Hello, I am facehunter33 and I am currently an Alistar main.
After months of teaching myself and watching streams, I have been able to master the power house that is Alistar , and soon after you have looked over this guide, so will you.
Alistar is a tanky support which specializes in Single-Target Disengage, but still has some engage and sustain abilities / combos in his kit. His kit does take time to master, but with enough practice and knowledge of his kit, you are able to create a well rounded support that can end up carrying a long ways. Alistar has a lot of lane presence with his flash engages and combos, so he is scary to face whatever your enemy is playing, whether its engage, you have good peal to counter act, and whether its disengage or sustain, your engage is quite impeccable to counter act, you also provide threat in team fights because of the tanky front-line you are.

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The following is my usual leveling of skills disregarding roams and in-lane harass:

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Non-Flash Combos

Q-W: This is pretty much the easiest combo in Alistar's kit. Pulverize- Headbutt or Q-W is the combo you use if you somehow get close enough to the enemy that you can Pulverize and then knock them back into your team, if you get this opportunity DO NOT WASTE IT, its rare and you do not use any summoners in the process, just do not risk your team's chances of winning by over extending.

Headbutt- Pulverize or W-Q: Alistar's bread and butter, it is his main engage combo, that can be hard to master but has so much potential. This combo is why Alistar is so successful at roaming and or engaging when a jungler ganks. W-Q is known to be incredibly hard to master for new players, however because Headbutt's animation got slower, you are now able to land the combo more commonly. To master this combo I put myself through 40 minute sessions of just simply doing this combo on a custom game. If you play with quick-cast I recommend trying this combo normally before using quick-cast, because it does help. Once you press W make sure you quickly turn to pressing Q. This combo has the range of Alistar's W Headbutt and then the knock up has the range of Alistar's Q Pulverize. W-Q is known to fail sometimes because the player presses Q after the target is knocked out of Q's range, this is because the knock back on Alistar's W is longer range wise, than the aoe range for Alistar's Q, to make this work you want to make sure You press Q before the target leaves the range of the knock up, this mostly takes time to master, because over time most players are able to master this. Use this as an engage tool and you do not require flash, this can also be used in certain lanes to easily win trades, although the W-AA-Q-AA combo is better for dealing over all damage.


TIP:
If you are learning how to W-Q, by using Headbutt onto a thick enough wall, the enemy is stunned, and you can easily follow up with Q. This works very well if you have a Vayne if you W-Q into the wall and she uses Condemn.

Headbutt-AA- Pulverize-AA: This combo is used to maximize your DPS, your main source of damage when going AP due to Sheen. The goal of this combo is to Headbutt an enemy champion into a wall, auto attack them, then Pulverize and auto attack, not only does this chunk the hp of a carry early on in the game, but it can be a pretty simple engage with certain champions, specially with Vayne since it is easy to Condemn into a wall. You can also do Flash-W-AA-Q-AA for longer reach and for a long lockdown on an enemy, its very unexpected if done right, just make sure you hit them into a wall.

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Flash Combos

Flash- Pulverize- Headbutt or Flash-Q-W: This is the worse version of the next combo Q-Flash-W. With this combo you quickly gain distance towards an enemy to follow up with a Q and then knock them back onto your team, however it is pretty easy to react to.

Pulverize- Flash- Headbutt or Q-Flash-W: This is the upgrade to the last combo, and it is a whole lot harder to escape from. With this combo you have to flash in the middle of your Q's animation to then knock up the enemy and have a free W. To fully master this combo you must know how long it takes for Alistar to Pulverize and how far Flash will take you, the distance flash takes you is actually quite deceiving, it is less than most players think.



Flash- Headbutt- Pulverize or Flash-W-Q: Practically the same as your W-Q, but it covers more distance and it takes more skill to do.



Headbutt- Flash- Pulverize or W-Flash-Q: Pretty simple combo, its just very situational. I use this combo when roaming mid, I go behind the tower then Headbutt the enemy into the lane, Flash onto them and then knock them up with Q. This usually results in a kill as long as your mid laner follows up or has enough damage.

