So after the tweaks to alistar a while back which buffed his ultimate and removed the passive bonus to monsters.. alistar jungle wasnt really viable. His clears were terrible, and he was just better as a support. But, with the new cinderhulk in 5.5, Alistar's terrible clears get slightly better after he gets 1400 gold. However, I feel that cinderhulk made other tank junglers ( mumu, naut, zac sejuani) way better than alistar when it comes to mid-late game, unless alistar can stomp early game so hard it carries over. Therefore, Alistar is a viable pick now! Just make sure you take advantage early.

pros

+ Insanely powerful Early game ganks.
+ Good transition into Late Game with tons of CC.
+ Innate sustain and tankiness ( 2300 HP at 18!)
+ Aoe Heal, Aoe Knockup.
+ Absolute best peeler in the game.
+ Can carry any game if played right.


cons
- Mana Hungry
- Item dependent to fit in as jungler-tank, and since Ali shouldn't really get kills, its hard.
- Not as much DMG throughout the whole game as other junglers.
- Horrible clears until cinderhulk.
- Cant do anything by himself.
- You have to perfect him in order for ganks to work. Very high difficulty.

Alistar is very of team dependent, so there are some times when you should or should not go him.Mainly, ali should be jungling in games where all the laners have DMG even through the late game stages, and some type of CC as well.

Should:

You should go Alistar jungle when your mid and top laners do good dmg throughout the whole game. and atleast one of them has some cc. Examples: mid, and like a or top. These type of laners should be able to let you get them fed with their DMG & CC.

Should Not:

You shouldn't Ali jungle when your Mid or top laners have dmg that fall off later in the game, and have none to little CC. These examples include but are not limited to: , , , , , and in the really late stages.

The reasons are because they lack dmg your team needs late game to win fights, you can still win with Ali and those champs on your team, but its pretty hard and you would have to go ap which will sacrifice tankiness.

Ali s main ability that improves his clears. Time it between abilities to get the maximum dmg and lowest clear times, and try to utilize its unit collision passive.


Bread and butter skill. Its a 1.5 second knockup around ali which can get up to as many as you can in the area.

Use in teamfights, and with your W combo. Also, the q works extremely well if Orianna ults you with her ball on you, or if yasuo can ult in with it.



Pushes an enemy back a good distance after dashing towards them.
The dash included can be used to go over a wraith, blue/red buff, wight, or golems camp wall for your escape. Also, the W can be used to peel for your teammates and save them.Its possible to push someone over a wall if they're close enough to it.


Heals you and people near you for the half the amount
The amount you are healed and healed near you is affected by ability power, so building AP can give a powerful heal to teammates. The heal CD is reduced 2 secs when anything nearby dies. anything.


Ali removes all disables, gets a high amount of AD and takes 70% less magic or physical DMG for a while
The dmg reduction affected dmg from turrets, baron, dragon.. champions, so diving and tanking turrets with this is key to winning fights.

Items

Follow the recommend build really ^^. Its just about the best build I've found so far as not many items are that specifically good for ali's job in the jungle. I really recommend none of you go straight AP as your team would probably rage, and you'd get wrecked in fights when you need to be the tanky person engaging. To sum up the first priority item order:
I choose this for really fast engages, and good mobility roaming through the map for ganks. Even though its in combat mobility was nerfed hard, its still pretty viable. Mercs may be viable later in the game though.
Pretty self explanatory on ali. It's new added sunfire cape bonus helps a lot with clears, and the HP+ bonus HP really improve your late game, meaning you dont have to sell it.
Its a good item on ali that i recommend highly, but you can definitely go randuins or something instead if your team doesnt need the aura effects, or someone else got it.
randuin's omen cape Really good item on ali. Gives good armor and health amounts,plus the attack speed slow and the active make it even better!


Then some other offensive items listed in the build above.

Personal Favorite Runes!

I've never played any games without using these, so I really couldnt say if its better to use pure defensive runes on alistar. I feel that if he didnt have a sizable amount of Ap/ Mpen early on from runes, his clears would be slightly worst, and his ganks would just provide 0 damage. But, feel free to leave in the comments whether theres a better setup!


2 for tankiness. It can be swapped out for for Magic Pen.

7 Because all of your dmg spells use magic dmg, which is used for ganks.

9 For more tankiness, I wouldn't do anything different as this keeps ali pretty beefy for early ganks and a little bit late game :D.

