Hello everybody!

I'm sure you all know "The Raging Bull" of LoL - Alistar. He was, I think, my second champion I bought and never played him too much, as I was new in this game and played him like AD or AP champ and it never worked. I still used him from time to time to play support, but never liked it a lot, since he was nerfed to death some time ago. But recently three things happened, that made me think about him again.

  • People do play ranked games with him.
    I saw his icon in the lobby few times and immediately thought, that those people are real pros, to play ranked games with such a bad champion. So I watched 4 - maybe 5 games to learn from pros... and I was either laughing my *** off, or wanted to vomit! It looked like as if by some hack, BOTS got into ranked games. Those guys were playing really bad, were dead all the time, bought useless items, didn't help anyone but the enemy to get free kills... I didn't believe my eyes.
  • I saw this video
    Few days ago my friend sent me a link to the S1 Finals video where Alistar was played on mid. What a blow!
  • They liked my Supportistar
    My friend invited my for a game with few other guys and I picked Alistar for a support (had no other choice back then) and they all said afterwards, they loved my support. Since then, we teamed up and I play support, and our ADC says I am better with Alistar than with Soraka (which was a blow, cause I think exactly the opposit :D)

Because of this, I was thinking about this champion for a while, and realized I really like him and I hate to see him fall into the dust of the past, as a dead, no-good champion.

Therefore I decided to see for myself, if he is really dead, or if he is going ot say something about this in S4. I am going to play Alistar bit more, fool around with runes, items and masteries, and when I get enough feedback, I will let you guys know what are my results. I'll keep replays and info to make accurate assumptions and grids as well.


RESSURECTING THE BEAST


I decided to try my own build of support Alistar. I will aim on tankiness (high armor and MR) and aura items thet will benefit my team mates. Combined with cow's abilities, I hope for good results.

RUNES


I will go for this combination:

Other options I may try:
Marks - I don't think there is any other option, since I am not going to do much damage.

Seals - I think Greater Seal of Scaling Armor may be even better. At lvl 9 I will get the same armor as from flat runes, and from there it will get only better. And since their ADC is weak at the beginning, I think marks with their flat armor will do just fine to cover up for low level scaling armor.

Glyphs - I was thinking about Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power to make my heal stornger, but I don't think that 28 AP will make much differnce at lvl 18, which is the end game. And as a support, on a bot lane facing ADC mainly, I guess I won't need flat MR runes as well.

Quints - this is tricky. I choosed gold quints, as I am not going to spend much points into the utility masteries. So I will be gold hungry. But if it proves useless, I was thinking about trying 3x these: Greater Quintessence of Ability Power, Greater Quintessence of Scaling Health, Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed or some other health rising quints (not health regen). I will see.


MASTERIES


I am still confused about the new masteries and.. well.. I am not going to lie, I don't get them at all :D For starters I decided to go tank-crazy, spent all points into the defense tree and the rest to the utility. I would go even for 0/30/0 but some materies seems useless for my plans. Here is my mastery tree, maybe I will change something in there as I start to play more:


Maybe I will change Strength of Spirit for Alchemist , will see...

ITEMS


With items I am going for tankiness and team benefiting stuff. Here is the end-game gear:

Ruby Sightstone + Warmog's Armor + Randuin's Omen + Mobility Boots with Enchantment: Alacrity + zeke's herald

Sixth item will be based on the enemy team and our team's needs: Frozen Heart or Mikael's Blessing or Abyssal Mask or Will of the Ancients

- I'm a support, no discussion about this.

- I'm a support, no discussion about this. Plus it gives 360 hp.

- I was thinking about Spirit Visage but it gives too little hp and I don't think spell vamp will be any help with no real AP. And that health regen is useless in late game, imho.

- They are good to quickly get into the action and help to tank the damage. Of course, if the enemy team proofs to be better, I may go for Boots of Swiftness, Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads

- Still I am not sure about this, as I think maybe Iceborn Gauntlet will do me more good, as it has at least +30 AP.

SIXTH ITEM

If our jungler won't get it, I will buy Locket of the Iron Solari (or maybe I will get it instead of zeke's herald). But what about the sixth item? Should I get something with AP, to get some bonus for my heal? Something like Rylai's Crystal Scepter? Or go for more MR? I was also thinking about Guardian Angel - it doesn't give very much armor and MR, but the ressurection thing is awesome. Just imagine it - an unkillable tank finally dies - just to be rebron, hit his ulti + heal and run away... :D


STAMPEDING TO VICTORY


This is my grand plan, if you feel like giving me any advice about items, masteries and runes, or just to say your thoughts about Alistar and his viability (is this even proper English word? :D) in S4, feel free to comment. I'll be happy to hear from you.

And later on, when I get enough data, I will post in Strategy category what I found out about this champ. I hope he won't let me down, otherwise I WILL milk those....!!!!!