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Minion master Alistar






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Spells:
Ghost
Exhaust
Ability Order
Triumphant Roar (PASSIVE)
Alistar Passive Ability
Introduction

Alistar is tanky and self-sacrificing (within limits of proper discretion). He doesn't get that many kills - he just stuns the enemy and pushes them around places they'd rather not be. He also heals small amounts continuously.
I play mostly vs AI, so I can't say how well this would work against humans. What's different about this guide is that I will encourage you to solo open lanes mid-game and beyond - as soon as you get

With Alistar, it's impossible to make up for having no good allies. With two good allies, however, you can 3v5 a game vs beginner AI if you get two leavers (I've done this once). Usually you have at least two good players in any game, so you should be set.
If you expect to need a lot of magic resistance,







Aegis of Legion has some MRes and it's more team-oriented.
I hate giving up


EDIT: I have changed this part to prioritize Pulverize more. Upping the damage of
Pulverize early makes it MUCH easier to farm early on, and the additional damage to enemy champs is ok-but-not-great; but you should be in a 2v2 lane, and the difference can easily be the difference between an assist and not. One level of
Triumphant Roar is enough if you remember to use it continuously; mana efficiency stays constant, so leveling doesn't help any more than you have the mana for.
Buy Mana Manipulator and then get in a lane with an ally. Get either


You can spam




Unbreakable Will > Pulverize > Triumphant Roar > Headbutt, but one-point all of them ASAP.
Mid game: For you, this is whenever you get

First of all, the following won't apply if too many of your champions are dead or wounded. Don't get too far from your turrets if you're outnumbered. Otherwise, read on.
If there's an open lane, go for it. Otherwise, start pushing whichever lane your team has the most control over. Whenever your health is high, it's better to run up to the enemy minions *before* your minions arrive for backup. Once you're surrounded, hit





Of course, this will irritate the bots. If just one champion gets in your way, use


If more than two enemy champions go after you, then chances are help is on the way. Pop Unbreakable Will right before they unload their hate fest, and there's a good chance you'll be able to run away and live to tell about it (this probably isn't as true vs humans). 6-8 seconds is more than long enough for a good ally or three to come over, which they should. Even if they stay where they are, then chances are they're pushing hard anyway, and if you die, somewhere on the other side of the map, a turret is probably going down or an enemy champion is getting killed anyway.
EDIT: Another thing Alistar is good for: helping an ally take down a turret in the presence of a turret hugger. If you have minions and an ally, but you have one defender on the other team, 6 seconds of


Late game: Sort of the same when it comes to turrets, but you'll probably be engaged in team fights a lot more by then. If your team is cleaning up on the bots, then it's fine to go solo a turret.
By late game, you should be making a lot of money from assists.
1) Wait for there to be one or preferably a couple weak enemy minions. (Slay them with right-click if they wander too far along your line, of course. Otherwise, see 2)
2) Headbutt the enemy champ. You should be standing close to the weak minion(s) now.
3) Pulverize ASAP.
4) Profit. At least with AI, usually they won't take positioning into account to avoid this farming combo.
Of course, don't overextend. They will definitely get a hit on you after you do this, but you need the cash. Be ready to take a hit.
It's probably not worth trying to take the middle turret just because your foe ports out unless you have all the health and mana you need. You might be better off picking off a few easy minions and then porting out yourself, unless you're at over half health/mana. Attacking a turret this early with 4 bruised minions and 1/4 of your health and mana is pointless, and you're just a little bit of bad timing away from taking a couple hits in such a case.
On the other hand, if someone ganks for you, then they should probably go try to intercept any foe who may be on the way. Just wait until you have several minions entering the turret's range before you go in, or else you're just running in circles.
Early on, it's hard to build a massive wave of minions because they spawn so close to the enemy turret and don't get to build up on the battle front for long before getting melted by a turret.
1. You get in range when no other targets are present, or
2. You attack an enemy champion while within turret range. Sunfire Cape WILL trigger this. So be careful. Either get out of turret range before or after this happens, or pop your ultimate if it's really worth the pain. If you stay in place, auto-attack the turret and use any abilities you need to; this is only worth it if you know you can get that last sliver, and usually not worth it if you think you'll die.
You CAN solo a partially-damaged turret with no minions, but only for not much longer than your ultimate is up. Only under very special circumstances is it worth it to sneak attack a turret that much more quickly. In a build without Sunfire Cape, it might be a little more likely, but considering how quickly you melt minions now, it shouldn't be worth the trouble often.
If for some reason a big pile of enemy minions are unsupported by enemy champs is about to crowd around your turret, then you stand to make a lot of money. Do so, unless there's a compelling reason to be somewhere else.
(Added section)[\b]
Unless an enemy champ is on their last legs, you won't be killing them with this build. You can harass them and slow them down and whatever in 1v1, especially if help is on the way or they're trying to go someplace else, but you shouldn't find yourself right-clicking and standing there for 5 seconds trading blows. You probably won't like the results much. You're a team player, not a killing machine.
That is, you can take it, but you can't dish it out.

