scales with AD. Try not to think about the AD bonus and autoattacking unless the enemy is, say, under their tower and literally about to die. Instead, focus on the CC-Cleanse. Alistar is unique as an assassin in that he can cleanse CC. And when enemy supports and tanks are so focused on peeling for their carries with their stuns and slows, using Unbreakable Will means you can ditch their efforts and keep going after the kill. However, you must analyze the amount of peel you think their team can provide for your target. There's no use cleansing a stun if another one is immediately going to follow up. But there's no use in waiting if you're just going to instadie unless you cast it. Use your instincts to find the perfect time to ult and then continue chasing after your target.

The Damage Reduction aspect is also equally as important. You'll be nice up and close with the enemy team, meaning you have to be able to live through their damage. And no successful assassin lets themselves die easily during or after killing their target. Even if you cast it early to shed CC, it still lasts for 7 seconds, meaning you should be able to still walk out of a fight if everyone is doing their job. It's also great for early tower dives and outplays against lane opponent's bursts and executes. As soon as you see Zed Death Mark you in lane, or Fizz throw Chum the Waters at you, or Yasuo goes in for the Last Breath, or Ahri lands a Charm on you and you think she's going to go in for the kill, immediately cast Unbreakable Will and get ready to fight back!

AP Tanky Bruiser: In this role, your main role is an initiator, meaning your number one focus should be on drawing in as much damage from their team as you can. Thus, the most important aspect to focus on when using your ult is to absorb damage with the Damage Reduction. You shouldn't be too worried about getting cleansing CC since you can shake off any resulting damage, so you should only really be cleansing CC if that's what is holding you back from doing your job. For example, if their team engages with a Curse of the Sad Mummy or Solar Flare, you can use your ult to cleanse the CC and then jump on their entire team for an amazing counter-engage. But generally, you will be ulting after you have already engaged, and then waiting right before they start sending all of their damage at you before you ult. Many Alistar's engage and then immediately ult, which is quite a waste since for a few seconds, the enemy team is CC'd and thus can't do anything to you. Also as stated before, the AD bonus isn't generally relevant to you, since you have no attack speed and will be focused mostly on positioning and CC.

AD Bruiser / Crit: Now is when choosing when to ult gets really quite tricky. Why? Because all three parts of the ult are incredibly important for you, unlike for the other positions. It's almost like a Jax/ Nasus ult + an Olaf/ Master Yi ult + Vayne/ Twitch ult, and balancing all three aspects is incredibly difficult. Unbreakable Will is practically like a 7th item for AD Alistar, like pulling out a Mercurial Scimitar with 20 Randuin's Omens and 30 Banshee's Veils. I can't exactly explain how hard it truly is to decide when to ult when it comes to AD Alistar because the scenarios are endless. To list a few, going in for a kill in lane with a WQR+auto combo (AD Boost), teamfighting and cleansing the peel and mitigating damage while trying to smash the enemy ADC's face in (CC Cleanse + Tankiness), or when getting ganked and 2v1'ing them and getting a double kill because they tower dove you and underestimated your power (EVERYTHING). The scenarios are endless, and it simply comes down to knowledge and instinct.

This chapter will use color coded subchapter headers for each role. I'll talk about the different items to spend the first 500 gold on, and then include items that are key to rush.

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Early game for supports in general is relatively trickier than other positions, considering how there are so many starting items to choose from. Beyond that, your build order is also highly adaptive to many things, like what you will face in lane, what you'll face later on in the game, what your team comp is, and how good of players you are playing with and against. With that being said, I'll list the main starting item builds for Alistar (I don't include Ruby Crystal-start because it's terrible), and then after, I'll talk about great items to choose from as the early game progresses.

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Starting Items

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RELIC SHIELD START

Relic Shield start is a great option if you really need to be tankier early, like if you're trying to be aggressive. It also provides you with another way to heal your ADC, though that is less important on Alistar since he has Triumphant Roar (if you were playing Leona or Braum, then this item's heal would be much more valuable to you).

If you want to rush a non-tanky item immediately next, like a utility item (maybe Ardent Censer), then getting the Relic Shield is good, because if you only had talisman of ascension + Ardent Censer, you would be so squishy you'd instantly die. Lastly, the active of face of the mountain (the final tier item of the Relic Shield line) scales incredibly well on Alistar because he has naturally an insane amount of health late game, so the shield he provides is very large.