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http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/mastery-tree-planner#&tree1=0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree2=5-0-0-1-0-0-0-5-1-0-0-0-0-0-0&tree3=5-0-1-0-5-0-1-0-0-5-0-0-1&v=2

Recovery x5 to be able to stay in lane for longer, and for the useful HP regen
Explorer x1 because roaming with alistar is essential to alistar's game play, you can also have Tough Skin x1 if you do not like roaming much, since it does give some nice damage reduction.
Runic Armor , this mastery will make your heal better, and the damage reduction from your ult better as well, you lose out on the 45 hp from Veteran Scars , but this allows for better sustain in lane, and to soak up more damage in teamfights.
Insight x1 CDR on summoners spells, I just love spamming flash whenever possible, and the 15% CDR on Insight just goes too well with Alistar, also goes well with Enchantment: Distortion
Legendary Guardian x5 You do well in team fights, and this mastery gives you armor and MR for being in one.
Bond of Stone x1 You take damage for your ADC or other members of your team, its just a really good mastery to have, you also dont make much use of grasp of the undying.


Wanderer x5, once again for roaming and catching up to enemies to combo
Secret Stash x1 extra mana is great, as well as you aren't an assassin or a jungler to make use of the other 2 masteries, the instant hp is also quite handy
Meditation x5 mana regen rocks early game, you dont have much use for the damage that Merciless gives you anyways
Bandit , bandit is the equivalent of gold runes, by AAing the enemy champion you gain quite a bit of gold, specially since you are melee, when engaging make sure to auto them a couple times to get gold from this mastery, if you are able to W-AA-Q-AA you get a lot of damage off in the early game and get some gold.

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Armor Quints Allow you to become that big front-line people fear, it also reduces poke coming from ADCs and AD poke such as jayce's Shock Blast. The tankier you become the bigger the threat you post on the enemy.

MR Glyphs because you do not want to be poked down in lane by heavy AP poke supports such as Brand and Sona. You can also go for scaling MR, but you take more damage early game

Armor Marks to take less damage from the enemy ADC in lane, and overall in the game. Can be replaced for scaling armor but will have less effect early game.

Scaling HP Seals so you can take more hits in case you build a lot of utility, as well as having a lot of HP is quite nice to have, however this does make you quite a bit squishier early on then if you had flat HP.

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Vision control can often decide games. Wards provide knowledge of enemy locations, what the enemy can and cant see, incoming ganks, practically they tell you whether you are safe to be where you are or not.
Ganks are often avoided by warding the entrances to lanes, however this does not stop the enemy jungle or mid laner from invading your jungle,setting up a dive onto your turret or setting up for a Teleport play from the top and mid lanes.

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Warding When ahead

Warding can often extend your lead in a game, by offensively warding an enemy team's jungle you gain knowledge of where the enemy jungle is, this allows for you to know if their bot ane or mid lane is asking for ganks, or if their jungle is by top meaning you could turn aggressive knowing no response from the enemy jungle will be coming. You also want to extend your lead by acquiring objectives, having a roam all the way to top side river to get Rift Herald inst a bad idea, but you want to make sure you have it warded, this gives you knowledge of the enemy, if they warded the area or if they are there at the moment. This can start team fights which you can win since you are ahead, and get you control of global objectives and gold.

Here are some places to ward when you are on blue and red side while ahead

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Warding When Behind

Being behind in the game is never good, warding is essential because you need to stay safe from enemy champions, you know that engaging a team fight may not be the best idea, so farming and letting your jungle gank is optimal. Denial of vision is a must here, specially because you do not want the enemy jungle to counter gank you. Once Sightstone is bought you probably want to get Sweeping Lens to make sure the enemy does not have the entrance to the lane or the enemy tri-bush warded, this will allow for a pretty easy gank since the enemy will lack vision, when the enemy backs or you get back into lane, remove their vision, but do know they can simply ward it again, doing it at this time will allow for you to have a chance when the enemy has not pushed much of the lane into your turret. Your goal here is to keep your side of the jungle safe, you do not want your jungle to fall behind anymore than he already has, if you can sneak a ward into the enemy red and blue buffs even better, since you will gain knowledge of the enemy's location. However what does need to be warded are objectives such as Rift Herald / Baron Nashor and dragon, for they give very nice buffs and global buffs, this is something you may actually want to fight over, but do know that sometimes letting dragons slip into the enemy's hands is not a bad idea, just keep in mind that dragons 1,3 and 5 are the ones that play a major role in the game.

Here are some places to ward in both red and blue sides, when behind

Note that having the entrances to your lanes warded and having vision denial on them, and the same goes to enemy tri-bush and your own, will help with your jungle having successful ganks. Also note that when deffensively warding your jungle's red buff, you want to ward the bush closest to the entrance to the jungle, instead of the one closest to the buff itself, this is so you can easily prevent invades, while having the bush by the buff warded gives less time for you or your team mates to react to invades, only ward the bush closest to the buff if you are warding the enemy's jungle.

