Welcome to my second league of legends guide. In this guide you will find a build for Alistar tanking. Alistar is a very hybrid character, and by that I mean he can do a lot of different things. He is a tank, jungler, support and hes known for roaming around the map.

As I stated above this build is for tanking as Alistar because that is what I use him for, he may not be as strong of a tank as Rammus or Shen, but he can help out his teammates as well as get attention from the enemy team.

The main source of tanking as Alistar is his ultimate, . Combined with armor and magic resistance his makes him an unstoppable tank for those quick team fights.

I want to make one thing very clear though. Farming with Alistar is extremely important to his tanking ability. You need to build money fast. Very fast, to get your items as soon as you can. Is early game mana pool is not very good so you will oom alot, so just be careful of your skill usage.

Pros
-Self Healing with
-Nice Crowd Control and AOE Stun with
-Knock-Back ability ( )
-Amazing Tanking Ability with his ultimate,

Cons
-Not very good at farming
-Needs to farm to be an effective tank

1)
-Start out with a Doran's Shield for early game survivability.

2)
-The 2nd item to buy is usually a pretty obvious one which are the Boots of speed.

3)
-Make this your 3rd item and build it into Spirit Visage.

4)
-Next return to base pick up the Kindle Gem, its built buy your ruby crystal.

5)
-After the kindlegem you should get the null-magic mantle because it is another item to stack into spirit visage.

6)
-After getting all of the times that stacked into Spirit Visage, buy it. This item gives 30 magic resistance as well as some health. Not only this, but it gives you nice cool down reduction and increase your healing effects on your self.

7)
-Now get your mercury's treads for more magic resistance and tenacity.

8)
-Now build your frozen heart and buy it for armor and 500 mana, as well as more CDR.

9)
-Get these 3 items in a row with multiple base returns.

10)
-After you get the 3 build items get this item, it is a pretty beast item for yourself and is useful to nearby allies.

11)
-Make this your final item for magic resistance, health regeneration and movement speed.

For Alistar, like any other tank, the defense tree is crucial. In fact, without it, you cannot tank. The defense tree does exactly what it says, gives you more defense.

For this specific build I am using the standard 0/21/9 tanking tree. This will be very useful for tanking.

Runes for this build was a tough decision for me because I was not originally sure what to go with. Tanks have a large variety of possible runes, after thinking about it and going through all the runes I decided to use Health, Armor, Magic Resistance and Magic Penetration.

-Greater Seal of Defense Greater Seal of Defense
I suggest taking Greater Seal of Resilience for an armor increase, as a tank armor is what you need, there is no reason not to take these.

- Greater Glyph of Shielding
For your glyph, take the Greater Glyph of Shielding for magic resistance per level.

- Greater Quintessence of Fortitude
For your quint, it is usually pretty obvious for a tank. Take the Greater Quint of Fortitude for that health boost.

- Greater Mark of Insight
I suggest taking this because magic penetration is very helpful for the extra damage boost on tanks.

Most Useful:

- Flash
I use flash as my first spell for a couple of reasons. The main reason is for positioning. Being a tank you need to be into position to prevent the enemies from targeting your team. This spell will help you get into position to taunt the enemy away from your team. It will also help you in chases and getaways.

- Ghost
My next spell is usually Ghost. Ghost + Powerball are an amazing chase and escape combination.

Other Possibilities:

- Teleport
Teleport is actually a good skill for Alistar because it is very helpful for getting into position for headbutt.

- Exhaust
Exhaust can be a helpful spell for protecting your team mates, since most teams only have one tank it can be a hard job to handle on your own, taking exhaust can reduce there a ability to kill your team mates, as well as making it easier for your team mates to kill them.

Farming isn't Alistars strongest ability.
If your going to start playing Alistar the first thing you need to do is learn his damage output and last hit minions. Do NOT auto hit minions at all, focus on last hitting for that gold. Alistar needs his items in this build, without them he will be very weak. Please do not forget this.

Another thing to remember is to roam. Like all cows, Alistar needs to roam through the lanes to pick up some kills and farm. This is very important, you will not succeed at the best of Alistars ability without it.

Alistar works particularly well in teams. His headbutt can be one of the best ganking abilities in the game. How so? you may ask.

Say your laning with Morgana for instance and a Kennen is pushing her back towards a friendly turret and your hiding our in the bushes by the river. Once Kennen passes the river towards your turret, move out, and headbutt Kennen into the turret. Have Morgana lock him into place with and just put all the damage both of you can put into him and he will die very quickly. This is a the way that Alistar has great teamwork, not to mention his tanking ability.

Thanks for taking the time to read through my guide. This guide did take me a good amount of time to complete so please give me some constructive criticism and rate my guide. As I said in the introduction this is only my second guide so I am trying to learn to make better guides.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Items

• Switched the purchase order around, adding frozen heart BEFORE aegis of legion for the high mana needs.