While Ancient Coin is nice since it becomes talisman of ascension, which grants a super godlike item active, don't let this be the reason you don't buy Relic Shield first. Don't forget, there's also Turbo Chemtank which has a similar item active. This means you can reap the benefits of more tankiness in lane with Relic Shield and not be forced to sacrifice the godlike team movement speed boost and initiating power of an item like talisman of ascension later on.

ANCIENT COIN START

Ancient Coin doesn't grant any tanky stats, making it less ideal than Relic Shield when looking to be aggressive in lane. Your ability to go all-in early on, or to defend against all-ins, is hindered with less tankiness.

However, Ancient Coin's advantage is that it grants much more health generation than Relic Shield, making it absolutely ideal when playing against extremely heavy poke (like a Caitlyn and Nami). It also grants a nice boost in mana regeneration, something we don't have anymore with the deletion of mana potions. This is handy because we can spam Triumphant Roar more often in lane to help your ADC sustain as well. You'll be able to maintain decent levels of mana, and even be able to take a second level in Triumphant Roar for more heals without worrying about mana problems.

Of course, the item also builds into the amazing talisman of ascension. However, it's worth noting as I said before that Turbo Chemtank grants nearly the same item active, so you're not required to start Ancient Coin if you want an item to boost your team's movement speed. It's really up to you how early you want this active. If you want it early, rush talisman of ascension. If not, just wait for Turbo Chemtank.

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Core Items

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face of the mountaintalisman of ascension

Aside from the fact that you can choose only one between talisman of ascension and face of the mountain, more likely than not you will be buying everything listed here at least once per game.

- Sightstone: Pretty much synonymous with the role of Support. Not much to say that isn't obvious. It saves you money in the long run, makes you tankier, and gives you lots of vision. Just overall the best item for supports in the game. One conundrum you will likely face is when you get back to base for the first time with 800-1200 gold and deciding whether to buy your second-tier support item ( Nomad's Medallion/ targon's brace) or a Sightstone. It's up to you. Just, PLEASE don't upgrade to Ruby Sightstone yet. Your money is much better spent elsewhere. You don't have any item actives yet. Wait until you have like Mikael's Blessing or something like that with a long cooldown before you upgrade.

- Sweeping Lens: There's no reason not to pick up a Sweeping Lens when you buy your Sightstone, since you'll be getting free wards from the Sightstone anyways. Denying vision is an incredibly vital and underrated part of the game. Not to mention, clearing wards gives you more gold! Keep in mind, Sweeping Lens does not give true sight, which means you can't use it to de-stealth an enemy Akali in her Twilight Shroud or anything like that.

- talisman of ascension/ face of the mountain: Try to finish building your support item as soon as possible, because these two items provide an incredible amount of usefulness overall. I recommend getting these immediately after getting Sightstone, with buying tier-2 boots before as the only exception. With Talisman, you can get really aggressive in lane by popping the active, sprinting up to your targets, and then using Pulverize, letting you use your Headbutt for something other than as a gap closer (like, hitting them into your tower/jungler/a wall to keep them stunned and out of position. face of the mountain is incredibly good since it gives your allies a HUGE shield, since Alistar's base health is so enormously immense.

- Glacial Shroud/ Kindlegem: Early, cheap CDR and tanky items are incredibly useful for CC focused supports like Alistar. I personally think Glacial Shroud is one of the best items for Alistar to rush. Every single stat that this item gives is just so useful and core to Alistar, and it's incredibly cheap to buy too. More mana means more opportunities to use your abilities without running out of mana. More CDR means faster spamming and more CC. More armor means you're even harder to kill. And it builds into several items that Alistar can utilize incredibly well ( Zeke's Harbinger, Iceborn Gauntlet, and Frozen Heart. Kindlegem is another alternative to cheap tanky CDR if you think you'd prefer health over armor/mana, and it builds into all sorts of useful items later that Alistar can use ( face of the mountain, Locket of the Iron Solari, Spirit Visage). Not to mention, it's cheaper than Glacial Shroud! If you're ever lost when it comes to what to build after Sightstone and talisman of ascension/ face of the mountain, you can't go wrong with either of these items.

- Vision Ward: These wards are incredibly essential to the support role. Well placed pinks can often go unnoticed, and pink wards are basically claims of territory on the map. The fact that they last until killed really makes them worth buying, though remember you can only have one live pink ward. Especially early game when no one has attack speed, killing Vision Wards is often a very difficult task, especially well placed wards in hot, contestable areas. Careless enemies can often be baited into trying to kill pink wards and end up paying with their lives. Pinks are also really cheap, so there's no excuse not to buy one or two. Don't be afraid to put drop them in front of dragon, by your buffs, in the tri/river bush, lane bushes, in the middle of your team if there's an enemy Twitch or Vayne.

