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[FONT=Verdana]Alistar the minotaur
[/FONT] [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Alistar is[/FONT][FONT=Verdana] a huge, beefy cow, a formidable tank, a great supporter and a very nasty pusher. His main strenghth is his durability - he's got tons of hitpoints, a massive heal, lots of crowd control and a great ultimate, helping you to shrug off focus fire, while pulverizing your foes. Don't get fooled by his looks - even though he wears a skirt, he's a force to be reckoned with.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]

Beefy abilities:
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Pulverize:
Pulverize is a great ability, mainly because it's a area of effect stun. You can either lasthit several damaged creeps, stun some foolish foes so either you or your teammates can engage them, or stun enemy champions who are chasing your injured teammates. If you are a nasty cow, you can stun hostile heroes within your tower range, when there either are none of his creeps around, or the tower is already engaging them. They will love you for that!

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Headbutt:
Headbutt bounces your target several feet away in a straight line in exactly the opposite direction you are facing. Using Headbutt successfully requires a lot of skill. It's also a nice finisher, especially when maxed out. This ability either helps you escape, helps your teammates escape or throws hostile champions into your team, so they can gangbang him. You can headbutt enemies right into tower range, or somewhere behind the tower, so he has to run all the way through the firing tower just to receive a nasty Pulverize from you before he gets out of the tower's range.

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Triumphant Roar:
Personally, this is Alistar's best ability. A nice area of effect heal, which is extremely nasty at low level and keeps being awesome the entire game. But beware, it requires a kill! This ability is (besides the nice skirt and the sandals) the reason why your team loves you and why you picked Alistar. You will spam it. The entire game. And you will love it, too.
Try to heal injured teammates first, but also keep an eye on you creeps' health. Since Triumphant roar has a rather low cooldown, you can spam it (especially when you get your primary item: Tear of the Goddess), which keeps your creeps and teammates alive so you can push tower after tower. Triumphant Roar excels in group situations, where your entire team benefits from your heals.

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Unbreakable Will:
This is your ultimate. It removes all debuffs on you, reduces taken damage by a great percentage and increases your damage by a good amount. Use it to take down towers quickly (for instance if the tower killed all of your creeps and is targeting you now), or to survive focus fire/escape

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Colossal Strenghth (passive):
Increases the damage you deal to towers. This ability enhances your formidable capability of pushing and wrecking.

What's a skirt wearing, huge, beefy and blue cow good for?
Well, if you are looking for tons of kills, Alistar isn't your man (cow). You will kill foes, but your primary role is to support your teammates, to keep them alive and to prevent them from being killed. You will get plenty assists and you will be the last to die - if you die at all. You perform best when you have teammates around you, but even solo you can push fairly easy against 1 foe (unless this is a pusher, too) and escape, when the enemies gang up to take you down. But try to work with a partner, since this game isn't a solo game anyway.

Mastery trees:
Well, Alistar works fine with every mastery build, so it's up to you. However, I recommend you the defensive tree. Especially Resistance, Strenghth of Spirit, Veteran's Scars, Ardor and Tenacity. I also play Jax a lot, so I skilled Evasion and Nimbleness, which are quite cool especially when combined with evasion runes.

As summoner abilities, I prefer Ghost and either Flash or Boost, but Alistar works fine with every summoner ability except Smite. However, Ghost helps you chase foes to finish them off, or helps you reach your teammates quickly, so you can help them, so this is rather mandatory. Last but not least it's awesome when you need to run away, especially when combined with Boost. You can combine it with Heal or Teleport. Heal enhances you already great healing power and Teleport brings you back instantly when you left your lane for any reasons or brings you where your teammates/towers need you.

Runes:
I prefer Haste (the red ones), Dodge (the yellow ones, especially since I play Jax as well) and Force ( the blue ones.) You can stack all kind of health runes, if you want to get a lot of hitpoints in the late game (this works very well, too), or stack a lot of Haste so you can actually deal some damage.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]However, Quintessences of Fortitude are mandatory. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]DO NOT change the Quintessences. You are a tank and a melee, so you will need these extra hitpoints at early game!
I can imagine Alistar works quite fine with manareg runes, too, since mana is a problem until you build your second item with manareg. But I never tried manareg runes, since you won't need them after your second item with manareg, anymore.