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When roaming with Alistar you have a lot of ways to approach the enemy, and having boots that grant you speed like mobility boots and swiftness boots just make it so much easier to do so as well.
You can go for a W-Flash-Q or W-walk to enemy-Q which is less effective, to knock the enemy out of turret.
You can simply go into lane and W-Q or Q-Flash-W, or you can go for the level 1 roam mid lane with your W Headbutt.

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Alistar can play 2 ways. Depending on your ADC you can play very aggressively or very passive.
When playing aggressive you want to make sure you can easily do your combos, and that your carry is ready to engage at any moment, your goal is to snowball off the laning phase. Do give your ADC time to CS or to harass, otherwise the enemy can catch up in CS.
When playing passively make sure you save W Headbutt in case the enemy engages, but if you are able to land a good Q, do not hesitate to Headbutt into turret. IF your jungle is ganking be ready to engage, and do not give away the fact that your jungle is ganking by simply walking at the enemy, circle a couple times, and if need be use Flash to engage.

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In team fights you also have two possible roles, To engage or to Peel for carries.

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When do you play aggressive and when do you go passive?

When to play aggressive

When going aggressive during the laning, your goal is to either snowball off the laning phase, let your ADC be fed early, or at least to zone out the enemy out of the lane and deny CS. However you need to know when to go aggressive to make sure you do not over extend and end up throwing the laning phase to the enemy, or losing a lot of CS.
Go Aggressive when:


Favorable laning match-up. For example, you want to go aggressive when going against poke champions, Alistar does not normally do well against poke, due to lack of sustain and mobility to be able to easily dodge poke, when versing opponent like Sona and Brand you want to make sure you make use of when the enemy goes low on mana, without abilities these champions deal almost no damage so its an easy summoner, kill or just an easy trade. However when versing people like Leona, who can easily beat 2v2s because of her damage and cc, you want to mostly serve as peel, snowball your mid laner instead, since there wont be much kill pressure coming from you in the bot lane unless u can Q- Flash-W someone into turret.

You need to shut down the enemy carry early. An example would be Draven, he is quick to snowball, melts champions and can easily get kills after he has gotten the first one. Against champions like him, you need as much support form your jungler as you can get, you want to make sure he takes a lot longer to reach that point when he become useful again.

Snowballing. Pretty self-explainable, you want to get more kills on your carry after something happened in lane that got you ahead, you want to make the difference in power in between the enemy and yourself to grow bigger.

Enemy jungler is sighted at top lane, or enemy Top laner has burned their Teleport. If you receive information that your jungle is top, or the top laner for the enemy does not have Teleport, this probably means you wont be ganked for a while, specially if the enemy mid lane is in his lane. You have to make use of this time to apply pressure, trade, burn summoners, even get kills, because the enemy wont have much to respond with apart from doing something else top side or having something happen in your 2v2 bot lane (3v2 or even 4v2 if your mid and jungle come down).

When to play passive

Going passive can mean a few things; You messed up and now your are somehow behind, you cant win trades so dont go for them, The enemy champion is just better in this situation or stage in the game, or simply your ADC likes to play passive and farm up.
Go Passive When:

You have a bad laning match-up, or need to scale up to late game. Champions like Vayne and Kog'Maw often face this problem, they dont do much damage early on so its hard to win trades, specially when versing those champions who do a lot of damage early on. Champions like Kalista, Caitlyn and Lucian have the upper edge in the early game, this is due to high burst or high damage early on, it is hard to trade against them so you try to avoid doing so, specially if the enemy support is based on dmg and poke. You do want to trade, but it is optimal to do when the enemy cant trade back, for example when the enemy is out of mana, is being blocked by minions, or your jungler is nearby, stuff like this can be an easy switch to going all in.


Going against an aggressive support.Alistar doesn't have the best engage, 2v2 or laning phase of all supports, champions like Leona and Nautilus who have heavy amounts of CC and damage early on pose a big threat to your ADC, so your main focus should not be to all in the enemy ADC, since chances are you may lose that 2v2, but you should concentrate on peeling for your ADC, nullifying the enemy support's role.


Enemy jungler is sighted by mid or bot, but yours is top. You lack support from your team, even if your top laner and the enemy's teleports down, and the enemy mid laners go down to bot lane, your jungler is still going to be bot much after the enemy's, this can easily cost one of your ally's lives. This also means your jungler wont be there to countergank any action from the enemy jungle, the enemy can play as aggressive as they want as long as they dont over extend because they know their jungle is nearby, this can give you information about the enemy's location which is handy, but you lose pressure.