- Oracle Lens: This item is core if you plan on trying to clear out a large amount of wards. It's handy since it follows you, meaning you can scan more than one place at a time.

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As implied by the title, there is a Mage build path and an Assassin build path. They are highly similar, though the Mage path is more along the lines of a mage-fighter with lots of CDR so you can heavily CC the enemy team while doing tons of damage to them. The Assassin path is more focused on quick burst and one-shotting. However, the roles are so similar that there's no point separating the item choices, so I'll just list all of them.

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Starting Items

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Typical Start

Alternate Start

Unfavorable/Sustain Start

Alistar's starting item choices aren't much different than any other solo laning AP champion. Spellthief's Edge is great since it gives you a significant amount of gold generation for cheap, which is ideal since it takes quite a bit of time for AP champions to ramp up in damage. It also builds into Frost Queen's Claim, which has one of the best item actives in the game.

Doran's Ring is incredibly efficient in that it gives you quite a decently large amount of AP, a bit of health, and good amounts of mana regen. It's a great all-around starting item to pick up since it strengthens a lot of stats for an incredibly cheap price. It's ideal for if you think you can get a kill in lane early. You can even grab 2 of these if you want some more nice stats for cheap, particularly if you want more mana regen without buying a regen item.

If you yourself are not used to playing a melee champion versus a poke champ like Ziggs or Syndra who can poke you heavily throughout laning phase, or think you'd like some nice sustain and a good mana boost for more opportunities in lane for harass/kills, Corrupting Potion is another great and cost-efficient option. However, Corrupting Potion's usefulness falls off relatively quickly as you continue to level up, whereas the other two options remain useful throughout the game. Not only that, Triumphant Roar can also be used to help sustain against poke.

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Rush Sheen!

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Sheen is your best friend during laning phase. It makes laning quite a bit easier since you get a decent mana boost as well as better trade potential. Alistar also possesses really high base AD, which is the reason we aren't in a rush to build this into Lich Bane just yet. This item grants you a huge power spike so don't be afraid to fight early!

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Frost Queen's Claim (only if you bought Spellthief's Edge first)

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It should be obvious that there's no reason to buy this item unless you started Spellthief's Edge. Finish this item as soon as possible so you can pin far away targets down, making it easy to engage and CC them for big fights and big plays. You also will get a nice bit of CDR so you can spam abilities much more often, which is ideal for playing Alistar like a fighter mage.

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CDR Items (Mage)

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As I stated before, it's optional to grab some CDR if you're looking to be more mage-like so you can spam more abilities and do more DPS. It means your burst damage is a little hindered and your power spike is pushed back to later, but the nice thing is these items are pretty cheap and CDR means you can become a walking bounce house.

- Morellonomicon: The cheaper of the two CDR items, it also grants 20 more AP. You'll generally want to grab this over Athene's Unholy Grail unless you think you need the magic resist or more mana regen.

- Athene's Unholy Grail: The only time you'll ever choose this over Morellonomicon is if you think you need the 25 bonus magic resist. It's a bit more expensive and gives less AP, so overall you fall relatively behind in damage, but if you think it's worth, then grab it!

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Luden's Tempest (Assassin)

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This is one of the most hilarious items to get on Alistar. It gives you a big burst of damage with your Headbutt, which is incredibly annoying for enemies because there is literally nothing that can be done against this harass. It also lets us move super fast, particularly in conjunction with Lich Bane, which is what we love. This item is great on champions who don't really have the best ratios, since it adds another "ability" which AP scales off of. It's also good on assassins mid game, which is when you should be ganking.

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Lich Bane (Always get)

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Lich Bane gives you a huge power spike. Now, you can pretty much fight any mid-laner at this point, since your upfront burst is insanely high. We can move insanely fast too! Don't forget its 2 second cooldown, which means you'll have to wait on casting Triumphant Roar or Unbreakable Will for the second proc when you engage.

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Alistar in general has a bit of a tough time with solo laning at the earliest levels, making defensive/sustain-minded starts highly preferable. Also, early items choices generally fluctuate quite a bit more for tanks than for other types of champions. However, for Alistar, you are generally going to focus on early mana/mana regen, since mana is so dire to Alistar's power and lane presence/sustain. I'll list here the many options you'd generally try to get early on, as well as which scenarios you'll opt for one item over another.