1 For extra juice in ganks, you can get all 3 if you want but your ganks would be more underpowered.

2. Highly recommended. The Juice for ganks and early game dueling, and it helps with clear times.

6. Standard, but possible to be swapped for something else. I just use it because it helps negate dmg against enemy mid laners, or the usual AP mids in S4 that always carry.

I get 3, but you can go higher, same as with the quints, add extra dmg for jungle clears and ganks.

Recommended Summoner Spells

Smite Non -Questionable .
Flash Best Choice for second spell. Provided escapes, gank opportunities( mentioned in Ganking/Combo Usage. Overall, its just amazing on Ali as it can be so clutch in some situations.

Other Viable Options

Ignite - Good if you want some finishing damage for ganks, or just in late game if you wanna go offensive. Haven't tried yet though. It probably wouldn't be that good as you are replacing it instead of flash leaving you really 0 guaranteed escapes.
Ghost- Amazing for high speed ganks catching your opponent off guard, early in the game it's so beneficial to land a good qw combo! Very viable.
Teleport- Decent. It could help in some scenario's for some sneaky ganks on bot or something.

Jungling Standard Route

1. Get leash for krugs or gromp and smite it as soon as you start for the buff. Take blue/ red and tell mid not to push so you can get an early gank. Use your 2 pots to ensure you stay healthy, the clear will probably leave you around 25% hp.

2. If confident, Gank mid preferrably, or bot if they are really pushed and are kind of a squishy lane. This would be perfect for a Ahri, Kass, or akali as they are so weak early. And for bot, it would be perfect if it was a vayne, nami lane or Ezreal Janna lane for examples.

3. If gank fails, clear some camps ( watch for their jungler in the bush) then take scuttle and recall. Depending on if you got a successful gank or not, you will have enough for boots and ranger's trailblazer. Clear red.

4. Repeat the usual gank, farm, gank cycle and get your items regularly. Be ready for dragon control and teamfights.

* Remember to use q Effectively on jungle camps and time your trample between abilities for maximum damage output!

Ganking
For mid ganks, dont go through the river bush, instead go through the way past that. Heres a pretty good picture of what i mean : Gank Pic

QW COMBO

If you can get close enough, Q, and w towards your mid laner. Don't do this if you're mid laner is low and the enemy one isn't, instead do the opposite. Also, if you didnt know, about you do you Q, you have no unit collision so you can just walk right under them to do the W.

WQ COMBO

This is a pretty difficult to master yet high rewarding combo. It is basically when you use your w onto someone but before you push them away, you can land a nasty q onto them. It's helpful because it gives your teammates 1.5 Seconds for them to kill an enemy champ you just caught extremely off guard. It is achieved by W'ing an enemy, and mid-way into it you press Q. Don't mash the combo, because theres a low chance it wont work and you'll end up Qing randomly into the ground or just w'ing your enemy away and getting flamed. When this combo is accomplished, it is devastating in ganks. I advise you to practice it a bit, and save yourself from being called a noob or getting reported.

Lastly..

If you're really thirsty for that first blood in mid, you can also flash Q, which is as done as said. It catches enemy off guard and its a guaranteed kill most of the time. Good luck.

In teamfights, peel for your ADC or mid laner with W's or Q's. And most important, make sure you can land those 3-5 man Q's. It turns the tides of the battle so much, and its guaranteed wins most of the time in solo queue. Most importantly, when catching enemy champs off quard and you have a DMG-Dealer teammate around, try to land that W-Q combo, its so sick when you land it, and a lot of the times it wins games if you manage to get it on an adc.

Late game

Build a bit of tanky items even though Alistar is naturally tanky late game. Dont focus on 1v1ing Squishies, as you probably cant kill em by yourself, and most likely your teammates wont all survive without your peeling and support. Lastly, seize every opportunity to get a WQ combo on some squishy running around his jungle, it probably could win the next teamfight immediately after that onto winning the whole game. Make sure you tank turrets ( if poss. using your ult) .

Ali is very viable jungling in ranked. Sure, in higher elo people would be smarter and tend to play hide from ali's ganks.. but it still works. Provided, your teammates in lanes could help you out in ganks using baiting tools and their own Crowd Control. However, before you go trying this out, i recommend you play this in normals or something. The whole ali playstyle where you do no dmg all game really and just do massive CC is kinda hard to get used to. Oh and in ranked make sure to have a skin or else you're gonna look like a bdie. Always have a skin..

Thanks so much for reading this guide and I hope it gets you carrying your team every game, and getting some freelo. Thanks to jhoijoi for the guides and stuff. Please leave feedback, item recommendation hate comments, anything you want! Peace guys and GLHF!