Hello fellow Summoners, and welcome to my first ever MOBAfire guide. As you already know (I hope!) this will be a guide to a jungling Alistar. You may see some things you already know, but you may learn some things also, and that's always good! Now let's not fool around and get straight into this guide!


1/17/12 Guide Created w/ Introduction and "Why Jungle Alistar?"

1/18/12 "Items" Chapter added

1/21/12 "Pros / Cons" Added

1/23/12 "Routes" added

What many people don't know, is that with the proper runes and masteries, Alistar can be a very fast jungler, as seen in this video. Play Video
Alistar is also very sustainable if you get a good leash at level 1.

One of Alistar's MAJOR advantages jungling is that his ganks are INCREDIBLE and incredibly powerful. Getting behind the opponent, popping W, pushing them towards our teammate (or sometimes into turret range, which is even better) then using your Q to stun, is very powerful and hard to counter if done correctly. This combo can be done 2 ways, the first being using headbutt and then walking over to the enemy, which is not AS effective, but still very powerful, or secondly, being able to pop W and Q almost simultaneously and not have to walk to the enemy.

When you're playing jungle Alistar, you want to start of getting cloth armor and 5 health potions. This isn't a basic jungling guide, so I'm assuming you already know routes for jungling, but common ones for Alistar are wolves --> blue OR wraiths --> red. If you get a good leash, you can lose very minimal health, however if you don't or can't get a leash I would recommend going the blue route. This is because I just find it easier. After you're route is done, you should have somewhere around 500-700 gold, depending on whether you ganked or not. Recall back and start your build for the Philosopher's Stone. Go back out and continue with your route. Once you have enough, again, Recall and get Philo and if you have enough, Heart of Gold. After that you want to try to rush Boots of Mobility. Aegis of the Legion is your last real core item. You can follow the guide and be absolutely fine, but it's a bit situational after that. The guide's items are for a bit of a tankier route. Although, if you want to go REALLY tanky, switch out the Trinity Force for Warmog's. Also, once you've gotten to a high enough level, sell your GP5 items! (Philo Stone and Heart of Gold) You don't need them anymore, they're taking up invy space, and they've well payed their worth and more in GP5

*NOTE If you are a tank, it's a BAD idea to get Thornmail. I would never reccomend it or even consider as a tank, and heres why. Many people think "I'm a tank, I need to have a ton of health and armor and just run in to the fight." Which is partly right, but not exactly. You're job as a tank IS to have a lot of health and/or armor, but the more important thing is that as a tank, your job is to pull aggro. Thornmail is just another reason enemies will not want to attack you.

Smite - This is obvious.

Flash - As you already know, Flash is a good spell on any champion, but especially Alistar. It's mainly the best for two reasons. One, because it works amazingly well with his ganks. If you can get the enemy pushed, then flash directly behind them, headbutt, then pulverize, it's extremely effective. The second reason for being good on Alistar is for the most common use of Flash, escaping and chasing. I'll cover escaping first. You may argue ghost would be better on Alistar, but usually as a tank you're getting chain CCed and popping ghost doesn't really do all that much. With Flash, you can get out of the middle of everything while gaining some distance on your enemies. The second way you can use flash to escape is a bit more advanced. Well, the second part anyways. While in the jungle, you can flash through the walls. In an emergency though, if the enemy also uses their flash, you can actually headbutt the enemy BACK THROUGH THE WALL! The other thing you could try to do is pulverize and then headbutt them back through the wall, but both of these methods are very difficult. As for chasing with flash, when you are just a little bit behind the enemy, you can flash in front of them, immediately hit them with your headbutt back to your teammates, pulverize and let your team do the rest.

Pros

Incredible Ganks

Can Pull Aggro

Can be very tanky

Fair amount of CC

Cons

Loses a lot of health without a leash

Low mana at level 1

No real damaging abilities

Cant 1v1 most champions

I usually use this route: ---> blue --> wolves --> wraiths --> golems --> red

With a good leash, you can get to red without a problem. This gives you an early game advantage usually, as other jungles most often have to get golems then recall. After this, you should go out and try to gank immediately.