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Starting Items

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Typical Start

Unfavorable/Sustain Start #1

Unfavorable/Sustain Start #2

As an AP champion, you will typically be running Doran's Ring at the beginning. If your matchup is someone who will heavily harass you (someone like Quinn), you can consider grabbing a Doran's Shield. And lastly, if you believe you will need some extra mana during laning phase to help disengage any heavy trades (such as versus a Fiora or Renekton), you can consider grabbing a Corrupting Potion.

Doran's Ring is extremely useful for most matchups, since it grants you basically everything you need. There's a nice AP boost, some decent mana regeneration, and a good chunk of health. All of these stats remain useful for you throughout the game, making this item extremely efficient!

Doran's Shield is helpful when facing a lot of autoattack damage, since it negates a significant amount of the damage, as well as grants you a large amount of early health and regeneration. With this item, you can be a lot less afraid of going in to farm, since you can tank and sustain through most of the harass.

Lastly, Corrupting Potion is quite a good starting item, but you only really want to use it if you think you need mana in lane. This item grants a significant amount of mana, making it useful if you believe you will need to use your Headbutt or Pulverize often in lane. This would be in cases where the enemy will try to frequently trade with you and you'll need some spammable disengage. This is different than harass, which is basically unavoidable damage. This is also useful if you think you will want to engage on the enemy for trades frequently, since you will be able to use your potion for more mana.

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Mana/Mana Regen

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catalyst the protector

Usually immediately, you will want to rush some form of mana/mana regen. The reason is that since we likely won't be rushing any of our power-spiking items like in the other solo-laning builds, we want some tankiness and/or sustain. Alistar's sustain largely stems from his mana pool or mana regen, since he needs mana to use Triumphant Roar as well as to disengage trades with Headbutt. The type of mana/mana regen item you pick up will heavily depend on what your matchup is and what your team needs. I will emphasize this in bold for each item. Particularly, you'll need to take into account what the item builds into and what niche they fill. There are also cases where we might want to take more than one or two of these, but please be smart about it.

- Sheen: Not too atypical from the other builds, Sheen is just a great item in general for Alistar. Overall, this item simply provides Alistar with much more lane presence and trading potential, while at the same time giving him a respectable amount of mana. However, this is not an absolute must-buy, unlike for other builds, because autoattack damage is often not your biggest priority. You can often just skip this item entirely, unless lane presence, trading and harass potential, and an Iceborn Gauntlet is what you desire.

- Glacial Shroud: This item is great if you or your team needs armor. The CDR is also very useful to let you spam things like Triumphant Roar or Headbutt more often. The amount of mana it gives is quite good overall. Really, there's nothing bad to say about this item, but you should only get it if you need armor and/or CDR.

- Chalice of Harmony: Though Chalice is mainly known for its mana regen, the main reason you will pick Chalice over other items would be because you need magic resist along with AP and CDR later on. This particularly would be ideal when facing champions like Ryze or Teemo in lane, or if you're mid and facing a mage, or if you just want an item later on that grants lots of CDR.

- catalyst the protector: This item is one of the best items in terms of sustain and tankiness to champions who also desire AP. Overall, this is the type of item you'd rush if you really want brute tankiness, health, and sustain. You'll also have the option of buying either Rod of Ages for more AP or Turbo Chemtank for more engage power. If you decide to get Rod of Ages,get it before Rylai's Crystal Scepter, your core item that I will talk about later.

- Tear of the Goddess: Tear doesn't provide any defensive stats at all, but it gives you an incredibly cost-efficient source of mana regen and mana. The main reason you will want to get this item though is because you just want pure late game AP, because it builds into Archangel's Staff and eventually into Seraph's Embrace, which shouldn't take too long since Alistar's abilities are actually surprisingly spammable. And with Seraph's, you get the highest amount of AP that any item in the game provides (aside from Deathcap but only after you stack a bunch of AP), making it a great buy if you just want to do tons of damage at the cost of some tankiness, at least up until you get Seraph's and can use the active, but that takes a long time.

- Forbidden Idol: This item is extremely situational. It practically gives nothing in terms of defense or offense, but the items it builds into are some of the most unique, utility-based items in the game. In fact, I would only advise getting this item if you're facing some unique situation that requires special utility, like if you need a Morellonomicon for an enemy Swain, or Ardent Censer for your ADC and Irelia/ Master Yi/other autoattack-reliant champion. You won't often get this item, but it doesn't mean it should be crossed off your list.

