Hi there, I am a player on the Garena (Singapore/Malaysia) server, and I main Alistar as a jungler, and if needed, a support. I have been very successful with this cow and I LOVE HIM. But there's a story of my hate towards him actually... wanna hear?

In the past, I hated Alistar and promised myself I would never play him EVER AGAIN. Why? Because of how much I hated his old passive that allowed him to deal extra damage to towers. At the same time, I was still quite an unseasoned player and I was not confident enough to initiate and engage fights with The Cow. Also, if one missed Alistar's pulverize or save an enemy because of your headbutt... You would be flamed badly.

I remember when I first played him because of my clan. Where I was forced to play the support role, and I was recommended by my clan mates to use Alistar. I was still horrible then, and that's how I had a really really really bad impression of Alistar.

But a few months later, I decided to try out Alistar because of how sick his previous AP ratios on his Q and W were at that time. There was a time when I just pressed R and started to proc my AP Alistar's passive on a 1v4 fight. I won. Since then, I slowly grew to love him more and thus my love for this bull and his ******** is pretty... strong yeah? Hahaha anyways.. ever since, I played him in the jungle due to his strong CCs which could probably only be challenged by Leona.

For jungle:
1. Alistar brings 2 massive CC that can easily set up kills for your lane mates.
2. He can help tank the tower to ensure the kill by using his ultimate.
3. He can knock people back into their lanes when they are under their tower ;)
4. Pretty high sustain and AoE damage in the jungle.

For support:
1. He has a decent heal that can be spammable if lane is pushing or killing.
2. Strong CCs that can easily set up kills, or ensure safety of your marksman(ADC).
3. Can tower dive for your support.
4. Alistar is pretty tanky and is disruptive in teamfights if ignored.

Pros

+ Strong crowd controls. + Very tanky especially with ultimate. + Has a spammable AoE heal. + Strong initiation with the W+Q combo. + A counter to infamous Blitzcrank.

Overall, Alistar is a great champion that can easily provide protection, crowd control and tankiness to the team. This allows easy lock-down of any single champion and allow an easy kill for the team. With the items like Shureyla, Iceborn Gauntlet, Twin Shadows, Alistar can provide even more utility and crowd controls for easy picking.

Cons

+ A melee champion. + Very vulnerable without ultimate. + Very mana dependent because of skills. + Headbutt can backfire. + Low initiation ability if no W/Q. + Very high skill based. + Requires mobility for initiation&positon + Slow jungle clearing time.

As you can see, Alistar has many challenges to overcome and is very skill-reliant. Also, one has to be able to do the W+Q combo successfully, if not you would be flamed. Lastly, Alistar requires alot of skill from the player due to the long cooldowns of his CCs, and will require good decision making skills.

for the extra gold per smite, for health and for extra sustain in the jungle.
Tier 2- is an excellent pick along with to improve your jungling time, and the armor is useful in both fights and jungling.
Tier 3- and is great. Why? Because if you survive with 30 or less hp before, thank this mastery point.
Tier 4- and similar to tier 3.
Tier 5- I prefer over because since you will be getting armor or magic resistance items, this point will easily increase the total amount AT ALL TIMES. and are good picks that I feel that are not always necessary in all games. Thus it is safer to go with juggernaut.
Final Tier- This is what we came for right?


In the Utility Tree,
Tier 1- Get , and for lower flash cooldown, more roaming ability and the little time saved each time you back.
Tier 2- Take for lower smite and flash cooldown! You may never know when you need your summoner spell!
Tier 3- And get your final point in for longer buff, always useful for sustain and ganking.

Result: You will be a tough bull that can disrupt enemy team with your skills. You will also be able to survive long enough to peel for your carries and after the teamfight and if pushing, spam heal.

For support, i take a similar 1/21/8:

In the Offensive Tree,
Take to get the extra perk of reducing the target's armor and magic resistance when exhausted. This will be especially game-changing and can help win and snowball a lane in the early game.


In the Defensive Tree,
Tier 1- Get 1 in and 4 points in for extra health and sustain.
Tier 2- Put 3 points into to mitigate enemy's adc and support's harass, and even the lane creeps. Better than .
Tier 3- Absolutely take veteran's scar for the extra hp. Take for more tankiness and in case you need to tank for the tower dive. The points in is actually pretty situational.
Tier 4- Take , instead of because you are the support, you are probably not going to be the first 1 in the battle. Instead, take the extra tenacity to get rid of the crowd control and PROTECT YOUR CARRIES.
Tier 5- Take as supports will probably die, and you must be willing to die to for the team. So just take it. From here, you can actually take any of the 3 possible mastery.
Final Tier- 21 'nuff said.


In the Utility Tree,
Tier 1- Take and which will help your early game mana problems.
Tier 2- Get your and for more vision when placing a ward and you need your summoner spells to be off cooldown as fast as possible.

Result: This will make you much tougher in the early game. Advantage is that you will be able to take more risk and engage over a prolonged period of time. This will hopefully allow your ADC to get more kills. It also gives you more sustain, just be careful not to spam heal too often.Disadvantage is that you may not be able to buy a pink ward for your lane, no GP10, no movement utility and experience utility. But I believe that Alistar should be much more tanky early game, because of the nature of his skills require him to be in close range.

Seals:
is probably the best seal available out there regardless of the match. It helps in reducing physical damages from ALL sources.

Marks:
For jungle:
I recommend: greater mark of hybrid penetration to deal extra damage to jungle creep. Not only that, but this will also help deal extra damage when engaging against enemy champions. This mark will also sync with your and

is a viable choice too, but I feel that this will only be making a difference in the jungle as you would probably not be able to auto attack priority targets in teamgfights. And anyways, greater mark of hybrid penetration makes a larger difference.

completely viable in my opinion if you are going a heavy AD team. Though this will slow down your jungle clearing time.