Items:
Tear of the Goddess. This item is mandatory and should be your first item you build. Purchase the manareg first ( I think it's the Fairy Charm) and don't buy pots. You won't need them. Why is this item mandatory? Because Alistar isn't a caster and has a very small mana bar (under his skirt). This item will greatly enlarge his mana bar over time, until it swells to gargantuan proportions so scary, that it makes even a goddess shed tears. Every 4 seconds you will gain permanent mana, if you cast a spell. Triumphant Roar does not cost much mana and has a rather small cooldown. Perfect for spamming. And honestly, you would unleash a Triumphant Roar, too, when the mana bar you're hiding under your skirt starts growing permanently every 4 seconds.
If one of your teammates plays Alistar and does not have this item, he didn't read my guide, has a tiny mana bar and will be rather useless the entire game. Thus, I will smack him down with my gargantuan mana bar until he stops being a noob
-Berserker's Greaves, if you want some extra attackspeed, or go for Boots of Swiftness. I'd stick with Berserker's Greaves, though.
-Mana Manipulator -> Catalyst the Protector -> Innervating Locket
-Archangel's Staff or [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Banshee's Veil
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana]-Banshee's Veil or [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Archangel's Staff, it's up to you which one yo want to build first. If the enemy team is hard hitting, go for Banshee's Veil, otherwise take [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Archangel's Staff. [/FONT][FONT=Verdana]You can go for offensive items after Archangel's Staff, too and build Banshee's Veil later. It's a great item though, which greatly enhances your survivability, so I recommend it quite early. You are a supporter, not a killer. And you can support best when staying alive.
-[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Frozen Mallet (for hitpoints and slow)
-Nashor's Tooth. Iif you need hitpoints and a slow, go for Frozen Mallet. If you have teammates with slows, go for Nashor's Tooth.

Since Alistar is such a formidable pusher and tower-wrecker, games do not take that long. Most times they will end by the time you finished your 4th item, or earlier.

Keep in mind that this is just the way I would play and gear Alistar. There are lots of different ways to play and gear him, so it's up to you and what you prefer.
Things he benefits most from:
-Hitpoints. You are a tank.
-Manareg. You will need a lot of mana, since you spam Triumphant Roar.
-Ability Power. Pulverize and Headbutt scale very well with ability power. You will deal some serious damage with them, once you finished Archangel's Staff. Also boosts Triumphant Roar a little bit, but this ability does not scale that great with ability power. Nontheless, it's still great to boost it.
-Cooldown reduction. Having cooldowns on Pulverize and Headbutt when you need them sucks big time.
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]-Attackspeed. Helps with razing towers and bashing all kind of things. Your haste runes are sufficient, but it's always nice to have more attackspeed, though.

Also interesting:
Atma's Impaler, but only when you go for max hitpoints.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Mix it up the way you like it and suits you best. However, the tear of the Goddess is mandatory. Seriously, you will be glad in late game you purchased it.

Abilities:
Start with Pulverize.
Get Triumphant Roar and Unbreakable Will every time you can pick them.
For instance:
Pulverize
Triumphant Roar
Triumphant Roar
Headbutt
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Triumphant Roar
Unbreakable Will
Triumphant Roar
It's up to you whether you max out Pulverize, or go for Headbutt. I prefer maxing out Pulverize, once Triumphant Roar is maxed out.

[/FONT][FONT=Verdana]Strategy:
Play defensive. Lasthit as much as possible. Coordinate with teammates to kill enemy champions. Stun them, so you can get ahead of them and headbutt them into towers/your teammates. Flash is nice for positioning behind them, when they siege your tower. Just Flash behind them and Headbutt them behind your tower, once their creeps are killed, or allmost killed. Very badass. Requires timing and skill.
Keep healing teammates and creeps so you can push and destroy towers. Beware of ranged heroes.
Always keep an eye on the minimap to be aware of incoming ganks. Swap lane, if somebody needs your help to push, or to gank. Try not to run around alone. Be a teamplayer and support your teammates, even if they're new to the game. Communicate with your team!

Early Game:
Your first ability should be Pulverize.
Purchase Fairy Charm, so you can build your tear of the Goddess later on. Personally, I prefer a ranged hero as a teammate on the lane, but a melee works out fine, too. Unless there you're facing 2 ranged. You can solo, too. but only against 1 foe. If there are 2 on the lane vs you, call for assistance.
Lasthit, stay out of trouble. Once you reached level 2, get Triumphant Roar. Use it, when either you and/or your teammate is injured, or to heal multiple creeps. You can spam it, but you will run out of mana, if you use other abilities as well. try to use just Triumphant roar to push with your teammate and damage their tower.
When you run out of mana, you should have gathered around 800-900 gold. You can bluepill home and purchase the Tear of the Goddess. Return to your lane as fast as you can and keep pushing. Spam Triumphant Roar to enlarge your mana bar. Stay as long as you can in the lane, gather xp and gold and play defensive unless you can kill 100%. Once you get the Mana Manipulator/Innervating Locket, you will hardly be forced to bluepill home for manareg. Once you get the Mana Manipulator you gan gang up with your teammates and either go on pushing a lane, or hunting champions.