Your ADC is behind.Simple, you cant win trades, enemy out damages, they have kills over you and your ADC, you should just sit there waiting for the right moment to flash-engage and get your lane ahead, because trading would be pretty useless unless you want your ADC to lose HP for no reason.

Transitioning

When playing support you need to know when to be passive or aggressive, watch how your ADC plays and form there you should be able to tell if you can win a 2v2, or if you are just going to give out a free lead to your opponent. If your ADC wins trades, has advantage gold wise and item wise, the enemy is poorly positioned, then that is your queue, consulting your ADC if they want to switch to a more aggressive style is also not a bad idea, because they should know themselves if they are able to out damage the enemy and kill them. If you have summoners over the enemy that just makes it easier to know when to transition to aggressive from passive and vise versa. If you are not sure if you can win lane, having your jungle come down bot lane often can easily secure a lead and get your ADC rolling.

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Peeling

Think about it, who is it that normally will deal the most damage in a team fight? Normally it would not be a support who does the most damage in your team, specially late game when tanks become a stronger front-line and when carries become more relevant. Your ADC is most likely the person who will the most damage in the game when the timer hits 30 to 40 minutes. The damage champions like Vayne, Jinx and Tristana can deal at this point in the game is incredibly dangerous to tanks and enemy front-lines. Certain mid laners even though they do deal a lot of damage, cant compare to the late game of an ADC, they cant as easily shred tanks as a Draven could.

Peel consists of protecting your back-line to make sure they deal the necessary damage to win a team fight. Without your ADC your team loses a significant amount of damage, and without your other lanes your ADC might as well be sitting in a 1v5. Your role as a support is to keep your carries alive, or simply engage fights. By making sure no CC is applied onto your carry, making sure your carry stays healthy and making sure that enemy tanks or fighters are not in range of your carry to burst them down.

How to Peel?

-Use CC to make sure your Carries stay alive

-Prioritize those closest to your allies

-Use cooldowns wisely, save your CC if it is not needed

-Predict enemy reaction

-Buy items to help you with peeling, items such as

Turbo Chemtank, Randuin's Omen and Mikael's Blessing all help your ADC or other carries stay alive, whether it is by slowing enemies or removing CC, it will all help your damage dealers deal damage.

Who to prioritize when peeling ?

-Whoever is fed, as long as they belong to the back line: Usually when a champion is fed they deal overwhelming amounts of damage to the enemy, the role of the back line is to deal damage from range, or to be safe when doing so, they often like lack self-peel but exceptions such as Tristana exist where her ultimate Buster Shot can serve to keep enemies away.

-Whoever is fed, as long as they belong to the front line: The role of the front-line is to peel and engage fights, so technically you belong to this group, however you lack in the damage department. Champions such as Riven, and Darius often do not need peel since they are the ones who the enemy is trying to peel, however you can help to make sure the enemy does not peel them away from the enemy carries and to let them remove a giant threat from the enemy.

-Your ADC, whether fed or not: Even if your ADC is not very reliable early on, they usually out-scale most champions and are able to come back in the late game, by keeping them alive, they are able to deal damage and get kills easier, items such as Zeke's Harbinger make a lot of use from you being by your ADC as well.

-Your Mid Laner, if they are mages since assassins mostly belong to the front-line: not much sustain damage, but they are able to easily burst down enemies, which can help with getting rid of the enemy carries or squishies.

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When in lane, Alistar depends a lot on his Flash to make aggressive plays, this is because W-Q doesn't allow much follow up, unless you have Exhaust. A lot of your lane presence is from that flash, even though in certain match-ups you play more of a disengage than an aggressive champion.

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-Early Game

Alistar spends a lot of his time in the early game out of lane, this is to either snowball the mid lane / jungle / top laner, give your ADC an EXP advantage, acquire map vision or get objectives. Since a lot of your pressure does come from that flash, a lot of times when you burned flash you will not need to be in lane, however in certain match-ups such as when going against a Leona you suddenly cant roam too often because you have to keep your ADC alive. This does not mean you should spend most of your time out of bot lane, you still want to create pressure there, and unless you can secure a kill in another lane with flash, then stay in bot lane and play around that flash.