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For Support:
I recommend: to help ensure that you are much more durable against the enemy bot lane.

Glyphs:
For jungle:
I recommend: for the better AP ratios late game. It takes only about 7 levels to exceed . I remember that I started off with greater glyph of flat ability power, and it did well.

Another viable option: , scaling because you would not need magic resistance as much in the jungle. And your magic resist must scale harder to counter the AP carries.

For support:
I recommend: for the better heal and a little more damage in your skills.

Another good choice is: to make you more durable late game.


Quints:
For jungle:
I highly recommend quint of movement speed as this will greatly improve your roaming and positioning. With these, you may not always need as your boots. This quint is the only one I use for jungling.

For support:
I recommend quint of movement speed also. For the same reason as jungling.
But other optional choices are:
- quint of ability power
- quint of armor & quint of magic resist depending on your situation.

Summoner spells are crucial for Alistar as it will increase his utility and make plays more often. This is also the reason why I went for the 10% CDR on Summoner Spells.

Generally, I max first because of the lower cooldown and higher damage in early game.

I then usually max heabutt then last.

Of course I take whenever possible, except in situations like I leveled up in the middle of a teamfight, and I already used my ultimate.

It is a low cooldown AoE stun. Use your or something to get you into position to stun most or the highest priority targets like the enemy marksmen or AP carries. This skill requires you to have very good positioning. Use this to knock your enemy ADC into your team. Be careful not to use this to knock champions such as or into your team, unless you are sure no one will die and you can kill them. This skill is a great skill, but I max it last. Don't misunderstand it and take it as a horrible skill because I choose to max it last. The reason why I do so is because the mana cost on increases by ALOT whenever it is leveled up. And in some cases, you may not be able to use this skill. This cost me many deaths when I started with Alistar. Secondly, use this to keep your team healthy especially when sieging enemy bases. This is the probably one of the reason why Alistar is such a good tank. Always try to use this when you are CC-ed by a game-changing skill such as Galio's and prevent your enemy team from dishing out damage onto your team.

Spirit of the Ancient Golem

This is probably the best upgrade for hunter's machete for Alistar. By rushing this early, you will be very tanky and have a decent amount of CDR.

Boots of Mobility

This boot will give you the most roaming ability. Try to take this if your team needs many frequent ganks. This can be replaced by mercury's threads if you are facing an AP-heavy team, though your tenacity from your boots will be wasted. You can also take if you need the constant fast speed along the enemy team having many slowing abilities. You can take if you really need it. But i think that other armor items are better, as you need to pick the correct boots.

Randuim's Omen randuim's omen

A great for Alistar. Just headbutt or flash into the enemy team. Use Q then activate the active. This gives you plenty of health, armor and a passive that slows enemies that attacks you. Definitely get this against a team with lots of auto-attackers or attack damage teams.

Sunfire Cape

It would be best if you can grab this item early in the game as it provides an awesome passive that acts like your passive. This will greatly boost your survivability and jungling time.

Philosopher's Stone philosopher's stone

A cheap but easily efficient item that can be built into useful items such as shureyla's reverie. Grab this item if possible, and use it to provide your team with a few more wards.

Iceborn Gauntlet

This item is very strong on Alistar. This makes you a GOD of Crowd Controls. Once you complete your W+Q combo, auto-attack once to slow the whole enemy team. Once your team follows up and your skills comes off of cooldown, use the skill and whack an enemy again. This will also help you deal extra damage to towers and can help you push faster. One trick: You can auto-attack once on your enemy once you hit him with your .

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Any more items that you would like to talk about, please comment. I will try it out, and give my opinion about it :)

Philosopher's Stone philosopher's stone

A gold per 10 second(GP10) that is great on every support. Helps with sustaining in the lane and provides an income. For Alistar, it can be further built into shureyla's reverie that will give you more positioning power.

Kage's Pick Kage's Pick

Another GP10 item that provides you Ability Power(AP). This will give you more damage and more healing. If you decide to get this item, be sure to take note that it can slow down your build. Secondly, try to quickly build this into as the active is very useful especially when you use it on yourself when you are in the middle of the fight. Use the active on the initiator or a squishy carry that is getting chased by a melee pursuer.

Twin Shadows

This item gives you more movement speed and can help your team to catch more careless enemy members. Take note that it also provides you with extra magic resistance and the active has a long cooldown of 2 minutes (120 seconds)

Mercury's Threads mercury's threads

Probably the boot that fits in almost every situation. You may want to get if you need more armor, and less of magic resistance.

Locket of the Iron Solari

A very useful and efficient item because of the amazing aura. The shield active on this item can save your teammate from the pesky , just in case your heal is not enough to save them. It also provides you with a nice 10% CDR.

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Starting items: Why start with 3 green ward, no pink ward? And also, why only 1 red potion and why get blue potion?

My answer: This is really just a personal preference. I feel that the mana potion can save you and your ADC's life, in a situation where you run out of mana. Also, take the blue potion to surprise the enemy in case they thought that you were out of mana, but you actually still have mana potion. I start with no pink ward because I normally get it within the next few minutes. This will require you to play safe and be wary of where the enemy jungler is at.

I would like to thank:

-jhoijhoi for her amazing guide to guides. :)
-all who has read my first ever guide.
-(saved for future purpose) :P

I would like to say that this has been quite an amazing experience, to make a guide from scratch. It's a pretty fun experience.

Please comment your thoughts and feelings about my guide and I will make further improvements.
I will try my best to reply any queries. Sorry about my english standard...

Goodluck and have fun with Alistar! :D