Alistar Build Guide by SwirlyNips

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League of Legends Build Guide Author SwirlyNips

Support AP Madcow Alistar

Last updated on

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Cheat Sheet

AP Assasin

Alistar Build

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Start Items

Core Items

Situational Items

Full Build Example

Ability Sequence

Not Updated For Current Season

The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.

Masteries

Offense: 15

Defense: 2

Utility: 13

Threats to Alistar with this build

Threat

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Threat		Notes
2	Blitzcrank	Now blitzcrank is really easy to lane against as long as you or your adc has no mental lapses and don't get grabbed before level 6. Another important thing is not to push hard because blitz is most dangerous under his own tower. If he is good he will time tower kills with his grabs and surprise you pretty well and there's no fighting under a tower 2v2 in lane. Once you hit 6 though sometimes getting grabbed can be smart because blitz is a big damage dealer. So if you do get grabbed and you know they are going to all in you then activate your ult as soon as you get grabbed and go onto the adc as soon as you can and you should be able to win.
2	Zyra	If played smart this is a really easy match up. First of all Zyra is all skill shots so before her ultimate her poke can be dodged within reason. And zyra is extremely squishy and has no heals or shields so she is an easy target if picked off first because honestly a support zyra can 1v1 your adc if you focus the enemy adc. With 2 plants and both of her spells she will melt your adcs hp. So the smart thing to do would be to take out zyra first unless you trust adc with dodging her skills. At level 6 you can just tank all of zyra's skills with your ultimate and then just wreck after that.
3	Braum	Braum isn't a big damage dealer so his biggest threat is his passive before level 6 if you are being targeted that is okay because even if you get stunned your adc should be focusing your adc and right after your stun you can go in right away with your W+Q combo. One thing to be careful of is when he goes to shield the adc because your adc will not be able to get auto attacks off and you will just get killed. Once you are level 6 as long as you and your adc both jump on the adc you should win fights most of the time.
3	Morgana	The most important thing to do against a morgana is not get hit by her Q. If you or your adc gets hit by a Q before level 6 its just a guaranteed large amount of damage. Now morgana does have a spell shield to block spells but Alistar's W+Q combo is so fast that most players won't react fast enough to shield their adcs. At level 6 if morgana engages with her ultimate first thing you want to do is W her away from your adc so they don't get stunned. Also your ultimate should be activated as soon as her's is and then if you do get stunned right after the stun you can jump on the adc and try to block Qs by morgana.
3	Janna	Janna is just a match up where you need to know when to engage. And that's right after she uses her shield and it times out. Other than that she can only slow and kite. The annoying thing is that janna makes it hard to kill either her or the adc with her kiting.
4	Nami	Nami is tricky if the player is very good with her. If nami hits a bubble there's going to be a good amount of damage dealt while in the bubble. She can heal, damage, and give her adcs auto attacks bonus magic damage and slow their target. Pretty much play passive before 6 unless she misses a bubble, then you can go all in. After 6 you should be save to go all in with your ult as long as you tank most of the spells.
4	Soraka	Soraka is not too much of a problem but if you underestimate her healing abilities you will not end up well. Sometimes I think it's better to go all out on Soraka first so healing is out of the picture and you can focus on the adc after. At level 6 again be careful to not forget about soraka's ult because it will heal a lot. This is really important to make sure you have ignite against soraka because then if you still want to target the adc you can ignite them as soon as you go all in and all the heals will barely do anything and you should win.
5	Thresh	Thresh is just an all around strong support. He can peel, engage, tank, and provide hard cc. This match up depends on how good the thresh is. If he is good he will be able to counter your W+Q with flay and then you will be a sitting duck. But that requires very good timing in the right place and time. Other than that fights will be pretty evenly matched even at level 6 because thresh's ult is great kiting and trapping at the same time. His hooks provide a cc and with the combo with flay lengthens the cc even more while his auto attack can still do a decent amount of damage.
6	Annie	Annie can be difficult. Before 6 you should be able to all in at level 3 and win but after level 6 annie can stun engage with her passive and get all of her spells off before the stun is over and before you can activate your ult. Most important thing is to stay spread from your adc so that you both dont get stunned so whichever person doesn't get stunned can either counter or run. If she does target you, you should be fine and be able to ult and fight after the stun.
6	Leona	Leona can be dangerous when laning with champs such as Draven, Ezreal, Jinx, Graves, and ashe. Before level 6 you should be able to counter leona if you're really good at timing. Stand in between your adc and leona as much as possible because as once as she uses her E on your adc you can stop her mid way with your Q which honestly is not an easy task. Even if you don't time it right you can still peel her off your adc with your W. Now at level 6 is when She becomes really dangerous and not for you but your adc what's gonna happen is she is going to try and ult your adc and if she does she will go in with her E+Q+W combo for two more stuns and while this happens the adcs above will throw their ults and skills with leona's combo because its pretty much a guaranteed hit of the spells. If leona is with ashe the combo will be opposite with ashe engaging with her ult which is fast and can be really unexpected. Half the time your adc should be able to dodge this combo but when he does get hit with leona's ult you have about a half a second gap to get in between your adc and leona to try and interrupt her E with your Q. If none of that works than peeling the adc of your adc is the only thing you can do and try to get them to target you so your adc can escape.
8	Sona	Now Sona is going to be similar to Lulu but not as bad. If she is laning with a poke champ its going to be hell until 6 because Sona's Q+Passive combo does really good damage early game and combined with an adc's poke will make you have to play defensive. Once you get to level 6 it should be more favored to your side as long as you didn't feed because Sona is extremely squishy so she can't tank or peel much all she can do to save her adc is heal them or ultimate to stun.
9	Vayne	Vayne is the strongest counter to alistar adc wise. Her kiting is great but what is most dangerous is her w which ignores your ultimate resists. As long as you play smart you should still be fine and have a chance of winning lane. If she is laning with janna then it just makes it even more difficult to lane against a vayne then because of janna's shield and kiting abilities.
9	Zilean	Another huge pain, not much can be do to a Zilean by anyone his damage is ridiculous and not even a skill shot so it will be a passive lane unless you can get a kill with an all in lvl 3 which should help a lot because if you get levels ahead on a zilean you should have an easier time fighting. At level 6 when you fight make sure to take all of Zilean's bombs while your ultimate is active because it will make a huge difference and then zilean is usless after that except for his ult which only really delays their death.
10	Lulu	Now Lulu is going to be the biggest pain to face because of her kiting, poking and her ultimate. If she is laning with Caitlyn you're not gonna have much luck going in before level 6 because most likely they will have you poked down to half hp by level 3 so going in would be a guaranteed loss unless you have help from the jungler. Once you get to 6 even it still is going to be hard to fight a lane with lulu in it because she makes tanks with her shield and her ultimate so it's pretty much an even fight at level 6 if you haven't died yet and your adc has gotten decent farm.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Best Combo