Mid Game:
Coordinate with teammates to gank squishies or keep pushing. Get gold, get xp. Don't die. As simple as that.
You are the tank, and you can shrug off a lot of damage, especially with Unbreakable Will. Rush in first, stun/Headbutt them into the direction you wanted and let your teammates finish them off. Chances are good, that you'll get focussed. If so, pop unbreakable will and go on stunning/knocking foes around, healing teammates etc. beware of crowd control, once Unbreakable Will is gone and rather retreat early, instead of risking to die.

Late Game:
Quite the same as mid game. Focus on pushing and surviving during team battles, while healing your party. Raze towers and inhibitors. You can use Unbreakable will, to do so, when your teammates back you up, even if the tower focusses you but be sure to retreat before you receive severe damage. Use your crowd control to protect teammates, or to prevent enemy champions from retreating. Lasthit with Headbutt, when your ability power is high enough you will hit like a freight train. Don't 1 vs 1. I smacked several Alistars down with my Jax, even though they popped Unbreakable Will. Stick with your team in late game. Loners tend to get ganked and in late game, the damage output and crowd control are something even mighty Alistar can't shrug off easily at this point.

How to support Alistar:
Kill creeps, even during teambattles and tower sieges. He can pop his Triumphant Roar and help the entire team stay longer in battle. Get near him, if you want to be healed. Help him to escape, when he's in danger. A good Alistar player would do the same for you. Thus, he's such a great pusher and supporter, thet you want him to be alive. Help him against ranged and stick with him. with such a beefy buddy, you can wreck towers and still escape, when the enemies approach to defend/gank you, thanks to his Pulverize and Headbutt.

Beware of:
-Ranged heroes
-Crowd control
-Tristana. Her creep explosion neutralizes your capability of pushing, since it damages creeps so hard, that even your Triumphant Roar can't keep them alive. She also has a nasty attack range. Get a ranged buddy to assist you by harassing her.
-Jax. He will beat the **** out of you in 1on1m once he got decent gear.
-Sivir. Also keeps you from pushing. Similar to Tristana.
-Teemo. He's fast and can slow/dot you. Get some Oracle's Elixir to see and kill his nasty mushrooms.

Last but not least: Have fun! I hope you enjoy playing the blue cow as much as I do and I really hope this humble guide will help you squeezing the best out of this formidable champion. Thanks for reading!

I do not claim this guide is the best. It's just the best for ME, but I bet you will like it playing the cow my way, once you'll give it a try. You will not win every battle, but your teammates and enemies will notice your skill and they will remember you. That's reward enough, if you ask me.
See ya ingame!

Regards,
-shedim-

[UPDATE]

I changed my rune build to:
-armor penetration reds (currently testing furor reds)
-dodge yellows (with mastery) or vitality
-clarity blues

And I really like the results.

Changed my item build to:

Fairy charm (Soul Shroud, hp manareg cd reduction)
Mercury or Tabi boots, depending on enemy team
Fire cape (hp and farming)
Zeal (movement speed and attackspeed, extra dodge when phantom lancer)
Stinger (manareg, cd reduction, you can upgrade it, if you like)
Atma's impaler

Alistar greatly benefits from cooldown reduction, so every item with this is a great choice. However, I tend to be unsatisfied, when I don't have enough attackspeed, movement speed and damage.
This is a rather low hp Alistar, but I can handle him quite well.

Another good idea is, to get stinger, get some boots and stack sunfire capes. Works fine, too.
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Update:
Folks!
This week, I experimented a lot with cooldown decreasing blue runes and cooldown decreasing items, like Soul Shard, Nashor's Tooth etc. If you go for ability power and short cooldowns, you will do decent damage with your abilities, but still remain the awesome supporter, Alistar is. I'll update the item build in a few days, since I'm very pleased with the results, but I'd like to test it further!

Alistar rocks, and your guide is very good.

I wonder why Locket seems to be so important, though, because Triumphant roar does the job of healing. I personnaly prefer to upgrade Catalyst into Rod of Ages because the AP it gives makes the 1:1 scaling on Pulverize a beast for occasional jungling.

Thoughts?

Edit: I forgot: I also prefer to build Tears of the Goddess starting with the mana sapphire. I found that it gives me more mana before I go to base purchase the tears than the regen given by the pendant, but that's a minor difference.

Hmmm gonna try and use your build. Mostly i play a tanking alistar, without even leveling the roar. Also, you forgot in you guide mention summoners abilitys.


Nice guide, gonna try soon!

Thank you, guys!
My Jax just got owned by a Alistar, who read my guide :-D That's funny!

I did. Like I said, he works fine with allmost every summoner ability. Exhaust, Flash and Ghost are the ones I prefer most.

