I started playing League in Season 1, towards the end of the season. Since the beginning I was a support main, I enjoyed the 2v2 dynamics much more than 1v1s so I've stuck with it throughout my league career.I have achieved the rank of challenger at multiple points during seasons 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, and continue to push for the highest elo I can get.
I love competitive games and have yet to find anything for me that compares to League.
Aside from League, I am a happily married man, father of 2 kids and I am a beloved pet owner. If you guys have any questions about my guides, champions or really anything in general, feel free to stop by my stream!

With the massive amounts of CC built into Alistar, you can proc Aftershock extremely easily. After 2.5s, you explode, dealing damage in an aoe around you, which adds to your burst window. During this window, it increases your magic resist, and your armor - which adds extra tankiness to an already durable champion - something that is necessary on your engage.

Font of Life is the only viable choice, giving Alistar's allies a small heal when he cc's someone - which is easy to proc. Demolish is a niche choice for ending games quicker, but you generally want to be letting your ADC take plates alone for faster power spike.

Alistar is primarily an engage tank, making Bone Plating the best choice for him. The longer you survive, the more cc and damage you can output and Bone Plating enables this. It also increases your sustain in lane from poke comps. Conditioning is a fantastic choice to boost our resistances, if you don't need the extra damage reduction in laning phase.

Unflinching is the best choice here, as a frontline engage support, you want to minimize your time CC'd.

Even though Alistar may be extra durable with the Resolve treeline, he is still a melee champion, and against poke match-ups, Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will helps increase his sustain. With his large mana costs, they also restore 10% of your missing mana, and also increase your mana cap permanently by 50 per biscuit consumed, or sold. Hextech Flashtraption is also another good option here for catching enemies off guard, but it can be slightly more difficult to pull off due to the wind up time it has.

Cosmic Insight reduces the cooldown of our summoner spells and items, meaning more uptime on Flash, Ignite and Locket of the Iron Solari. Minion Dematerializer is a good option to help proc Relic Shield's charges if against poke comps where you don't want to be going into poke range.

-OR- -OR

Boots of Mobility > MOVEMENT SPEED Alistar can decide to roam to other lanes, and catch people out, so having the bonus movement speed is invaluable. Mercury's Treads > TENACITY/AP RESIST If the enemy team has a lot of CC, or a lot of AP damage, you can trade Mobi's out for these. They offer +25 magic resist, along with reducing the effect of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds and immobilizes by 30%. Plated Steelcaps > ARMOR If the enemy team has a lot of physical damage threats, and you're the primary front line, or need some extra survivability, Plated Steelcaps's are the way to go, offering 20 armor, and reducing incoming basic attacks by 12%.

Zeke's Convergence > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/MANA Zeke's is a fantastic item on Alistaras it offers armor, magic resist, ability haste and an extra 250 mana.When immobilizing an enemy, a missile is fired at them from your allies attacks and abilities, dealing bonus magic damage.

Redemption > CDR/HP+MANA REGEN/SUSTAIN Redemption offers an aoe heal in an area, adding a sustain for his allies that Alistar's kit lacks, outside of Triumphant Roar. It also offers HP and Mana regen, meaning you can stay in the fights longer, recall less, and you can help out even while dead. It also offers an extra 10% heal power, which synergizes with your Triumphant Roar.

Locket of the Iron Solari > SURVIVABILITY/SUSTAIN With Locket of the Iron Solari, you gain 30 armor and 30 magic resist, increasing your overall tankiness, while providing a shield to your allies upon use - and you also provide nearby allies 5 bonus armor and magic resist. It also empowers other legendary items to increase passive bonus resistances by 2.

Knight's Vow > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/SUSTAIN You gain extra HP, 25 armor and Ability haste with this item which are all great stats. If your ally is nearby, you redirect 10% of the damage they take, to yourself (increasing their survivability), and you heal for 10% of the damage they deal. If they are below 30% max hp, you take 20% damage instead, but this redirection will stop if you hit 30% hp. Usually a core item to take vs physical damage

Mikael's Crucible > SURVIVABILITY/CDR/UTILITY A good pick when facing an enemy team with hard CC that you need to Cleanse on allies, such as Impale, Death Sentence, Cocoon etc and grants your ally a small heal. Increases your Mana and HP regeneration, while granting you 40 magic resist, and 20% healing power - good synergy with Triumphant Roar.

Gargoyle Stoneplate > SURVIVABILITY/SUSTAIN/UTILITY Gargoyle Stoneplate provides you with some extra tankiness in the form of Armor and Magic Resist. It's most effective in the later stages of the game, when team fights are more prevalent, so you can trigger the passive effect reliably. The active effect really shines in those same scenarios, allowing you to survive through the fight and maintain control of the enemy threats.

