Views: 1339 Alistar - are you still alive?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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....!!!!!
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:
- 9x Greater Mark of Armor
- 9x Greater Seal of Armor
- 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
- 3x Greater Quintessence of Gold
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....!!!!!
On the other hand, the bull with some items could be a genuine terror. Maybe I should run him a few times in draft and see how it pans out.
Runes:
9x Greater Mark of Armor sounds good ,but you might wanna try out 9x Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration ,because Alistar sort of needs to do some damage with his combo and without any penetration your damage gets gimped pretty hard by base resistances.
Why I suggest Hybrid pen over Magic pen well when using your Unbreakable Will you get a lot of attack damage in fact you end up with more attack damage early on then your ADC.
9x Greater Seal of Armor is just fine they help a lot if you get into early fights + since you are melee you are bound to take poke from enemy ADC.
For Glyphs I would recommend flat MR or this 6x Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and 3x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist.
For Quints I'd say it's up to personal preference any of these will work well
3x Greater Quintessence of Gold
3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed
3x Greater Quintessence of Health
3x Greater Quintessence of Armor
Link to what I think is a fine mix of masteries
You could also just go for this for extra tankyness.
Items:
Relic Shield + pots or ward + Stealth Ward (which you should replace at level 9 for Oracle's Lens .because around that item you will need it more for getting vision control over objectives or jungle areas)
Targon's Brace
Sightstone -Do not upgrade into Ruby Sightstone unless you got exact amount of gold and got nothing better to buy.
Boots-All depends on the game or preference
Armor options:
Randuin's Omen-Probably the best armor item right now (at least imo).
Frozen Heart-Build if you want that juicy 20% CDR or if the enemy team has more then 1 AA based AD champ.
Iceborn Gauntlet-This is an interesting option as it adds more damage to Alistar as well as adding additional CC.
Mr options:
Spirit Visage-This item is amazing yet totally selfish.
Abyssal Mask-This can be useful if your team has 2+ AP champs and neither built it already.
Auras/Useful Actives:
Locket of the Iron Solari-If jungler doesn't feel like it build this after Sightstone
Mikael's Blessing-For CC removal on your carries.
Twin Shadows-Some MR and a very useful active for safe warding or catching enemies out of position.
I think that's it for now.Hope this helps.
Your runes are correct, but it is possible to use flat health quints. Since Alistar's AP ratios aren't that good early with small amount of AP (good enough for AP Ali to deal serious damage though), I wouldn't use any AP runes.
If he got some Taric treatment (fabulous!), and received armor scalings instead on his passive (maybe even other skills) he'd perhaps make up for the lack of escapes and become as viable as the man in pink.
For items take a look at the new stuff like Relic Shield as an insane start option which you can transform further and Talisman of Ascension. Warmog's Armor is a bit selfish and not dat strong. For Trinkets you can also go for Sweeping Lens if you start with a few more wards and for the late game.