Notes

Conclusion

Introduction

Pretty much the idea behind AP support Alistar is that while he will be able to do a ton of single target damage and wreck one target as if he was an assassin while still being able to be the tank with his ultimate and a lot of hp.

Now most of the time you should pick ignite and flash the reason behind this is that you will be able to finish off champions in lane and if their is hard healing on the other team it will counter it well. Also this build is meant to be aggressive in lane and go for kills not peel for the carry because you will be able to 1v1 most of the adcs and then your own carry should be able to handle the other support if they go for them.

Best Combo

The best combo to do is

Deathfire Grasp Active -> W+Q combo -> Lichbane auto attack -> Passive

Now don't forget to stay with them because your passive will do quite of bit of damage as long as you stay in melee range. Also if you want to do a little more extra damage you can activate your ultimate before because it gives you a good amount of bonus attack damage as well. But this combo will do so much burst its ridiculous and will pretty much eliminate an enemy from a team fight if they are squishy so you will have a 5v4 right after that.

Notes

Be aware that I do not say to build a sightstone. That doesn't mean your team doesn't need vision, it is still very essential that you build wards throughout the game. Also if you're team is winning well you can sell your ward trinket and get scanner to eliminate the enemy team's vision.

Conclusion

WARNING! This is not an easy build at first, it takes time to learn the limits of this build. Play a couple normal games before trying it in ranked. But once you get the hang of it you will destroy with Alistar!

Please comment with questions about anything you maybe wondering about. Or if you have anything that you think should be added or that was forgotten.

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Alistar Build Guide by SwirlyNips

This build has been archived and is for historical display only.

Not Updated For Current Season

Support AP Madcow Alistar