Thornmail > SURVIVABILITY/UTILITY Providing us with 60 armor and 350hp, Thornmail also deals 10 (+10% bonus armor) magic damage to the attacker, and inflict 40% grievous wounds upon them. Immobilizing enemy champions inflicts 60% grievous wounds - a good pickup vs heavy AD teams with a lot of healing behind them.

Level 1 you will want to be levelling your Pulverize. You can set up an invade if your team is not afk in base - going through the midlane to the right brush, as you will not be seen by the enemy until it's too late. You can also interrupt an invade if you're caught, with Pulverize.

When you're in laning phase, you want to be a dominant force,pushing and zoning the enemy laners out of cs'ing, with the threat of a Flash all in. You need to be careful if you're vs a poke comp, as you don't want to be getting harassed down to where you either cannot engage, or give the enemy laners a free kill. You can play passive, and be ready to disengage with your Headbutt - otherwise wait for a jungle gank and all in.

If you're laning vs a Morgana and/or a Sivir, you'll want to bait their Black Shield and Spell Shield before you make an all in, they're on relatively long cooldowns at the lower levels (26s and 22s), so you can take advantage of this. Baiting can be achieved by any means, moving in an aggressive way, getting into their face to take advantage of your Pulverize, or if your ADC has baited using a spell such as Jhin's Deadly Flourish.

Level 2 you want to be skilling up Headbutt, so you can combo with your Pulverize - cast this during the Headbutt charge so it activates immediately on reaching your target - you have no worry you'll knock them back and ruin the engage! Then it's onto Trample, which is your stun, giving you even more CC, damage and kill potential.

Keep an eye on your midlane as you can easily roam and Headbutt them into the allied tower and secure a free kill.

You want Control Wards around your bottom brushes to be aware of any impeding ganks coming, and to deny the enemies any vision of where your jungler or you, may be.

Proccing your Relic Shield, you'll want to be focusing the cannon minions as priority, then melee minions, and lastly ranged.

Once you get your first back, hopefully with at least one or two kills under your belt, you want to be looking to buy Mobility Boots for the roaming potential and make a start on your core item, generally Zeke's Convergence. You can set up kills for your midlaner and get them ahead, along with your ADC.
If you can't roam, you want to be maximizing gold for your ADC, and this includes taking tower plates after kills.


Outside of laning phase, you're going to want to be setting up a lot of wards around objectives, such as Baron Nashor and the drakes. If your team is ahead, and it is safe to do so, you can set up deep vision in the enemies jungle, allowing yourself and your team to get important picks, that allow you to take the previously mentioned objectives.

As tanky as Alistar is, you mostly want to be around your team, and helping out your ADC to (hopefully) continue his lead. You can still set up kills for him, and you're a strong threat to think about for an enemy wanting to set up a gank, as it's very easy for the tides to turn in your favor.

During teamfights, you'll either be wanting to make the engage with your Q-W combo, on an important target, such as the enemies ADC, or a backline mage, or you will want to be peeling your ADC from targets such as Zed or Kayn. Always keep an eye on your ADC, you're one of the best peelers in the game, use this to your advantage!

The main thing to be aware of, is making sure your teams threats stay alive, while removing, or zoning, the enemy teams threats.

Control Ward's are a staple part of any support, both to deny your enemies vision, and to provide your team extra vision. You should make sure to buy one at least every time you back, preferably to have 2 on you at all times.
Vision control is a big plus for Alistar to be catching the enemies unaware.

Headbutt Pulverize

This is Alistar's bread and butter combo. You engage using Headbutt, while activating Pulverize mid-dash, so it will cast upon reaching your target. This will negate the knockback, and instead, be knocked upwards, giving them little time to react.

Pulverize Headbutt

If an enemy face checks a brush you're standing in, you can Pulverize them to prevent a quick escape, and then Headbutt them back into your team, or an allied tower, securing a quick kill.

Flash Headbutt

You can use this engage, much like the Q - W combo above, but without waiting for an enemy to face check. You catch the enemy offguard in lane with your Flash, and then Headbutt them back into your tower, or a jungler awaiting a gank. You can then Pulverize as they try to escape past you.

Trample Headbutt Pulverize

If you're vs a melee support, this is a good catch combo to turn a skirmish to your favor. Stack Trample on the support, then rapidly switch targets to the ADC with Headbutt - Pulverize, giving them no time to react, and then stunning them as they land with your already prepared Trample stun!

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Alistar guide, to play him as well as the pro's.

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered more styles of supports, incase you want to branch out on supports.

If you're interested in seeing more of me, please follow my stream! I stream every day. I play a wide variety of supports, and I am always engaging with my stream chat.