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Core Item: Rylai's

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This item is absolutely core on Alistar when making him into an AP Tanky Bruiser. This item works with Trample, meaning if you engage on the enemy team, you can literally slow their entire team. Pop Unbreakable Will for 3 more seconds of slow, then pop Triumphant Roar for ANOTHER 3 more seconds of slow. Not only that, the item grants you an incredibly large amount of health, and it also works incredibly well with Liandry's Torment (though I don't list this item as an absolute core because sometimes you'll simply value pure tankiness over tanky damage, since you already have Rylai's as your tanky damage item). Lastly, it makes your disengage with Headbutt incredibly strong since they'll be slowed after being hit away, meaning there's no way they can chase you.

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As a solo laner, Alistar is relatively weak and does not trade well particularly during the earliest of levels. This is the reason why we start with defensive items rather than offensive. However, once we get our items, we quickly become an incredibly strong laner with annoying harass and outtrading potential by using Headbutt freely and repeatedly. I'll list what we'll typically start with and what these core items are and why.

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Starting Items

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Typical Start #1 Typical Start #3

Typical Start #2 Typical Start #4

Doran's Shield is great for many top laners who have a bit of a rough time at the earliest of levels like Alistar, since it gives unrivaled early game tanky stats. Its passive block from autoattack AND single-target spell damage, high amounts of health and health regen, and cheap price are all extremely attractive and useful, making this a great option for general matchups that you think you really won't be winning at the earliest of levels.

Corrupting Potion start is another great start, but particularly only for certain situations. Typically, you will pick this item up mainly for the mana regen. Spamming Headbutt in lane is a lot of fun and is incredibly painful/annoying for your lane opponent, but it costs quite a decent amount of mana. Corrupting Potion will be there to help you harass more often and eventually engage since it gives you quite a decent source of mana, making the item a more aggressive-minded start. And even if you know that the earliest of levels usually won't spell out a kill, Corrupting Potion is still decently useful in the later levels, like when you need mana to dive with your ult. I like to take this against squishy caster top laners who build mainly damage, like Riven or Ryze, because I know I can usually kill them if I spam Headbutt enough.

Cloth Armor and four Health Potions is a decent start as well, but keep in mind you might not be building it into anything for a while, since Frozen Heart is probably either our 3rd or 4th item. However, this is great for when you need some armor against someone like Riven, as well as the ability to stay in lane for a while with the abundance of red potions.

Long Sword and three Health Potions is great for getting a nice start on building your Trinity Force. This allows you to farm easier too. Only go this route if you don't think you need early tankiness or sustain and think you will benefit from getting your first item sooner, such as if you know you will spike equally or harder than your opponent after your first item.

I don't advise getting Doran's Blade or Doran's Ring to start off. Doran's Blade is particularly good for aggressive, dominant early laners who also enjoy the life steal, which Alistar isn't, and he can't optimize any of its stats. Doran's Ring is also very cost inefficient for AD Alistar since he doesn't need the AP. The mana regen is useful, but not that useful on AD Alistar since he's not absolutely mana starving like Warwick-top since spamming Headbutt is incredibly inefficient with mana, and he has Teleport to help him get back to lane anyways.

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RUSH SHEEN

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Once you get Sheen, you instantly become much stronger, largely increasing your overall damage output and trading potential. If your opponent accidentally walks by a wall, they'll be in the perfect position for a W-autoattack combo, and it makes farming under your tower a piece of cake. You'll also be able to trade much easier by using your Pulverize when your opponent engages, allowing you to get a Sheen proc off with a couple of autos before using Headbutt to disengage. The mana this item gives you also means more chances to harass and more opportunities to kill.

There is literally no item you should be considering to get first other than this item. You don't need sustain because you have Triumphant Roar, and you generally don't need tanky items just yet unless you are just incredibly behind (then pick up a Cloth Armor or Null-Magic Mantle on your first back instead). The mana it provides and the damage it lets you deal for free in trades is literally what makes Alistar's laning phase not terrible.

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Core Item: Trinity Force

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This item is a no exception must-have. This item grants you tons of stats that are extremely useful. Alistar possesses high base AD, making this item extremely efficient on him. You'll be able to duel against people easily, CC'ing them while trading and getting several Trinity Force empowered procs off for tons of damage. You can also pull some fancy combos off which benefit from all the perks associated with this item. You'll want to rush this first.

I don't explicitly mention buying Iceborn Gauntlet since Trinity Force is much more useful on AD Alistar. If you need armor, just grab Ninja Tabi instead. I would only grab Iceborn Gauntlet on AD Alistar if I found myself quite far behind in lane.