I picked the Innervating Locket because of:

• additional manareg, very handy when spamming Triumphant Roar and other abilities in early-mid game ganks
• unique ability is great, since I spam Triumphant Roar. The extra heal and manareg when you cast a spell is a slight boost for you and your team

Well, of course you can pick other items, like the Rod of Ages. This is a very nice item, too, since it boosts 3 stats you will need, especially when bought early in the game.

I'm still testing, which items are best and so should you once you are decent with Alistar! Keep testing and feel free to add your suggestions on item builds here!

So i've been trying something a little different with Alistar lately. I began using Tear of the Goddess which, frankly, isn't a bad 1200g item, but i found that filling up on blue Clarity runes and Fairy charm from the start were enough have enough mana to spam Roar.

So instead, I've been starting with Roar, and Fairy Charm, Rejuv Bead, health pot. I find it's pretty resistant against lvl1 harrassment, unless you're really badly mismatched. From there, though, there's a bit of a long haul before anything good comes, because I've been going for Tiamat, the 2800g splash damage weapon. No... really. Hear me out here.

I've been a little frustrated by two things: not doing much damage, and not being able to push lanes adequately because Al doesn't have a great minion-bulldozing spell. While it's a slow start, I've found that getting Tiamat means you can push lanes very effectively (and quickly) on your own. It's kinda nice to be able to reach towers with lots of minions so you have plenty of time to hit it, but I think being quicker to the towers will make you more of a threat. It may mean you'll have to dodge more ganks, but forcing someone to come after you will give the rest of your team more breathing room. You're still able to spam Roar to some degree, and while laning against you might be easier for the first 10-15 minutes, once you start mowing down minions (and splashing onto melee champs, if you're lucky), you'll be pressuring them a fair bit more.

while it doesn't really 'fix' the problem, taking Promote is a great way to push lanes.

flash >> ghost for alistar, for the ability to flash into the enemy team, stun them all, then headbutt one back into your team. Then pop your ultimate and walk away barely hurt. With your suggested item build, you are a dominant team push support player, but if your team does not win within the first 35ish minutes you will start to become quite weak. At this stage you have terrible damage, so its hard to farm, your heal doesnt do a whole lot, and your really only useful for distrupting the other team.

Hm I love this cow and this guide really helped me get better with him. But as far as summoner spells and abilities go i strongly suggest promote and its corresponding ability. The 15 bonus damage add real nice to his allready impressive tower destruction ability though it doesnt sound too much. Also if you aquired enough creeps the 20 bonus armor on the siege rider ensure that the lane will push itself just fine when u leave it to support friends. With a little timing you can port back in time to kill basetower. I just had 2 matches where exactly this went down pretty well. Used the bonus damage to kill first tower, promoted a creep and went ganging with my team. Rider and 2,5 waves of creeps ate through 2nd tower and i ported back for base tower at level 9 ...
Also u mentioned not to use smite ... well i disagree. When u need to roar NOW and there just is no creep near death just press smite and roar like crazy. Also it makes for a nice money income so if u start out with alli do take it. Exspecially with the abilty to it.
Another idea i 'd like to offer is to start out with Dorans Ring as it has everything u 'll need for a nice start, health, manaregg and a little ablilitypower to make your roar even stronger. If your farming didn 't turn out too well I 'd suggest the other doran stuff as well:
Ring
130 HP
5 mana / 5 secs
10 AP

Shield
130 HP
9 armor
10 HP / 5 secs

Blade
130 HP
6 damage
1 gold per 10 seconds
together they will give you 390 hp and lots of different and nice extras for a cheap price. Of course the will take up a lot of space in your inventory but the can be sold for one thing and until you have to sell them they will serve u well. Most of the time you can get along well until late game before selling any of these three.
Just my two cents, feel free to tear my post appart.

So my current fiddling is around going for Sunfire Cape, generally even before boots. Since both items are 700g+, I've been trying Doran's Shield and health pot to open, then (in a perfect world) bp once at 1150g for the giant belt, then bp at 1700g for the cape... possibly enough for Boots 1.

The big downside to this is that for your first 3000g, you get no damage and no AP, meaning neither your harassment nor your Roar get any better... nor your anti-tower damage, for that matter. You might be able to whittle the tower down to 50-60%, but a kill strikes me as unlikely.

That being said, once you have the cape, you slice through creep waves like butter, and often can keep spamming roar while fighting other champions, since the aura will kill off creeps while you're clubbing away at each other.

As for Promote, I can see how that would help. I'm currently running 9/0/21 all the time so I'd have to respec, and it would mean giving up the top tier of Utility, which I'm not crazy about... but that's not so bad. The bigger issue for me personally is that I really like Flash + Teleport. Teleport largely excuses putting off boots for a long time (until you need to start switching lanes frequently), and as TenToed was saying, Flash is an awesome offensive ability because of Headbutt tricks, as well as having real potential to save your ass every now and again.