When to go out of lane:

-Your ADC decides to back, but you still have mana and hp left over, you can roam or get vision control.
-After backing, your ADC heads to lane while you head and gain control of the map, to come back bot lane
-After your jungle has ganked you, and you know the bot lane is not going to be back for a while
-You know the enemy jungle is nowhere near where you are planning to go, EX: you plan to roam mid while the jungler backs into base or is currently clearing gromp / krugs.

-Mid-Late Game

At this point the in the game the laning phase is pretty much over, here you either fight for objectives, deal with split pushers, or team fight. Depending on enemy comps and your team's comp you are both your team's engage and disengage. When engaging make sure to catch off enemy carries, and buy items that will help with you engages such as Turbo Chemtank. When you are your team's disengage you want to apply peal for your carries and buy items that will deny enemy engage such as Mikael's Blessing, often you will be forced to re-engage onto the enemy carries, be ready to do so.
At this point of the game your main goal to gain objectives on the enemy, whether its dragon 2-5 or inner turrets still, you want to have as much global gold as possible. Catching off the enemy is very important at this stage of the game as well, by having a lot of vision in your jungle, you know the whereabouts of the enemy and can kill them, forcing the rest of their team to back off and let you gain control of an objective, or to engage a 4v5, another reason why the item Frost Queen's Claim is so good at the moment, is because it provides info about where 2 of the closest enemy champions are, and it slows them. in the Mid-Late game, your goal is not so much to force team-fights, but to gain objective control over the enemy by team-fights, dragons 1,3 and 5, as well as Baron Nashor / Rift Herald.

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Vision denial

Vision denial consists of you using Vision Ward or using Oracle Lens / Sweeping Lens to remove vision the enemy has on the map, by this you can predict where the enemy will be, since they most likely are going to want to replace the ward that was broken, it will also make it easier for a jungler to gank or invade an area or lane, since the enemy will not know if your jungle is there.
Here are some spots to sweep enemy vision from: The best moment to deny enemy vision is when you know the enemy jungle is not there, this will allow for no counter play to you going in the enemy jungle, HOWEVER pay attention to the mini-map, if the enemy bot lane and mid lane begin to make their way to you, they have you warded, this is good as long as you are able to get away, since you deny cs from the enemy coming to get you and now you know not to go in that area for a minute or 2, if possible lay a ward down, but down break any of the enemy's vision for it will take too long, if the enemy isn't coming to get you, then break the ward(s) and go back to lane (or roam). Vision denial will allow you to gain control on the map, advance onto objectives, catch off enemies and can easily snowball the game, since the enemy will lack vision of you and your team.

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Turret Diving

Turret diving with Alistar is quite simple, it can also be an easy way to snowball the game. However to dive a target, most of the time you want to have a certain amount of requirements met, to have a higher chance to have a successful dive you want to take the following into account:


There are multiple ways to engage a dive, a simple W-Q with your ADC following up into a dive to get 1 enemy is pretty easy, You can also have your jungle / mid surround the enemy using the bushes by the enemy turrets and then engaging, or going for the Q-Flash-W and have a safe kill. All these techniques work, but they require communication to pull off, watch your health, you do not want to give a free kill to the enemy, even if you get one yourself.

Turret Siege

Turret siege consists of having multiple people from other lanes come to one lane and take a turret or two. This can force team fights, or at least get you some global gold. Champions like Tristana who are good turret pushers, can make it easy to get turret gold, Azir and Veigar who have good zoning can prevent team fights, or force them if they are able shuffle the enemy into your team, or in veigar's case land a good box. Like turret diving, this takes a lot of communication, usually it is done in 5v5 scenarios where you can communicate, or know your team.
You usually want to siege for turrets if you are ahead, it is an easy way to snowball your lead, however you can also siege if the enemy is going for a top lane turret, because that is an easy way to go get the enemy bot turret.

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Due to how snowbally the game currently is, face of the mountain is the better of the two, usually you wont need to get to that last item as a support. Unless the game goes on for long enough, keep face of the mountain, if not replace it and Sightstone with eye of the equinox to get an extra item, at that point of the game the shield will matter due to how much HP you will have stacked, but the extra item may be worth in certain match-ups.

Thank you for reading my guide on Alistar support, I hope you have learned something and can improve your play on this champion. Any tips, constructive criticism, support or anything at all really helps! for i want to make this a good experience for anyone who uses this guide.

To see Alistar's newest champion update by riot, check out This Link
Thanks to NBKxEnigma and HybridXinHD for helping me get some of the pictures used in the guide, and thanks to Utopus and his review service for helping me improve my guide