At least one-point everything ASAP, though. Headbutt is great as a utility, but the damage is hardly worth mentioning; you can take it over Triumphant Roar if you wish, though, for a little more punch (not that you'll be killing much). If you find it's a little too easy to stay healthy, then feel free to switch Pulverize and Triumphant Roar. Pulverize is good for farming, but the damage won't be significant to champions. Triumphant Roar scales with constant rate of mana efficiency, but there's hardly ever a time that you couldn't use it.
About your ult: Try to use it right before you're about to take a lot of damage. Try to be healthy beforehand - it's a waste to use it when you're only at 1/5 of your health unless there's good reason for it - it can at most prevent 3/5 of a lifebar's worth of damage in this case as opposed to 3 lifebars (that is, 4/5 of a lifebar's worth of damage does 1/5 of a lifebar's worth of damage in case 1, and so on). If help is on the way and you're stuck in a 2v1 or even a 3v1, that's a good time - if you're getting chased, popping UW immediately before help arrives works wonders if they take the bait.
Of course, you can use UW in emergencies, but it's a bit of a waste.
By all means, finish someone off in that occasional case where you cut off someone who almost gets away.
It's ok to die fairly often as long as you have 2-3 times as many assists and something very good happened as a direct result of what you were doing before you died. Remember, you won't be killing much, so the enemy won't get much of a reward.
It's better to stay alive and use tactical retreats and whatnot just like anyone else would, but if you can save an ally at the cost of your own life, do it. You're not building stacks or anything, so take one for the team if you have to.
When it comes time to start an all-out war, pop




There's a chance the bots won't take the bait; if all of them run away when you hit Unbreakable Will, then pop Ghost and chase down at least one squishy. Pulverize. Headbutt toward a friend. Smart human players will probably save an interrupt for just the right moment, but if you're playing against good players, then your team probably also has some good ideas what to do next, too. I find that AI bots will pour on the haterade and then massively regret it.
General tips:
* Headbutt healthy tanks *away* from the action, *unless they're alone and about to get torn up*. You will know who they are because they have a ton of health ticks on their life bars and they hardly ever die.
* Headbutt weak enemy champs *toward* danger. Usually, it's whoever you hate the most. You're the minotaur, so you get to choose who's getting killed.
* If your friend is trying to run away from an enemy and towards you, Triumphant Roar when they're within range, then headbutt a chaser, then pulverize.
* If a tank is protecting a squishy (a low-HP character), headbutt the tank and then Pulverize the caster if you can. This is much more likely to work if they stand way too close together. Only do this if you have one or more allies nearby who can kill or seriously wound the squishy.
* Get as many assists as possible. Bonus gold is created whenever there is at least one player scoring the assist. This money is lost to the aether if someone does a solo kill, but it's split evenly among all assisters otherwise. If you casually stroll by while someone who didn't need your help finishes off solo-killing an enemy, you'll








Soul Shard You've got Mana Manipulator. You need the health, you need the cooldown reduction. Now's a good time. EDIT: You may choose to get

EDIT:

EDIT:




EDIT:

EDIT:


EDIT: These were in the build before, but are now gone: Frozen Heart/Aegis of Legion. Frozen Heart is a little more beginner friendly in that you will have help running away no matter what. This can come in handy if you're outmatched, e.g., if your team isn't that good in a solo queue. If things are drawn out, you might like Aegis and Frozen Heart. If your team is good at acting at a decisive moment, then Randuin's Omen is probably better. If you can sucker an AI into chasing you, Frozen Heart + Thornmail can slow them down and hurt them while they peck at you. Frozen Heart also has a lot of CDR and some mana, which goes well with Triumphant Roar, which picks up the slack where Omen gives health regen. I'm not sure which I like better - maybe Frozen Heart after all. Aegis is a sort of nice compromise between support and tankiness.
Alternately: Stack nothing but Might runes (attack damage per level) to bring down turrets in a hurry. Actually, this might be better than what I posted. Try it both ways and see what you like better.
EDIT: I changed the build so that everything goes toward MRes. The items lag behind the armor rating on this front, so picking up the slack with runes is an option.
* You can farm (gets better mid-game)
* You can take down turrets
* You can build massive waves of minions
* You can tank
* You will rack up assists
* You are a minotaur
Con:
* You won't get kills except as a fluke
* Early game is a real chore
* If you don't get enough money fast enough, you won't get the

Not everyone is able to mathematically calculate instantaneously when an enemy champ is going to die, so we'll put some hits in because we know how frustrated we get when Miss Fortune scampers off with half a health tick left.
It's not kill stealing just because you're doing 2-3 times as much damage as everyone else but you didn't get the last hit in.
It's definitely not kill stealing if you went into solo queue to farm a beginner vs AI game for IP and the above happens.
Maybe in a highly competitive setting, it's important to hold back and let someone else get the kill, especially if one wastes mana to do so. But some noob who doesn't want Annie Bot to get away and scores a lucky last hit isn't "kill stealing," so cut it out with the pettiness already. You should be playing on Intermediate or in competitive matches if you want to whine about kill stealing.
The end.
p.s. - # of kills won't affect your rating anyway. Ok, you're trying to build stacks, fine. You're still being a jerk.
p.p.s. - The rest of you are cool.
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