League of Legends Alistar, The Minotaur Guide

Alistar is one of the best support tanks in the game. This bull does damage, can heal a whole team and minions up, can stun and knock, and of course has a godlike ult ability, the ability cuts all damage he receives by 50-90% respectively by level! Alistar used to be an often played champion but very few are actually good with this beast. A powerful thing about Alistar is the fact that almost any other character can lane with him successfully, making team comp easier. While there are different approaches to building Alistar, tanking with him is what he is designed to excel at!

Marks = Greater Mark of Warding +.97 Magic Resist x9
Glyphs = Greater Glyph of Shielding +.15 Magic Resist per level x9
Seals = Greater Seal of Resilience +1.41 Armor x9
Quintessence = Greater Quintessence of Fortitude +26 Health x3

Explanation:
_{Alistar is a tank so he has to deal with a lot of people attacking him. Due to his melee style attacks ranged carries like to harass him in lane. He needs the general Magic Resist and Armor provided by the runes. The health qunitessences help Alistar tank longer, because lets face it a tank with no health is a dead tank.}

Alistar is a support tank champion. This requires him to be able to both tank damage, disrupt enemy farming, and of course protect allies. Alistar achieves this by headbutting people off teammates and healing team mates repeatedly.

1. Dorian's Ring
_{Alistar is mana hungry, a tank, and scales of ap. This item helps all 3 areas.}
2. Regrowth Pendant + Mana/Hp Pot
_{Alistar needs to take damage and revive it. This item helps Alistar rush a Philosophers Stone (Always get a Philosophers Stone)}

Items:

Spirit Visage - MR, CDR and 15% healing buff. Not very expensive, and synergizes with Philosopher's Stone. Now that you have Trample, you'll be using Triumphant Roar (level 1) a lot to activate it, so you may as well get more health from it than before.

Abyssal Scepter - This is your farming tool, and it gives you magic resist and it makes you more useful in team fights. Usually I take negatron cape as the first component, but I take Blasting Wand early sometimes too. Resist is better than health in a regen build, so we don't take Rod of Ages or Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

Force of Nature - By now, there should be enough health restoration for tower dives, and a 8% move speed + Swiftness boots might be enough to get by without the mini-ghost from Shurelya's Reverie for a bit longer. This also allows you get slightly more Stone money if you get this first.

Shurelya's Reverie - More CDR, more regen, more health. Don't forget to activate the "mini-ghost" ability when you need help chasing, running, headbutting, whatever; use it in conjuction with Trample, usually by doing Triumphant Roar.

Randuins Omen - If your team has very little CC, you might pick this up sooner for the activated ability.

Situational Items to Put in your Build:

DPS failure on your team:

Zhonya's Hourglass - instead of Randuin's Omen is probably the best way to tweak this build to gain AP without losing much tankiness. I don't really recommend it generally, but there are those solo queue games where your carries just aren't getting it done and you need to chip in a little more just to get any kills in before they heal.

Complete lack of AD on enemy team:

Warmogs Armor - take this instead of Warden's Mail/ Randuin's Omen. If for some reason the enemy team fails to bring any AD to the table, then this should be enough to seal your immortality.

Huge threat from mostly AD sources:

Thornmail - take instead of Force of Nature or Abyssal Scepter, preferably early. Sometimes there's just that one AD champ that's messing everything up.

(Innate): Each time Alistar casts a spell, he gains the ability to move through units and will deal 9 + (1 x level) + (0.1 per ability power) magic damage per second to nearby enemy units and structures for 3 seconds. It deals double damage to minions and monsters.

(Active): Alistar smashes the ground where he is standing, dealing magic damage to all enemies in the area and knocking them up for 1 second and stunning them upon landing for 0.5 seconds.

• Radius of AoE: 365

(Active): Alistar dashes to an enemy, taking its position, and rams them, dealing magic damage and knocking them back a set distance.

• Range: 650
• Knockback Distance: 650

(Active): Alistar instantly restores health to himself, healing nearby friendly units for half of that amount. The cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds each time a nearby enemy unit dies.

• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• Radius of AoE: 275

(Active): Alistar instantly removes all crowd control effects from himself. He also gains bonus attack damage and takes reduced physical and magic damage for 7 seconds.

• Cost: 150 mana

Early Game - Alistar is a bruiser. He shouldn't be farming at all unless in a solo lane. Almost all the minions should go to the AD or AP carry you are laning with. Using your Q try to harass the enemies as much as you can. The Q normally is a setup to engage. Alistar then uses W to knock the enemy back to his teammate so the teammate can get more blows on them. Use your E to regain health and keep your teammate full on HP. Using Alistar Headbutt (W) to knock an enemy away from a large minion will help starve them for gold.
**Make sure to get a Philosophers Stone when you first back!!!

Mid Game - Around now your teammate will need you to start team fights and help get them fed. It is best to start to build into a few items like the Randuins Omen and your level 2 boots. You should be spamming your E and helping push towers over.

Late Game - This is when your the beast. Its your obligation to your team to run into all 5 of those enemies and knock a weak carry back into your team. While being focused by 3-5 people make sure you use your ultimate early so your can live for the whole duration of it. Keep using Pulverize to disrupt enemy and use Headbutt to separate them. In a teamfight your E should never be off cooldown it keeps both you and your allies alive.