Off Topic > Games
League of Legends - "The Enemies Inhibitor is respawning soon!"
SpreadsPlague:
I do this:
Regrowth Pendant + potion
Philosophers Stone
Either the dodge boots if they have heavy AD or boots of swiftness
Heart of Gold
Shurelya's (sp?) Reverie
Glacial Shroud (full Frozen Heart if I need the extra armor)
Thornmail if heavy AD, or Guardian Angel, or Randuin's Omen
then whatever else based on the situation.
Is this okay? I'm always willing to improve.
Chrono:
I'd say keep heart of gold a little longer. You don't need the Reverie too early unless your team really needs it's active.
Ninja Tabi are being changed so don't get too comfortable.
Boots of Swiftness are okay if you need higher move speed during fights. I find flash and headbutt as suitable replacements for this though. That's why I pick the mobility boots, so I can move faster out of fights.
I've never been a fan of Guardian's Angel, however, I have seen it be a life saver in some situations. I'd say maybe replace it with warmogs because I'm pretty sure it adds more HP than angel heals.
You also seem to have little-to-none magic resist. Alistar has a decent amount of base armor already, so you don't need to build it as much as health and magic resist. That's why I grab items like aegis, quicksilver sash and randium's omen. My armor/mr usually balances out like that. But I guess if you're against: Alistar, Tristana, Ashe, Caitlyn, and Sivir, then all that armor would be great. (I DID fight that exact team by the way. erry1 get thornmail plz?)
Building tanks is always like 80% situational. You don't need like 300 armor if their 2 AD carries are going 0/8 with like 50 CS by 20 minutes. Hell I even built AD Alistar one game because we really didn't need a tank at all. We were just walking all over them.
SpreadsPlague:
Thanks. I don't usually build very much MR but now that you mention it I probably should. I think I'll start waiting for reverie a tad longer, and build a warmogs, and then randuins.
--- Quote from: Chrono on December 08, 2011, 11:15:49 AM ---You also seem to have little-to-none magic resist. Alistar has a decent amount of base armor already, so you don't need to build it as much as health and magic resist. That's why I grab items like aegis, quicksilver sash and randium's omen. My armor/mr usually balances out like that. But I guess if you're against: Alistar, Tristana, Ashe, Caitlyn, and Sivir, then all that armor would be great. (I DID fight that exact team by the way. erry1 get thornmail plz?)
--- End quote ---
I had virtually the same thing happen yesterday, I fought an all AD team. 4 of us had Thornmail in the end, I had extremely heavy armor and we basically smashed their faces in :cookieMonster:
Mr. Wallet:
Nothing more annoying than an all-one-type enemy and the team won't change their builds. I guess if your opponents are so dumb they're all physical or magic, then your team has to be equally dumb on average for the match to occur.
Alistar is a great example of how I play in kooky and unexpected ways that pique some and enrage others. I play a support Ali whose single purpose is to max out CC and healing with a good amount of tanking on top. I never hit "the combo" because that just lowers your total CC capacity, and if you have both ready, and you've built properly tanky enough to waltz in, then you're generally looking for a reverse combo (pulverize, walk around them, headbutt into team). This combo is pretty exemplary of the entire style of CC/support alistar: be a brick wall that slowly but inexorably spearheads the team into a turret kill. You don't chase, and the way you go in can barely be called initiating, since you're mostly just waiting for the enemy to do something you can CC and ruin.
10% summoner cooldown plus meki to start, along with smite in the lane to shoot down the recharge timer, and I can heal constantly and be almost un-harassable.
My skills are R > E > W > Q, except a level in Q at two. Maxing E keeps you and your buddy usually staying in the lane permanently except for ganks, voluntary shopping, or ally OOM. Q alone is a more useful skill than W alone for levels 2 and 3, but since we're setting up with Q, we conserve mana by putting all the power in W; if Q misses or we cant' get behind them for whatever reason, we didn't lose much mana. Q also increases by 15 mana per level, while W only increases by 10 per level.
Items are meki to tear, meki to evil tome, kindle, basic boots, then it varies a lot based on situation. My priorities are visage, swiftness, and sunfire cape. If I'm primarily taking lane damage of only one type, I'll get visage (MR) or sunfire (armor) first. Otherwise, I usually finish my boots. After all these priorities are done, I upgrade the tear -> archmage, and then I fill the last slot with a blasting wand. By then, the game is usually over, but the goal with the and is to become a lich bane to beef up MR for the super-late monster AP scores as well as bump up my damage.
Play-wise, I'm always looking to max CC and healing. Any time you're not engaged in a full-blown balls-out teamfight, you've got to max your passive. Wait for the meter to run out before you cast another skill; this will also serve you well with a lich bane by maxing its procs. Later in the game when you're drowning in your own mana, you can heal -> pulv -> heal to chain your passive and bring down minions quickly. Just straight-up attacking minions and ignoring champions can boost your heal speed and win fights; if Q and W are cooling down, before lich bane, you have nothing to do to enemy champions other than passive and sunfire anyway. If you're being focused and your CC spells are on cooldown, the best way to tank is to heal as much as possible. Since you're a main tank who's run into the front, there's probably an enemy minion or two on your retreat path, and bringing them down with sunfire + a slap can keep you and the team you've run to going a little longer. I can't tell you how many times I've saved an ally's life when I was out of CC by slapping or smiting a minion to get my heal back. You can usually intelligently target minions in a teamfight just 1-3 times per match; don't do it blindly, but don't disregard it as part of your toolbox. Like summoner heal, ass-pulling extra HP for an ally can turn into a baited kill.
The amount of energy I've spent writing about that is mostly because other things with Alistar are pretty self-explanatory. The one thing I see Alistar players having the most trouble with is managing their heal. Not getting it at level 1 and maxing it first is ridiculous unless you're in an AT and have a really solid plan to try for first blood. Remember, Alistar's lane is push/farm, period. Alistar has serious last hit problems in the first couple levels, but if you have a carry who can bring them down, you can run interference with CC all god-damn day because any damage you take will be healed back. That means major free farm for your carry and total starvation for their lane. If the enemy gets desperate enough and becomes determined to drive you back, that can lead to easy kills, but you should never be worried about initiating. I've almost never laned Alistar with a carry and not totally starved the other team unless their ganker focused hard on keeping our lane back.
So that's how I play Alistar. Sometimes people rage because they see you autoattacking minions in teamfights and are convinced you're "not helping", but haters gonna hate. My old strat before he was remade was even nuttier. :cookieMonster:
SpreadsPlague:
I usually do Q > W > E at level 1/2/3 respectively, and then max heal first if my carry needs it. If not I like to max pulverize first for the extra damage when I harass.