Hello and welcome to the guide on how to build Alistar as an amazing ability power tank.

If you try to find a decent tank build for Alistar it is not going to be easy seeing as how most builds for him are AP based and a lot of people just aren't good enough of a team player to build a character that exists solely for getting assists and absorbing damage for your team. This build with fulfill your teams need for a tanky character will providing you with the AP you need to still deal damage.

PROS:

Alistar is fantastic at team play and you can pulverize and headbutt any enemy back to your tower to get an easy kill or assist.


Alistar is fantastic at team play and you can pulverize and headbutt any enemy back to your tower to get an easy kill or assist.

He is great at absorbing damage with his ultimate that reduces 75% of the damage done to him and which removes all of the possible stuns or debuffs that are put on him (such as Ashe's pesky big arrow).

Alistar is also great at tanking a tower in late level. So starting from level 14-15 you don't even have to wait for minions, you can just get one or 2 team mates to help you and take on a tower on your own.

CONS:

Alistar is no good at farming. Last hitting minions helps but most of the time you just need to get some XP with Alistar and depend on your heart of gold to do the rest for you.

Alistar built this way does practically no damage. Should you come across any tanks or strong champions you can do practically nothing to them. That's why ignite can be such a great spell for him but you should just use Alistar to keep enemy's in their place until your team mates arrive.

Alistar hates 'Silenced'. Against enemy's like Fiddlesticks it is hard to play seeing as how he relies on his spells to do crowd control and survive difficult situations. Fiddlesticks makes it impossible for Alistar to do anything and you will die quite soon. Make sure you have a few team mates around you when you encounter a Fiddlesticks seeing as how your baisc attack doesn't do a lot of damage.

It sometimes sucks that you can headbutt people further away from you. Especially in chasing it can be a pane in the *** but if you have enough experience and try a few things out it shouldn't happen that often.

I use Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for some decent magic penetration, flat Greater Seal of Armor and flat Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for early game defense in the form of armor and magic resist. Greater Quintessence of Replenishment solves that mana problem.

Again I like building AP tank so the decision to put 21 points in defense was a must, but the real trick is to put 9 points in to offense for the bonus AP and magic penetration.

Pulverize is the first choice you should always do since it is just devastating at level 1. It stuns an enemy for so long that it is almost impossible for him to survive when you are paired with a lanemate that also has an ignite summoner spell.

For your second skill, if you are still full health and the enemy is barely touching you, you should go for Headbutt and try to Flash behind an enemy and throw him back to your team mate or preferably your own tower. If you are harassed constantly by those annoying ranged champions (which will happen quite often) then you should get Triumphant Roar first and heal yourself, your lane mate and your minions as much as possible but always try to have enough many to execute your Pulverize Headbutt combination.

After you have all three skill unlocked it is a matter of making Pulverize and Triumphant Roar as strong as possible depending on how much you need the one or the other. Headbutt doesn't level up as well as the other 2 do so you should upgrade headbutt as late as possible in the game. Of course as is with all the ultimate skills you should upgrade Unbreakable Will every chance you get (Level 6,11 and 16).

Flash, flash, flash, FLASH! Flash is the most amazing spell for Alistar, you can flash behind someone close to your turret, throw them in the air and then push them right towards your turret which stuns them again for a little while. Also when chasing enemies you can flash close enough to the enemy to throw them in the air and give you and your team mates an easy kill. For the second spell you can choose either Ghost or Ignite, I choose Ignite to easily get the first blood and to get that pesky little last of health away from your enemy. Both work fine though.

In a lot of youtube videos and other examples for playing Alistar you can see a lot of people failing (using spells with no flash, Headbutting away from you, missing Pulverizes, ect).

Alistar is a combo machine:

Combo 1: Flash- Pulverize- Headbutt

Flash close enough to an enemy to throw him in the air with pulverize , instead of attacking him straight on try to run past the enemy and wait for the stun to wear off, while your team mate is attacking the enemy you can headbutt him back when the pulverize stun has finally worn off. This way you can do the maximum of damage to an opponent without eventually cancelling any special skills or ultimates that your team mate was performing at that time.


Combo 2: Headbutt- Pulverize

If you are chasing an enemy or you chose want to harass him a little or get the kill when he is low HP, you should try to use headbutt and then very quickly do a pulverize, instead of headbutting him away you will throw him up in the air at the end of your headbutt. Notice that this takes a bit of practice and when you are not really good at it, it might cause you to throw people further away from you instead of getting the kill.


Combo 3: Unbreakable Will- Pulverize- Headbutt

When you are near a tower and an enemy is taunting you and your team mates. Pop your ultimate and tank the tower attack while throwing the enemy in the air and pushing him back towards the rest of your team mates and making sure that they get they kill they have all been waiting for on that pesky little tower hugger.

A last handy trick when chasing an enemy or try to run away from one is using headbutt on a minion, it is very useful to get you closer or further away from an enemy should you chose to do so. Flash can do this quite good as well but it has a pretty damn long timer on it so that can be a pain in the (head)butt sometimes :).

This concludes my build of Alistar the mighty AP tank. I hope you enjoy it, get good results with it but most importantly soak up and dish out a lot of damage for your team.

Special thanks to the Bbcode forums.